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.