March 30th Cley

Spoonbill

The sun is out and I'm by the seaside. I'm at Cley with my parents to check out what we can see from the hides. As we neared the three central hides, I could see a large white bird. A spoonbill! You could see it well from the Avocet Hide (the hide on the left side) as it sifted through the water at the edge of Whitewell Scrape with its large spoon-shaped bill. It did came up onto the bank for a short break to reveal that amazing bill for us. We were pretty lucky, as it eventually moved on away from these pools onto the other side of the reserve and out of sight. What a bird!

Avocet

The pools were full with mostly avocets and black-tailed godwits, filling the scene with a sense of spring as the godwits are adorn with their reddish breeding plumage and the avocets were calling their piping calls continuously. Redshanks, shelducks, lapwings, shovelers, teal, gadwall, little egrets, greylags, Canada geese and ruff were also seen out on the pools and surrounding areas as well as a snipe at the Whitewell Scrape and a little ringed plover at the back of Simmond's Scrape. Marsh harriers were patrolling the reed beds, while a red kite was seen high above Pat's Pool with its presence enough to spook the birds momentarily and forced them into the air.

Redshank

Snipe

I was scanning the fields behind Simmond's Scrape when I noticed a greylag with a white splodge at the base of its bill. Then I saw another, and another and another. At least eight in total. However, these weren't greylags. These were white-fronted geese, a winter visitor that's surely thinking of returning to their breeding grounds in Greenland and Arctic Russia. They were a bit distant to photograph and there was a dreadful heat haze distorting the sharpness of shots, but you can make out those bright white patches quite clearly. It was a pleasant surprise to see them here today.

[Edit: Sadly, I can't seem to upload the rest of these photos. My storage space on Google Photos appears to have ran out again. I will add the rest later if I can resolve this is issue. Many apologies!]