A Week in Norfolk.

Hey readers, Its been a little while since I last posted as you know I have been on holiday in Norfolk for the week so haven't been able to do a post. But the wait you have had for a post will be worth it because I have been birding everyday of the holiday (apart from the first day), I did the majority of my birding in one place Caister Beach, I would obviously of liked to tour round many of the Norfolk birding hot-spots but as a whole the holiday wasn't strictly for birding I just did birding when I could. I have to say I absolutely love Caister Beach every year I spend many hours in everyday of our holiday sitting on the beach just watching passing bird species and it always seems to pay off with a good bird or two and this year has been the best of all the years in which we have been to Great Yarmouth. For this post I will go through each day with what I saw and at the end I shall share a tone of pictures from the week, in total I have 433 pictures from the week but don't worry not all of these will be on the post.

Sunday 3rd of August- The first full day of our holiday was a sunny one, always a good thing if I say so myself. During the afternoon I had my first kick of Caister Beach and spent a few hours birding which got me a few good species. The first of which was Med Gull a bird that is actually reasonably common in Norfolk, but even so it was the first I have seen on Caister beach ever, over all three of them fly by which was nice to see. A species I was expecting was Sandwich Tern and plenty of those turned up throughout the visit. The other species I was happy to see so early on in the week was in the form of two Sanderling something that didn't turn up last year until the last day of the week so I was happy to see them. Plenty of Common Gulls were also around all day. I also had some very distant flying birds out at sea that to me looked like Common Scoter, but they were way to far out for me to decide for definite.

Monday 4th of August- Monday had come around and turned out to be an even more productive day than Sunday, I spent probably two hours on the beach sea watching and keeping an eye on the beach to, around 20+ Sandwich Terns flew by throughout the two hours as well as 10+ Med Gulls, two Sanderling, two Oystercatcher, and two Ringed Plover. The unexpected species for me was in the form of my favorite sea bird at least out of the species I have seen the Gannet four birds flew by including one juv bird, and I could see a few more fishing distantly out at sea. These Gannet flew by and offered great views they were not that far out, I really didn't expect to see them so I was very happy to.


Tuesday 5th of August- Tuesday was one of the best days in the holiday for bird and wildlife watching this year. We decided to take a boat trip out to Scroby Sands, the trips main theme is to go out and look at the Common and Grey Seals which were very close to the boat and offered brilliant views, some great photos coming up of those later in the post. After seeing and photographing the seals I moved onto the birds, the first bird that came to my attention was Sanderling there was a lot of these all over the sands feeding near the seals. However I did become more excited when I caught sight of another bird that is a personal lifer for me, this species being Turnstone the bird showed very well and I was chuffed with seeing it seen as it was unexpected. The other species that I was happy to see was Little Tern I haven't seen one of these for a couple of years so it was nice to see them doing well in the area again.

Record shot of the Turnstone

A few few hours after the boat trip I did some time over at Caister beach as I did everyday of the week. Tuesday proved to be even more productive for Caister Beach I had in total 7 Sanderling multiple Sandwich Tern. The surprise species for me was in the form of a Peregrine Falcon I caught the bird as it mobbed passing Sandwich Terns and watched as it flew over the Caister Holiday camp. In addition to that Ringed Plover, Oystercatcher, and Common Gull were also seen.

Wednesday 6th of August-  On Wednesday there was a lot of movement with birds, 10+ Med Gulls flew through in fact probably a hell of a lot more than that, a couple of Sandwich Tern flew through, as well as four Oystercatchers and 4 Swallows. Coming on to 6pm a big movement of terns began to come through multiple Common Terns came through, but I picked another bird out of the crowd that was out distantly at sea, I believe it to have been a Black Tern, I kept a close eye on the bird for a while and it looked to be a highly likely Black Tern but I am not ticking it as I'm not sure enough. In addition to those mentioned species 5+ Gannets were fishing out at sea.

