A day of Twitching in Norfolk

Sometimes it's refreshing just to have a break from the norm. So yesterday was a day out in Norfolk, with hopefully a couple of lifers to be gained.

After just under four hours in the car, the first stop was in the Yare Valley at Buckenham Marshes, to look for the Lesser White-fronted Goose. As time passed, gradually taking the riverbank path towards Cantley, a decent bird list was building up. Including White-fronted Geese, 4 Whooper Swans, Peregrine, ringtail Hen Harrier, 5 or 6 calling Cetti's Warblers and some of the tamest Wigeon you'll ever encounter.

While walking towards Cantley a skein of geese flew past back towards Buckenham, and as it turned out this contained the Lesser White-fronted Goose. A brisk walk back indeed did reveal the Lesser White-fronted Goose with around 50 Taiga Bean Geese. Hurrah, first lifer of the day.

The bird was distant, zooming the scope right in you could faintly see the ring around the eye. Quite a stubby-shaped bill, no obivous barring on the belly like a White-front would have.

That wild goose chase took up most of the morning. So getting back to the car, round the Norwich ring road and through Holt, to Cley.


During the morning the Western Sandpiper had been on Arnold's Marsh, so that was the place to go to when parked up.


Getting to the end of the east bank, the Western Sand was showing well and quite close. Hurrah, lifer number 2!



I'm relieved it was on Arnold's Marsh and could be easily viewable from the east bank, rather being cramped up in the one of the hides. The more usual waders were on Arnold's Marsh such as Dunlin, Ringed and Grey Plovers, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit. Also a nice group of Bearded Tits in the reeds and 4 Marsh Harriers overhead, performing a bit of a display.

With this little twitching mission accomplished, the day finished with a look around Titchwell.


The Arctic Redpoll was feeding in the alders along the path to the freshmarsh, with the other Redpolls and Goldfinches. Also stacks of duck and waders on the freshmarsh, particularly impressive numbers of Ruff, Golden Plover and Pintail. One final surprise before the drive home was this Water Rail feeding in the ditch by the path.

Blowing in the Wind

Cor, what a windy few days it's been! It made for tricky birding conditions yesterday, just for keeping the scope still, but easier today.

Spending the morning at Uttoxeter Quarry, and just missing Andy's fly-through Grey Plover. A big increase in duck numbers, with at least 500 Mallard, 300 Teal and 100 Wigeon.

Other duck included 15 Goosander, 2 Goldeneye, 13 Pochard and 6 Shelduck already making their way inland. The Pink-footed Goose still with the Greylags, and 4 Dunlin and c120 Golden Plovers with c300 Lapwings. A most pleasing visit.

Heading over to Chasewater for the gull roost was also productive. However, it wasn't the easiest roosts as many of the gulls were taking shelter from the wind, in the north-west corner and packing themselves in quite tightly. Thankfully, an adult Med Gull was seen early on, and eventually the stunning near-adult Iceland Gull showed well on the water.



As for today, with much less wind. 5 Goosander and 19 Mandarin at Brookleys Lake. Spending the afternoon at Uttoxeter Quarry until dusk, the only difference in wildfowl was a drake Pintail. 35 Goosander roosted, 6 Ravens and a Grey Wagtail flew over.

So this is 2012 then!

When the London Olympics was announced, 2012 seemed like ages away. It's here now, where does all the time go?

Anyway, two days of birding to kick the year off with. New Years Day started at Dimmingsdale of all places. Why's that, because I forgot to mention the other week, there's a few Bramblings round there, so that would be a good start. There was still at least one female Brambling still around.

Brookleys Lake was a bit quiet, with generally fewer duck around but 6 Goosander were noteworthy. Last time I checked Uttoxeter Quarry was the day after Boxing Day and was rather disappointing. But today was much better, lots more duck around including a good count of 80 Teal, 30 Goosander, a female Pintail and 2 Goldeneye.

But best of all, and reward for persistence, was a Pink-footed Goose in amongst the Canadas and Greylags. Not quite the wild goose I was hoping for, that would be a Bean, but just be grateful for small mercies.

Finishing off at the Blithfield deep end, but beaten by the weather at this stage. Just too wet and windy for the Black Redstart to show, but it can wait for another day. And in any case it was great to catch up with Team Staley! Using the little shelter in St. Stephens Bay to check the gulls, nothing unusual out on the water. A new year but still jinxing the Blithfield gull roost!

As for today. Building up a new list of common species, may as well do that around home. So I've checked a number of different spots in and around Tean and Cheadle. The main highlight being a Water Rail and a Kingfisher at Hales Hall Pool. Last year, it took me until July to see Kingfisher and August to see Water Rail. This year I've seen both on the second day of the year, which gives an indication of just how harsh last winter was.

