New Bird

With several commitments this weekend (an anniversary, a party in Croydon and Taxi-ing my lad and mates around!) it didn't come as any great surprise to me that Norfolk should have had its best weekend for birds for several years! On Saturday, after the previous days abysmal weather, such goodies available were Red-flanked Bluetail, a 'sticking' Sabine's Gull, 3 Grey and a single Red-necked Phalarope and several Great-grey Shrike, all of which I watched unfolding via my bird pager from south London!
So this morning I was up and down my Sheringham coastal patch, ever hopeful. It turned out to be a very quiet morning with few highlights- 1350 Pink-feet west, a single Northern Wheatear, a couple of Little Gulls, 2 Arctic Skua, 2 Arctic Tern and a trickle of wildfowl. The excitement level was raised briefly with news of a Sabine's Gull heading our way less than a mile away but it failed to materialise.

Gannets


Pink-footed Geese


Northern Wheatear


After lunch I had to taxi the lads over to Bradfield, which conveniently happened to be just around the corner from one of several Great-grey Shrike that are in the county this weekend. The bird was soon located and showed well albeit a little distant, hunting insects from the overhead wires.

Great-grey Shrike


Salthouse was the next stop to join the twitching hordes gathered around a bush waiting for a Blyth's Reed Warbler. The bird eventually showed briefly, truly a birders bird, being small, brown, skulking and nondescript, it may have shown a little better if the majority could have managed to keep quiet for more than two minutes! On the way home I called back in to Sheringham where a Spotted Flycatcher was seen feeding voraciously.

Spotted Flycatcher

Moths

Back at home I checked out the moth trap that I had running all last night, among the usual suspects of Yellow Underwings, Rosy Rustics and Square-spot Rustic, new for the year were Lunar Underwing (2), Beaded Chestnut, Small Wainscot, Brown-spot Pinion (4) and a fine Red Underwing.


Red Underwing

Find Tick!

Decided to take a wander down to Salthouse this morning as the weather conditions were certainly not condusive to anything rare coming in from the east (maybe from the west though.....)

Anyhow, a nice group of waders had gathered on the sea pool west of the carpark including Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit, Dunlin and a confiding group of 9 Little Stint. Also here a brace of Lapland Bunting flew west calling.

Dunlin

Little Stints (all juveniles)

I was just settling into position on the shingle bank to digi-scope some more waders when over head a wader gave a call which just would not register in the old grey matter. A dry, almost rasping 'pprurrrr', looking up, a shortish billed but fairly longish winged and tailed wader zipped skywards its breast darkish with a distinct clear cut on to the white belly! Yelling 'Pec Sand!' the birder next to me just looked blankly into the distance! Following the bird in flight, it eventually pitched in on the far side of the pool, unfortunately making an alliance with a rather skittish Redshank, enabling a conclusive view of a bright, juvenile Pectoral Sandpiper (all the way from North America!) No longer than it was on the deck it was off again, eventually watched heading off towards Arnolds Marsh to the west. Presumably the same bird was later seen at Kelling.

Pectoral Sandpiper (complete with annoying fence!)

Pectoral Sandpiper with Redshank

Better Late than Never

My first 'Pinkies' (Pink-footed Geese) flew east over the village this morning (c100). I was expecting them Monday or Tuesday so they were not to far out!

Arizona Pics

Have managed to get a few pics edited past few evenings, with a gallery now accessable under 'Trip Reports' in the left hand column of the blog. Anyone with any comments or more importantly ID's of anything unnamed (mostly insects) feel free to do so under the corresponding image.

I have still got a few more to add, mostly the stuff I have'nt been able to put a name too!

Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnake...mean and moody!

Rufous Hummingbird

Wandering Glider

10 pence short...!

It knows! It Bloody well knows!... The weather, that is! It knows to have a really good on shore hooley during the working week rather than at the weekend! I personally have missed out on untold number of good sea watches due to this phenomenon and cannot honestly remember the last time a classic occurred at a weekend! Yesterday (Monday) at least two, or fourteen (depending on sources!) Great Shearwaters were seen off the coast at Sheringham (these are very rare seabirds in Norfolk with very few sightings). So this morning I squeezed in an hours pre work sea watch from my nearest coastal site, West Runton. Relatively speaking it was very disappointing (mostly because during the same period 2 Great Shears and 2 Sabines Gulls were seen off Sheringham, none of which I saw at Runton!) with the highlights being a fine juvenile Long-tailed Skua going east looking all cold and grey shortly after a veritably glowing juv Arctic Skua, a Puffin east and lots of commoner species such as Gannets, Kittiwakes and Little Gulls.

AMAZING ARIZONA!

Back from the annual family trosh after spending a somewhat serendipitous three weeks driving through Arizona. The trip was by no means planned as a major birding expedition but turned into a memorable taster of what this state has to offer, especially in the south-east, and whetting the appetite for a return! I still haven't edited all the photos I took yet nor identified everything! But when I have will try and put them in a gallery link... here's just a few to be getting on with..

Zebra-tailed Lizard


Mexican Amberwing

Odonta sp

Desert Scorpian


Cactus Wren on Saguaro Cactus

Sulphar-bellied Flycatcher

Harris Hawk

The magnificent...Magnificent Hummingbird

Dragonfly Fest!!!

