Scatter Birding

 Saturday January 7

What a day to choose to go birding, it certainly curtailed our plans. Dark grey overcast with mist over the sea and light rain. We started at Winterton car park, where the owner was in the kiosk and gave us a free entry to make up for the last time when we paid and went straight out. Very decent of her.

A slow scan of an angry sea brought nothing - until Pam saw some scoter through the windscreen. She re-positioned the car so that I could scope the scattered flock. Gradually, most of them flew south, 14 of them showing the white in the wing defining them as Velvet Scoter. That is the largest number I have ever seen of this sea duck. There were probably more amongst the Common Scoter, a larger number has been published. As a byline, a Red-throated Diver flew past. Still 7 Whooper Swans off Water Lane, four of them juveniles.

After adding a Mediterranean Gull behind the Sealife Centre we drove home. 

During the week, we added Stock Sove, Greenfinch, Long-tailed Tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker and our regular visiting Sparrowhawk. Then, it took its Goldfinch lunch to a fence post at the bottom of the garden, where it plucked and ate it. Pam took some photos through the window for me, but they are not sharp. Too distant and a dirty window. The corpse is identifiable though.



After coffee at Cley Centre with our moth group on Thursday, we scanned the flock of Brent Geese in the Eye Field, finding the lone Pale-bellied Goose which has wintered there. Two Stonechats on the fence line at Salthouse are always a welcome sight. A restless flock on the shingle below Little Eye turned out to be Linnets not the hoped for Snow Buntings.

 

 

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