Thursday, October 30, 2014

Surfin' UK

Went birding this morning with pretty high expectations - winds swinged to easterlies yesterday and there was some rain at night. I met up with Quentin and we left Norwich early. Arrived at Warham Green right on time. Lots of thrushes just as we get out of the car - feels good! We birded there for some time but in fact apart for many thrushes and finches there was not much else. Some birds of interest included 2 shy Ring Ouzels and a Merlin. Redwing, Blackbird and Song Thrush still dominant but numbers of Fieldfare are on the rise.
We then continued to Wells Woods, expecting to find lots of thrushes there too but it was very quiet there. Another Ring Ouzel and a Woodcock at the Dell were the only birds worth noting. We encountered some nice mixed flocks but there was nothing mixed in with them apart for the usual suspects. Walking back we started seeing large flocks of thrushes coming in from sea - very impressive. This continued for a couple of hours - many hundreds of thrushes, and also hundreds of Skylarks, Meadow Pipits etc.

Long-tailed Tit

Goldcrest

Our next stop was Holkham. Lots of Pink-footed Geese in the fields:



We walked down to the beach and very quickly found the Surf Scoter - super quality bird! It was hanging around with some Velvet Scoters. Nice to see all three species together. Too far to photograph properly but very good scope views (WP tick for me!). 

Surf Scoter - male

Not too much at sea otherwise - some Red-throated Divers, Guillemots, Razorbills etc. Thrushes and other passerines continued to pour in from sea, but the weather was too good so they probably pushed on inland.
Our last stop was back at Stiffkey Campsite. I walked west to check the hedges, and Quentin walked east to check the woods. It was very quiet. But Quentin scored better than me - he found a Yellow-browed Warbler just east of the woods. Nice.
Thanks to Quentin for a nice day!




1 comment:

  1. Beautiful shots of these little birds! Very different from the Middle East, I guess!

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