A Brand New Challenge

Before I get started with my sightings from this month, I'd like to announce my brand new challenge. No, it isn't a bird list. This time it is something completely different. So for 2023, I want to see as many displays, spectacles and events as I can. That's as many flower displays, murmurations, roosts and other things I can think of that I can probably see in Norfolk. I may need some help on a few I'm not sure about, such as the Natterjack toad one, or maybe even give me a new idea to add for the checklist that I haven't thought of yet. Here's my checklist that I've made for this challenge. What do you think?

Jan 7th Cley

The first trip of the year 2023.After taking the rest of December off due to work and Christmas, I was itching to get back to birdwatching. Unfortunately, it was a very windy day at the coast with some rain. It was to be a rather rubbish visit to Cley, though Mum and I did see a buzzard, a hare and a red kite on the drive up.

Stonechat (Jan 7th), Otter (Jan 9th),
Rook Roost (Jan 14th) & Mallard x Shoveler Hybrid (Jan 16th)

There were skeins of pink-footed geese, golden plovers, many lapwing, a couple of marsh harriers, a curlew, shelducks, but no sign of the long-billed dowitcher that was still about from the last time I saw it, though it was distant and so well hidden that I couldn't find it while I was looking for it along the East Bank. I also had a nice encounter with a stonechat, but nothing really to make this outing that memorable other than cake and pasties at the café.

Jan 9th Strumpshaw Fen

My first shift at Strumpshaw. It started with siskins in the alders next to Reception Hide, which may have had a redpoll amongst them. I didn't really had the best light and they flew off before I could study the noisy large flock to verify. 

In the woods, I spooked a muntjac deer, while at Fen Hide, it was pretty empty other than 2 greylags and pink-footed geese. During my first shift of 2023, the main highlight was an otter right in front of the Reception Hide. It came as close as the measuring post. A great white egret arrived as soon as the otter left. There were also 32 greylags, 3 mute swans and a couple of marsh harriers along with many visitors at the reserve, the most I've seen in recent months.

Jan 14th Buckenham

I began my new challenge to see as many displays and spectacles during this year by visiting Buckenham to see the largest rook roost in the UK. Around 50,000 - 60,000+ rooks and jackdaws congregate to a set of trees near the church and have been recorded doing so since the Doomsday Book in 1086. I've seen it a few times before and it never ceases to amaze me.

Dad and I waited for dusk in the wind and the odd rainy spell by the edge of the field they normally gather at before heading for the trees to roost. However, they never arrived to the field. I guess the windy weather had put them off. We didn't get to see them perch along the wires either, in which their weight causes them to bend slightly.

They arrived at 4:20pm, at this point a large birding group joined us to watch them fly as the sun was setting. They swirled around the sky like a snow globe in the dark with black snowflakes. Thousands and thousands of them! Like a scene from Hitchcock's 'The Birds'! It was an incredible sight with an unbelievable sound as they cawed in unison. And then, before 5pm, they all slowly and gradually landed into the trees for the night. You couldn't have asked for a better way to start the new challenge off.

Jan 15th Norwich

The rook roost made me want to see another roost that's on my list. And the best thing was, I didn't have to travel miles to go see it either. All I had to do was walk into Norwich and wait at the bus station for dusk. You're probably wondering what I could possibly see at a bus station in the middle of a city. Well, I heard that hundreds of pied wagtails have been arriving here to roost most nights. Though not as large in number as the rooks at Buckenham, it will still be quite an interesting experience.

While everyone were more interested in catching a bus, I watched these small birds fly up onto the station's roof and up onto the surrounding buildings one by one, then in smaller groups. I was expecting the bus station roof was to be the final destination, but it wasn't.

They eventually moved away from the roof and I followed them down an alley behind the YMCA building and into a buddleia bush. They continued to arrive, decorating the bush like black and white baubles, possibly a few hundred of them. At first, there was a chorus of 'chessick' calls, but then as they settled down in the bush, I could hear strange click-y chattering noise. Was this their way of talking to each other? Just like the rooks, it was all over by 5pm.

Jan 16th Strumpshaw Fen

It was starting to spit with rain as I got to Strumpshaw this morning. By the time I got to Fen Hide, it was tipping it down! There was nothing but a soggy marsh harrier for quite some time. Then the rain temporarily stopped and a buzzard and a Chinese water deer appeared just before I made a dash for it between showers.

At Reception Hide, the weather was temperamental as it changed from rain to sunshine to rain accompanied strong winds. The wildlife was also very changeable. There was a great white egret one moment, then 32 mallards, 7 gadwall, 6 teal and 23 greylags the next and then an otter to spook them all off. Amongst the mallards was a mallard x shoveler hybrid, which had the head of a mallard and the body of a shoveler. I also saw a little egret and a great spotted woodpecker.

Jan 18th Sculthorpe Moor

I had 3 days off from work and what better way to spend the first day than with a trip out to Sculthorpe. Mum also had the day off, so it was like old times. Though, it was rather cold and icy as the reserve was still covered in frost and sheets of ice. It was like the Arctic!

