Tuesday 9th May - Norfolk Day 2

I was up early and went for a pre-breakfast walk at 6am, from the car park at Stiffkey marshes to Stiffkey Fen. It was still dark black clouds although thankfully the wind had eased and switched slightly more  NE which was a little more promising, but area wasn’t teeming with migrants, so I picked up Whitethroat, 1 Willow Warbler, 1 Blackcap, 2 Chiffchaff a good number of Linnets and Yellowhammers, a few Swallows flew over,  and loads of Brent Geese, which surprisingly hadn't yet left for their breeding grounds, they have nearly all departed the South coast a few weeks ago.

Then Fen itself had Sedge Warbler, Reed Warbler  2 Little Ringed Plover, 1 Greenshank, 2 Dunlin, a small roost of Herring, Lesser Black-backed and one Greater Black-backed Gull and certainly had more wader potential than the high-water freshmarsh at Titchwell. On the return walk  2 Spoonbill flew over the salt marsh with a few flyover Shelduck and the dozen or so Whimbrel scattered over the marshes.

After breakfast I decided to start further East and drove to Salthouse, walking over Granborough Hill to Kelling water meadows, it was still cold and windy. Feeling more like winter was confirmed by the first bird I saw in the field, a Merlin , which was squatting down before flying 100m and doing the same. The hill had the resident Stonechat, and a Whitethroat with a few Sand Martins which were probably nesting on the cliff face. There was very  little on walk to Kelling with 2 Yellow Wagtails in the Cow field and Sedge and Reed Warblers around the edge, with Lapwing, Teal, Gadwall on the pool . A Wheatear was in the Merlin field on way back to the car.

I relocated to the East bank, but felt the results would be similar . Bearded Tits were in the reeds staying mostly out of view, Common Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plover were on the Serpentine pools. With Arnolds Marsh completely empty and nothing whatsoever passing on the sea. I walked along the shingle to have a look at what was previously the North Scrape which was also completely empty other than an Avocet  pair (which seem to occupy every small pool of water)

The Winter floods when the sea breached the area has obviously been devastating at Cley and there must be too much saline in what used to be very productive scrapes. Even compared with Titchwell there was very little birdlife in evidence , it may take a few years of careful management and hopefully no more Winter Storm surges to recover.

I had a cup of Tea at the Cley visitor centre but had no inclination to walk to the hides as I could see that the main pools were empty so instead drove over to Burnham Overy and set out towards the dunes and to  Gun Hill, the day had brightened a little although the wind as still fairly strong.

From the footpath there is a reasonable view over Holkham estate marshes and the various pools did seem to hold a number of birds. Swallows and  Swifts had built up and were passing through. A Great White Egret was seen in flight then a Spoonbill. Once at the start of the dunes the Sueda bushes near the boardwalk which were in the most sheltered spot harboured a number of Wheatear, a Redstart and a Lesser Whitethroat. I spent a couple of hours wandering the dunes and other than Meadow Pipit and Linnet the migrants were  more Wheatear in total c25 another Redstart and 3 more Lesser Whitethroat were added.  I went back to the car and drove back to Stiffkey. The Coincidence of the evening I bumped into Ivan Lang in the pub who is the warden at Pagham Harbour and had been on an RSPB course in Norwich and was staying at the Stiffkey campsite for a couple of night.

A good day, with another 100 species recorded although nothing spectacular but was still nice to be out all day despite the wind.

Stonechat

Linnet

Lesser Whitethroat

Wheatear