Thursday 7th of August- Thursday turned out to be one of the best birding days of the week compared to previous days. I sat on the beach for another two hours or so and really enjoyed this day, two Med Gulls flew by other species around were Ringed Plover, Common Gull, Sandwich Tern, Cormorant, and a single Seal. I managed to spot a distant flock of birds flying low over sea on looking through my scope I found that it was a flock of 12 Common Scoter this was something I was very happy to see, a nice year tick and a nice addition to the day. But this flock of Common Scoter wasn't the star bird of the day, I spent at least another hour after the Scoters on the beach, and I caught something else in the left corner of my eye, at this point I was thinking it was going to b another gull flying over sea, but when I managed to catch up with the bird in my scope it was quite the opposite, the bird turned out to be an ARCTIC SKUA the bird flew low over the sea and offered good and clear views, it was a species that really topped that days birding for me.

Friday 8th of August- Friday started off quietly when I arrived on the beach, a few Sandwich Tern flew by and that was it at first. It was a very windy day and the sea was very choppy, so I was expecting something to fly through unexpectedly. So I was sitting on a windy beach minding my own business and literally out of no where two FULMAR flew straight past in front of me, a unexpected lifer that I didn't think I would get from this holiday, I almost thought they would land they were flying so low but they eventually flew off away into the distance. After the Fulmar's some Oystercatchers, Ringed Plovers, Common Gull, and a Curlew flew by.

Record shot of one of two Fulmar

Saturday 9th of August- I spent a while on the beach in the morning it was very quiet 5+ Ringed Plover were around, two Cormorants, a Common Tern, 5+ Oystercatchers, 5+ Sandwich Tern, 5 Linnet and a Curlew was the all the species I managed to see.

So a very good week overall, two lifers, and so many other species that I was very chuffed to see, my top bird had to be the Fulmar it was just so unexpected for me to see, what made it better was it was a lifer its always good to get an unexpected lifer like that but it happened twice for me in one week. I do really love Caister Beach I always seem to enjoy spending time on the beach every year, its very peaceful and gives me a good chance to do some sea watching something a Midlands lad like myself doesn't get the chance to do so often. So I really enjoyed the week as a whole, the birding is always good in Norfolk, and at some point in the future I want to delve into some of the reserves around the county one in my mind is Titchwell.

So a great week as a whole, bellow are a few of the 433 pictures that I took throughout the week hope you like them,

Common Gull Caister Beach

Sanderling Caister Beach

           

Med Gull flying by at Caister Beach

   

Seal head!

 

Another lovely looking young seal.

 

Another stunning Seal

 

Be honest they are the best right?

 

Common Gull in flight, Caister Beach

  So a great week as a whole, I really love the area in which we were staying (Caister) its always very peaceful and great for birding too. As a holiday the week was great, Great Yarmouth is always a great place to go and I always say at the end of the week that it was the best holiday yet, I also recommend the Hinchinbrook restaurant in Great Yarmouth, the Gammon Steak there was pretty much all I ate all week and you really can't beat it. On the birding front its always good in Norfolk, Caister is just the tip of the ice burg there is so much more on offer to a birder in that county so much I haven't got to see yet all I will say is #oneday. The birds I saw were good enough for me, sea watching is something I always enjoy doing because it always manages to produce good stuff and this year has probably been the best visit to Caister in terms of the birding that I got to do, I arrived home yesterday feeling very down that we had to come home, and got back to birding round the West mids again today round Sandwell Valley walking round in the poring rain something very different to the sunny weather we had been having over in Norfolk.

So its back to normal now, birding and twitching round the Midlands again back to normality, I have to say I have missed social media a lot, I've been on Twitter Briefly but other than that nothing so its good to get back to terms with the news I have missed while I was away, I guess I'm one of those guys that relies on tech to survive and I'm proud of it! Today's birding back in the Mids was pretty quiet so I probably won't post about it, there should be a post on next week if not before hope you enjoyed the post on the holiday and let me know if you prefer me to add more photos to my posts like on this one it can easily be arranged. 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the week all- WMBB