Having been woken up by someone who very much resembled an excited child on Christmas morning at 5am, Beth and I picked up Paul and Natalie from near to the Valley at just after 6am and we headed off towards Norfolk with high hopes of a good days birding. I have to admit that after passing through our n'th mile of dense mist in sub-freezing conditions in Cambridgeshire and then Norfolk even I was starting to wonder whether this trip would be a complete bust. However, just as we were getting up towards the coast the mist began to clear and there was even some glorious sunshine - things were looking up (still bloody cold, but up none-the-less).
Having previously decided not to do the 4:30am start to make it in time to witness the 'wader spectacular' at Snettisham, we bypassed it and headed straight for the famous RSPB Titchwell reserve. Upon our arrival we were greeted by a number of very tame 'garden' birds in the car park who had clearly been driven to what was essentially begging for food from the arriving birders because of the cold. Seeing as I can't resist a photo of a robin, here is one.
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| Robin - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
Having checked the field at the end of the car park and found lots of reed buntings and dunnocks, we actually headed into the visitors centre. Whilst in there I couldn't resist trying the new RSPB HD Scope and whilst looking at the feeders outside, the cry went out that there was a water rail scuttling around amongst the vegetation below. This caused quite a bit of excitement for one of our small group. Beth had a problem with water rails, or up until Saturday "the one that shall not be named" - it was a proper bogey bird. I got into a position where I could see not only one water rail, but two, and as she raised her binoculars to her eyes next to me they both darted back into cover - unbelievable! However, a few minutes patience was rewarded as she got her first proper views of the little beast. One happy customer; in her eyes the trip was already worthwhile no matter what happened for the rest of the day.
As we set off around the reserve and off towards the beach, it was all to evident that any freshwater pool was going to be completely frozen - and it certainly was.
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| Frozen - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer (iPhone) |
I waited for a short time to try and see the Coue's Arctic redpoll which has been hanging around with a mixed redpoll flock on the reserve, but I lost patience waiting having seen lesser and a couple of mealy.
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| Lesser Redpoll - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
There was no shortage of waders on the Brackish Marsh with redshanks, black-tailed godwits, grey and golden plovers, dunlins, a curlew, avocets and lapwings all showing themselves but the undoubted highlight here was when three redhead smew all came serenely swimming into view for a short time before flying off to a more concealed location. A couple of the waders posed nicely for photos.
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| Common Redshank - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
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| Black-Tailed Godwit - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
We forged our way on towards the beach (via a spotted redshank on the tidal marsh) and right down to near the waters edge to join a number of telescope wielding birders who were spotting all sorts of things on the fairly calm sea. Whilst admiring the waders on the tide line and rough outcrops (oystercatchers, bar-tailed godwits, turnstones, sanderling and numerous gulls) the call went out "there are a couple of long-tailed ducks on the sea just to the right of the two gulls". This would be a lifer for me, so of the hundreds of assembled gulls, which two were they referring to? I scanned across the sea, a couple of gulls with two ducks near them - nope, they are goldeneye ... but then two more ducks popped up next to the goldeneye, and although not a good view, they were definitely the long-tailed ducks I was after. After admiring the distant views of the two ducks, a male scaup also passed by a little way away and we decided to start walking back towards the centre.
As we walked past the marshes on the right, there was some commotion (cause unknown) which sent a snipe on it's way, some skylarks decided to have a disagreement, and, most interestingly, a flock of finches took to the air and then landed at the top of a small bush. Initially the lighting was terrible and then as I changed position for better light, the distance became the issue. I'm stuck between linnet and twite - streaky fronts make me lean towards twite but patterning on the back makes me think more linnet, any help would be great.
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| Twite/Linnet - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
Further along the path and the telescopes were again lined up - this time it was because the three smew from earlier had reappeared. Unfortunately they only came close enough for this record shot.
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| Smew (2 of 3) - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
The contrast in size between these two birds was quite pronounced which leads me to believe that the right hand bird may have been an immature male and the left a female. Our final treat (and what a treat) came as we were coming towards the end of the West Bank Path when again the telescopes were all lined up, but this time it was for that most prized sighting, a bittern. It was at the other end of the pool but clearly a bittern and when viewed through a telescope it was a fantastic sight. Again, unfortunately it was record shot only distance (I particularly like the little black dot which is a water rail skidding around on the ice).
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| Bittern (and water rail) - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
Then, as we were all admiring this bird, TWO more bitterns flew out from the nearby reeds chasing each other! That's three, yes, three bitterns simultaneously - crazy! We turned to walk away after the exposed bittern finally disappeared into the reeds - after a few yards I turned to have one final look over the reedbed only to see a bittern flying straight towards us! camera reactions allowed just one shot to be fired, and it turned out like this.
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| Bittern - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer |
Damn, oh well, there's always next time :-/
To be continued...
I may not be the 'perfect' shot, but I really like your flying Bittern photo :D
ReplyDeleteI love Titchwell - easily one of my favourite places.