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

 

Black-browed Albatross at Bempton cliffs. ( what a beauty )

A mad idea from Brian to leave home at 12 o'clock and drive 4 hours up to Bempton Cliffs for a lifer is agreed by Jimmy and myself.   As mad as it is you don't get to see an Albatross every week, and it is always a pleasure to visit this fantastic reserve.  We arrive just after 4 am to find the car parks almost full, there must be over 300 birders already lining the cliffs, so full of hope that the bird is still around and that people could get us onto it straight away is a pipe dream as we are told the bird had not been seen leaving the roost site on the cliff and people had been on site since 3 am and there was no sign of it anywhere.

The weather is horrible, cold, windy, drizzly & no bird not a great start to the day.

It gets to 7 am and the mood is not good all around the now very large twitch, then those fantastic words are heard when a birder shouts  "there it is" everybody is now on the move to get to see it.

My first sight of it is as it flies around with the Gannets and then heads straight towards us, what a great sight, it was a lot harder to pick out than we thought it would be as it blended in with the Gannets until we get to see the black wings & the head size in better light.  

Over the next few hours, we get some great views of the Albatross as it flies up and down the cliffs and then lands on the cliff face to give us wonderful scope views.

As you would expect the place is now buzzing and we see a few people that we know and a few faces that we bump into at twitches like this to make this a great decision to come all this way, just the long drive home now but well worth it to see this fantastic lifer.

Black-browed Albatross

Roller in Suffolk.

 As usual, Brian had been to see the Roller on Wednesday, Jimmy & myself were hoping the bird would hang about till we could get there.

Thursday was a no-go for us but after seeing the bird was still about on Friday we are keen to go, a text from Brian tells us that he is keen to see the bird again so he will drive us.

A bonus again for us is when Robert can come with us as he needs it for a lifer.

It's a late start around 10 o'clock but it's only an hour before we are parking luckily we find a sport in a grass lay-by on the A1101 a very dangerous road for bird watching.

All we have to do is cross the road & we are onto the Roller as it sits on a distance fence post.

 It then gives us a wonderful display as it flies up & down the fence line, every few minutes it would land high on a bush before dropping to the ground & it came back up with a massive worm in its beak.

The closest view of the morning is when the Roller flies up onto the wires & poeses for the cameras that had gathered. What a cracking looking bird & only an hour from home & to have Robert with us to get him a lifer is a great bonus for us all.

Beautiful.

The first view we had of the Roller.

 

Another 

Bee Eaters at Breydon Water Norfolk.

A late call from Brian gets us heading off to Norfolk for the Bee-eaters at Breydon Water. It's a 2-hour drive to Great Yarmouth before we park & at Gapton hall we are off towards the allotments. We had been told on the way down the track that the birds had gone missing. Unperturbed we head on & meet up with some fellow birders & it was one-off them that put us onto a single Bee-eater in the distance, so we have a year tick but want more.  It's back in the car & head back to the rugby club car park & once parked we are off down to the farm & that was a great decision as we get stunning views of 9 beautiful Bee-eaters.   It was the only tick of the day but what a great one.

4 of the 9 birds seen.

  

Another 2,  beautiful