Today was something of a real red-letter day for Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies) in Norfolk, and it happened in our little Parish! First thing this morning I decided to walk over to Felbrigg Lake, mainly to try and connect with Spotted Flycatcher, which I did just inside the west gate entrance. When I got to the Lake it was already heaving with Damselflies and Darters and Skimmers, they were all over the place! With one species in mind I walked over to the exposed sandy bank, and sure enough, there was a Red-veined Darter briefly on the deck before flying out over the lake. For the next half hour I counted at least 3 male and one female of this species. It was during this time that a big brown 'hawker' with a turquoise saddle buzzed past me and disappeared over the lake. I knew that Lesser Emperor (a very rare vagrant from southern Europe) had a 'saddle' but I was convinced this was a more purple colour, and that Lesser was altogether a smaller, more dainty dragonfly (this thing was big!) I assumed therefore that it was some type of immature variant of Emperor dragonfly (I only started looking at Drag's towards the end of last summer so am really a bit of a novice!) I had rung Rob Lee to tell him of my Red-veined Darters and left for home. At home I looked up my 'immature' Emperor to find that there isn't one! With that, Rob was on the phone saying he'd just had a Lesser Emperor!! I managed to get back down to the lake, and with news out of a rare dragonfly here, people were starting to turn up. With no sign of it in the area it was expected to be in, I decided to check the other side. Shortly after scanning the algae blankets floating near the overhanging trees I saw it, a brown dragonfly with a blue saddle, but this time it was attached to another, yellower dragonfly, a female! After that, all who were there enjoyed excellent views of I believe the first occurrence of Lesser Emperor dragonflies oviposting (egg laying) in Norfolk, and probably East Anglia!

Breeding Lesser Emperor on Felbrigg Lake

The following odonata were noted on Felbrigg today:

Emperor, LESSER EMPEROR, Red-veined Darter, Common Darter, Banded Demoiselle, Southern Hawker, Brown Hawker, Black-tailed Skimmer, Broad-bodied Chaser, Four-spotted Chaser, Common Blue Damselfly, Red-eyed Damselfly and Small Red-eyed Damselfly.

Red-veined Darter

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

PYL 107 Spotted Flycatcher

White Admiral

Whilst the fete was on fellow village wildlife enthusiast Trevor Williams knocked on my door to report that he had seen several White Admirals in the Parish, along the Ridge (Trevor had already done me a favour by inadvertantly flushing a Green Sandpiper over my garden for a year tick- Cheers Trevor!) Armed with his directions I found the spot and eventually saw about five of these woodland butterflies, another new species for me in the parish! I couldn't locate the Frittilery sp. that was also seen here but did see plenty of Large White, Small Heath and Speckled Wood.


White Admiral




PYL 106 Green Sandpiper

FINE FETE

The annual fete was treated to some glorious weather and the crowds they did come (n.b. -vast amounts of money will be required in used notes to have any pics removed from the WORLD wide web!...if you know what I'm saying?!)

Busy Busy!


No running please, room for everyone!


Oooh where to start!?


Bargin Hunt


Eyes Down ...two fat ladies 12!


Cake Riots! (Grab 'em while you can!)


'In the Hole!!


Aunt Sally (she's the wooden one! The other one's me mum!)


I trust family were not eligible for this one ?!


Positioned on a particularly bumpey area of grass!!!

FETE UPDATE

Fete starts 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon

Lep twitch

Work took me to the North Norfolk coast first thing this morning, then I had to head down to Gooderstone on the outskirts of the Brecks. With some cunning map work I could ensure that I passed Narborough Railway Line Nature Reserve around lunch time, how convenient! My main reason for wanting to come here was to see Grizzled and Dingy Skipper butterflies which are found along the flower rich grass banks. I drew a blank today but the area, as well as being alive with insects and all the commoner species of butterfly, did provide me with a new one in the form of a very tatty approachable White-letter Hairstreak- a total surprise!

White-letter Hairstreak..or whats left of it! (this is its good side!)

...see!

Brimstone

Small Skipper

FETE ALERT!

Aylmertons annual afternoon of debauchery (well, raffles, tombola and vegetable competition!) commences this weekend. (which in recent years has coincided with heavy rain!) Hopefully this year the weather will smile on us so everyone can enjoy this quintessential English village tradition, and our one is timeless, no fancy gimmicks...I just hope we've still got Smash the Rat Down a Drainpipe! The proceedings are on Saturday 4th around lunch time, so come along!

Salthouse

Had a walk along here on a beautiful summers evening this evening, it was one of those real heart lifters! The beach carpark was fairly full, but true to form a hundred yard walk away from the crowd and I didn't see a soul-heaven! Didn't see that many birds but that didn't matter! Did see Hobby darting east, 60 Dunlin, 3 Greenshank and 4 Little Egret between Salthouse and Cley East Bank

Black-tailed Godwit

Little Egret

Sheringham Bird Observatory

A morning visit down here confirmed my initial thoughts that there was very little happening. With the weather better than I was expecting, movement was almost non existant and was restricted to 5 Arctic Skua west, a handful of Kittiwake and Common Scoter west and a couple of Redshank. A distant Hobby headed off inland.

Black-headed Gulls

Cormorant


Oystercatchers (moving west?)

Redshank (migrant)


Backlit Jenny Wren in the garden