Thornham 8th May 2016

Thornham 8th May 2016

We had visitors coming to see us and have a pub lunch, followed by a walk so most of our birding today was incidental. However it was not without some good sightings. We had to get some food and drink in but it was a Sunday so we had to wait for the supermarkets at Hunstanton to open at 10am. To kill some time we decided to go to the cliffs at Hunstanton to see the nesting Fulmars.

We parked up at the lighthouse which turned out to be just the wrong place to park; partly because it cost £2 an hour and partly because it was the wrong place to see the cliffs. We walked along the edge of the cliffs in the direction of town and eventually came to a snack bar at the start of the promenade. There is free parking on the promenade and a good view of the face of the cliffs where we got our Fulmars;not many of them but a few. There wee also a few Rock Doves.

We did our shopping, returned to Thornham, got set up for our visitors and then went for lunch at the Lifeboat Inn nearby. After our lunch we walked from the pub to Thornham old harbour and then followed the coastal route to edge of Holmes Dunes nature reserve. The tide was well out at around 3pm and in the muddy channels there were very confiding Avocet.  We saw the usual range of birds; Redshank,  Oystercatcher etc. But we also got a pair of Linnets, Sand Martins, Whitethroat and Little Egret. It was a fabulously hot Sunday so everyone was at the beach. At Holmes Dunes we had a quick look around but it had become a bit windy to listen out for the Crossbills that are supposed to occupy the pine trees among the dune margins.

We need to return here as there are a couple of hides and on a less busy day there is probably some good birding to be had. Since we were with guests, however, we did not want to bore them too much with birding so we walked back home and had some refreshments before saying goodbye to them. After a bit of a rest and a listen to the football on the radio, we had a salad dinner in the evening sun and then, just as the sun was about to set, we made our way out for a walk looking for Barn Owls. As it happens we met two people who said that they knew where to see them and, as it turns out, that was out past the harbour where we had been earlier. We bowed to their superior knowledge and headed off here again. It being about 8.30pm, the tide was at its highest and the scene of earlier in the day was transformed with the water a long way inland.

Apart from continuing to hear a Cuckoo calling, which we heard all the way on our walk, all we heard was the same reeling Grasshopper Warbler I had heard a couple of evenings ago but this time it wasn’t  very loud or prolonged. The couple who we had been leapfrogging ended up on the narrow path home through the Reedbed just in front of us. We had pretty much given up on any Owls when a large white shape came from our right, passed over the lane we were walking on and slowly flapped it’s way silently over the reeds and round the corner out of sight. We couldn’t  tell if the other birders had seen it or not but the important thing was that we had seen our Barn Owl and exactly where I told them I had seen it two days before.

So, not to shabby for a non- birding day. Tomorrow we return to the serious birding.

Year Tick, Fulmar

Bird Sightings : 8th May Hunstanton Cliffs

Bird Sightings : 8th May Thornham