Tuesday 26 February 2013

Monday 25 February Exclusive Day tour

Monday 25 February Exclusive Day tour

I picked up the clients today from Catfield & it was just a short drive before we having lovely close up scope views of
 c240 Bewicks & 28 Whooper Swan. We made another brief stop for a roadside hunting Barn owl.

We then headed down towards Great Yarmouth. We stopped off briefly at one of the Broads & had nice views of 
Great Crested Grebe, Shoveler, Tufted Duck & the first Marsh Harriers of the day. At Great Yarmouth armed with a loaf of bread, we were able to feast our eyes over around 80 Mediterranean Gulls, with point blank views of 1st winters, 2nd winters & adults. We also noted 4 birds with darvic rings on, I hope to have the details of these birds soon. We also noted Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Black-h-Gull, lots of Common Gull, Herring Gull & Lesser BB Gull. Offsore there was around 300 Cormorants roosting & an obvious northerly passage of Gannet.

We then moved further north up the coast towards Horsey, a large flock of 
Lapwing & Golden Plover were overhead, & a good flock of Pink-footed Geese around c1200 were located, amongst the flock was  2 White-fronts, 6 Barnacles & a Ross's Goose. There was an odd large leucistic Pink-foot but I couldn't find any Tundra Bean Geese. Overhead 2-3 Marsh harrier pplus Buzzard & we heard Cranes calling in distanceA stop for lunch still failed to produce any Short-eared Owls, but some consolation was nice views of swarming flocks of Golden Plover & lots of Lapwing plus Egyptian Goose, 2+ more Marsh harrier 

Shortly after lunch a 2-3 scans from various vantage points produced a  group 
11 Cranes in a flock feeding out in the fields. We then searched the beach at Sea Palling, but the tide was out & I couldn't find the Purple Sandpipers, Gannets were still moving & a nice flock of c40 Sanderling were present

We finished the day with a great raptor roost at Hickling,
 1 male Merlin, 2 Hen Harrier including superb views close of a grey male, c30 Marsh Harrier, 4 Barn owl & 2 Cranes.

No comments:

Post a Comment