North Norfolk Coast

An Afternoon Between Thornham And Cley Next The Sea – Wednesday 12^th November 2014 

First of all an apology: If you have tried watching some of our Mull videos. There seems to be a glitch in iMovie 11 as there was a couple of weeks ago. When I process the videos they appear to be fine, except for a few problems with the insertion of stills; it is when I upload them to YouTube and the iCloud they become jittery and stutter. I am currently working on replacing the affected videos with improved versions.

As Jan is working three days this week and I have another hospital appointment (the sixth in 12 months) today is the only opportunity for us to get out properly.

We left home just after 11am but unfortunately it took us a bit longer than usual to get to the North coast as our preferred route was closed so we had to take a long detour via Kings Lynn. Although the weather looked threatening at times it improved and by the time we got to Choseley it was breezy but quite bright and the temperature was about 12C.

On our journey between Little Cressingham and South Pickenham we had seen a large flock of Starlings and Redwings on a roadside field and then a bit further along in the hedgerows of Peddars Way we saw a mixed flock of Greenfinches and Yellowhammers making the most of what was left of the hedgerow fruits.

Jan saw what she thought was a Stoat run across the road, successfully, in front of us.

As we approached Docking there was large flock of Geese on one of the fields but we were travelling too fast to be able to identify them properly but as we came up to a junction there was a couple of Egyptian Geese with some Mallard.

At Choseley we saw a Kestrel that was obviously very hungry as it tried, unsuccessfully, to get a Magpie and then some Redwings. Moving on down to Thornham Harbour where the tide was out and at first sight there didn’t appear to be much there but we sat on the bench overlooking the creek. We could see in the distance Shelducks, Curlew, Redshank, Little Egrets, Oystercatchers, Herring Gulls, Lesser and Greater Black Backed Gulls.

As we sat there several small flocks of Starlings came over but there was a larger flock of about 80 birds that was just a little bit out of our range but they were either Twite or Linnet. We noticed a group of birders on the sea wall watching these birds and later we spoke to one of them who confirmed they were Twite. There were also several of these spread about in the undergrowth. How amazing was that; it was only last week that we had seen our first Twite in a group of 8 and today we had seen more in our home county. We saw some more during the afternoon, which put the total up to about 100.

As we were leaving Thornham I noticed a bird in the Creek by The Stone Coal Barn. At first look I thought it was a Redshank but there was something a bit different about it, it was a Spotted Redshank. Strangely, the only Spotted Redshank we’d seen in the past was also in this location.

Spotted Redshank

We moved onto Brancaster Staithe where we had our coffee and lunch. There were plenty of mixed birds on the Staithe: Redshank, Oystercatchers, Cormorants, Dunlin, Little Egret, Mallard, Turnstones, Curlew, Brent Geese and Black Headed Gulls. Then a dog walker came along and cleared the whole area, but it was good to see a young Labrador pup trying to encourage a much older dog into playing and swimming.

There wasn’t very much at Burnham Norton except for a few Brent Geese but as we were leaving we saw a Muntjac Deer in one of the gardens.

Moving onto Burnham Overy Staithe we saw Grey Plover, Little Egret, Black Headed Gulls, Teal, and some more Twite. We also a good sighting of a Bar Tailed Godwit.

Bar Tailed Godwit

As we approached Holkham there were already several skeins of Geese in the air and when we parked up in  Lady Ann’s Drive next to some Pink-footed Geese there were 100s of Geese taking off from the Fresh Marsh and the beach. We also saw a Kestrel hovering there.

Pink-footed Geese

By the time we got to Cley Beach the light was nearly gone so we decided to make our way home. It had been a lovely afternoon but I’m afraid I was already feeling anxious about the hospital appointment tomorrow.

Keep your eyes peeled and good spotting.