Jan 29th Strumpshaw, Wroxham Broad & More!

There weren't many places I could go at Strumpshaw today. The paths were either too muddy or closed off because of the annual pheasant shoot on the reserve that's part of an agreement with the landowners to keep the reserve in the RSPB's hands. I felt kind of worried for Percy, my pheasant friend. Though he has been showing some aggressive signs towards me while I was walking through the woods (walking in front of me, flaunting his plumage as if to a rival male and producing the odd short hiss), once I learnt that the guns were coming, I just hoped he stayed away from the area they were shooting. However, after finishing filling up the feeders, he made a sudden disappearance when I returned from putting away the containers I used to bring the seed in. Where did he go? I went for a quick walk to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. Is he alive? I'll have to find out next week.

It was another slightly uneventful shift with only seeing the same ducks and marsh harriers, though there were a couple of buzzards and, at the very end of the shift, a peregrine made an appearance while being mobbed by a crow. My colleague, Tricia, was actually more happy in seeing the peregrine than I was because it meant that she was just two away from completing her goal of finding 100 species of bird within January.

Slavonian Grebe

After our shift, I suggested that I could help her complete her goal and at the same help me tick one target bird from my bird photo challenge. I haven't really gotten many species that I haven't gotten a photo of before since announcing the challenge. So, my suggestion was to go to Wroxham Broad to look for the Slavonian grebe that I've heard reports of in the last few days. Usually, these rare grebes are found on the sea around the coast at this time of year, but occasionally one shows up inland, such as this individual. Once we arrived to the broad, it wasn't long until Tricia's scope picked it up. The bird was very distant, on the far side of the broad, and kept disappearing from time to time.


In winter, Slavonian grebes are black and white with a red eye and look extremely similar to the black-necked grebe that I saw last month. There's some subtle differences that a trained eye can pick up easily, such as the slightly longer neck of the Slav as well as it having more white to its cheek. In summer, both these birds are more attractive adorning golden head plumes/crests and chestnut body with black heads, though the Slav is more attractive in my opinion. Slavonian grebes only breed in Scotland here in the UK, and back in 2012, I actually went to see them in all their beauty displaying to one another on Loch Ruthven, though it was raining and my encounter was cut short when Mum accidentally set off the alarm of our rental car at the time. This winter bird on the broad today was not only my second Slav grebe encounter, it was also my first sighting of one in Norfolk. Meanwhile, Tricia only had one more bird to tick off for her 100th.

Whooper and Bewick's Swans

Next was an unrewarding visit to Hickling Broad, we saw absolutely nothing. So we moved on to Ludham Airfield for a quick look at the swans wintering there before I had to go catch a train home. On the way, Tricia spotted a flock of fieldfare on a field. She had yet found them throughout this month until now, so here was her 100th bird. She had completed her goal, but we still went to see the swans at Ludham. When Tricia was last here, she had only ticked this large lounging group as Bewick's swans, but my expertise, I was able to point out that there were whooper swans here too. The size difference, neck length and bill colour differences stood out to me more than to her. With the light fading, I gave her a quick crash course in winter swans.

I thought I was done with wildlife watching when I finally returned to Norwich. But it turned out that wasn't the case. This was because I encountered a pied wagtail roost in action on the new built up road island along Prince of Wales Street. Daylight was on the verge of vanishing for good for the night as streetlights were replacing it. People were busy making their way home or where ever they were heading to. Oblivious to them, on the rooves of the building above were the pied wagtails making one last perching stop before pouring down into two of the three trees on the island. They seemed to prefer the smaller tree of the two with a full cover of green leaves, while using the larger, bare-branched one next door as another optional stop off point. I'm not sure how many were here, but I expect there's more than 50 or so, perhaps even 100. Eventually, I decided to leave for home and left them to it in the green tree, making a loud chorus of 'chessik' calls that could be heard a few shops down the road.

Jan 25th & 26th RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch Weekend 2020

It is that time of year again. The final weekend of January marks the RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. For the 41st time, the nation gets to help out with a survey to monitor the population of Britain's garden birds. The survey is pretty straight forward, sit and watch your garden for an hour and count the birds that enter it. Though to stop you from counting the same bird twice, you need to count how many of each species that visit at a single time. For example, if you see one robin, you can't add another until you see two robins at the same time. Anyone can take part and you don't have to be an expert.

Yesterday, to promote the survey, I went to volunteer at an event at Waterloo Park (my local patch). Last year, the event was extremely popular and even had a celeb to promote it. This year, however, there were quite a lot of cut backs and it wasn't as well advertised as it was a year ago, in other words, fewer families showed up. But for the ones that did show, they enjoyed making feeders, etc. I was at my own tent showing families the birds that were visiting the feeders we set up to attract them.

