Any Year Ticks?

 Tuesday February 6

A lucky memory bypass to start the day. We didn't take the diversion - and went straight through to North Walsham. All the diversion signs were still in place, but the only closed road was the one past Bacton Woods to Bacton. I messaged Sam so that she knew.

It was a very dull, overcast day, the sun made a pretty inglorious attempt to break through once, failing miserably.. Photography on such a day is not a good idea, yet we both enjoy the experience. The Long-tailed Duck was still present on the second pit at Snettisham.

With its tail turned towards the very brisk wind, the central feathers stood straight up in the air, none of my photos were sharp. I looked in vain for the Scaup reported yesterday, but could only find a female Tufted Duck with a band of white around her beak. The small tuft on the back of her head was a giveaway. As we drove towards the reserve pool, an enormous flock of Brent geese winged in, a good number landing on the pool. Scoping from the causeway - from the car in the cold and gusty wind - I saw two large white preening birds, hiding in the bushes beyond the far hide. Two Spoonbills, our first of the year. A third white mound nearby was probably another. Pam noticed that hiding along the bank amongst the Brent, was a lone Barnacle Goose. Good to see a non feral bird. Pam also had a short view of a Peregrine flashing through the pit, I was scoping at the time so missed it. Bother.

Lovely to see so many male Goldeneye, even though none of them were displaying today. Very few waders to be seen apart from Lapwings, not even Knot. They must have been elsewhere on the Wash. A lone Ringed Plover, a few Redshank, Dunlin and a Curlew scattered on the muddy shore.

Plenty of room to park on Hunstanton cliffs for a change. One Fulmar sailed along the cliff edge using the wind to glide effortlessly along, with very little aileron adjustment.

Pam was in charge of the route today, we went to Thornham harbour. The first bird we saw in the creek beside the approach road was a Greenshank.  It was very wary of the car so photos had to be quickly taken before it flew. Such elegant birds, they - and the very similar but smaller - Marsh Sandpiper are amongst my favourite waders.

Taking the road past the Lifeboat Inn through the village, we found three Cattle Egrets in the last field before the T junction. Hunched up wizened looking gnomes. One was beginning to show the yellow of its breeding plumage. Just how many are there in Norfolk at the moment?

 

Brancaster Staithe was full of water. A few Dunlin

 

a Grey Plover

 

and two Black-tailed Godwits fed along the shore. The godwit was sewing a line of invisible stitches along the tideline, fast probing for worms. I took a photo of some waders far out along the golf course shore which turned out to be Bar-tailed Godwits.  A distant pipit I photographed at Thornham was identified as a Meadow Pipit, not the hoped for Rock Pipit, when I enlarged the photo at home.

 

The Holkham gates were empty, the view partially obscured by a large pile of tree logs. As Pam was getting my scope from the back of the car the approaching rumble of a vehicle then came into view. From inside the gates, a tractor pulling a trailer full of more tree trunks which it then started to unload, using the grab mounted on the tractor. Unsurprisingly, my scoping produced only two Egyptian geese, some Greylag, Lapwing and Wigeon. Where else could we look. There is a small pull-off past the last gates to the park. We rarely use it because the drop off the road is rough and lumpy. Neither is there much of a view. Pam made the decision to use this - very carefully. And the field held at least a hundred Russian White-fronted Geese. Wonderful.

 

Ten had been reported earlier, in the coastal park itself, it's what I'd been looking for from the gate. Nothing to add at North Point pools, we headed home in time for the Sainsbury's delivery.

It started to rain as we drew up at home........