CHOSELY BARNS - TITCHWELL RESERVE - OLD HUNSTANTON BEACH AREA - CHOSELY BARNS - TITCHWELL RESERVE
WEATHER: bright and sunny for most of the day with two mini-rain showers. Very windy with gust up to 40mph and very cold once again.
As you can see from our destination list in the heading, we did not go far from 'home' today, we were chasing a few species that we had missed and to tell you the truth we had a duff day, missing most of our targets. However, we both said that we enjoyed our day out, despite not seeing what we wanted to see.
Chosely Barns are stone's throw away from Titchwell and very close to our holiday accommodation, we arrived there in about 10 minutes after leaving our holiday home at 8am. It was windy out in the open fields near the barns with a biting, cold wind, we had to shelter behind a hedge to keep our scopes still as we scanned the fields. Our target birds were Yellowhammer, Corn Bunting and Grey Partridge, guess how many of those we saw.........yes correct, we saw none of them!
a bunch of Red-legged Partridges near Chosely Barns
What we did see was our first Stock Doves, a field full of Pink-footed Geese (apparently there was a TUNDRA BEAN GOOSE in with the flock of 1,500 Pink Foots), we saw several Red Kites, dozens of Red-legged Partridges, a few Pheasant, some Muntjac Deer and plenty of Hares. We saw two Hares standing up and 'boxing' with one another (apparently it is the females that do this!).
Other species seen in the 'Barns' Area were Common and Black-headed Gulls, Common Buzzards, a Mistle Thrush and plenty of common garden birds. We drove the short distance to Titchwell because Guy still wanted to look for a Woodcock in the daylight hours. We missed that bird too. We walked down to the Parrinder Hide to scan the islands in the large freshwater lagoon for a Water Pipit, we couldn't find that one either.
A Shoveler.....I wonder how it got its name?
Curlew with breakfast
Plenty of other species were on show, the large number of Golden Plovers and Lapwings was impressive, but everything was hunkered down because of the very strong winds, we could hardly open the windows to the hides.
Avocets, Lapwings and Golden Plovers
Before we left Titchwell I had to indulge Guy and join him in the cafe for a coffee and a bacon bun, I must admit both items were superb, a great idea, Guy. From Titchwell we drove to Old Hunstanton and parked by the Golf Course, we intended to walk across the beach to the shingle bank to have another look for the Glaucous Gull, you can guess what's coming? Correct, we dipped on the Gull once again, it had flew off after feeding on the carcass of a seal. Two other species had been seen in the general area, Shore Lark and Snow Bunting.
We had to walk quite a bit further to see the Snow Buntings, it took quite a while to find the flock of about 30 birds and in very windy conditions we watched from afar. At this point we split up, I walked across the golf course to Holme with both scopes and Guy walked back along the beach to Old Hunstanton to collect the car. He was lucky enough to see the Shore Larks on his way back. During this time a huge black cloud came over and threatened to drown us, but the clouds verred off southward and we only got a minor shower.
Snow Buntings hunkered down in the shigle to escape the strong winds
After we met up again we decided to try Chosely Barns once more and this time we had a modicum of success when we found a bunch of Yellowhammers along a hedgerow with Chaffinches and Red-legged Partridges. We watched them for a while before driving down the lane back to Titchwell. A cup of hot chocolate went down very well and warmed us up before we walked back to the large lagoon to scan for the Water Pipit for the last time.
those yellow dots in the picture are Yellowhammers with a Red-legged Partrdige below them.
here are two of the Yellowhammers perched
Having dipped on the pipit we headed back towards the visitor's centre, we stopped half-way and spent some watching the Marsh Harrier-gathering above the distant reedbed, they were preparing to roost. It was pretty impressive, we counted 28 Marsh Harriers in the sky together and behind us, looking westward, we saw another seven birds.
We then walked to the wooded area near the 'Fen Trail' and waited for darkness to engulf us. It was 5pm when the Woodcocks starting to leave the woods, we saw six of them this time, a fitting end to our, not so, very successful day.