Friday 19th March
Titchwell PM
After travelling from the Midlands we decided to spend a few hours at Titchwell enroute to our accomodation for the weekend. We were pretty tired after the long drive but it was a pleasant way to unwind walking down to the beach while watching the odd Marsh Harrier float over the reed beds and the assorted waterfowl and waders going about their business on the scrapes. The reserve seemed a little quiet compared to previous visits but I guess it's that quiet time of year before spring migration gets in full swing!! The beach was very quiet for birds and little was seen by the foreshore as it was high tide and the reefs were under water, the beach was also seemingly devoid of other birders so we made the most of the peace and quiet and just enjoyed the scenery. As we walked along the boardwalk from the beach 2 Grey Partridge suddenly appeared and flew over to the marsh side of the reserve, quickly hiding themselves in the gorse bushes!
Saturday 20th March 2010
Salthouse
The weather forecast for today wasn’t that brilliant so we decided that today would be a ‘bird watching form the car day’! First up was a Meadow Pipit that was seemingly ignoring the grotty weather and enjoying a rest on one of the fence posts, then we noticed a good flock of Turnstone near to the car park and they were soon to be joined by a flock of 25+ Snow Buntings!! We couldn’t believe our eyes as they first appeared on top of one of the shingle ridges and then they joined the Turnstones near the car park giving us some super close up views of them! Other sightings included Common Gull, Avocet, Ringed Plover and a Little Egret in one of the drainage ditches alongside the road out of the car park.
Saturday 20th March 2010 cont
Cley Next the Sea
We decided to see if the weather would improve so headed over to the vistors centre for a cuppa in the hope that the rain would ease a bit…and thankfully it did so we managed a quick walk over to the hides to see what was out and about! In Pats Pool a single Ruff was seen and it had a prominent blue ring on its right leg, after looking at my photographs more closely I was surprised to see that it had 6 rings on its legs in total; I have sent my information to the relevant person so will hopefully find out a bit more about the history of this Ruff! Other sightings included Avocet, Lapwing, Redshank, Wigeon, Teal, Shoveller and Shelduck. From Daukes Hide we had some super views of Black Tailed Godwit and Avocet which were feeding about 15 ft from the hide, the best sighitng from here was seeing our first Sand Martins of the year when 3 flew over the pool.