15th May

A morning in Norfolk

The lure of a trip of Dotterel up by the North Norfolk Coast had me out of bed at 4.00am. These bird had been present for around a week, starting with 3, peaking at 11 and down to 5 yesterday. I knew that with clear skies overnight these could have departed as well. I pulled up at the site at 6.45am and asked to birders that walked up the lane towards me if they had seen them. “No” said one, so we scanned the field, which was vast. I decided to move to scan from different angle. Within a couple of minutes I was looking at a distant male Dotterel. It was walking in my general direction. I whistled hoping to draw the other birders attention. Not seeing them I got back in the car and drove back to where I had left them. They had moved further on but must have heard my whistle, as they were on their way back. Once they reached me I said I had a male, allowing them to look through my scope just in case it took off. We then watched it for 15 mins, before I headed off to the nearby Titchwell RSPB Reserve. It was fairly quiet here bird wise and birder wise, which suited me. I took a few photos, although the sun made life difficult at times.

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Swift numbers were quite low, usually they would be screaming over the reeds by mid May

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There were very few waders on the beach, which may have been because it was quite a high tide. Normally though some species roost along this section.

The little group of Sanderlings were all in different plumage stages.

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