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!

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.

Various images from the weekend

 Did a dirty filthy twitch...

...found a Kittiwake...

...had a (distant) Spoonbill all to myself...

... and checked out the old favourites.

Nice.

Cley, Sunday

Glossy Ibis, Martham, Norfolk 8th Feb 2014

A short while ago I went to look in a field in North Norfolk for a bird.  I saw the bird and it looked like this...

File under 'record shot'.

Yesterday however, was a little different.  I was sort of on the way to somewhere that if you took a certain route ended up passing Martham. Evidently, in the delightfully named Cess Road' there had been a bird similar to the bird above that was hanging about there. If I got a wiggle on, I might get there before dark which would be ideal.  So with the winter light quickly running out, I took my chances.  Once located, I had precisely four minutes of time before the bird was flushed by a passer by.  The results this time are little more to my satisfaction.

All on A Priority, f6.3, ISO 800, which in the circumstances could have been pushed higher as the shutter speed was occasionally falling below 1/500s but thankfully the thing doesn't move very fast.

Cley, post flood.

A few views of variable quality of the Cley area taken this afternoon.  Lots of words already said in many media, but I think that the pictures (not necessarily mine I might add) are more powerful.  If you love this place like we do, try and get out there if you can.

The view from Salthouse Heath

A149 by NOA Watchpoint

The East Bank

Congestion on the A149 

A footbridge that used to be on the reserve

Beach Road, Cley

Unfamiliar view of Cley Mill

Brents at sundown

That funny looking bird (below) was with these not so funny looking birds.

Leucistic Brent?

Another day, another set of ropey goose pics...

Here is a funny looking Brent Goose that was at Cley this afternoon.  Leucism?

Wigeon, Cley

Swifts gone, so a Swallow will have to do.

Cley Swallows

Was at Cley, and took some photos.  Spent more time smiling at Swallows than taking pictures.  After all this dullness and delayed sun, their very presence is sublime.

There may be others added to this, but for now this will do...

A Swallow doing sublime

Mares tails

Cley beach installation ii

Cley beach installation