Tuesday
10th May fresh ESE
Heavy rain
It
is raining lightly as I cycle towards Cley but by the time I reach
the famous Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve it is bucketing down. With
newspaper and laptop I relax in Daulkes hide and watch the wader
antics. I fall asleep after lunch.
The
rain doesn't stop until evening yet I am not tempted to walk Blakeney
Point. I will leave that until the morning.
Wednesday
11th May fresh ESE
Sunny intervals, 16C
A
dilemma presents itself this morning. Do I walk and bird Blakeney
Point , that tpioca pudding shingle walk of hell, or wait for news
and bird Cley?
Everything
about the weather says that there should be birds on the point yet I
tarry (procrastinate?) and start the day list with common waders.
Red-backed
shrike at Burnham Overy dunes, just beyond the west end of Holkham
Pines!
I
peddle as fast as I can and get there.
12:45
red-backed shrike UTB, bird number 241 and I watch it
for the next hour or so mostly by myself. The shrike keeps
disappearing into bramble and hawthorn and occasionally turns up some
distance from its last location. The best views though re when I am
sat on a small sand dune, tucked in from the cool breeze, and the
bird hunts from a nearby barbed wire fence.
Throughout
the hour view I meet four other birders, one of whom, Paul supports
Aston Villa. We cry together whilst watching the shrike.
I remember a
scene from the comedic birdwatching film The Big Year with the Steve
Martin's character being likened to a shrike. Randy Lerner, the
current Aston Villa chairman and owner is a similar beast. In fact
this analogy would be an insult to a shrike. I recommend any birder
watching the film. I don't recommend supporting the Villa!
I
search the dunes but cannot find any other birds of note amongst them
and the pines. Mediterranean gulls are out over the marsh and a pair
of stonechats along the marsh edge.
I
head off for Titchwell, little gull reported there again and this is
fast becoming a bogey bird. Seen in the morning, they have moved on
by the afternoon.
Reaching
Titchwell the little gull has moved on. I spend the afternoon walking
around the reserve and meet Martin from Topshill nature reserve where I had been early April. Paul Fisher joins us and it is fabulous to spend time with such great people.
The evening I spend sitting in the Parrinder hide
watching as curlew come into roost. Highlight birds amongst the day
list of sixty nine include two teminck's stints and also a little
stint, a whimbrel, bittern booming and a fly over spoonbill heading
east.
The
year list is 241, exactly twenty ahead of this time last year.
19.04
miles 440 feet up elevation 430 feet down elevation
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