A Week in Norfolk!

Hi readers, as we do most years I went on a family holiday to Norfolk and again as usual we stayed over at Caister Beach. I brought my scope, camera and bins with me and I any free time I had got some birding done. Norfolk is such a magical place when it comes to wildlife and I always love to soak it in whenever I can. Sea watching is so peaceful and I love doing it, on occasion it can be difficult with the distance of the birds but still very interesting and you never know what may turn up. So as I usually do I will go through each day individually to hopefully give you a good overview of the weeks birding, enjoy!

1/08/15- The first two days of the holiday were pretty short in birding terms there wasn't enough time in the day to go birding as much as I may have liked. However on the journey to Great Yarmouth I bagged myself a Red Kite over the motorway which got me geared up for the weeks birding. On arrival I kept my eyes on the gulls o the beaches and as usual there was a good number of Med Gulls scattered around the beach. So with the settling in done on day one we move through to day two.

2/08/15- Day two was pretty quiet as well I again had little time for birding so did a small stint on Caister beach late afternoon. However before that we needed to stop off at the local Tesco for supplies and while driving there I noticed a probable Spoonbill flying over the road! Now this was a lifer for me so I was taking it pretty seriously and was naturally very sceptical of what I had seen but noted it down anyway. Late afternoon I paid my first visit to Caister Beach and had a good look around, birding was pretty quiet however, I managed to get a few Common Terns flying by and a big group of 20+ Med Gulls that briefly sat out at sea before flying off again.

Rocks. :)

The view out at sea. 

3/08/15- Day three turned out to be a lot more productive than previous days. I decided to spend and hour or so on Caister Beach again to see if the birding picked up a little more when compared to the previous day and it actually did. 5+ Med Gulls flew by which I always like to see, often when I see them in the Mids you don't get to see them flying around so much they are usually packed into a group of Black Headed Gulls but at Caister you get to see them a lot better. distantly a single Common Scoter flew by which got the birding going a bit more. The usual few Common Terns flew by as well as a Ringed Plover. I decided to scan the more distant Terns to see if I picked anything up after a couple of minutes I caught something different going by that caught my eye it was quite distant but close enough for me to see what it was and that was in fact a Black Tern flying by near a group of Common Tern. I followed the bird for a good ten minutes watching it and it appeared to be an adult summer to winter bird which was interesting for me to see and it made the hour or so spent on the beach a lot more worth it.


4/08/15- By far day 4 was the best birding day of the entire week. I felt like spreading my wings a little more this year and decided to get dropped off at a local birding site which interested me and housed a few lifers for me and was actually quite close to where we were staying. This was of course Breydon Water. apparently one of the best places to see waders in the entire of Norfolk so it was worth it to me. On arrival it was clear why it was known as being so good for waders 100+ Avocet were feeding on the shallow water as well as 50-100+ Black Tailed Godwit that were hidden and bunkered down. 10+ Little Egret were also residing around the main wader area of the estuary. Things were already looking great! And then I looked out and spotted something a little different well in fact two somethings. A couple of Spoonbill were sitting on one of the islands offering great views which had already made the visit worth it. There were plenty of Curlew with 50+ birds, after a while a nice group of 20+ Golden Plover flew up and showed very well something I haven't seen for a few years so I was pretty chuffed to see them. Looking at the Golden Plover led me onto my next bird of the day in the form of a adult summer male Grey Plover the bird stood out like a sore thumb with the Golden Plover flock of which it was kicked out of. I observed to bird pretty well I watched it fly round with the plover flock for a good 20 minutes and it was great to see the bird so well. Eventually the bird just disappeared out of view and presumably flew off as the Golden Plover flock did soon after the bird disappeared. After seeing the Golden Plover I decided to look through the Redshank group to see if I could find another species I was looking for. And surprisingly enough I managed to find the bird pretty quickly as it was showing so well, of course this is in the form of a Spotted Redshank an adult non breeding bird there was at least one Spotshank but there was probably another I could see tucked up in the Redshank group as well.

My view of Breydon Water. 

More of my View of Breydon Water. 

I have to say Breydon was worth the visit and got me a good number of good waders that I've wanted to see for a while and there was no shortage of birds to look at throughout the visit.

5/08/15- Today was a quieter one I paid a quick hours visit to Caister Beach and managed to get a single Ringed Plover and a single Oystercatcher going by on the sea.

6/08/15- For the entire week I had noticed a lack of Sandwich Tern going by especially when compared to last year when I would get 20+ on some days going by and possibly more. For the entire week I hadn't seen one and speaking to a Norfolk birder at Breydon he had also noticed the lack of the species this year. However on the 6th this changed and finally a few Sandwich Tern flew by mostly young birds but the odd adult did go by as well. About 10+ birds went by throughout my stay on the beach so I was pretty happy to finally see the species for the year as I was worried they wouldn't turn up. 10+ Med Gulls flew by throughout my sit on the beach still something I couldn't help watching go by even though they actually seem common in Norfolk. A single Ringed Plover was also around on the beach. The usual abundance of Common Gull were also still flying by a single Cormorant flew by and also 20+ Common Tern. 

Common Tern Flying by. 

A couple of Common Gull on the beach. 

7/08/15- The 7th was a quieter day when compared to others a single Sandwich Tern flew by as well as a Cormorant, Common Tern. Three Med Gulls were on the beach for a short while and two Oystercatcher flew by. 

8/08/15- The final day always a sad one, by the end of the week I find myself struggling to leave the beach, before we leave I always get up early to ensure I can get a couple of hours of birding on the beach. And I have to say the beach is always a good relaxing place when there's nobody around and the only real sound is the sea hitting off the beach. I enjoyed a couple of hours birding and managed to get a few good birds onto the list of birds seen over the weeks birding. Firstly two Oystercatchers flew by which I hadn't seen as much as last year, and then distantly out at sea I managed to get something I had been keeping an eye out for all week of course I'm talking about Gannet at least 9 birds flew by and flew by throughout the two hours I was looking out at sea. I wasn't expecting to see any Gannet this year but luckily they turned up on the last morning of birding I got to do! A single Cormorant flew by and just before I was leaving I got a drake Common Scoter flying by quite close up compared to the first bird I had seen earlier on in the week, I got a brief but good view of it in my scope. Finally on the journey home I managed to see another Red Kite near the motorway to end the great weeks birding. 

I have to say Norfolk never disappoints from a birding point of view so many birds that I have wanted to see for a while were seen during the week one of these being Spoonbill, seeing these birds made the birding week well worth the years wait. I will advise a visit to Breydon Water, there was so much to see from just standing in one place. That's it for this post and I hope you have enjoyed reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it and stay tuned for another post soon. 

Is it a bird? No of course not its a plane. 

Thanks for reading and good birding- WB