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