I'm back at Cley for yet another visit. Though it is a nice sunny day, there is a nippy breeze in the air, cold enough to make my eyes water a little. We were only here for the morning, so Mum and I went to spend some time looking out of the three hides like we usually do together.
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| Stonechat |
Along the way, a male stonechat played a bit of follow the leader with us. It would perch on a wooden fencing panel to pose for a moment before moving up the path to a branch and then a barbed wire, waiting for us to move up to catch up with it. It wagged its tail up and down slightly to keep its balance in the gentle gusts of wind, though to me, it looked like it was waiting for us to follow in anticipation. But it soon got tired of us and flew over our heads and back the way we came, unless it was where it wanted us to follow next of course. We continued down to the hides, which had a wren and a Cetti's warbler calling and singing in the reeds and scrub beside the boardwalk path behind the hides.
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| Avocet |
It was pretty quiet on the scrapes with fewer birds than last time. There does seem to be an increase in avocet numbers than during our previous visit, though. Dunlin crowded the shorelines of these pools and islands to feed from the shallow mud. At least two marsh harriers were soaring low over the reedbeds, either in the search for prey or as part of their display to attract a mate. Either way, they seem to be a pair as they were flying in the same territory. There were also distant ringed plover, some brent geese flying over, godwits, lapwings, a ruff, redshanks, little egret, a heron, a kestrel, shelducks, teal and wigeon. A water rail was also squealing somewhere in the reeds between two of the hides and that was pretty much it. It wasn't an over exciting visit, but at least the light was good enough for some great photographs.
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| Little Egret |
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| Redshank |
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| Marsh Harrier |
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| Dunlin |
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| Black-tailed Godwit |
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| Teal |
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| Coot |
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| Brent Geese |
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