Summary of East Anglia Holiday
Summary of East Anglia Holiday
Our holiday was to be roughly as follows; a travel day with an overnight stop at Peterborough Ferry Meadows Premier Inn. with a visit to Rutland Water reserve en route. The next day we headed for Halesworth in Suffolk where we stayed at Poachers Cottage, a place we had found online. We hired a cottage in this location so we could go to some of the birding sites we wanted to visit and also to catch up with friends who lived in the area. We stayed here for four nights before going on to spend a week in Thornham in North Norfolk, We hired a cottage,4 Elder Cottages, situated about a mile from RSPB Minsmere.
We discovered this place when we met a couple, Tom and Anita Parry, in Manchester at a friend’s party. We were pointed at each other because we had a shared interest in birding and when I said that we loved Norfolk for this reason, they told us about their cottage which they let out. We took them up on their suggestion that we book a week there and it turned out to be a perfect location and a lovely cottage to stay in. When it came time to return to Manchester we again broke our journey with a stop off at Rutland Water, this time staying at the Barnsdale Lodge Hotel.
The following is an account of some of the highlights of the fortnight.
At Rutland Water on the 1st May 2016 we got our first annual views of Osprey and they turned out to be pretty spectacular. Hobby was another good bird as well as Common Tern and en route to Peterborough from Rutland we had a Red Kite. All four of these specied were “year Ticks” for us
On the 2nd of May we left Peterborough and dropped in at Wicken Fen which was absolutely heaving, it being a public holiday and a hot, sunny day. We had a bit of a crap boat trip but we still heard our first Cuckoo of the year and a definite Grasshopper Warbler.
We went from Wicken Fen to Lakenheath Fen but we were a little late in getting there. None the less we got to hear, probably, four or more Cuckoos, saw more Hobby, Heard a Bittern and saw two Marsh Harriers. There were also lots of woodland birds and a large number of Common Swift which was a “year tick”
We settled into our cottage in Halesworth (well we did struggle with the roped spiral staircase) and the next day, the 3rd May we had a full day at RSPB Minsmere where we got forty-four species of birds including “year ticks” for Bar-tailed Godwit, Bearded Tit, Mediterranean Gull and Sandwich Tern. You always feel that you have hardly touched this site, even if you spend all day there.
The following day, the 4th May we went to Weeting Heath NWT in search of Stone Curlews but we were disappointed. We did hear Cuckoos and we saw a couple of Kestrels and a Buzzard but even the “woodland walk” was pretty quiet. As a consolation, we got our fist Yellowhammers of the year, though.
The 5th was a day for meeting up with friends at CovehitheT so bird watching was not on the agenda specifically, however it it did not stop us from seeing some good birds and adding three year ticks to our mounting tally, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat and Ringed Plover.
We were back on the strictly birding track the following day, the 6th May 2016 when we went for a boat trip on Horsey Mere courtesy of Ross’s Wildlife Boat Trips. When we returned to Thornham that afternoon there was at least one Cuckoo singing and during an evening walk through the reed bed, just a minute from our cottage, I saw a Barn Owl as it passed from the fields to my right and over the path I was on then disappeared over the marsh to the left of me. Wow.
This encouraged me to do these two walks, across the reed beds to the harbour and (in the other direction) along the edge of the marsh, morning and evening if possible. The mornings were on my own but we sometimes both did the evening walk.
On the morning of the 7th May I took a another of my early morning walks around Thornham and came across four Whimbrel. In the evening, on the walk to the pub, we heard a Green Woodpecker; both “year ticks”
In between my morning walk and our evening walk we went to Titchwell RSPB on the 7th May 2016 where we had a morning birding on our own and the afternoon birding with an RSPB volunteer. The whole visit to the reserve gave us a “life tick”, in the shape of Temminck’s Stint, and an additional four “year ticks” in Common Sandpiper, Grey Plover, Red-crested Pochard and Spotted Flycatcher.
on the 8th May we had set aside the day for visiting friends that we had arranged to go to a pub for lunch with. When we were out in the morning at Hunstanton we added Fulmar to our year list and at Thornham where we went for a post-lunch walk with our friends we had a good raqnge of birds and on our evening walk we got Barn Owl again.
On the 9th of May we had vivited a a mixture of sites Of course we had our morning and evening walks in the immediate vicinity of our cottage in Thornham on the 9th May 2016 where we heard a Cuckoo in the morning and a Barn Owl in the evening, but we also went to Chosely Drying Barns where we saw a fantastic flock of foraging Dotterel. We went from there to the Cley Marshes NWT reserve which was a little disappointing though we did get a fair range of birds. Perhaps we just expect the extraordinary at Cley. We then went to a couple of sites around the Holkham area, stopping first for tea and scones at Holkham Hall,where we added Egyptian Goose to our year list, and then we went from there down Lady Ann’s Road to Holkham NNR where the usurious parking at least gave us Little Tern nesting on the beach to add to our year list.
The morning of the 10th was inauspicious as it was pouring with rain. This was the first bad weather we had had but we were not deterred. Time was probably running out on us making a return trip to Weeting Heath NWT to try for the Stone Curlews again and, although there was a heavy drizzle all the time we were there, a couple of Stone Curlews showed really well and I even managed to get a single six minute continuous video phone-scoped shot of one of them. We were back home with a little bit of time so we went somewhere I had read was fantastic for all sorts of birds – the road from Snettisham to Fring. Unfortunately the rain seemed to have put of any displays though we did see a couple of Yellowhammers.
