In which I actually find a rare bird - Weekly Highlights 28/9/2014

The bird of the week, certainly in terms of ubiquity, was Meadow Pipit.  Everywhere.  Regardless of what I was hoping to see, there was another Meadow Pipit.  Here is one that posed long enough for a decent photo if the foliage hadn't interfered.

Wheatears still regular and plentiful, but evading the range of the lens by being generally flighty.  When I was fortunate enough to have one in range, it was raining.

So I was sitting in a pub garden with the wife, mulling over the menu while keeping an eye on the nearby saltmarsh (like you do) and this bird flies past.  Slowly.  Crikey, I thought, that is a chuffing big Egret and it isn't really flying like the normal ones do and look at its legs and its neck and its beak and its everything really actually.  It then landed in a nearby field an it was HUGE!  I notified my long-suffering wife that the bird wasn't a Little Egret and that the pleasant time in the pub garden was henceforth brought to a close.  In two short words.

Great Egret, Salthouse 25/09/2014

It was then seen to fly from Salthouse, over the East Bank and over Cley Marshes - I do wonder how many people missed it due to the height it was gaining.  It was subsequently reported in Wells and Stiffkey (?).  But fly on it did, hence the record shot that is before you.


I saw other birds on Friday and Saturday too, and did other stuff too.  Here are some of them.

Lapwings!

A Grey Plover!

A duck!

Passage passerines, prey and plover. Weekly highlights 21/09/2014

Plenty kicking about this week but not necessarily in front of the camera.  The overnight rain on Monday left a puddle big enough to interest the local Wagtails (those not terrorising the local Tesco of course).  I ordered a nearby Wheatear to join them. It flatly refused.

Other birds appeared that I don't normally see.  Chaffinches for example.  Two Kestrels.  A Skylark.

A Skylark

Oh, and what is that funny looking thing over there?  Cor blimey, it's another bloody patch tick - they just keep on coming!

Ropey Record shot of patch tick Yellow Wagtail

That bird (or another) was good enough to stay for a couple of days although remaining elusive while kicking about with the ever growing number of Meadow Pipits.  

The Meadow Pipits and Linnets were the main attention of this belter on Thursday...

Still had a few Wheatears knocking about, Reed Bunting briefly, Black and possible Common Redstart and I was pleased to see that the Kingfisher is still about.  There are gulls too, but nothing noteworthy unfortunately.  A Ringed Plover was feeding with the Wagtails on Friday, here's a picture of an identical bird taken around about this time last year...

That is what last week on the patch was about, all going well next week should produce another patch tick!  I reckon that one of those stripey warblers would do it nicely....

Plenty more pics here!

Patch tick, supermoon, funny gull. Weekly highlights 14/09/2014

Patch ticks are brilliant.  They are so good that they are probably better than life ticks.  There I said it.  Patch ticks are better than lifers.  

Last week, Pied Flycatcher.   This week, a bloody Kingfisher!!

Yes, a bloody Kingfisher - sitting in view of a camera!

My best ever Kingfisher photos, but not great Kingfisher photos. With it sitting in deep shade and then shooting down at the bird meant that the DOF is too shallow for the whole bird to be in focus.  Had the aperture been more suitable, the shutter speed would have been to slow.  For me this was an interesting lesson in photo-taking.

Little critter stayed until Friday at least.  Doing fishing and hiding and all of those Kingfishery things.

Had a conversation with a man.  

"What exactly are you looking at?" said said man. 

"A supermoon" said I.  

"Yes it is, isn't it" said the said man.

"Literally," I said "this is a Super Moon blah blah blah blah"

"Oh, I see.  I'm from Croydon".

"Do you know Paul?  He's from Croydon."

"Er..."

Moon

Moon

Sea, moonlight.

And if you hadn't seen the post the other day, there was a funny gull kicking about too.

Leucistic Herring Gull, 10/09/2014

I saw a gull yesterday and it seemed to have white wing tips.  I dismissed this as wishful thinking and that the sun was behind it and I was hungry, and being silly.  Then it started flying about.

'Crikey' I said.  

More than once.  

Once viewed with an optical aid, it was quite obvious what it is/was and I managed to snatch a few photos which larophiles will enjoy.  Instructional they will say. Stroking of chins they will do.

Anyhow, here is a leucistic Herring Gull that  I found yesterday.  Enjoy...

Flying...

...flying with some plastic in it's gob (seems to be the norm these days)...

...more flying...

....hmmm, tailband - yummy.


I have more photos of this bird, but four is enough isn't it?

If this isn't quite enough gullage for you, feel free to click here for some more...

Migrants, patch tick and not technically twitching gulls... Weekly Highlights 07/09/2014

Yes, a weekly highlights page that posted no weekly highlights for two weeks.  The reasons behind this are manifest and for you dear reader I expect that they are not particularly interesting when you want to see pictures of birds.  So let's do birds then.  

Lots of them.  

Like this one.

