Planned Power Outage

 Wednesday February 26

The power was due to be off from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.. When we left home at 9.20 it was still on.  We'd rushed about (ha ha) making drinks, using the Stannah etc. and we needn't have hassled ourselves quite as much. What about the chair bound or house bound, without heating and lighting for that number of hours in February? Our plan was to spend the day in a heated car whilst seeing as many birds as we could.

It was dry until shortly before Fakenham, when the first gentle drops kissed the windsdreen. That soon became a steady deluge, which continued all day until mid afternoon. Ah well, Snettisham's water birds should still be feeding. We spent some time scouring the second pit for the drake Scaup reported here for several days. All I could find was some very peculiar Mallard - normal for the pits.

Further on, a small group of Tufted Ducks loafed about,

 

 and a lone Avocet, up to its belly in the water, was feeding avidly.

 

Breasting the rise on the end of the access road to the reserve, as is uaual for us, the tide was well out, the edge of the water not even visible in the wet grey murk. Pam found a Shelduck, we couldn't see any other birds. We drove on to the first hide. Nothing on the reserve pit nor its islands, amazing. On the return drive, I amanaged to find 4 Redshank, a Grey Plover, 3 Curlew, 1 Ringed Plover, 3 Dunlin and a lone Sanderling. Hard work

Hunstanton Sailing Club at water level, the red striped cliffs and rocky shore a magnet for us. No dog walkers today, just us and the scattering of birds. Several Bar-tailed Godwits and Oystercatchers on the shore, a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers in the water and Fulmars and Rock Doves on the cliffs. We drove on to the eastern car park from which I found 4 Great Crested Grebes to add to the list.

By now, the roads had extensive puddles to splash through. We dropped in to various places along the coast, only stopping when we got to Holkham. From the gateway, a lone Spoonbill perched in the nesting trees, soon flew off and a couple more showed themselves. Ranger Andrew B had reported 25 back a few days ago. Two Egyptian Geese were the only wildfowl on the marsh. Pulling in to the potholed pull-off beyond the last park gate, we saw the Holkham flock of feral Barnacle Geese, about 200 in total. 

 

Very handsome geese - I'm still glad that precious sightings this year was of two potentially 'proper' ones amongst the Pinkfeet at Horsey. Remembering that I hadn't got a photo of a Greylag in my year folder - it's very easy to miss the common birds - I remedied this. 

A blob pointed out to me by Pam, turned out to be a very well camouflaged Brown Hare, very wet, hunkered down in some very wet grass.

 

Ou rnext stop was at North Point Pools - where it stopped raining. Lapwings and gulls on the water, the highlight was a beautiful adult male Marsh Harrier appearing from inland, causing havoc to the birds present on the water.

We made everal attempts to find the Lesser White-fronted Geese from the Swedish re-inroduction flock, which have been seen on the Stiffkey Floods over the last couple of days,. Not reported since early morning, we couldn't find them ,nor the Glossy Ibis.

 We were home at 4 p.m. having thoroughly enjoyed our first long day out for over a month. We saw over 50 species with a couple of year ticks and several month birds to add to the list. The list was very odd. No passerines at all. The Tit family, finches, and most of the raptors, missing. Not even a Robin. I am impressed with my camera's performance in such adverse conditions.