Wonderful, sunny day at Cley and round about!

Gatekeeper, North Scrape Hide, Cley NWT.

Parked at Coastguards and walked to North Scrape Hide. A stunningly beautiful morning. On route I watched and photographed sand martins on the wires in the sunshine! Lots of yellow-horned poppies and thistles in flower. From the hide: several ruff, 10 Spoonbills, black tailed godwits, avocets, redshanks, gulls, little ringed plovers, 1 marsh harriers and usual gulls etc. The light is awful from the hide in the morning, so didn't stay long. I spent much longer photographing dozens of Gatekeepers on the ox-eye daisy clump along the path to the hide! A burnet moth, red admirals and bees were on the purple thistle heads on the way back to the carpark.

Sand Martins near Cley Coastguards NWT.

Gatekeepers, North Scrape Hide, Cley NWT.

Yellow Horned Poppies, Cley Beach.

Burnet Moth, Cley Beach.

Daukes Hide - 11am. Met up with Pete S. and Graham at Old Woman's Lane and walked down to the hides. Adult Med Gull, Adult Yellow leg Gull, green sandpiper, lesser blacked backed gulls, great b.b. gulls, little egret, avocets etc etc. Pete heard a whimbrel calling. Met John F. in the hide aswell!

Yellow leg Gull, Daukes Hide NWT.


Little Egret, Avocet Hide NWT.

Med Gull, Daukes Hide NWT.

Wiveton Downs - 1.10pm 23 Crossbills flew overhead calling. More gatekeepers and a purple hairstreak for a nano of a second! Family of coal tits.

M.G. informed us of a hummingbird hawk moth in Church Lane, which we couldn't find. Photographed some of the stained glass windows in Cley Church including R.M's brilliant White Crowned Sparrow drawing! We noticed a poster advertising the 'St Margaret's Church Summer Fair', Church Field, Cley tomorrow (Saturday) 2-5pm see here

Stained Glass, Cley Church.

Cley Visitor Centre - a pot of tea for three and 3 ice-creams - mine was stem-ginger of course! This is the first time I have broken my diet in two weeks!

Pete and Graham left mid afternoon to prepare early for Graham's birthday celebrations tonight! Happy Birthday Graham! They won't be out and about early in the morning!

A very nice person took me to an undisclosed site in Norfolk, to have fabulous views of two Silver-washed Fritillaries, a White Admiral, Red Admiral and Commas. Unfortunately due to circumstances I can not reveal, I cannot release the whereabouts of this place to anyone else, which is very frustrating not to be able to share this with others, but nothing I can do about it I am afraid, sorry!

Shield Bug.

Cricket.

Silver washed Fritillary.

Red Admiral.

Rosebay Willowherb.

Coastguards, Cley - a beautiful sight of dozens of Sand Martins all lined up on the fence wires by the path to the pill box. Steve G. here taking pictures and obviously I took a few too!

Sand Martins, Pill Box, Cley Coastguards.

North Scrape Hide - 7.15pm to 9.15pm. Spent the rest of the evening here in beautiful light. 10 Spoonbills, 43 Cormorants, two Sandwich Terns and two juvs. 7 Common Terns, 1 Little Tern, 2 Little Gulls, 11 Dunlin, 2 juv. Marsh Harriers, 69 Black-tailed Godwits including one with blue and white rings on left leg, white ring on right leg along with an orange flag (found out from MG that it was rung in a French project). A birder in the hide a bit later on said he had counted 161 black tailed godwits on the Eye Field this evening. Two children were messing about round the hide and suddenly one of them decided to walk in front of the hide and was going to carry on until I pointed out that they shouldn't be in front of the hide and explain why! Unbelievable! On the way back to the car I saw a Curlew Sandpiper on Billy's Wash.

Waders from North Scrape Hide NWT.

Beautiful sunset to end a wonderful day.

Sunset, Cley next Sea.