November 2009 birdwatching & photography tours in Norfolk

4th November - Day One -East Norfolk & Broads

It seems like the rare autumn birds have all but passed - with just a few rarities around. We started today's tour with a high tide roost, & had a great mass & selection of birds:- 30 Avocet, 500 Black-tailed Godwit, 50 Bar-tailed Godwit, 2000 Golden Plover, 200 Lapwing, 500 Knot, 200+ Redshank, 100 Curlew, 1000's Wigeon, 500+ Teal & 50 Pintail. Also 6 Scandinavian Rock Pipit were perching on posts escaping the incoming high tide. We had a brief encounter with a Merlin & this sent the roosting birds into panic!

We moved over to the shoreline & armed with a loaf of bread we attracted a nice selection of gulls, including 30 Mediterranean Gulls, at least 4 1st winter, 3-4 2nd winter the rest were adults. Also here 30 roosting Dunlin & 10 Ringed Plover.

En-route to the broads we stopped off & had 150 Tufted Duck, 20 Pochard, 4 Egyptian Goose, Great crested Grebe & a Kingfisher.

We stopped off for lunch at one of my favourite haunts to look for the Cranes & we were fortunate as 2 adult Common Cranes were present in the field adjacent to where I had chosen to park, the birds then started calling as 2 other adult Cranes flew overhead! We sat for 20 minutes watching them closely through the scopes, whilst eating our lunch.

Another stop further north along the coast & a quick seawatch despite unsuitable conditions still produced 10 Red-throated Diver, 1 Great Northern Diver, 20 Common Scoter & 6 Gannet.

We finished the day at a roost site & had a lovely finish with 3 Barn Owl floating around together, 30 Marsh Harrier, 2000 Pink-footed Goose roosted, & a Merlin flashed over the top of us, plus a single Brambling flew over.

5th November - Day Two North Norfolk

We spent the day in North Norfolk at one locality today, starting with a high-tide roost at 0800 & finishing with a roost site at dusk.
We well rewarded by being out birdwatching all day long - with nearly 80 species recorded today, & some great birds!

The high tide roost was spectacular with 25,000 Knot, 2000 Bar-tailed Godwit forming beautiful swirling masses, amongst these birds were plenty of Dunlin, Turnstone, Ringed Plover,Redshank & Grey Plover. I was really pleased to locate a single Purple Sandpiper amongst the masses.

Offshore we noted several Red-throated Diver, Gannet, Common Scoter & Brent Goose - also passing west were 5 Red-breasted Merganser.

A walk along the saltings proved rather fruitful, there was lots of birds & we made slow progress as each step produced more birds to scan through. The bulk of birds were Skylark (c100), Meadow Pipit, small numbers of Linnet, but the real stars were 6 Snow Bunting & a Lapland Bunting.

We then walked out along an estuary area, with the tide dropping there was masses of roosting waders & wildfowl, most notable were 2500 Golden Plover & 500+ Lapwing. We located 6 Scandinavian Rock Pipit & had nice views of these birds bathing & rather unusual was 2 Kingfishers flashing past down one of the creeks.

Two stubble fields produced yet more Skylark & Linnet & careful scanning eventually resulted in locating a Lapland Bunting feeding on the ground. The fields also yielded nice views of a covey of 11 Grey Partridge.

As we wandered back a Short-eared Owl came in to view, wandering slowly over the marsh hunting & we were able to watch for 10 minutes or so as the bird hunted back & forth.

The day finished at a roost site, where we saw Short-eared Owl, 2 Barn Owl, stunning views of Cetti's Warbler at 3m away! Just as the light faded we had a Bittern fly into roost & also 2 Water Rail calling.

12th - 15th November - 3 Day Winter Norfolk tour

This tour consisted of a group of 5 person spending 3 very different days in Norfolk.
A day in the Brecks, followed by a day in North Norfolk, and a final day in North Norfolk & the Broads.

The weather was okay for the first day, but turned pretty nasty with strong wind & rain on days two & three - but we kept managing to see some good birds!

12th November Day One - Brecks

We headed off in glorious sunshine towards South Norfolk, stopping off en-route we had nice views of Gadwall, Teal, Tufted Duck, Little Grebe & an unseasonal Green Sandpiper, there was also very close views of Marsh Tit & lovely views of Redwing.

Once we reached our destination we headed out on a short circuitous birding walk, I stopped to scan the tree tops & above, a big finch in flight caught my attention & as it landed, my suspicions were confirmed a smart Hawfinch. Initially we had distant scope views but later we had much closer views as the bird quietly continued feeding in the top of a Horn beam. After 2-3 attempts at various locations we found a Firecrest, & eventually this bird showed fantastically well, hovering & picking tiny spiders off!
Our work provided us with a nice selection of other commoner woodland species & a few Siskin were also noted flying over.

