September the First

Sunday Sep 1

Where has the month gone? At last, I'm virtually over my bad infection and able to contemplate - and carry out - a day's birding.

Not out until 6.15, not long after sunrise, a virtually bird -song and sight free drive to Abbey farm. We could see well to-day, no birds to see though. We'd picked up two Buzzards en route and a covey of four young and an adult Grey Partridge hopped onto the top of a farm wall as we approached. I managed a couple of pics  of these very wary birds before they departed.

As is usual in September, Jays were very obvious to-day.
The Buckthorn bushes on the Holme entry road looked amazing, thickly festooned with trusses of bright orange berries.

Low tide, we gave Snettisham a miss, hoping to see  waders at Titchwell. As we walked the path out, a Hobby sped on its way towards Thornham. The couple in front of us alerted us to it by lifting their bins skywards. Fortunately another couple moved on so that we could sit on a bench to scan the freshwater pool, which was very waterless. All the birds were on the small area of water towards the back of the pool. A good number of juvenile Curlew Sandpipers and Dunlin, a couple of Little Stints, both Godwits and 30+ Avocets were the highlight. There were no Avocets at Cley on Friday, they'd already moved  to Breydon on their way to their wintering grounds on the Exe estuary. We'd had Spotted Redshank and Greenshank on the walk out.

Passing my scope over for Pam to have a scan, she found a lone Snipe feeding under Parrinder Hide. 

The Hopkins' stopped for a chat about a  mutual Colombia experience, they've been twice. John thinks that he's getting past the difficult stuff too and may well give Irian Jaya a miss. Two Spoonbills flew in whilst we were chatting.

Driving past Burnham Norton, an Osprey flew over the car. What a lucky sighting, we often miss Norfolk Ospreys.

A quick call in to Cley Beach for a Sandwich Tern and home. Some good birds to-day but only 76 in total.