Sunday 20 September 2009

Black Lark at Winterton?!

Philip and me went off to the coast early on and arrived at Waxham to see the wind had picked up overnight. Birds were immediately obvious on arrival in a large field covered in stinking muck. Mainly mippits, I raised my bins and saw a Wheatear plonk down. A better start than yesterday I thought. We toiled down to the foot of the dunes and then down towards the pipe dump, seeing very little save a couple more Wheatears. Philip found a good hoverfly, telling me it's latin name, which I promptly forgot. He also found a dead Wheatear, well, a pile of Wheatear feathers, presumably a Merlin or Sprawk kill. Around the pipe dump, a Whinchat was hanging out on the brambles, and a decent flock of mippits and linnets were on the grass. A good grilling failed to find us a rosefinch or Red-throated Pipit, so we ambled back through the fields checking every mippit we flushed, to no avail. Tempted by a bacon sarnie, we popped into Winterton so we could use the cafe. The place was heaving with birders; it looked like a big twitch! It turned out that all these people had turned up to see a Red-breasted Fly! Unbelievable! Anyway, we enjoyed our brew and bacon sarnie then we legged it.
After more fatherly duties, took the family down to Buckenham to see if an ibis or two had dropped in again. Sadly not, though almost half a dozen Hobbies catching dragonflies over the marshes was a fine sight, as was a Wheatear by the cattle coral. The Red-breasted Goose was busy grazing among the large flock of (78) Egyptian Geese and Greylags, presumably fine-tuning it's 'wild' performance before joining a large Brent flock on the north coast in November. The Wigeon flock is increasing with over 40 counted, plus several Teal. Just need a bit of water for them now! Back home, a couple of Chiffchaffs moving along the back hedge calling before dusk and heard the Little Owls again.

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