At last - Hooded Crow!!!!! Plus 20 Spoonbills!!!!!

Lovely day despite the rain! Started off at Holt Country Park to dip the Silver Washed Fritillary but did have lovely views of a White Admiral on the buddleia. Saw Irene B., Justin and Andy here also! Also two Nuthatches on the bird table and Marsh Tit, coal tit, great tit and robin here.

On route to Cley I was shocked to see 2 police cars and an ambulance attending to a red van that had veered off the road at Walsey Hills and landed in Snipe's Marsh!!!!!!!

Saw the Hooded Crow in the Eye Field at Cley on two occasions (pity I didn't get this on my county list last year!!! Walked to North Hide where there were 20 Spoonbills!!! and a good selection of waders, including juv. shelduck, avocets, redshanks, little ringed plovers and ringed plovers, green sandpiper, knot, whimbrel and curlew (flew over west), golden plover, yellow legged gull (the way this was sitting I would never have known, but Justin L. assured me it was!), marsh harrier sitting in bush, black tailed godwit, spotted redshank, dunlin, pied wagtails etc etc. Tons of swallows and sandmartins flying around and sitting on the low fence wires and posts not far from Cley Beach Carpark on route to North Scrape.

Cley Visitor Centre for late lunch, also joined Pete S. - was lucky with the last jacket potato!!! Went back to the beach carpark and bumped into John F. who then told me all about the car accident at Walsey! Raining now and dull weather. Tried to photograph the martins on wires, but rubbish light. Text from Andy W and Justin L. who had the Silver Washed Fritillary at 2.45pm (second trip)!!! Went back to Holt Country Park later but on arrival it was black skies and teaming down with rain - sat in car and had a snooze. No sign of sun coming out. Left and went back to Cley Beach carpark and suddenly the sun was fully out along with a perfect rainbow! I sat for ages in the grass bank photographing swallows and sandmartins - whilst sitting here I had fantastic views of a Peregrine going over west at 5.30pm which obviously scattered all the birds!

Went to Walsey Hills to see if anything else had been added to the site - but no more changes that I could see. No birds here of note. Photographed the red van in Snipe's Marsh!

Cruised home along the coast road - had a barn owl and a marsh harrier on route. Sat on the roadside at Bone's Drift to have a sandwich and cup of tea and then drove back to Lynn.