The 11th May started off rainy so I did not go for my usual walk but it soon cleared up again and reverted to sunshine . We split between Cley NWT and Blakeney Point. We got nice views of Ruffs and Reeves at Cley and it was a nice start to the morning among the reeds but we were only really killing time until our boat trip to Blakeny which gave us a nice group of Terns and a lovely Turnstone as well as views of Oystercatcher nest with eggs in / on them. After the boat rip we returned to Chosely Drying Barns & Titchwell NWT and at Chosely we got a wonderful combination of Corn Bunting, Yellowhammer and Dotterel all by standing in the one place for twenty minutes. With some time left we dropped into Titchwell again where w got the usual nice range of birds, the best being the Temminck’ Stint (again !) but also Whimbrel and Grey Plover and, of course, Marsh Harriers and Swifts and so on. As if the day had not been good enough already, on our evening walk back from the pub, as we walked along the path home between the reed beds and the field at Thornham we had very good views of what we thought was a male Hen Harrier but which we were later convinced by people more expert than us that it was a Montagu’s Harrier. What a day ! We were to find out more about this bird the following day.
I started off the 12th with a walk through the reed bed to the old harbour at Thornham getting a couple of dozen birds without trying and these included Whimbrel, Brent Geese and a heard Cuckoo. Mianly, though, we had decided to devote the day to a visit to Holmes Dunes NWT which starts roughly where my morning walk to the harbour ends and then follows the coast round in a northerly direction. To get only my third view of a Montagu’s Harrier (an consequently confirmation that our bird of the previous night was also a “Monty”) and a “life tick” Turtle Dove was the icing on the cake of another wonderful day in Norfolk.
The morning of the 13th was our last day in Thornham and Norfolk as we had to head back home. I still had my morning walk, though, getting the usual wide range of birds. Then it was time to pack and head off home. We staying at the Barnsdale Lodge Hotel that evening which gave us several hours in the day to pay another visit to Rutland Water where we got a “life tick” in the shape of four Black Terns. The Ospreys we expected to see, however, had been evicted by Egyptian Geese.
We stayed overnight at the Barnsdale Lodge Hotel and got off to a bit of a leisurely start but we managed to fit in one last walk in Hambledon Woods where we got our last “tick” of the holiday – a Treecreeper.
Species Summary
We saw 119 species in total. Of these eighty-five had been seen already this year, 30 were new “year ticks” and 4 were “life ticks” The four life ticks were
Temminck’s Stint
Corn Bunting
Turtle Dove
Black Tern
Bird Sightings : Suffolk & Norfolk Holiday 2016
| Species |
|---|
| Greylag Goose |
| Brent Goose |
| Barnacle Goose |
| Canada Goose |
| Mute Swan |
| Egyptian Goose |
| Common Shelduck |
| Gadwall |
| Eurasian Wigeon |
| Mallard |
| Northern Shoveler |
| Common Teal |
| Red-crested Pochard |
| Common Pochard |
| Tufted Duck |
| Common Merganser |
| Red-legged Partridge |
| Common Pheasant |
| Little Grebe |
| Great Crested Grebe |
| Northern Fulmar |
| Great Cormorant |
| Great Bittern |
| Grey Heron |
| Little Egret |
| Osprey |
| Eurasian Marsh Harrier |
| Montagu’s Harrier |
| Red Kite |
| Common Buzzard |
| Common Moorhen |
| Common Coot |
| Common Crane |
| Eurasian Stone Curlew |
| Pied Avocet |
| Eurasian Oystercatcher |
| Grey Plover |
| Northern Lapwing |
| Common Ringed Plover |
| Little Ringed Plover |
| Eurasian Dotterel |
| Common Sandpiper |
| Common Redshank |
| Whimbrel |
| Eurasian Curlew |
| Black-tailed Godwit |
| Bar-tailed Godwit |
| Ruddy Turnstone |
| Ruff |
| Temminck’s Stint |
| Dunlin |
| Black-headed Gull |
| Mediterranean Gull |
| Mew Gull |
| Herring Gull |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull |
| Great Black-backed Gull |
| Little Tern |
| Black Tern |
| Common Tern |
| Sandwich Tern |
| Rock Dove |
| Stock Dove |
| Common Wood Pigeon |
| European Turtle Dove |
| Eurasian Collared Dove |
| Common Cuckoo |
| Barn Owl |
| Tawny Owl |
| Common Swift |
| Common Kingfisher |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker |
| Green Woodpecker |
| Common Kestrel |
| Eurasian Hobby |
| Eurasian Jay |
| Eurasian Magpie |
| Eurasian Jackdaw |
| Rook |
| Carrion Crow |
| Bearded Tit |
| Sky Lark |
| Sand Martin |
| Barn Swallow |
| Common House Martin |
| Willow Tit |
| Great Tit |
| Eurasian Blue Tit |
| Long-tailed Tit |
| Eurasian Treecreeper |
| Eurasian Wren |
| Cetti’s Warbler |
| Willow Warbler |
| Common Chiffchaff |
| Sedge Warbler |
| Eurasian Reed Warbler |
| Common Grasshopper Warbler |
| Blackcap |
| Lesser Whitethroat |
| Common Whitethroat |
| Spotted Flycatcher |
| European Robin |
| European Stonechat |
| Northern Wheatear |
| Eurasian Blackbird |
| Song Thrush |
| Common Starling |
| Dunnock |
| White Wagtail |
| Meadow Pipit |
| Yellowhammer |
| Reed Bunting |
| Corn Bunting |
| Common Chaffinch |
| Eurasian Bullfinch |
| European Greenfinch |
| European Goldfinch |
| Common Linnet |
| House Sparrow |
