Wednesday February 9
Not too bad when we set off, steadily becoming pretty dreadful as we drove west. The weather that is. Another grey mizzly day.
Persevering, directly to Snettisham, arriving an hour before high tide. It was also very cold. An icy wind sweeping across the bird polka dotted mud. More than thirty Avocets huddled on the shoreline, maybe fifty Pintail dabbled in the water filled gully, mostly handsome drakes with their DA hairdos. I may have caught a short glimpse of the wintering Little Stint - before it disappeared down a mud crevice. It wasn't long before we left for Hunstanton clifftop, from which I scoped the Wash. Four Goldeneye, followed by four Red-breasted Mergansers, two pairs, on an otherwise empty sea.
Greg had told us of a mixed finch flock along the road to Choseley Barns. As we arrived, a flock of over a hundred small finches swooshed their erratic way across the sky before many of them landing in a roadside tree. We stopped a distance away, seeing that many of them were Brambling. Two minutes later, they erupted into the air, split into three groups and disappeared. We didn't see them again. Nor did we see the reported Spoonbills at Holkham.
Brancaster Staithe is always a favourite. Especially with a full tide filling the inlet, floating the boats, hiding the mud islands, with only two other cars to impede the view. A Cormorant posed onshore before sliding into the water, fishing his way downstream.
Black-tailed Godwits probed the mud, most of their colour bleached by the backlit, no sun, day. It contributed for an interesting composition. Not sure whether -or not - I like the effect.
We were home before three o'clock, pleased to have been out, even if the weather was poor and the birds not forthcoming.
No comments:
Post a Comment