My wife booked us a holiday for a week in Caister-on-sea, just north of Great Yarmouth. Was told from the off it was to be a family holiday and that our mad springer spaniel was included on this venture down south.
Luckily meg the mad spaniel is a birdwatching dog too,though she does tend to snort when she has to sit still for over a minute or so..
We set sail in the car on sunday morning and our first destination was Barons Haugh, the RSPB reserve at Motherwell...with my good lady's permission.
My daughter Alex and I set off down towards the hide knowing we were short on time here, typically we had taken the long way round. when we finally reached it , I set up the scope and quite quickly located the Long-billed Dowitchwer... a nice one !!
Unfortunately all the birds rose up before Alex saw it and it took about another 15 minutes to re-locate it... at which point we had to dash back to the car and continue our journey south.
We stopped overnight in York and continued southwards the next morning, reaching our destination at around 2pm.
First stop was to take Meg for a walk down to the beach, where she headed straight into the sea.
Several wheatears and turnstones were on the beach as well at least 6 Red-throated Divers fairly close inshore right in front of the Wind Turbine Farm.
Most of my birdwatching was done early in the mornings or when I went out with the dog walking.
A scrubby area just south of California was good for small birds as well as Song Thrushes and Stock Doves which are not common where I come from in Angus.
I had bought a copy of " Best birdwatching sites in Norfolk " before we came down and found it really useful as a guide to various places.
Martham Broads was close to us and I found it to be an excellent place to see birds from. You walk along a path that will take you all the way to Horsey Broads and beyond if you want.
On my first visit ( with a hyper spaniel ) I had really close views of a Kingfisher at the start of the path next to the windmill followed by several bearded Tits and the best looking male Marsh Harrier I have ever seen, a really stunning bird. There were four of them up at one point, brilliant to stand and watch.
The open area of water contained a lot of waterfowl, mainly Mallard, Tufted Duck, Teal and a lot of Pochard.
I went there quite often in the mornings and it never failed to produce something special.
We went up to Hickling Broad and found it to be a really good reserve with lots to see including Kingfisher, Little Egret and Marsh Harriers.
On my way back from there one evening I saw two birds in a field outside Potter Higham and turned back for another look, they were Egyptian Geese, a first for me.Later in the day we were lucky enough to see a small flock of Cranes as well as huge flocks of Pink-feet.
Our last day in Norfolk started with me getting up early and taking the dog to Martham Broads at daybreak. We had only gone a short distance when meg stopped and looked ahead, a Dog Fox was working his way down the ditch about 300 metres up from us.
He was being circled by a Male marsh Harrier, at this point a Green Sandpiper was flushed from the ditch and took off keeping low up the ditch and less than a minute later a Bittern flew up as well ! It flew sedately over in front of us and headed for the large reedbeds on the left. we also found snipe, Golden Plover and 3 swans which I think might have been Bewick's as they looked too short-necked and smaller than Whoopers.
After breakfast we headed up to Potter Higham and hired a boat for a couple of hours to have a look around, my wife was keen to do the steering which suited us all fine as alex and I were happy to look for birds.
Alex found some Egyptian geese, followed by Greylag, Canada and Pink-feet. Plenty of Marsh Harriers, a Sparrowhawk, kestrels and..another Bittern !!!
Not such a long view this time , but still good views.
We headed off in the car and visited Cley-on-sea where my wife was quite happy to sit up in the nice visitor centre while alex and myself tore off down to the Hides ! They were fairly quiet and we had excellent views of Ruff, Pintail. Egyptian Geese, Godwits, Redshank, Shoveller and Gadwall.
Homewards bound , and after stopping at York again on the way home with a visit to the Railway museum.. Amazing place !!
We had plenty of time and detoured to Dumfries and Galloway to try for Nuthatch and Willow tit at Ken-Dee Reserve. sadly there was no sign of either at the feeders and we started the long walk back to the car, my wife and Alex ahead of me.
I saw a group of small birds in some hawthorns near the pathway and stood to watch them, a small bird landed in the nearest tree at eye-level and started walking down the tree... a nuthatch !!
Was delighted with this as it took my year-list for Scotland to 221 birds.
we also had Red Kite, GS Woodpecker, Bullfinch and Jays here, well worth a visit if you are in the area.
And finally we arrived home, tired after a round trip of 1250 miles but delighted with our trip south.
[QUOTE=gus guthrie;2260320]Luckily meg the mad spaniel is a birdwatching dog too..
I set up the scope and quite quickly located the Long-billed Dowitchwer... a nice one !! Unfortunately all the birds rose up before Alex saw it..
[/QUOTE]
Nice report Gus, glad you had a good trip.
Did Meg the birdwatching dog see the Dowitcher too ?
Thanks Dave, sadly Meg missed out on the Dowitcher she was out with my wife for a walk !!