New year birding. off we go 2022.

With Brian unable to join us for our usual first day of the year trip to Kent or Norfolk due to a family hospital visit, Jimmy and I head to the local KGV reservoir.

Big numbers of birds are never on the cards but it gets us out and a couple of fairly rare birds for here have been hanging about for some days now, so off we go and over the next few hours we find the Great Northern Diver and the Red-necked Grebe without to much trouble along with 5 Little Grebes, some Great-crested Grebes, Pied and Grey Wagtail plus all the usual stuff. On the river running alongside we spot 2 Goosander and a Little Egret plus some Goldeneye.

So up and running for the new year and along with birds spotted on the way to the reservoir and my garden the first day total gives us 37 ticks, not a lot but better than nothing and we are looking forward to heading to the coast with Brian tomorrow.

We meet up with Brian on the second day and head to Norfolk for a full day's birding.

The first stop of the trip is a gamble as it is still fairly dark but we give it a try and head to a place called Southery and after a drive down a long road we get no sight of the Bewick Swans. They had been seen the day before. we turn round and on the way back towards the top of the lane we spot 4 Swans and once we get the scope on them we have a tick as they are the Bewicks, so a good start to the trip.

Off now to Twitchwell RSPB. On the way, we stop off at Hunstanton to tick a Fulmar.

Over the few hours, we spent at Titchwell a total of 50 or so ticks are seen.

Great White Egret, Water Pipit, plus many Sanderling, Turnstone, and Oystercatcher up on the beach are good to watch.

Next up we are off to Holkham. Stopping off for a quick tick at Wells, where we see a Cattle Egret that had been reported.

Lady Anne's drive at Holkham was packed full of people all out for a nice new year stroll and it was hard to find a parking space. I find it a long walk to the roped-off area on the beach where we find the 4 Shorelark and on the saltmarsh over 50 Snow Bunting show.

A quick look out to sea gets us 3 Velvet Scoter followed by a large flock of Common which gets us a couple of more ticks to round off a great day's birding that took my total up to 88.

Pacific Diver at Eglwys Nunydd reservoir Glamorgan ( Lifer )

We had been watching this Pacific diver for a while with a lot of frustration as we had no transport to get us to Wales as Brian's car decided to stop working in protest of all the work it had been put through on our many birding trips over the last few years,

As the bird continued to hang around the frustration got the better of Brian and we now have another bird mobile for Brian to drive us around this wonderful country seeing lovely places, meeting nice people, and doing the thing we love watching birds.

So on Monday 27th, we leave home at 5am to drive the 200 miles to Glamorgan in Wales for our first trip for a while of any distance, it's a nasty old morning rain and mist nearly all the way. On arrival, we pull into the car park at Margam cemetery at 8.30 & it's not long before we are joined by a couple of birders who had been here the day before, so we follow them up the path of the crematorium and over a grassy hill just a short walk and within 10 minutes of leaving the car we are looking over the reservoir and as luck would have it the Pacific Diver is in our corner and only a short distance away to give us cracking views of another lifer for all 3 of us. 

After a couple of hours of watching this cracking-looking bird, we just head back home without doing any more birding on a grey sort of day with only the one bird that we needed for a tick but what a cracker. A bit of frustration as Brian had picked up a tick when he spotted a Dipper but failed to get us on it despite the fact he saw it 3 times, never mind we got what we came for.

                                                                                                                           

Pacific Diver

                                                            

Short-toed Lark ( Lifer ) West Runton Norfolk.

 Up early to head up to Cromer in Norfolk, that should take us just over 2 hours but the M11 is shut for nighttime maintenance and as a result, the trip takes us 4 hours.

On arrival at Water lane West Runton we park the car and after a battle with the parking machine we pay & set off on the short walk to where a small group of birders tells us the Lark has been seen.

We are up high overlooking the beach & the wind is blowing hard making it hard to keep the scope still & the eyes were watering, and only Brian got a quick view of the bird.

Nearly an hour before Jimmy and myself get on the Lark but we then get some great views of another lifer for Jimmy & myself. This is 400 British ticks for Jimmy so a real milestone for him, I am on 384 now so a bit to do still.

After we had our share of the Short-toed Lark we head to Cley & get a year tick when a Great Skua passes by as we scope from the beach shelter, not too much else about so we set off to pop in at Holkham for the Shorelarks & get rewarded when we spot 4 birds walking about inside the roped-off area.

We don't hang about long as we all feel a bit cold. 

So after a bad start to the day, we end up with a lifer & a couple of year ticks, and of course Jimmy's long-awaited 400th tick.   

Short-toed Lark at West Runton 

Shore lark

                

Nice trip to Titchwell RSPB.

The three of us decide we need a day birding, so it's up to leave at 5.30am and drive to Norfolk for a visit to Titchwell RSPB, we arrive around 7.20 & head towards the freshmarsh.

A Grey Phalarope had been seen over the last few days & it was seen within minutes of arrival. It was close to the path giving us great views of this funny little bird.

The work that has been done on the marsh, putting in more scrapes & Islands looks like it will attract loads of waders a great job.

A pair of Pink-footed Geese fly overhead for a year tick, that just shows how little we have been out under the covid rules, trips to the coast being few & far between. 

