Nottinghamshire Birdwatchers’ Minibus Trip - Norfolk
20th January 2008
Trip Report by Jake Hill
My name is Jake Hill and this is my first article about our trip to Norfolk on a Notts Birdwatchers minibus trip, Hope you enjoy.
I had to get up very early, so did mum because she had to take dad and me to the priory island so we could get the minibus. It was a long trip to Kings Lynn (I had a snooze!!) where we had a break to stretch our legs and go to the toilet. When we got going again we went to Cley-next-the-Sea to see the White Crowned Sparrow. There was about 60-70 people trying to look on a 6ft wide driveway, after a while of not seeing the sparrow someone whistled and pointed to the Sparrow, it was behind us!!! Neil took me round the back of everyone so I could see it but just as was about to look it flew off (I saw it fly). A few minutes later it came onto the driveway, I bent down to see it so I was in no ones way but then I couldn’t see because one of the panels on the gate was in the way. A few more minutes later it came out again and this time I got a good view of it.
After watching the sparrow for a few minutes we went back to the minibus and headed off to Salthouse. There had been reports of Snow Bunting and Lapland Bunting and as we drove down the track to the car park we saw a gathering of people looking at something so we headed towards them. As we walked across the pebbles we were greeted by a flock of small buntings. We soon had them in our binoculars and we could tell they were Snow Buntings but I couldn’t pick out the Laplands. However some of the people on our trip had their scopes on them and they let me have a look. I got a brief glimpse of one but I could make out the difference in the plumage to the Snow Bunting. They entertained us for about half an hour by flying over our heads and landing within a few feet of us several times. As well as the Buntings there was lots of Turnstones and we were lucky enough to see a Merlin fly over.
Unfortunately we had to move on and get back to the minibus to go and see our next target bird. About 10 minutes later we were driving down narrow country lanes looking for fields of geese. Eventually we found a field that lots of people seemed interested in. So we jumped off the minibus to look at what appeared to be an empty field but in fact was full of Pink-Footed Geese but that wasn’t what we were looking for. What we were looking for was a Snow Goose and there it was sat in the middle of the field, a bright white lump surrounded by dark brown lumps!!! Interestingly last September we went on a RSPB boat trip from Bridlington and saw several skeins of pink feet and in one of them was a Snow Goose, wonder if it was the same one?
Next stop was the visitor centre at Cley for Water Pipits and water closets!!! We scanned the field they were reported in but there was no sign of them. We could see the marshes from where we were standing and we had views of: Avocets, Golden Plovers and we got a great view of a Marsh Harrier soaring over the reeds.
Now we were off to a supermarket car park, in Cromer, not to buy anything but to see a Waxwing. After waiting for 20 minutes we began to think it wasn’t going to show up and then suddenly there it sat in the top of a tree. We had good views of this lovely looking bird for a while until it dropped down into some bushes to have his dinner.
The next and final stop was Roydon Common for a Great Grey Shrike and the raptor roost. The drive over there was very quiet, I think everyone was catching up on some much needed sleep!!! Just as we got there it started to rain and by the time we got to the place where the shrike had been seen it was coming down really heavy. The shrike was nowhere to be seen, it obviously had more sense than us and was sheltering from the pouring rain. After a while the rain stopped and a few minutes later someone spotted the Hen Harriers in the distance. Then a stroke of luck, as Jenny tried to get the harriers in her scope she put it straight on the shrike. We all had a look at the shrike and then walked around the track to get better views of the harriers. We weren’t disappointed as we got great views of a male and 3 ring-tails. We also had views of a man in a woodpile wearing a red hat, very strange!!!
We then went back to the minibus and headed off to the nearest services to top up with fuel and while we were there we voted for bird of the day. Whilst everyone agreed that the Snow Buntings were fantastic the White-Crowned Sparrow just won it.
On the trip I saw 4 new birds: Hen Harriers, Snow Bunting, Lapland Bunting and White-Crowned Sparrow.
I really enjoyed my day out to Norfolk, thanks to Neil for driving and thanks to everyone else for making us feel welcome and letting us use your scopes to see some of the fantastic birds.
Hope you enjoyed reading my first article and I look forward to contributing more in the future.
Jake Hill