We had a great haul with bullfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, blue, great, coal, marsh and long-tailed tits, siskins, nuthatches, pheasants, a brambling, redwings, several muntjacs and a tawny owl that was snoozing at the front of an owl nest box in the woods (my 2nd ever in broad daylight!).

However, the real highlight was to be something I've always wanted to photograph and my first time seeing one in the day. We were making our way to the new lake hide, but a lady in a Hawk & Owl Trust uniform stopped us. 

"We've got a woodcock out at the moment. Do you want to see?" 

My heart skipped a beat! Of course I wanted to see it! So, she took us round the corner, walked up the ramp of the tower hide a little way, stopped a bench on a bend in the ramp, peered over the side and pointed down at the woodland floor below. And there, like some magical beast from mythology was the woodcock staring right back at me with one large black marble of an eye. It was very active, probing the ground for worms. I couldn't believe what an amazing view I was getting, seeing all its beautiful camouflage in great detail. I was blown away! Just wow! Eventually, the woodcock wandered back into the woods away from the ramp. 

Brambling, Tawny Owl,
Woodcock (Jan 18th), Fox,
Barn Owl & Sunset (Jan 19th)

After a slightly uneventful visit to the tower hide itself (other than goldfinches), we went to the lake hide (where beavers were introduced a year ago as part of a re-introduction project). It was so cold! The lake was frozen over. A great white egret stopped by, standing on the ice was the only thing to be seen. We had lunch, before feeling so cold that we decided to end the visit and head for the warmth of home.

Jan 19th St Benet's Abbey & Hickling Broad

For my 2nd day off and my 3rd tick for my challenge, I took my scope and a train and met up with former Reception Hide colleague, Tricia, at Brundall station to eventually see the harrier roost at Hickling. First though, she and her friend, Christine, took me to St Benet's Abbey near Ludham to kill some time. We were hoping to see the short-eared owls that had been visiting this place that I've never been to on a daily basis. Sadly, there were no short-eared owls in sight. However, we did see barn owls. Two of them. Not only that, but also 2 foxes hunting in the frosty long grass, a crane on the other side of the river, 2-3 kestrels, a buzzard, a pair of stonechats and some distant Bewick's swans in a distant field in the horizon.

It was getting towards sunset, so we made our way to Hickling. We navigated down a long, ice-covered path to Stubb's Mill. The platform there was already attracting an audience and the show was already unfolding in the field in front of us with a barn owl and a hen harrier (which I missed). The raptor roost was good but not as good as when I last here last year. However, we did roughly count around 25+ marsh harriers, 2-3 hen harriers (one being a male, which was the one out of three I did actually see myself swooping around like a pale ghost with black wingtips alongside the marsh harriers) and roughly 15+ cranes coming in for the night. Everything was very far away. Good job I brought my scope!

We also had a kingfisher perched above the ditch behind us and heard a bullfinch. It was all rounded off with a fantastic red sunset. The perfect way to end the night, even if we did have to navigate the same icy path again, this time in the dark!

Jan 23rd Strumpshaw Fen

The temperature dropped to -4°C and was absolutely freezing! However, it lead to the perfect conditions for my next challenge objective; hoar frost. Strumpshaw was transformed into a winter wonderland with every vegetation decorated in spikes of ice. Every leaf, branch, berry, reed head and even moss became crystallised, beautiful, temporary jewels. I marvelled at them all. Absolutely breathtaking!

Frosty Scenes,
Redpoll (Jan 23rd) & Fieldfare (Jan 30th)

All though the frost only lasted for a short while, there was another captivating sight (and also sound in this case) that lasted far longer. A flock of siskins were making a racket in the alders, hundreds of them! And within their flock, I managed to spot some redpoll. They almost blended in so well that I could have dismissed them as siskins as they appear very similar. Thankfully, the red patch on their foreheads gave them away. I enjoyed this flock so much, I revisited them a couple more times throughout the morning.

Also seen were; bullfinches, marsh harriers, fieldfares, water rail, Chinese water deer, scarlet elfcap fungi and lots of ice as all the broads, ponds and ditches were all frozen solid.

Jan 29th Norwich

It was the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch weekend and I went to my parent's house yet again to do it. Last year, my parents were out and I had to do the one hour survey alone. This time, Dad and my niece, Ava, was here to watch the birds with me. 

There was quite a good turnout this year as we even had a flock of gulls circling for the bread that Dad put out on the lawn. Only one black-headed gull was brave enough for me to count it in the garden. We started at 9:06am and during the hour we counted; 1 magpie, 2 blackbirds, 2 woodpigeons, 1 blue tit, 2 greenfinches, 2 robins and 1 dunnock. Our best haul in quite some time!

Jan 30th Strumpshaw Fen

A fairly quiet morning, except in the woods, where the many siskins and redpolls were making a lot of twittering. I also encountered a fieldfare and a muntjac deer, while at the Reception Hide were 3 swans, 6 greylags, several mallards and marsh harriers and buzzards very briefly before all of them disappeared and left me with a very empty scene for most of the morning. It was a bit windy out on the broad and 3-4 bearded tits braving the strong gusts to feed on the reed heads from the reedy islands, riding them like a rodeo horse, was the last thing I expected to see.