Where Can We Bird From the Car?

Sunday February 9

Where can we bird from the car? The choice is being slowly eroded. No parking signs, piles of hay bales, red and white ribbon, parking cones, are proliferating across north Norfolk.  

A late morning start for our drive west, no hurried starts for us these days. A Norfolk Birds WhatsApp group message sent us on a small detour to Great Massingham.

Several large ponds dominate the village, some of which have their origins as the fish ponds for an 11th century Augustinian Abbey. The village is characterised by the flint and cobble cottages which huddle around these ponds.

The village’s origins are thought to go back to the 5th century, but today it is still a thriving community with a village shop and post office, and pub The Dabbling Duck.

The village church, St Mary’s has represented the focal point of village life for hundreds of years. For example the porch, added around 1300, was used as a school room. Sir Robert Walpole, England’s first Prime Minister in 1720 is thought to have been educated in this porch as a young boy. His descendants still live in Houghton Hall 3 miles away.

This very attractive village reminded me of Burnham Market. There were many cars parked on and around the extensive central greens, people everywhere. We'd been warned not to park in front of the village shop and it was easy to see why. It was crowded inside and out. We parked on the green, from which we could scan the churchyard trees where fifteen Hawfinches had been reported. One was reported a little later. We saw plenty of Wood Pigeons, but no Hawfinches. Shame.I think that we came here on our only previous visit - a few years ago now - in response to another Hawfinch report. We were unsuccessful then too.

So, we ended up at Snettisham where we know we can see birds from the car. Especially if the tide is in. We were there an hour before high tide today but it was a low one, the water's edge was still rather distant. We were treated to some wader murmurations though, always a treat. Here are a few of my photos.

 


 


 

I enlarged sections of the flight so that we could better identify the waders. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moth Migration

Image
 Wednesday October 9 Like birds, moths migrate when the season and weather conditions are right. Recently, we have had easterly winds with a mouth watering fall of birds which we have been unable to walk and see. Many Yellow-browed Warblers, Eastern Crowned Warbler in Shetland, a possible Amur Stonechat and an Asian Desert Warbler in Norfolk. Our moth traps have had a reasonable sprinkling of the migrant moths - although some could be breeding here by now. Palpita Vitrialis Scarce Bordered Straw Delicate   and Rusty Dot Pearl
Read more

Day 12

Image
 Monday May 6 Most of the morning was occupied getting in touch with the car insurance people and then Autoglass - then waiting for Autoglass to get back to us.  A  stone chipped our windscreen on the way through Skye, since then its become a one foot plus horizontal crack on Pam's side. End result. We take the car to Lewis or Skye or wait until we get home. The garage here 'doesn't have the equipment to deal with the sensor in the front screen'. Ian, Heather's husband, says he does them all the time! Ah well, live with it.  Almost the first bird we saw as we drove north was a lovely male Hen Harrier. It was distant but I had to try, one of these days I'll get a decent photo. Original photo before editing, taken with 500mm lens    Edited     As we drove down to Loch Paible, a flock of fifteen Whimbrel dropped in to the near corner.We needed to turn the car, by which time the birds had gone, this Wheatear posed nicely for me.    A short d...
Read more

Spring-like

Image
 Sunday March 2 Winter Aconites, Daffodils, Snowdrops, and Acacia Tree in full flower in the garden, blue sky and sun, Alexanders appearing in roadside verges, it looks like Spring. It is meteorological spring. Awaking to frosty lawns and a temperature of 1C says that we have a way to go yet. On such a day it is easy to eagerly anticipate the first Wheatears, my Spring harbinger. So many Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps now overwinter that it's increasingly difficult to separate the latter from migrants. We made our way west, picking up many of the passerines we missed yesterday and at the end of February. Song Thrush is always a treat. It's hard to recall their tameness and sheer numbers on the Isles of Scilly. Even longer ago, a garden bird using our path as an anvil.  The finch flock at Flitcham is decreasing, we managed one Brambling flitting along the hedgerow. Our garden visitor hasn't been for about a week.Still no Little Owl visible at Abbey Farm nor in West Newton. The fi...
Read more