A Beautiful, Frosty Day!

Hunstanton
A beautiful, frosty day. Arrived in Hunstanton on the bus and walked towards the lighthouse. Starlings feeding on the green by the Golden Lion hotel, but no turnstones with them today. A big flock of house sparrows were chirping away in the pitch 'n' putt area next to the bowling green along the cliff top. Several goldfinches in the Millennium garden along with at least 50 mallards in the round ornate pond! Tons of birds feeding amongst the seaweed covered rocks below the cliffs including turnstones, oystercatchers, redshanks, sanderlings, brent geese, herring gulls etc. Fulmars were gliding through blue skies over the cliffs and a pair were sitting on the cliff edge in courtship! Met Eddie at the lighthouse and we watched a single Red-necked Grebe.

Titchwell RSPB
5 Lesser Redpolls in the alders. A siskin feeding on the ground with chaffinches, goldfinches and hedge sparrows and also several cute looking robins. Water Rail in the usual ditch at beginning of the main path. Wonderful scope views of the male Red-crested Pochard. Loads of golden plover, few pintail, good numbers of lapwings, pochard, great crested grebe, 2 little grebes. On the sea: 4 Long-tailed Ducks, 2 Red-breasted Mergansers. I left Eddie seawatching and walked off in the distance to attempt to photograph the Long-tailed Ducks, but this was not very successful! When I got out there, I realised they were still too far away to photograph - I could have walked closer, but the tide was coming in, the sun had just set and I would have disturbed a whole mass of gulls and other waders, so didn't bother. The sunset was very beautiful - red rays mirrored across the wet sands and I got some lovely photos on the iphone.

On the way back we saw a Short-eared Owl hunting over the reed bed, west of the main path at 4.45pm.