We were staying at the Crown Hotel in Mundford again for three nights so, after breakfast, we headed off to Santon Downham. We parked at the Forestry Commission office forst but they were closed as it was a Sunday so we wandered around a bit taking a few wrong turns before we settled on a walk that took us down to the Little Ouse. We decided that that wasn’t really what we wanted so we backtracked and drove up to the St Helen’s Picnic Site where we walked another section of the river dropping in briefly at All Saints Church.
We didn’t see any of the birds we had hoped to see and it was all very disappointing really. We do not have a good grasp of this area and we felt that we could have done with some guidance. I did look into this for the Thetford area but there was nothing available for the period we were there. We called it a day quite early and decided instead to chill out a bit.
We decided to have a look around Lynford Arboretum. We have only really explored the “cafe” side of Lynford Arboretum but there is also the bit on the other side of the main road that goes down to Lynford Lake. Again it all seemed a bit late in the season for displaying and singing birds so, interesting as it was at the arboretum, we didn’t see that much of particular interest. It was all good exercise and the blazing hot weather continued.
Our last port of call for the day was to East Wretham Heath which we had been told was a good birding site and appears in the NWT books. Again it was a little disappointing but it was great to be out in the open again and it was all good training for the rest of the holiday.
Bird Sightings : Santon Downham 8th May 2022
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Blackbird | 3 |
| Carrion Crow | 10 |
| Chaffinch | 1 |
| Cuckoo | 1 |
| Goldcrest | 1 |
| Great Spotted Woodpecker | 1 |
| Great Tit | 4 |
| Mallard | 4 |
| Pheasant | 2 |
| Pied Wagtail | 2 |
| Robin | 3 |
| Rook | 20 |
| Swallow | 5 |
| Treecreeper | 1 |
| Willow Warbler | 1 |
| Wren | 1 |
Bird Sightings : Lynford Arboretum 8th May 2022
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Carrion Crow | 5 |
| Chaffinch | 1 |
| Collared Dove | 2 |
| Coot | 2 |
| Cuckoo | 1 |
| Egyptian Goose | 2 |
| Goldfinch | 3 |
| Magpie | 3 |
| Mallard | 4 |
| Mute Swan | 1 |
| Robin | 2 |
| Woodpigeon | 3 |
Bird Sightings : East Wretham Heath 8th May 2022
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| Black-headed Gull | 4 |
| Canada Goose | 6 |
| Carrion Crow | 5 |
| Chaffinch | 1 |
| Coot | 4 |
| Cuckoo | 1 |
| Goldfinch | 3 |
| Little Grebe | 1 |
| Magpie | 2 |
| Mallard | 6 |
| Mute Swan | 6 |
| Robin | 1 |
| Rook | 40 |
| Shelduck | 6 |
| Woodpigeon | 4 |