Saturday 16th - Friday 22nd October - Norfolk Rocks and 'Twit'


When Adie was asked - did you enjoy Norfolk ? - 'yeah Norfolk rocks' was the response and pretty well sums up our few days away. 

My first ever trip to Norfolk was a Bexley members group RSPB coach trip to Cley in 1982, followed later that same year when I spent a week in August staying near Holt with my Dad for a full week Birdwatching, where I remember the highlight was my first ever Baird's Sandpiper at Salthouse. Since then, many more day trips, weekends and week long breaks have occured and I still love going back.

Cley Windmill

 16th October - Journey

We dropped in at Welney late morning to break the journey, after the normal M25 chaos, as a coffee and craft break for the girls and I had a wander onto the reserve. A dozen Whooper Swans had arrived from their northerly Summer grounds fairly early and was nice to see. Refreshed, we headed on, stopping in Holt to get lunch and some provisions and then onto our cottage for the first 4 nights next to the windmill at Cley.

I went off to Cley beach for a seawatch while the girls settled in. Despite a strong northerly the sea was fairly quiet with Arctic Skua (1), Red-throated Diver (3) and several groups of Common Scoter. Small numbers of Redwings and Fieldfares were seen arriving from the north and a Short-eared Owl was picked up a long way out and took about 45 minutes to make landfall, amazing how it seemed to struggle to make headway despite the strong on-shore winds.

Whooper Swan - Welney

17th October - Sunday walk

I had a look at the sea again this morning pre-breakfast and it was still very quiet, the winds had veered more to the west and a Little Gull  was the only new addition. After breakfast we went for a walk in Wells woods. Plenty of Thrushes were filling the hedgerows and flyover Siskins and Redpolls were seen before 2 Brambling and a single Firecrest. A circuit back to the car via the beach showed a couple of Water Pipits with the masses of Meadow Pipits on the saltmarsh.


Walk in the Woods  - Wells

Brambling - just wouldn't show its face.

We lunched at a Cafe in Burnham Deepdale then stopped at Lady Anne Drive in Holkham where  I had a brief wander into the pines to see the Red-breasted Flycatcher that was frequenting a single Ivy-clad pine. On my way back to the car news came through of a Red-flanked Bluetail at Holme ! No panic then. By this stage it was about 3.15pm and the girls wanted to get back to the cottage and chill (there was no way they would agree to go Holme without a mutiny). So I had to drop them back at Cley before re-tracing steps back to Holme.


Red-breasted Flycatcher - Holkham

The A149 can seem tortuous if you want to get anywhere quickly on a Sunday afternoon, so I eventually arrived at Holme around 4.30 after several expletives aimed at hat-driving Sunday drivers - surely they knew I had to try and see the bird and should hurry up rather than admire the views. The bird was being fairly elusive and there was around a hundred birders crowded into an area which didn't afford great vision, all with the potential to move on-masse and cause chaos, so I decided to pick a spot in lighter traffic and stay put. The bird dashed a couple of times between cover  and then there it was ! a Red-flanked Bluetail, I managed to get good scope views just as it flitted onto the ground and bounced around a little before heading back to cover, it showed briefly, no more than 3 more times when I was there until around 5.45 and the light had started to fade.  Arriving back, elated, a discussion ensued with the girls about the number of birders at the Bluetail prompting a debate as to what was the collective noun for twitchers. Hannah decided that it had to be a 'Twit' of twitchers -maybe some hints of derision but the term appears to have stuck and was used several times over the next couple of days.

18th October - Bewildered

A quick pre-breakfast visit to Cley yielded a Grey Phalarope on the north scrape (although right at the back).
Both Hannah and Adie were asked to choose one thing each they particularly wanted to do. Adie choose a visit to Bewilderwood near Wroxham. A land of Boggles and Twiggles with lots of slides, climbing, den building and boat rides and that's where we went. It wasn't particularly warm but 4 hours seemed to pass quickly as the girls had great fun and den building was a huge success as we all voted it was the best den we had built.



A Twiggle House - Bewilderwood



Beware Spiders !

Our Den - Fit for Boggle.

We drove back along the coast and saw a Purple Sandpiper with some Turnstone as we drove through Walcott on the sea wall.

