31st May

Norfolk for a long weekend

The end of May can be a great time to visit the North Norfolk coast. Often the weather pattern at this time of year has pushed up migrants from Southern Europe, not this year unfortunately. The winds were from the north-west and quite chilly, with showers on a couple of mornings. I did visit a couple of my local coastal patches but could find nothing out of the ordinary. I visited Cley and it surrounding area for 4 hours on Saturday morning and although I did get some good views of some passerines, waders were very few and very distant. It is great that the NWT’s have been able to purchase the stretch of marsh to the east of the East Bank. There has already been work undertaken to make this area more attractive waders and waterfowl. However it means that the views the public have are dots in the distance. It really needs to have hides with screened walkways, even the North Scrape, which has always only offered distant views would be much more appealing to bird watchers if a bridge was constructed to get you over the channel and to the northern edge of the scrape.

Below are a few of my most pleasing photos.

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Normally this is where Cetti’s Warblers sing from, so it was great to see this male enjoying the luxury of singing without people constantly disturbing him.

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This Grasshopper Warbler was feeding a female bird on a nest?

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This Stonechat family and several pairs of Linnet’s were on Kelling Heath. While there I heard a couple of purring Turtle Doves and saw a family party of Crossbills fly over.

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This Little-ringed Plover was the closest wader on view from Daukes Hide

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