Not a particularly good week for photos, but a good one for birds.  Birds everywhere on the patch this week and some nice ones too.  Wheatears, Whinchats, Redstarts, Black Redstarts, an absolutely stonking adult Hobby at point blank range, and rounded off at the weekend with a Pied Flycatcher in the gloom.  I had seen reports of Pied Flycatchers that were doable in my lunch hour and I was sorely tempted.  But I thought, no, if I go chasing up there I won't know what was on the patch, and I was thankfully vindicated with a lovely patch tick.

Pied Flycatcher doing lovely patch tick

 And so to the weekend.  I'd seen some chatter on the interweb about Caspian Gulls at Cromer and thought that I'd go and have a look.  This doesn't count as twitching as I was only going for a speculative look, and there were no other birders there.

Unfortunately it was in fading light, and as I was looking for a 1st winter bird I almost overlooked the adult.  Oops!  Now, my previous experience of Caspian Gulls has been stringing funny looking Herring Gulls and reading about them in a very big book, but because of this I have had a fair handle on what to look for (I believe that these are called diagnostic features, and one absolutely must know what a gonys angle is).  Having seen some of the pictures on social media of what people are saying are Caspian Gulls, I'm not so sure myself.  However, there was a nice Yellow-legged Gull kicking about too.

Adult Caspian Gull, Cromer

Yellow-legged Gull, Cromer

Ended the week with a field full of Wheatears, and a late-ish accompaniment of Sand Martin and House Martin which was very pleasant indeed.

Migrants arriving, birds posing. Weekly highlights 17/8/2014

It was going to happen eventually, as it does every year. The Swifts leave and then everything else starts coming through (although after a week without any I did see two Swifts on Sunday).  The first Wheatear of the autumn came through the patch on Tuesday, and another on Thursday.  

Ropey shot of cracking bird.

There have been Common Sandpipers kicking about in the distance, but this one was in range length for about 5 seconds.  One shot in focus!

 Amongst the showers I can usually still find Pied Wagtails.  This scruffy little fella was posing a bit on Thursday.

The week nicely rounded off with a session with a Little Egret.  No doubt this will appear on other channels as the days progress...

Some of these photos may, or may not, end up here

Saved by the weekend... Weekly highlights 10/08/14

The problem with doing regular weekly highlight post thingy is that if there is nothing happening during the week (other than distant gulls and cormorants) then the whole thing can fall flat on its face.  Thankfully, this week was saved by a thing called 'the weekend'.  

There were some Spoonbills at Cley on Saturday, which currently isn't unusual.  About a half dozen or so of them flew in at one point, and as they approached the scrapes they started whiffling!  You might think that this is insignificant but I hadn't seen before so that was interesting for me at least.  One of them flew off.

Went looking for Little Owls, but they are proving elusive.  Did find a Barn Owl and a flock of hirundines that were quite entertaining.

Popped to Cley again on Sunday for some post Bertha buffeting, and it was most satisfactory.

A dragon, a gulp and something gnarly - weekly highlights 03/08/2014

It's that time of year when many birders suddenly become interested in moths and dragonflies and things like that.  Things that fly, but only a distraction until the autumn.  The garden birds are hiding, the Swifts are leaving and the breeding colonies dispersed.  All in all a bit of a struggle which is confirmed by my SD card on Sunday which didn't contain a single photo of a bird.  It did, however contain one of these...

... I haven't looked it up in a book yet, but I expect it to have the word 'Common' in its name.  It was in the garden on Sunday.  My undoubted natural history highlight of the week was on Thursday evening when the garden was full of Dragonflies.  About thirty of the critters at all levels chasing about like mad and whizzing past my head. This was enhanced by a good fifty or so Gulls circling about.  I can only assume that this activity was something to do with flying ants.  I'm not sure that the wife was as keen on getting close to this spectacle as I was!

However, not all is birdless.  I did enjoy a close encounter with a gulp of Swallows in the evening sun...

... which contained a cracking little Sand Martin.  This effort is considerably better than my attempt at the beginning of the year.  Although that was published.  Go figure.

Here is a picture of a man doing something undoubtedly 'gnarly'  in the sunset from midweek. 

And here is a picture of what is coming back soon, this photo is from my vast and quality filled archive of course...

Website is here!

Lots of things beginning with the letter S - weekly highlights to 27/7/14

In the reasonably new tradition of starting off where I left off last week, here is the same wren as on the previous post, but on a different stick.  It even has a spider in it's bill for good measure. 

A Starling from midweek - no excuse needed to take photos of these.

And so to the latter part of the week, and a visit to a beach in the evening.  It's what you do round here.  There were a few little groups of Sanderling knocking about on the tide line and with a little fieldcraft I managed to get some pics as they approached.

Friday night rave, Norfolk stylee...

Finally, Arctic Skua (one of three) that was hassling Sandwich Terns at Cley on Sunday.  And just to add to the number of things beginning with the letter S in the post, that there is Sheringham Shoal in the background! Oh, and the Sea.