Ooh it's an Iceland Gull

There's been an Iceland Gull roaming round the Silverdale area, just west of Newcastle-under-Lyme, for about the last week. Getting onto Walley's landfill site and Silverdale Colliery. Presumably this bird is also roosting at Sandbach Flashes in Cheshire.

Viewing of Walley's landfill looked extremely restricted to me. The only view you can get is of the gulls circling up in the air from the garden centre car park next door. Not wanting to get clobbered by garden centre managers I went straight to Silverdale Colliery and hope that the Iceland Gull will eventually move it's way here.


This is Silverdale Colliery, never been before.


And in fact the juvenile Iceland Gull was already here anyway, hurrah!

A Christmas Warble

Don't worry reader, that's not a cue for me to start singing! As I thought would be the case, there's not been much birding over the last couple of weeks.

That's mainly due to most of my time taken up with visiting my dad at the Derby Royal hospital, after a back operation. It's all gone really well, so that's good. Even though I got him back home last Sunday, I've felt absolutely shattered ever since. But what a place the Derby Royal is, you walk in the main entrance and it's more like motorway services than a hospital!

But I managed to find a little bit of time to look at the Eider last Saturday, at Rudyard Lake of course. It was pretty distant from the Reacliffe Road sailing club, as the below picture will suggest. But it must've found a good supply of freshwater mussels, as the bird was diving and returning to the surface with shellfish in it's bill. And I'd been and gone by the time a Red-throated Diver appeared, never mind.


Then this morning, a couple of hours was spent in Fenton Park in Stoke, adjacent to Berry Hill Fields.


The reason why is because of the appearance of a Lesser Whitethroat. At this time of year central Asian races are a possibility. And from what I've seen, I haven't a clue if it is a central Asian one or just a bog-standard Lesser Whitethroat.

But while it was happily feeding on the nectar of a flowering Mahonia, it appeared to have quite buff underparts, short primary projection and lots of tail-flicking. I can't recall our Lesser Whitethroats doing tail-flicking like a Chiffchaff, but then again they're usually skulking in Hawthorn.

The Ballad of Maverick

Muchos thanks to Paul "Birding for Fun" Shenton for alerting me to Gyr Crakes' new one, The Ballad of Maverick!

As they say on X Factor, great choice of song, the old Stan Ridgway number. And to recall some pleasant memories of Scilly, some nice scenes of St. Agnes.

The Goosetastic Trent Valley

I wanted to make the most of this weekend because for a few different reasons, that could it for birding time until over Christmas. Yesterday was a check of Uttoxeter Quarry and Brookleys Lake.

Still plenty of Canadas and Greylags around the quarry, but no wild geese. But more spectacular was the huge flock of Lapwings and Golden Plovers, must've been around 900 Lappys and 500 Golden Pullovers. Also 25 Goosander, 21 Wigeon, 8 Teal, 3 Pochard, 7 Curlew, 7 Snipe and a pair of displaying Great Crested Grebes.


As for Brookleys Lake, the Mandarins are back in force! 127 of them in the end. I think there's more around nowadays than people think, particularly in some of the river valleys like the Dove and the Churnet. Also 3 Pochard, 1 drake Shoveler, 1 female Wigeon and a calling Water Rail.

As for today, the main highlight has been White-fronted Geese in the Trent Valley. Arriving at Whitemoor Haye, a few heads of White-fronted Geese could be seen from opposite the quarry entrance. They eventually took flight and that proved there were seven of them. Also around were 14 Great Crested Grebes on the main lake, a Little Owl, loads of Mute Swans around Sittles Farm but no sign of the Bewick's that were present in the week.

Onto Croxall next. There's a guided walk next Sunday. Not that I'd be able to go anyway, I'll be recovering from the work christmas do by then. Looking at the sign, not sure how many terns they'll be expecting in December?


But anyway, a good number of Pochard at Croxall, 79 including this rather pale female. She's been in the area for the last few winters.


3 Redshank and a drake Goldeneye also, then walking back to the car five more White-fronted Geese flew over, heading towards Whitemoor Haye. They were seen by Bernie Smith at Whitemoor Haye and they continued west. So that's two groups of White-fronts around, totalling 12 birds, magic!

Finishing off at Blithfield, and good timing with the rain falling down, although Tad bay needs much more in order to fill it up. From the hide in Tad were 3 Dunlin, around 200 Golden Plover, 8 Goosander, 5 Goldeneye. And to end with, the gull roost from Watery Lane contained at least one adult Yellow-legged Gull.