Titchwell RSPB
We booked on a guided bird walk around he reserve where they hope to see 70 species in three hours or so. We met up with Colin just before 10 am and it transpired that we were the only two people booked for the walk. Colin had just come back from a birding trip to Belorussia and it felt like he would rather be elsewhere.
We did the rounds of the reserve but it all seemed a bit indifferent and I doubt if we saw or heard anything that we wouldn’t have managed on our own. Having said that, we managed 73 species including a Red Kite and Red-crested Pochard and had a good view of a Cetti’s Warbler. The two species that we saw that we had not before were House Martin and Sanderling
Year Tick : House Martin and Sanderling
Chosely Drying Barns
We left Titchwell and drove down to Burnham Overy Staithe. I just had a quick look around to see if it looked like a good place for a spot of birding. We had heard that there had been some Ring Ouzels on the dunes there but that was a two mile walk each way but we decided that after three hours walking around the the Titchwell reserve that we didn’t fancy another four miles on the off chance of Ring Ouzel. Instead we drove to Burnham Market where Anne did some shopping. As it happened I managed to get a phone signal there – generally I found the Vodafone signal around Norfolk to be very poor – and this let me check on the bird alert site. It was just after 2pm and there was a report of Dotterell in a pea field just east of Chalkpit Lane. It seemed likely that the birds would still be there if we got there quickly enough and it only took us ten minutes to get there. There were already several birders there and they quickly put us on to the birds – four in all. We got pretty good scoped views so we were very pleased with another – quite difficult – year tick. After half an hour we decided to make parking space available to other birders who were arriving all the time.
At this point our holiday list was up to 114 species and our UK year list up to 153 species – assuming we count the Minsmere Bar-headed Geese which we probably shouldn’t do !
Year Tick : Dotterel
Bird Sightings : Thornham
| Red-legged Partridge | 2 |
| Common Pheasant | 2 |
| Black-headed Gull | 20 |
| Common Wood Pigeon | 80 |
| Carrion Crow | 3 |
| Eurasian Wren | 1 |
| Sedge Warbler | 1 |
| Eurasian Blackbird | 1 |
| Reed Bunting | 1 |
Bird Sightings : Titchwell RSPB
| Greylag Goose | 30 |
| Brent Goose | 16 |
| Canada Goose | 6 |
| Mute Swan | 2 |
| Common Shelduck | 20 |
| Gadwall | 14 |
| Eurasian Wigeon | 4 |
| Mallard | 10 |
| Northern Shoveler | 6 |
| Common Teal | 10 |
| Red-crested Pochard | 2 |
| Common Pochard | 6 |
| Tufted Duck | 4 |
| Red-legged Partridge | 2 |
| Common Pheasant | 3 |
| Little Grebe | 1 |
| Great Crested Grebe | 1 |
| Great Cormorant | 4 |
| Grey Heron | 1 |
| Little Egret | 1 |
| Eurasian Marsh Harrier | 3 |
| Red Kite | 1 |
| Common Moorhen | 2 |
| Common Coot | 2 |
| Pied Avocet | 30 |
| Eurasian Oystercatcher | 3 |
| Grey Plover | 1 |
| Common Ringed Plover | 6 |
| Little Ringed Plover | 2 |
| Common Sandpiper | 1 |
| Common Redshank | 1 |
| Whimbrel | 1 |
| Black-tailed Godwit | 18 |
| Bar-tailed Godwit | 4 |
| Ruddy Turnstone | 2 |
| Red Knot | 2 |
| Ruff | 1 |
| Sanderling | 2 |
| Dunlin | 4 |
| Black-headed Gull | 30 |
| Mediterranean Gull | 2 |
| Herring Gull | 2 |
| Common Tern | 10 |
| Common Wood Pigeon | 6 |
| European Turtle Dove | 1 |
| Common Cuckoo | 1 |
| Common Swift | 4 |
| Common Kestrel | 1 |
| Eurasian Magpie | 2 |
| Eurasian Jackdaw | 10 |
| Carrion Crow | 4 |
| Sky Lark | 2 |
| Barn Swallow | 4 |
| Common House Martin | 4 |
| Great Tit | 1 |
| Eurasian Blue Tit | 2 |
| Long-tailed Tit | 2 |
| Eurasian Wren | 1 |
| Cetti’s Warbler | 4 |
| Willow Warbler | 1 |
| Common Chiffchaff | 4 |
| Sedge Warbler | 4 |
| Eurasian Reed Warbler | 3 |
| European Robin | 8 |
| Eurasian Blackbird | 6 |
| Song Thrush | 3 |
| Dunnock | 2 |
| Pied Wagtail | 2 |
| Meadow Pipit | 4 |
| Reed Bunting | 1 |
| Common Chaffinch | 4 |
| European Greenfinch | 2 |
| European Goldfinch | 4 |
Bird Sightings : Chosely Drying Barns
| Red-legged Partridge | 4 |
| Eurasian Dotterel | 4 |