March 5th Whitlingham Broad

A lonely snowman at Whitlingham Broad today!

The snow has now more or less melted away. It is now safe enough for me to bird watch beyond the city. However, our first outing since the snow left wasn't that far from Norwich at all. Today, Mum and I have decided to visit Whitlingham Broad, where in the last few days I've heard reports of a female smew and a large flock of redpolls, which included a Coues's Arctic redpoll amongst them. Now that the snow is no longer a problem on the roads, it was finally time for me to seek them out.





Rabbit prints in the remaining snow!

Moorhen prints

Siskin

There were plenty of other people with binoculars, scopes and cameras around looking for them, too. Annoyingly though, none of them had seen the Arctic redpoll today. I searched the alder trees in the area they were last seen yesterday, but I found nothing. I did see a pair of siskins feeding on the ground within the walls of a ruined abbey and a few goldfinch, but no redpoll. Someone did tell me that at least three lesser redpoll were seen shortly afterwards. I went back to look a second time only to come away empty handed yet again.

Goldfinch

Song Thrush

Mistle Thrush

Tufted Duck

Out on the broad, there was no sign of the smew either. There were plenty of tufted ducks and pochard as well as the odd couple of great crested grebe dancing with one individual catching and eating a large fish. I also saw cormorants, mute swans, greylags, Canada geese, mallards, gadwall, lots of coot, black-headed gulls and I heard a kingfisher peeping somewhere nearby a couple of times. As for the smew, it was eventually located. However, it was not on the broad at Whitlingham, but on the broad at Thorpe Marshes on the opposite side of the river. You could still see this broad clearly from the riverbank on Whitlingham's side of the river, but I could not spot the smew that was apparently amongst a group of tufted ducks. So I ended up failing to see both target species I was hoping to see. At least it was a pleasant day out. It was so warm, I could have left my coat behind. Surprising since it was below zero just a couple days ago.

Pochard

Great Crested Grebe




Mute Swan

Canada Goose

Coot

Gadwall

Lesser Black-backed Gull