Anne's Journal

 Sunday November 27 Again, domestic failures inhibited our plans for the day. The shower again. This time, Pam used it for the first time and more water came out of the hose than came out of the shower head. That so called electrician has a lot to answer for. Steve had contacted his usual plumber but he was busy with his family and the electrician had assured him that he was able to fit showers. The plumber's youngest daughter has five chambers in her heart, two Aortas and two Carotid arteries in her neck. She's only three and is on her latest stay at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Hers is the only known case in the world. Steve came round this morning to fix the shower leak. It took him the duration of a long phone call from Sara and a jigsaw completion by me, to fix it. In the murk and gloom of a typical November day, we drove west as far as Brancaster Staithe.A trickle of water in the channel. most of the boats taken out of the water for winter storage, very few birds on view...

 Thursday November 24 For many reasons, mainly health related, I haven't produced a Blog post for some time. This morning, a scheduled and much anticipated trip to Cley to meet up with birding and moth-ing friends, had to be aborted when water came through the living room ceiling at 10.30 last night. An electrician had been here all day fitting a new shower, he left us with a leak which we didn't know about until the ceiling started dripping late last night.Good old Steve came round and stopped the water leak. Since then we have been without water and heating.Either Steve or Clive were due here ten minutes ago. We now have a blotchy brown ceiling under the bathroom. Inspired by David B's wonderful find of an RAR (Richard always signed his paintings thus) painting in a market, I looked more closely at my small original of a Peregrine. Richard Richardson was a self taught bird artist and birder who spent his latter years at Cley. I first met him one Sunday, sitting on the Eas...

 Saturday November 12 Passing through Ingham on the Happisburgh road, Pam noticed a few swans standing behind a beet field in front of a wood. They looked agitated - and straight-necked. As they gradually walked away from the beet, I scoped them to make sure. Yes, the first Whooper Swans of the winter. Nine of them, probably two families from the number of young present.    Why were they so agitated? A few shots rang out from the woods, that was why. They started walking back the same way.    More shots, they took off and we didn't see them again, despite looking in all the usual places around Sea Palling. We didn't look at Ludham airfield though.  A Mediterranean Gull,  and Gannets and a Red-throated Diver at Winterton for the month, the only other sightings of note.

 Tuesday November 8 Heavy rain at the weekend led us to abort a planned day out. To-day's forecast was better. Indeed, we only had a few drops all day - although,  on the way home, we drove through two places which had evidence of a heavy shower, Fakenham and North Walsham.  Very few birds en route, the flocks of Pink-feet have had to move inland in search of harvested beet fields. Very little beet is being grown in Norfolk compared with previous years. The fear is that the geese will gradually move away and will be lost to us as wintering birds. The geese are best seen leaving their coastal roosting sites in the early morning. The Brents haven't moved south in any big numbers either, the weather has been so mild. We called in at Sculthirpe Moor Reserve to buy a cup each of the best hot chocolate in North Norfolk, now that Julian and his van no longer come to Salthouse. Pam asked after the beaver pair which has been re-introduced on the reserve. Apparently, they are doi...

 Wednesday November 2 On arrival at Selbrigg, we discovered that we didn't have any bird food. We haven't been here since the Spring, pre car change. The bag of bird food didn't make the changeover, probably because we went to Scotland and needed the boot space. Some food remained in the posts and on the ground, it wasn't long before we'd checked off Blue, Coal, Great and Marsh Tits, Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Robin and Mute Swan for the month list.  Although rather late to be travelling that far, it was a lovely day when we set off for Brancaster Staithe. This soon deteriorated as we drove west, but the Staithe is one of our favourite places in Norfolk.Only five minutes before high tide, the creek was flooded, water reaching as high as the landing stage platform. We had a late lunch enjoying the view. Turnstones, a lone Oystercatcher, one Black-tailed Godwit and three Dunlin fossicked the shoreline, A few Brent Geese rose from the marsh and a juvenile Marsh Harrier flew ...