Long-tailed Tit

While at my little birding station, we were recording the bird species found in and above the park. The results after 4 hours standing in the cold (mostly from one spot) were; 2 robins, 3 dunnocks, 5 blackbirds, 8 blue tits, 6 great tits, 7 greenfinches, 2 collard doves, 15 woodpigeons, 7 black-headed gulls, 3 chaffinches, 2 herring gulls, 7 goldfinches, 2 magpies, 8 feral pigeons, 1common gull, 2 jays, 1 song thrush, 6 house sparrows, 2 carrion crows, 1 wren, 3 long-tailed tits, 1 coal tit and 5 starlings.

Today, I did my usual annual rounds at my parent's and my aunt's gardens. First up was my parent's garden. It was a pretty productive hour up until half way through when one of the neighbour's cats appeared briefly and it got really quiet after it saw us and ran back the way it came. If it didn't appear, I'd expect it would have been more successful. Our results in the end were; 1 wren, 4 long-tailed tits, 2 blue tits, 1 blackbird and 2 dunnocks. Then, at my Aunt Barbara's garden, we had; 2 woodpigeons, 2 collard doves, 1 robin, 1 dunnock and one chaffinch. Not too bad from my two urban gardens this year.

Jan 22nd Strumpshaw Fen

Not going to lie to you, it has been quite a bad week for me and my family. On Friday, while heading to Titchwell, we had news that my granddad was taken to hospital. He's been suffering with a racing heart, but since Friday, a manner of other symptoms elsewhere in his body have occurred as well which has made him rather out of it for the most part. Everyone in the entire family is of course worried about him and has been taking it in turns to give him some company. I went to visit him yesterday and he looked extremely frail, but had at least made some improvements to how he was over the weekend. We all hope he recovers soon, though from what I've heard, he might be in hospital for quite some time.

Mallard on ice!

Going to Strumpshaw this morning has been a welcome distraction. For a few hours, I could take my mind of what has been happening by walking mist-covered reserve to look for wildlife (not that there were many that I could visibly see within the mist). Percy the persistent pheasant gave me a lot of attention throughout my time at Strumpshaw today, following me around before and after I filled up the feeders. He seemed more interested in where I was going than the actual food.

Out in front of the Reception Hide, the broad was largely frozen over. The ducks kept to the more ice-free far side of the broad cloaked in a light cover of what remained of the mist. Some of them were deceived by the ice and made crash landings as they mistook it for clear water. It made the scene rather comical as they slipped and slide across the ice. I also saw marsh harriers, Chinese water deer, greylags song thrushes and goldcrests.

Back home, I spent the afternoon with Mum round mine as she sought through some things with me. But while we were up in my flat, outside, someone managed to swipe my mum's car, wrecking the driver's side door with glass everywhere! Talk about the worst timing for it to happen with Granddad in hospital and all!

Jan 15th & 17th Strumpshaw Fen & Titchwell

Jan 15th  Strumpshaw Fen

Scarlet Elfcup

The first wet Wednesday of the year. It was pouring with rain and I had to ask for a lift into Strumpshaw this morning, meaning I didn't really had time for a walk before my shift. I had only enough time to fill up the bird feeders, though, on this occasion it was missing a certain persistent feathered character waiting for me there. The Reception Hide was fairly quiet with just the usual suspects of marsh harriers, mallards, gadwall, teal and greylags (but no coot, which is very unusual), so I decided to make a short walk in the woods while the rain eased off a bit. During this walk, I found very little except a few scarlet elfcup fungi and my pheasant friend, who was still waiting for me as if I was doing my usual Wednesday routine, despite it being a few hours late than normal. He was pleased to see me as I walked by and started to follow me as I led him to the bird feeder area so he could get his share of the bird seed. Other than that, it was a rather uneventful day.

Jan 17th Titchwell

Just to remind you, this year I have challenged myself to photograph birds that I haven't gotten a decent photo of yet. This includes nocturnal birds such as the tawny owl and the woodcock, two of the most difficult birds to look for in broad daylight. I've asked around for any reliable roosting sites for either of them. For the owl, I was told to visit the church yard at North Elmham and find the tallest tree one apparently roosts at during the day. I went to try my luck on Sunday and came back seeing nothing. I even checked the trees of a site across the road of a chapel ruin and still found nothing.

