03/11/2016 36 Waxwings in a One Tree!

Thursday 3 November 2016
Titchwell, Norfolk

• I really got my year list back on track with a bang today at Titchwell.  As I turned off the A149 into the reserve, around 1.30 pm, I had to stop the car and join 10-15 birders who were blocking the road.  The interest was in the huge flock of 70+ waxwings that had just arrived.  When I got my bins out I saw 36 of the beauties in a single tree - shades of Lewes a couple of years ago.  I was so close - the views were awesome.  Unlike Lewes the birds did not hang around for long and when I returned after finally parking my car they had moved around the site.  What an unbelievable stroke of good luck

•   The rest of the afternoon was a bit of an anticlimax but it ended, as it started, with a really good sighting - this time a lovely barn owl flying over the fields to the west of the visitors centre.

• the strangest sighting of the day was of a purple sandpiper, seen from Parrinder Hide, feeding on the fresh marsh   Not a rock or boulder to be seen - far from the habitat I have always seen them in before.

purple sandpiper
courtesy of RSPB Titchwell

• Teal and black-tailed godwits dominated the fresh marsh area where the numbers were in the hundreds. There was a small number of avocets, lots of dunlin and redshank and a good showing of black-headed gulls, lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls.

• On the sea common scoters were abundant.  Red-breasted mergansers (x6) were also present.

BUBO UK 2016 Year List:
Waxwing   (249)

Over 40 species seen in a couple of hours on a cold, dry autumnal afternoon - not a bad start to my belated trip up to Norfolk.  The waxwings have already guaranteed that it will be a memorable occasion!