With New years Day on a Saturday, the bank holiday Monday gave us an extra day to kick things off. As with last year, Colin and I decided not to do a big day on the 1st, and by the sound of things it was a good idea as it sounded like North Norfolk was heaving all day, particularly as it was a warm, sunny weekend.
This gave me the opportunity to see in the New Year with a glass or three and I enjoyed a nice gentle walk around Fairlands Valley in the morning. There was nothing out of the ordinary of course, but it was a pleasant day and I ended up with around 35 species, including a couple around the garden. Also, for the first time ever, Parakeets appeared on my New Year list.
We decided to hit Titchwell early Sunday morning and hopefully avoid the crowds. This meant driving up in the dark, resulting in two roadside Barn Owls which was nice. The car park wasn't too bad when we arrived not long after sunrise, so there were a few birds around. A quick check for Woodcock wasn't successful, and the feeders outside the centre was a bit quiet, but the Siberian Chiffchaff showed well, but didn't co-operate with the camera.
The next good bird was my first heron of the year-Great White Egret (didn't see any last year!) closely followed by a lone Grey Heron and multiple Little Egrets. A Bittern would have been nice, but the reed-beds were a bit quiet. The fresh marsh was full of gulls ducks and waders, with a massive flock of Golden Plover looking absolutely stunning in the rising sun.
We headed fairly swiftly to the beach to catch the dropping tide, and while there were large numbers of waders and gulls feeding, the sea itself was rather quiet despite the calm conditions and good light. I picked up Red Throated Diver, several Common Scoter flocks and a few Goldeneye, but the southerly winds kept things well offshore. Great Northern Diver and a few other sea duck were reported in the morning but it was a bit of a lottery as to what one saw.
The walk back involved a more thorough search of the marsh and scrapes. Most of the Golden Plover had departed, and there weren't any unusual duck or gulls, but fortunately someone had located the Water Pipit on the newly land(?)scaped fresh marsh, and I had my suspicions that there might have been a second bird. We spent a bit of time in the Fen Hide and around the pools as Jack Snipe are often seen-not by us, and the usual Red Crested Pochard seem to have departed some months ago.
Rather than stay on the coast we headed south to Welney-probably a good idea judging by the huge queues of traffic between Hunstanton and Kings Lynn.
I missed the Tree Sparrows on the Welney feeders this time. There were a a few Ruff on the scrape though. Stopping at the bridge with a couple of others, we picked up three Cattle Egret, five more Great White Egrets, Stock Dove and lots of duck. Where possible we stopped to check the fields. All the wild swans that were close proved to be Whooper, there were no raptors and very few smaller birds.We finished at Earith where the flock of Glossy Ibis were not in their usual spot near the lay by. The planned stop off at Graffham was abandoned due to torrential rain.
I didn't do anything the following Sunday. Having a bit of a cold, I popped out in the garden, thought about a walk around Aston and came back in. I was still feeling a bit iffy the next weekend. Saturday 15th was very foggy but the Sunday morning looked a bit better so I drove over to Meadway Park and started walking up to Almshoe. I hadn't got all that far along the muddy footpath when I lost the sole of one of my walking boots. Rather annoyed that they had only lasted 31 years I returned to the car and drove down to Bramfield where a short spell at the church produced at least two Hawfinch, bringing me up to 91 for the year.
