Oct 19th Holme Dunes

Freshwater pools at Holme

My Reception Hide colleague, Tricia, invited me to tag along for a trip to Holme Dunes with her and her friend. We were in search of yellow-browed warbler and any other scarce or rare bird we could find. Holme is home to the BTO's (British Trust for Ornithology) bird observatory based in Norfolk where birds are caught and ringed. All sorts of things turn up in their mist nets including some of the rarest species to turn up in the UK. The surrounding area is also an excellent place for such rarities as it has a mixture of habitats for them to hang out in. The yellow-browed warbler, for instance, has been seen here in the last few days. Could this be the time I finally see one at last?

Pied Wagtail

Wigeon and Teal in flight

First, we visited one of the hides overlooking some freshwater pools. Wigeon and teal dabbled and lazed in and around these pools in great number, while pink-footed geese flew over in several skeins. A kestrel and a buzzard watched from afar sitting atop of their separate perching spots. Redshanks, curlews, lapwing and little grebes completed the main cast of this section of the reserve. No sign of anything special here though. A spotted redshank would have been a nice addition to our day, but it wasn't to be. However, looking through the photos back at home, I didn't realise that I took a couple of shots of a female pintail!

Female Pintail!

The beach at Holme

Next up was a short walk through a small area of pine trees, where goldcrests teased us with their calls while remaining to hide up in the cover of dense needled branches. A sparrowhawk was seen much earlier this morning as it emerged from these trees as we were getting our things from Tricia's car during our preparation for our walk. Once through this small pine tree copse, we made our way onto the beach for a spot of sea watching. Brent geese flew low over the waves, streaming left or right, but never towards us. Some were even bobbing up and down on these waves for a rest. Along the tideline, oystercatchers and sanderlings were seeking for any morsel washed up onto the shore to eat, while far out at sea, gannets, cormorants, squadrons of gulls and many smaller shapes that could be made out as anything from waders to tiny seabirds too distant for me to ID flew back and forth in the far horizon.

Brent Geese on the sea!

Black-headed gulls

Oystercatcher

Sanderling

Holme BTO Bird Observatory

After a quick look in the BTO observatory, where recordings of bird calls played to lure them into the mist nets confused me for a moment as I was unsure if I was hearing the real deal or not. Apparently the nets were pretty successful earlier, with the highlight being a flock of bearded tits. I could hear some pinging nearby out in the reedy edges of the pools. Moving on, were followed the fence of the observatory until we reached a section of dunes and saltmarsh. Linnets and meadow pipits were pretty common here. Good, but not exactly rare.

Common Darter

Linnets

Suddenly, I caught sight of a really small bird flying past a section of fence behind me before circling low around us just metres from our feet. It then landed on the path to where we came from. Tricia managed to get a look at the mysterious bird before it vanished further up the path, where it was much more overgrown with vegetation. She told us that it had two vertical wing bars and that it was greenish yellow, but she was unable to make note of the bird's head. If there was a pale white supercilium (a stripe above the eye), this could have been our yellow-browed warbler. We followed in the direction of this intriguing bird in the hope that it would pop back out for us to see, but it had completely vanished. So close! Was it or wasn't it? We will never know!

Starlings

Finally, we got back into the car and drove down to a car park next to a golf course. Shorelarks had been seen by the dunes on the opposite side of this golf course and we were hoping that they would make up for our misfortune of scarce migrant hunting so far. Unfortunately, we only saw skylarks, not the shorelarks that we so desired. On the plus side, we did experience an extremely close encounter with hundreds of starlings forming mini murmurations as we spooked them up into the air a few times. A roar of whirring wings thundered by our heads. It was amazing! It was most definitely the main of our trip to Holme today.