Our, nearly two-week, holiday around Sussex and Norfolk in May 2026 involved us mixing a bit of birding with visiting friends. Over the period we stayed at “The Old Pheasant” at Oakham, near Rutland Water, The Woodcutters Lodge in Lynford Arboretum in Norfolk followed by a night with friends at Bury St Edmunds and two…

On the last full day of our holiday, and our last birding opportunity, we drove from Docking to RSPB Frampton Marsh avoiding major roads as much as possible. As it happened, it turned out to be the first day of a heatwave and probably the hottest of the year.

We started off around Chosely Dryng Barns to see if we could get Grey Partridge but we couldn’t! It is interesting that the field is back to its old usage after a brief outing as a piggery and looks like it used to do when we used to see Dotterel there. Perhaps it was a…

I wasn’t feeling that great, having developed what I though was a Willow pollen allergy but which now seems to be yet another lung infection. I decided to see if I could work my way though it but it meant that I struggled at quite a few bits walking around the tracks at Titchwell.

Woke up feeling rough still. It was raining a bit when we went to breakfast and when we loaded up the car, so we decided not to bother going back to Hickling Broad and instead drove up to Cley where we just stopped for a cup of tea and a look at the nearest bodies…

My sense that I might be getting a cold, yesterday, seems to have resolved into a bad hay fever caused by willow pollen so I struggled a bit through the day. We went to Hickling Broad where we joined the NWT. We walked the track down to Stubb Mill, stopping at each of the two…

We paid a short visit to the Minsmere reserve on the 16th May with our friend who has just moved to the area and was unfamiliar with the reserve, we didn’t really drag her around the site that much, just giving her an idea of what it was like. We were leaving her on the…

We left the cottage and parked at the Sheperd’s Baa and walked down the arboretum track as far as the bridge. It started to rain heavily so we dropped into the cafe again to dry off and use the loos before getting into the car. We decided to try the picnic site at Santon Downham.

We had some friends visiting us at the cottage and we hoped for a nice walk but it started to rain so heavily we abandoned that idea and we drove straight out to Ye Old Windmill at Gressingham, an inspired pick on Anne’s part as it was a most wonderful pub, full of character, quiet…