Nottinghamshire Birdwatchers’ Minibus Trip - Norfolk

20^th January 2008
Trip Report by Neil Glenn
Photographs by Lynne & Ron Demaine

When advertising this day out, I deliberately left the destination blank so I could decide closer to the time. At one point, the choices of the north-west (Glossy Ibis, Great Egret, geese, Green-winged Teal, etc), Yorkshire (Desert Wheatear, Black-throated Diver, Purple Sandpipers, Med Gulls, etc) and Norfolk (the usual!) were all neck-and-neck. However, as the day neared, there was only one county in the running and that was Norfolk.

I fear one day the group will become tired of visiting East Anglia but they seemed eager when I informed them where they were going. The presence of Britain’s fourth ever White-crowned Sparrow may have had something to do with it.

Everyone arrived on time, including several new faces that had been quick off the mark on December 30th (all three minibus trips filled in nine minutes when booking started on this date!). It was especially pleasing to see a twelve year old on board, bleary-eyed but keen at 5.25am! (Read Jake Hill's own trip report)

The journey passed without event. The only surprise was that we only spotted one Barn Owl: a beautiful creature perched on a roadside post by the A148. We rolled up at Cley-next-the-Sea at 8.30am and were quickly in position in front of the by now famous garden where the sparrow regularly fed on bird seed.

As most people peered intently onto the driveway in the garden, I watched the scrub to the right and behind the group. Lynne, PJ and Greg K studied the left side of the hedge and we settled in for the bird to show. We had all angles covered! Even ex-Nottinghamshire Recorder Steve Keller showed up, late as usual: I guessed that he wanted us to show him the bird as he wouldn’t know what one looked like (I’m going to get a severe beating for that joke but it was worth it).

It wasn’t long before the group to the left indicated that the sparrow had dropped in to the hedge by the road. The crowd gathered and everyone got superb views of this mega rarity just five yards in front of us. Or so I thought!

Jake, the young lad on his first minibus trip with us, just missed the bird in the hedge but saw it in flight as it nipped into the garden. We took up a position so we could see the driveway and sure enough, the White-crowned Sparrow dropped out of the bushes in to full view.

It disappeared again and I asked Jake if he had seen it. He hadn’t! It was just his luck that the bars on the gates had obscured his view!! We didn’t have to wait long before it hopped out again and everyone had a second look (Jake his first look). What a superb bird!

After depositing a donation in the collection bucket (the sparrow has so far helped raise over £3,500 for the local church fund!), we made way to allow late arrivals to get in. We drove the short distance to Salthouse beach car park, which looked more like a series of tiny wader scrapes. We could see many people already watching what we were searching for and made our way over to join them.

We were rewarded with unbelievably close views of Snow Buntings and Turnstones feeding on the saltings. We also managed to pick out one or two Lapland Buntings in the Snowy flock but they vanished as other people ‘pushed’ the flock. Instead of standing still and letting the birds come to them, people chased the birds along the beach.

Our group waited and we soon had the Snow Buntings feeding almost around our feet. There was a beautiful male in with them too, which was an added bonus. A female Merlin zipped across the marsh to round off that part of the day.

News broke that the regular, but mobile, Lesser Snow Goose was showing in fields not far away. This flock is mobile so I felt we should travel to see them while we knew where they were.

Even from the minibus, the distant white dot in a field was obvious. It may have well held up a neon sign saying “eat me!” What weren’t immediately obvious were the 5,000 or so Pink-footed Geese in the same field. It was an amazing sight!

We next called in at the new visitor centre at Cley NWT. A female Stonechat greeted us in the car park. People spread out to try to find the Water Pipits that were occasionally reported in the fields; others used the time for a snack and refreshment stop.

The pipits were nowhere to be seen though the fields held a large flock of Greenfinches and Linnets. A quick scan of the marsh produced Avocets, several hundred Golden Plovers, several species of wildfowl and a Marsh Harrier that put the whole lot up in to the air. A male Stonechat watched us as we watched the harrier.

It was now midday and we headed for a supermarket car park in Cromer. We arrived to find a few disconsolate individuals looking for the Waxwing. It was a struggle to find any berries on the trees so finding the Waxwing seemed a doomed effort.

Ron smooth-talked a local (what a charmer) and found out the bird favoured a stand of low berry bushes we had somehow failed to notice hidden away in the hedge. As he was telling us this, the Waxwing flew in and perched in full view at the top a nearby tree!!

We stayed still and the bird eventually dropped to the berries and began to feed. No matter how many Waxwings birdwatchers have seen they cannot resist being charmed by yet another and this creature was no exception. Pity it was on its own, though.

As we made our way along the A148 back towards Kings Lynn, many caught up on a bit of sleep. It had been a bit of a tick-and-run trip so far and I was looking forward to a bit of ‘proper’ birdwatching at Roydon Common. The same Barn Owl as this morning enlivened the journey and we came across another gaggle of about 5,000 Pink-footed Geese in a field by the road.

We arrived at Roydon NWT to find people returning from the heath with tales of how nicely the Great Grey Shrike was showing. By the time we were all off the bus, it had started to rain quite heavily: not good conditions for locating a shrike or roosting birds of prey.

A row of gorse afforded some protection from the elements but the shrike “had dropped out of sight into a dip”. We waited and waited but it failed to show. I edged forward to try and see if I could see the shrike in the dip. No luck.

I then began to scan further afield and saw the familiar shape of a Great Grey Shrike perched on a small tree in the far distance. I turned to signal the group only to find everyone was already staring in the right direction.

A ghostly male Hen Harrier had also appeared and it was all eyes to telescopes to watch the action. We moved a little way onto the heath for closer views of the birds. The shrike had moved once more but we were entertained by three ring-tailed (a generic term for females or immatures) Hen Harriers drifting across the bog. They occasionally perched in bushes but the male failed to reappear.

We made our way back to the minibus before the looming storm reached us and we closed the doors just as the first spots fell. PHEW!

A day of quality birds rather than quantity, though a quick count produced around 70 species. Unsurprisingly, White-crowned Sparrow was voted Bird-of-the-Day. I am pretty sure that if this mega-rarity hadn’t been present, the magical sight of fifty Snow Buntings creating a snowstorm around us would have easily won the vote.

I have also updated the species list we have seen since I have started taking these trips.

Birds Seen:

Also seen: Rabbit.