Friday 10 January 2020
Norfolk
Tom and I joined up with Marcus and 6 other birders for the first Norfolk tour of the year, focusing on owls and cranes. Once again we were based in Wells-next-the Sea.
The heavy overnight rain had stopped, the skies gradually cleared and we had exceptional weather for most of the day. The emphasis today was on owls and with this in mind we headed west to The Wash.
- First stop, however, was at Sedgeford, near Ringstead, to twitch the blue-headed eastern yellow wagtail. When we arrived there was quite an assembly of birders, including Lee Evans, but none had seen the bird. After 30 unproductive minutes, we were about to move on when someone sighted the bird. We retraced our steps to find the wagtail just 20 metres away in the field, totally oblivious to the crowd. The views were superb and the all important calls were heard loud and clear, clinching the ID for any "doubting Thomas."
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| courtesy of Marcus Nash |
- Comparatively recently a taxonomic decision involving the controversies and complexities of the many sub species of Yellow Wagtail has resulted in the Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava being split into two distinct species, namely Eastern Yellow Wagtail Motacilla tschutschensis and Western Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava, a sub species of which M. flava. flavissima is the one we mostly see here in Britain.
- Eastern Yellow Wagtails breed in temperate Asia but there is said to be a considerable overlap where the two species range meets.To date there are only five accepted records of Eastern Yellow Wagtail in Britain and one in Ireland although this will surely alter as more birders take notice and become more au fait with the diagnostic characters of an Eastern Yellow Wagtail, chief of which is the different call - a raspy buzzing note rather than the pure upwards inflected call of a Western Yellow Wagtail.
What a cracking start to our day - a "lifer", my second this year already!
That was not the highlight of the day for me however. That award, fittingly, went to the
short-eared owls.
- We saw a couple in the morning at Snettisham, roosting in the bushes below the sea hide.
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| courtesy of Marcus Nash |
- Then we saw a third at Wells-next-the-Sea at the end of the day. Initially feeding on the ground but soon hunting over the fields it gave us spectacular views. Best of all was seeing it dive bomb a buzzard that had nabbed its ground position. The buzzard soon took flight and was summarily chased off by the owl.
- Barn owls were also seen regularly during our stay in Wells, leaving only little owl to find later on in the trip (there being no reports of any seeable long-eared owls in Norfolk).
- A rough-legged buzzard was another major highlight, again at Wells-next-the-Sea and only a few metres from the owl event described above.
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| courtesy of Marcus Nash |
It spent most of the time perched on the roof of a wooden structure but we did see it fly to the roost area.
- At Snettisham we were surprised to see a Little Stint on the sands directly ahead of us and some 50 metres away.
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courtesy of Marcus Nash
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| courtesy of Marcus Nash |
- We saw twite at Thornham Harbour but sadly the numbers are well down on last year. There were only 8 to be seen and Marcus told us there has only been 14 recorded this year, less than half of last years total and a fraction of the maximum numbers recorded in the last 15 years or so.
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| courtesy of Marcus Nash |
- other birds sighted for the first time in 2020 included bar-tailed godwit, red-legged and grey partridge, spotted redshank, turnstone, yellowhammer, fieldfare, brent goose, rock pipit, knot, dunlin, bullfinch, common gull, water rail, curlew, linnet, pink-footed geese and sparrowhawk.
The twilight session at Wells was very dramatic with the owls and the rough - legged buzzard against a stunning background of a wolf moon - the first full moon of the year.
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| courtesy of Marcus Nash |
We got off to a cracking start!
