Cley - 5 May 2012

A weekend visit to family was supposed to give us a chance of some nice spring birding in Norfolk, but alas it was more like winter, with a brisk cold NE wind, with occasional heavy showers to contend with. On the Saturday we headed for Cley, which turned out to be relatively birdless, especially on the wader front, which apart from the resident breeders there was not a migrant wader to be seen. Well not quite true, we failed to see the Timminck's Stint on Pats Pool as we did not view it from both hides, and I had not set my Birdguides text messaging to the right setting to have found out it was visible from the other hide. There were a couple of Little Gulls which was about it really, apart from some nice views of Bearded Tits, there was not too much else to get excited about.

 

 Black-headed Gull on the beach

After Cley we headed towards Holkham, the same direction the Pallid Harrier that had been seen on Blakeney Point, as it turned out, was also heading towards. We sat in the Holkham Hall tea shop not keen to head off out in it again, after the relatively birdless visit to Cley, as the various heavy showers were still coming down. Again, due to the erroneous phone settings we did not get to hear of the Purple Heron on the fresh marsh near Jordan hide that might have just motivated us out into the showers. We then may have just being the right spot as the Harrier went through. But, we headed off back to my parents place.

The next day we were due to get along to Holme early for some ringing, but unfortunately Sophie had to cancel as she was not feeling 100%, so the next day, again watching the rain coming down on and off as we had breakfast, we decided to head back home early.