Norfolk Trip - day two

On Friday July 18th David and I started the day on the North Norfolk Coast before racing on a twitch to Minsmere en route home.

We left our YHA hostel accommodation at Sheringham in search of a twitch bird - Black-winged Pratincole - that had been at Stiffkey Fen. We soon learned that the bird had left the previous evening, flying high and to the west. Nevertheless Stiffkey was a nice place to bird, with the incoming tide pushing waders onto a lagoon. The best bird at this sight was Eurasian Spoonbill - although all ten birds were inactive.

Common Terns

Our next stop was Cley Marshes, one of the gems of the north Norfolk coast but one which held similar birds to Titchwell and Minsmere. I added Brent Goose (Brant) and Common (Mew) Gull for the trip but otherwise we saw the typical birds of the scrape - for example, Pied Avocet and Ruff. We stopped off at the beach area for a few minutes but the winds were cold and rain was in the air. Sea watching produced nothing, but we enjoyed a number of Sandwich Terns heading towards the roost site at Blakeney Point.

Dunlin (summer plumage)

Dunlin (moulting into winter plumage)

We had finished up at Cley much earlier than planned and spent some time wondering about our next step. We disregarded heading back through the RSPB Reserve at Ouse Washes for possible Garganey. It transpired that this was the new location for the Black-winged Pratincole, although the bird was nto seen until the following day! Instead we decided to head back to Minsmere on a twitch, this time for a Collared Pratincole which had been seen that morning.

Arriving at Minsmere we soon headed for the South Hide from which many birders had just left with tales of wonderful views of the rare bird. Alas we spent a long time in the hide, dehydrating by the second in the heat of the UK's hottest day of the year (low 30s C, near 90F) without luck. This bird was probably resting out of site and would, at some point, fly around for a while before settling again. We had dipped on two species of prantincole in one day!

Nevertheless Minsmere had some surprises for us - just four days after our first stop we had Ruddy Turnstone, Common Snipe, a fly-by Whimbrel and surprisingly Kittiwakes. We also had another close view of a Hobby.