I'm back!!...well I've never been away really. I've just not
posted for a while due to various reasons, lack of time, lack of inspiration or,
more to the point, I guess it's just been down to shear laziness on my part!! Although you'll be pleased to know that I haven't
forgotten you all and I've been keeping up to date with reading all of your
blogs. (sorry for the lack of comments!!).
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This is the first in
a series of three posts (not many words of wisdom just a selection of images
that I hope you will enjoy) each one dedicated to a different location that
I've had the pleasure of visiting since the beginning of the month.
The first day of February dawned cold and frosty and at around 5.30 am I arrived at Keith's house on the start of our 200+ mile round trip to the RSPB's reserve at Titchwell Marsh in Norfolk. We arrived just after 8am, after experiencing a beautiful red sunrise during the journey, to a cold sunny blue sky morning. It looked like being a good day weather wise, little did we know that out on the reserve a strong bitterly (and I mean BITTERLY !!) cold Easterly wind was blowing directly from Siberia!!
After a cup of coffee and some sandwiches (thanks Keith) in
the car park and a photo session with the numerous Robins that soon appeared to
greet us, they're well fed I think and hence quite confiding, we set of on our
walk around the reserve.
Around by the back of the back of the visitor centre Keith
soon spied a group of Redpoll feeding high up in some Alder trees and it was
not long before he had spotted that they were not only Lesser Redpolls but also Common, or Mealy,
Redpolls, and then he exclaims "there!, look!, that one's much lighter
than the others, I reckon that's an Arctic Redpoll" And sure enough once
the visitor centre was open it was confirmed by the staff and the sightings
book that it was indeed a Coues's Arctic Redpoll! So it looked like we were off
to good start, and within minutes of leaving the car!
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| Common Redpoll (I think!) |
As soon as we left the cover of the trees we felt the full
force of the cold wind which made it very difficult to hold our bino's and
cameras steady and as most birds were at a distance picture taking opportunities
were mostly curtailed to 'fly byes'.
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| Brent Geese |
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| Greylag Geese |
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| Pintail (male) |
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| Shelduck (male) |
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| Black - Tailed Godwit |
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| Grey Plover |
We had pre booked a guided walk (highly recommended, and
free to RSPB members) for 12.30pm so, after more coffee and sandwiches, we met
up with our guide, David Pelling, for a very enjoyable and informative tour were he explained all about the history
and objectives of the reserve as well as pointing out some of the birds that we
had missed previously!
So, after around 8 hours of excellent birding (apart from
the wind, that is!) and a count of 63 different species of bird it was time to
set off on the two and a half hour journey for home.
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| Time for Home |
A short video mainly
of the wind!!!
