Weeting Heath NWT 4th May 2016

Weeting Heath NWT 4th May 2016

Weeting Heath is known as one of the most – if not the most – reliable places to see Stone Curlew and they did have them on site and even had a live video feed of one on a nest. Unfortunately the nest was over the hill from the West Hide and in a dip so it was impossible to see this bird from the hide. We were told that there were I’ve other birds also on the site after arriving quite recently; unfortunately these birds were not to be seen either. In all the time we were there not a single person saw one although,  apparently,  several had been seen earlier in the day.

This didn’t help us much so we were pretty disappointed. In the stony field in front were lots of rabbits, a single Pied Wagtail ( remarkably our first of the holiday), several Lapwings and a bunch of corvids. There were also a couple of Larks displaying over the ridge but I assumed these were Skykarks rather than Wood Larks. We tired of waiting for Stone Curlews after giving it a good shot and decided to go on to the next hide where there are some feeders. At first it was all Chaffinches and a Robin and some Tits but then a small group of Yellowhammers appeared looking radiant in the bright sunshine. This “year tick” was a welcome surprise and inspired by this we thought we would take  the 2 mile round trip “woodland walk” in hope of some other Breckland specialities.

To put it bluntly, we were to be disappointed because, apart from good sightings of two Chiffchaff and another Yellowhammer, there really just wasn’t that much around. Weeting Heath is a bit out of the way and unless you stay close to it, it is rather hard to get there really early. It took us an hour and a half to get there from Halesworth but we may well give the Stone Curlews another shot when we move on to Thornham, where our next cottage rental is, because it is about the same distance; perhaps we can get up super early !!!

We actually decided to join the Norfolk Wildlife Trust which cost us £40. We figured that because Weeting Heath would cost us £7 anyway that we would,probably visit enough sites when we stay in Norfolk to justify the outlay. And, after all, it is a good cause.

After we left Weeting Heath we headed for Lynford Arboretum but we didn’t see much there so we didn’t  stay very long. However we did have time to take advantage of a free log offered to us from a Willow Tree that had been blown over and had become dangerous. They had chopped the whole thing up and put a sign by the log pile saying “help yourself”. So, after looking around for months – if not years, we got a nice lichen – clad branch for use as a bird posing log in our back garden.

Year Tcik : Yellowhammer

Bird Sightings : 4th May NWT Weeting Heath