No folk like Norfolk (Part 2 - Salthouse and Cley)...

After sharing some of our lunch with the previously mentioned 'tame' birds in the Titchwell car park we hit the North Coast road to head to Salthouse. Paul and I discovered the delights of Salthouse last year when we were both desperate to see snow buntings and a helpful local birder said casually that if we went there, the birds would be feeding in the car park. We didn't believe him and were subsequently amazed when we pulled up and a flock of 20+ snow buntings landed no more than 20ft from the car on a grass covered bank to feed!

After that experience, it was a definite stop on this trip. As we arrived we saw some large camera lenses pointed at the bank on which the buntings were feeding last year, but this time the birds didn't instantly arrive. We took a walk up the shingle bank and looked back to see a good sized flock of at least 40 snow buntings circling around the car park and eventually coming down to feed on the bank. From this position I took this photo.

Snow Buntings - Salthouse - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer

Not the greatest photo I will ever take, but I quite liked the action of it. More interesting was this next photo.

Snow Buntings - Salthouse - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer

It wasn't until after I looked at this on the computer that I realised there was a bird who was already significantly through it's moult and was very white. If I had realised at the time, I would have spent longer trying to get a really good shot of it. Final snow bunting picture I like because it's not often you actually get to see snow buntings on snow, so here you go.

Snow Buntings - Salthouse - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer

We then headed over the shingle bank to have a look over the sea which was now incredibly calm and still. A scan over with the binoculars revealed plenty of wigeon, some gulls and an interesting grebe. I could instantly tell it was either a black-necked or slavonian grebe, but it wasn't until plenty of um'ing and ah'ing whilst looking through Paul's telescope that I was 75% sure it was a slavonian. This was quite exciting for me because I'd never seen a slav grebe before - but at the same time this made me vary wary about my identification. Thankfully at that point a more experienced sea watcher than myself arrived and was able to confirm it to be a slavonian - very happy Mike at this point! Shortly after we left, dodging the dunlins and turnstones that had also taken to feeding in the car park, to travel those couple of miles back up the road to Cley.

Unfortunately we arrived the Norfolk Wildlife Trust's famous Cley reserve a little later than planned and the setting sun was always against us. It was a bit of a whistle-stop tour of which the undoubted highlight was a group of ruff. Unfortunately we didn't have time to get around the edge of the reserve to the beach where Paul and I had seen this shorelark the previous year.

Shorelark - Cley NWT - Feb. 2011 - Mike Ixer

That said, none had been reported there on Saturday, so we would have in all likelihood been disappointed. As the sun was disappearing a few skeins of geese flew over which included a few groups of pink-feet - but nothing on the scale of what we witnessed last year when at least a thousand flew low overhead and appeared to go to roost in a field near the Cley visitors centre.

And so ended our trip. Having left the flat a bit before 6am, we got back at 8pm and I was knackered. Well worth it for the 78 species of bird we saw which, as I have explained, included some real crackers.

No folk like Norfolk (Part 1 - RSPB Titchwell)...

So after the indecision of midweek about whether to make the effort to do the day trip over to North Norfolk on Saturday, the snow never really came and I decided that we should make the effort - very happy with that decision!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Common Redshank - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer

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.

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.

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).

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.

Bittern - RSPB Titchwell - Feb. 2012 - Mike Ixer

Damn, oh well, there's always next time :-/

To be continued...