Our last trip out was to St Aidan's RSPB for the Long-toed Stint at the start of the month

There were a load of birds on the marsh, hundreds of Golden Plover, Avocet, Black & Bar-tailed Godwits, Knot, Ruff, Lapwing & many Dunlin. Later we pick out Greenshank, Grey Plover, Turnstone & Curlew. As we walk up to the beach Brian spots a single Guillemot on the flood close in, we think it is not well but as we watch it dive a few times before it flies off back out to sea.

Upon the beach, we soon make contact with the Purple Sandpiper that was walking along the beach.  The bird was very accommodating & came very close for some good photos a nice year tick. While on the beach a single Snow Bunting runs towards us and then 12 more land but fly off quickly.

Loads of Sanderling are running up & down entertaining us. Red-throated Diver also Common Scoter that is a year tick that tells how much we have been out this year.

5 Red-breasted Mergansers fly past & they give me a tick as I missed the one that swam past at the Long-toed Stint twitch.  

So a rare trip out this year but so welcome on a pleasant morning and I end up with a few years ticks.

Purple Sandpiper

Grey Phalarope

    

                                          

Long-toed Stint at Swillington ings. ( Lifer )

Brian had been watching the news about the small bird that had dropped in at  Astley lake on the reserve at Swillington ings near Leeds.

The bird had been identified as a Least Sandpiper & I need that for a lifer, but the boys didn't, so the chance of going over 3 hours is not on but things change when the bird is re-identified as a Long-

toed Stint now all three of us need to tick this mega as there have only been two other sightings in 

England, so when news comes through that the Stint has been seen early morning around 8.30 we get a call to meet up at Brians & we are on the way by 9 o'clock.

It's a clear drive & we arrive at 12.15pm. The place is packed with cars parked all the way up both sides of the road & we head into the reserve to find the place packed but we get lucky when a car pulls out & we are in like a shot.

It's a long old walk before we meet up with hundreds of birders & get ourselves on the end of the line without too much trouble & the bird is on a small island in front of us to give all 3 of us another lifer.

We spend a fair while watching the bird looking to pick out what we had read up about the bird on the way up here.

Never went anywhere else so it's straight back in the car & head off for home feeling really good with ourselves as we have had a bad birding year and are only going for Life ticks because the year list is way down with the covid stuff.

This could be Jimmys 400th bird tick so a really good day, he is counting it as 399 because he is still waiting for the Black-eared Wheatear to be given the green light.

Me looking at the Stint

The Stint

Just a few of a mega crowd

Another lifer at Frampton Marsh. ( Black Stork )

With Brian away with his family for the weekend, we think the chance of getting up to Lincolnshire for a lifer, a Black Stork is slim. It had been seen for a couple of days but I didn't fancy the long drive.  The bird was still being seen on Tuesday and a call from Brian telling us to get down to his house as he can take us to Frampton Marsh in the hope of seeing the Stork.  It's late morning and we quickly hit heavy traffic on the roads heading up there, when we get there we are told that the Stork had flown out of sight, so a bad start after the traffic troubles. We decide to walk out from the car park through the avenue of trees to look for the bird ourselves. we keep walking and as we turn a corner some people had got there in cars, pity we didn't know about that beforehand. As we approached the cars a fellow jumped out of his car and tells us the Stork is flying high above some pylons.  We are straight onto it to give us a distant view of another lifer.   The bird heads out of sight so we walk across the center path to the seawall.   Once on the wall, we get 3 more flight views and see the bird land in the field in front of us for a great view, but just as we think we are going to get some good photos the farmer starts calling his heard of cows, and it scares the Stork away and over the trees and out of sight. 

On a walk around the reserve, we pick up a year tick when Jimmy spots a Little Stint, no sign of the Pacific Golden Plover that was a shame.  Never mind we got what we came for so smiles all around on the way home.

Lifer Black Stork

Minsmere and Oare

On the 3rd of August, we set out to have a day's birding at Minsmere. We need to push our year count up to a reasonable number as we have still not been too active with the trips out this year.

It's off to the beach on arrival and we are soon looking over East scrape which is packed with waders. The first tick of the morning comes when we get great views of the White-rumped Sandpiper, which we had hoped would have stayed for another day. Luckily for us, it had. It's distant but we get good scope views of the bird. The birds on the scrape are flushed by a Marsh Harrier and when they settle a Pectoral Sandpiper is found feeding alongside the White-rumped Sandpiper! Spotted Redshank was also seen for a third year tick of the morning.

We moved onto the public hide and found a single juvenile Arctic Tern among the numerous Little and Sandwich Terns.

Then Brian spots a single Little Gull adding another year tick. We spend the remainder of our visit just walking around the reserve enjoying the day.

The Pec & the White-rumped Sandpiper as they flew past.

The Spotted-Redshank

The next day a Hoopoe had spent the day at Oare Marshes. So we headed there this morning hoping it had stayed overnight. We set off to look for the returning Bonaparte's Gull that we have had the pleasure to see for a few years now and pick it out without too much trouble for a good year tick. Now a long walk for the Hoopoe, a small group had gathered but the bird had not been seen. After a couple of hours, we along with most of the others give up and head back towards the slipway picking out a couple of Whinchats on the way. We spend the next few hours just birding the site. Sadly there was still far too much water on the flood to attract any smaller waders.

The returning Bonaparte's