Today, I went to Titchwell for my other nocturnal target. I have known for years that to see a woodcock, I need to scan the woodland surrounding the visitor centre, but they have always eluded me. I have been hearing rumours that there has been one individual snoozing in the same spot somewhere along the boardwalk for the past two weeks. In fact, it was seen in the same spot just yesterday. However, as expected, when I went to look for it during my visit, it had to not be there when I was around. Typical! Same result as with every visit. Everyone sees it but me!

Red-breasted Merganser

For other birds that I have yet gotten a photo of, I had to search the sea. I have plenty of seabirds on my list, especially things like divers and skuas, but I'm also missing red-breasted mergansers to my bird photo collection. There were a few of these saw-billed ducks bobbing about on the waves, but as you'd expect, they were a bit of a distance away. My best attempt of a photo was a distant shot of them, a bit blurry, but I think you can just about make them out enough to tell what they are.




Other birds seen today were; marsh harrier, brent geese, teal, wigeon, shovelers, mute swans, greylags, knot, lapwing, avocets, spotted redshank, common redshanks, oystercatchers, little grebe, little egrets, curlews, shelducks, great crested grebe, cormorants, turnstone and hundreds of pink-footed geese in a field on the way home.

Jan 8th Strumpshaw Fen, Ranworth Broad and Acle

Happy new year, everyone! I know that we are now eight days into the new decade, but today I finally had the chance to do my first shift of 2020 at Strumpshaw. It has felt like a long time since I had been here. But now that the festive period is over, it is time to get back to what I love.

It was still dark when I arrived to the reserve this morning. From Reception Hide, I could hear the chattering of starlings that were still in their overnight roosting spot in the reed bed to the left of the hide. I decided to sit and wait for their departure. I had initially thought it would only be a matter of minutes before they rushed out from the reeds. I was wrong. It took a good chunk of time, perhaps just under an hour, before they finally dispersed. Sparrowhawks were attracted to their hubbub, with one perching in a nearby tree until flying circle in the general area like an aerial shark waiting for the perfect moment to strike. By 8:20 am, there was movement from the starlings. Unlike previous times, they did not leave all at once in one go. Instead, they went up in three smaller groups that swirled for a few brief seconds before joining up and made their exit.

Moments after turning off the record button for the starlings exit video, I turned my head to face the broad. It was at that moment I noticed something. An otter! I was so absorbed in the starlings, that I had not seen it arrive. By the time I saw it, it was already in front of the reedy islands at the centre of the broad.

Thanks to the starlings and then the otter, it was half eight and I really only had time for a quick walk to the river and back before needing to return to do the feeders and to start my shift. This short walk ended up being not very exciting as I didn't really see anything, not even Percy the persistent pheasant. After two weeks away, I thought he had forgotten about me and what I looked like, but once I brought the food over, he rushed over to me like a hungry pet.

During my shift, it was a bit of a duck fest with a few marsh harriers, buzzards, sparrowhawks and a kestrel added into the mix. The otter even made a second appearance, though this time it was much shorter as it hugged the edge of the reed bed between the left side channel and far left channel of the broad before disappearing again.



Ferruginous Duck

After my shift, my colleague, Tricia, fancied an outing with me to see some more birds to add to our new year lists. We were hoping that the desert wheatear at Eccles-on-Sea that had been seen throughout this week was around, but unfortunately there were no reports of it yesterday and there was no news of it today either. So, we decided to go to the next best thing; a female ferruginous duck at Ranworth Broad. Though I've seen this species a couple of times before, I've never gotten a decent photo of one, which I wanted as part of my latest challenge. When we got to Ranworth, a small crowd of familiar faces crowded at the narrowest part of the jetty near the now closed visitor centre. It took some time until the small, slightly reddish duck showed itself from its hiding place and again until it showed itself for even longer for better yet slightly distant views of it.

A boat passed through and disturbed the wildfowl in the area, but only enough to move either to the side of the river that channels the broad or towards us. Everyone was hoping the ferruginous duck would pick the latter choice for better photos, but it did the former choice instead, to our disappointment. This was still a decent bird, nowhere near as red as the male of its species, but good enough to satisfy me. Though, if I had a much closer shot of it, I'd be even happier.

Cranes

Finally, as daylight was beginning to fade, we had one last place to visit before Tricia took me back to Brundall station. She took me to a few fields outside Acle to see cranes that were feeding on them. I never even knew that these large birds were even here, but apparently this has been their feeding ground throughout this winter and possibly other winters before it. It wasn't hard to spot the two that were in the ploughed field close to us, but it took some scanning to spot the others in the other surrounding fields. In total, we counted at least 14 of these brilliant but rare birds. Not a bad first outing for 2020!