Three Day Dips

Friday January 14 

It started with an early afternoon trip to Cley in the hope of catching up with a Black Redstart. It had been reported as frequenting the rooftops of the houses west of Cley Centre, mid morning was the latest WhatsApp message..I wasn't very hopeful, but disappointed to miss it.

We went on to Morston, where the tide was high enough to allow a boat with six adults and a child to depart for a Blakeney Point late afternoon Seal trip. 

 

We added a Rock Pipit to the year list. 

For once, a Kestrel stayed on its roadside wire when the car stopped, enabling me to take a photo.

Saturday January 15

I have a compulsion to see Cranes in January. Again, not optimistic as the last report was mid morning, it was the afternoon before we left for Thurne, BirdGuides and my phone taking us to the pin dropped field. No sign of any Cranes, hundreds of Corvids and Wood Pigeons milling about in dense clouds.

Sunday January 16

Those Cranes again. Repps with Bastwick this time, a short way from yesterday's location. Again, it was the afternoon before we left home.One or more Muntjacs are causing a lot of damage to our plants.We are joining a neighbour in putting up a deer fence at the bottom of the garden, on our side of the dyke. Steve came round this morning to measure up, and to make a few adjustments to leaking rooves and cisterns.

Again, no sign of cranes, maybe Thurne/Ludham Marshes would turn up trumps. The car park was full. Many of them birders, the most we've ever seen here. We stayed until 3.30 when the light really had gone. To-day's addition was a Peregrine perched on a gatepost . Another birder, who had one of those binocular lens Swarovski scopes, had seen two Short-eared Owls an hour or so before we got there, He was convinced that they had gone to ground only 60 metres away. If so, they were still there when we left.

A Chinese Water Deer fed nearby, our first Fox of the year slinked through the sedges, very large flights of Cormorants, Lapwings and Pink-footed Geese went to roost. Hunger drove our departure.