Flush with success, we headed off to our next destination which also provided the chance to see some nice birds & eat our lunch. Lunch was interspersed with random bits of birding. Groups of Brambling came & went over the next hour, we rushed over to the river just to see a Kingfisher, and then found a group of Siskin drinking from the waters edge, a Grey Wagtail put in an appearance & there was a quite amazing number of Nuthatch in the area - we did eventually manage to finish off lunch!

Another walk started off quietly but eventually I heard & then located 15 Crossbill, we sat watching them through the scopes for a while & were rewarded with an absolutely stunning male with crimson breast & rump, furthermore he then decided to delicately present food to a female in a pre-nuptial display - fantastic!!

Thoroughly satisfied, we headed back to mid-Norfolk, stopping off as the light was fading at a local common, here we watched a Barn owl & a Woodcock briefly flew over the car.

Great Day!!

13th November Day Two - North Norfolk

We started the day in stark contrast, with a wet & windy dawn. Our first port of call was Holkham, as we arrived a very late Swallow flew west. Then as we walked out on to the beach we found a large group of Pipits, mainly Meadow, a few Scandinavian Rock Pipit & then a bird rose from the ground, called twice & flew off high west, the "shreep" call registered after a few seconds - a Richard's Pipit & a very nice surprise. It would have been even nicer if it had not gone into orbit when we had first put the pipits up!

We did a circuit of the saltmarsh and found little else of note, we were about to leave when we noticed a distant flock of duck over the sea. We walked down to the shoreline & were treated to a massive flock of Scoter, around 5000 Common Scoter, after a bit of scrutiny & with the flock in flight we located a Velvet Scoter, more searching across the bay also located a Red-necked Grebe, several Eider & 2-3 Red-throated Diver.

We then drove over to Holme, after a thorough sweep of the dunes & shore we were rewarded with a nice mix of birds; 1 Great Northern Diver, 2 Red-throated Diver. As we walked back along the shore we eventually had great views of 30 Snow Bunting & then dropping from the sky right in front of us 3 Shorelark!

We finished the day off at a roost site, the day was rounded off very nicely with 3 ringtail Hen Harrier, 1 Peregrine, 1 Barn Owl, 1 Short-eared Owl (showing down to 20 yards) & 30,000 Pink-footed Geese.

14th November Day Three - North Norfolk & Broads

Today the weather got even wetter & windier! But the first two days had everyone in the group full of enthusiasm.

We started at Cley, which enabled us take refuge in the hides as &when required! We eventually located the Green-winged Teal amongst the many 100's of Teal, flanked by 1000+ Wigeon, Pintail were numerous with around 100 & the drakes were now in there awesome chocolate stencilled head plumage. There were 40 Black-tailed Godwit, several Ruff, Dunlin, a few Pink-footed Geese, a nice flock of Golden Plover a pile of Dark-bellied Brent Geese. The masses were kept alert with several Marsh Harriers flying overhead.

We left for the lengthy drive down to the Broads, we stopped off en-route & picked up a few extra freshwater species, & then treated ourselves to around 20+ Mediterranean Gulls on the beach, with 1st winter, 2nd winter & adults all present for comparison, views down to 3-4 metres.

We stopped off in the broads for lunch, & were rewarded with several views of Cranes. We finished the day off at a raptor roost, in gale force winds - but still managed to watch 28 Cranes, 35 Marsh harrier & 1 Hen Harrier come into roost.

15th November - Days Guided Birdwatching in North Norfolk

Today we Guided birdwatching at Holme for two birdwatchers, we spent most of the day at Holme & finished with a raptor roost.
At Holme we had 35 Snow Buntings - great views of these, 2 Lapland Buntings (overhead calling only), nice views of a hunting Hen Harrier, 1 Red-throated Diver, 200 Common Scoter, Turnstone, Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit, Sanderling & Dunlin. Lots of Brent Geese, 2000+ Pink-footed Geese.

At the roost we had 1 Short-eared Owl, 1 Barn owl, 1 Little Owl, 1 Merlin, 6 Marsh Harrier & 30,000 Pink-footed Geese.

17th November - Guided afternoon walk

Today I led a guided walk for 12 persons. Firstly we walked out at Burnham Overy Staithe & had lovely views of a vast array of Brent Geese, Pink-footed Geese, a nice mixture of shorebirds & some very confiding Black-tailed Godwits. We talk time to work through each of the species, with the chance to describe some of the amazing migrations of many of the species were winter visitors from the arctic.

We finished the afternoon off with views of roosting raptors. Peregrine, Hen Harrier & Marsh Harrier, around 10,000 Pink-feet also flew in overhead.

25th November - Two day Photography Workshop

We started the day establishing the client�s current capabilities, level of experience & also finding out what they are looking to achieve in the longer term.

We then covered the relevant areas of knowledge & technique that need to be improved & this was established by talking through all the relevant areas in the office.

By mid afternoon we were able to take drive over to a local site

Most of the next day was also then dedicated to locating subjects, practicing & improving technique, working on composition, eventually we returned home to download the images & choose the best/favourite for printing.

One of David's favourites is of a Bar-tailed Godwit & is shown below.