Having watched Strictly' - Mr Purple Sandpiper and Ms Turnstone practiced their Quickstep together

19th October -  A bit of crabbing

The girls were spending the morning doing homework and school projects so I headed down to Cley beach and again found a fairly quiet sea. Two fairly close Black-throated Divers were on the sea with a Razorbill. A large number of auks were moving but all fairly distant so I moved onto Holkham. Given the quantity of trees in the Wells / Holkham area,  bizarely the one same Ivy-clad pine held all the birds (and still all the birders hovered around the same tree). The Red-breasted Flycatcher was still there joined by a Yellow-browed Warbler, Blackcap and Chiffchaff. Further on I had a group of 5 Redpolls alight in a tree just ahead on closer inspection they were Mealy Redpoll.


Yellow-browed Warbler - Holkham

We had lunch at the Cley NWT reserve Cafe - I don't think there's a Cafe in the UK with better views - and then headed to Blakeney armed with crab equipment and spent a while crabbing - catching about 25 with a bacon lure. A blustery walk out from the harbour finished the day.

20th October - We found a Twit

I paid an early visit  down to the sea as there had been a very strong northerly gale in the night with lots of rain so I was quite hopeful of a seabird fiesta - but 4 close Bonxies and an Arctic Skua was all that was on offer.
We spent the morning wandering around the boutiques of Holt, had lunch, then moved accommodation to the George in Cley for the last 2 nights - A large family room which worked perfectly. We just about persuaded the girls to go for an afternoon walk at Stiffkey, which ended with them in better spirits than they started ! On the way back we found the 'Twit' and stopped at a field near Morston where there was an American Golden Plover in a group of  c50 Golden Plover. I managed to get the girls a view through the scope and they agreed it was very cute and hoped the other other Golden Plovers didn't pick on it. - Despite the derogatory collective noun the birders present were very helpful - as they usually are !

21st - Extreme fear

So Hannah's choice, for her special thing to do was to go to Extreme Adventure - a high ropes course just south of Fakenham. We had seen this from the road on a number of visits to Norfolk but the minimum age is 10 and Hannah has been waiting in anticipation for the day she was old enough to do this and generally has no fear when it comes to heights or climbing - unlike her Dad who much prefers two feet firmly on terra firma - but somehow the girls assumed that I must enjoy being hoisted 80ft up a tree as at least spiritually I must be closer to the birds.
Well, as expected, once Hannah had got to grips with the various ropes and clasps and buckles she was away - I followed and coped, although I think we both voted that the 3G gravity swing we could happily have missed as my breakfast relocated itself nearer to it's entry point during the process, but by the time we got to the 1000ft zip wire I was starting to enjoy it !

Going up !

No Fear - Aged 10

We had a fabulous seafood lunch at Cookies Crabshop in Salthouse, and in the afternoon I went for a walk down the East Bank at Cley and along the beach towards Salthouse. There had been several Shorelark reports from the beach at Cley but they were particularly mobile and I spent a few visits missing the birds including this time, although I did see 2 Lapland Buntings. A large number of waders were on Arnolds Marsh including a Spotted Redshank and Curlew Sandpiper (2)

Little Egret - Cley



Spotted Redshank - Cley




Arnolds Marsh - looking towards Salthouse



22nd October - Homeward Bound

We called in at Titchwell on the way home, with the reserve car park almost full at 10am on a Friday !. It still spooks me when you walk past the toilet block and it starts talking at you (The RSPB does over-do some things). A pleasant walk down to the beach on the new path was more akin to walking across London Bridge on a Monday morning with the number of people around. A small group of Twite feeding on freshly put out grain on the saltmarsh were the most interesting birds . The new hide construction was still in progress and looks like it will be a new breed of hide of the Hilton variety when completed.

There had been a big influx of Waxwings to Norfolk over the last day although all reports tended to be birds in flight and therefore it was all down to luck whether any would be seen, so when we returned from the beach I was a little miffed that a group of 5 Waxwings  had been seen in a tree next to the singing toilet about 15 minutes after we had passed it, no doubt being talked to by the toilet, but had taken flight fairly quickly - understandably once they'd worked out where the strange sound was coming from,

Thus ended a fantastic week, the journey back was nothing short of horrendous, but I should learn not to travel in the middle of the day.