My New Year's Day Norfolk Bird Race!

Team: Penny

It was a glorious sunny day, which bought the crowds out in their droves and the traffic was worse than an August Bank Holiday, especially mid/late afternoon and this affected my birding later on.

High tide was 8.36am, so I knew to get the maximum numbers of birds, I needed to be seawatching around that time, so I didn't start off at my usual spots of Wolverton for Golden Pheasant, Sandringham Bird Table etc. I am not going to list every bird seen at every stop, as the full list is below, but will mention some of the highlights. Had a few birds seen and heard from my garden before I left and started the day with a robin.

I decided to start at Titchwell RSPB, but diverted quickly to Flitcham Abbey Farm Bird Hide on route to attempt to tick Little Owl. On route I saw two barn owls. At Flitcham I got a dodgy Barnacle goose here, so couldn't count that. Got a good selection of birds here including tree sparrow, yellowhammer, reed bunting etc. A stoat ran across the fields. Another birder joined me in the hide and we both very pleased when the little owl made an appearance – the light was still not good and the light is against you anyway at this time of the morning at Abbey Farm (best viewed pm). One of the little owls favoured spots is to sit in the roots at the base of the oak tree to the left side of the main trunk. So there it was, sitting in a hole in the base and typically motionless. BUT when I looked a few moments later, it moved and hilariously it was in fact a rabbit!!! I could not believe what I was seeing. It just shows how light and shape can fool you! I could not believe that a rabbit had just mimicked a little owl, it was seriously funny!

Next Stop was Choseley which produced nothing at all.

Titchwell RSPB – Arrived just before 9am and the carparks were filling up quickly already. It was nice to see Sue B. briefly, who was working at Titchwell, but she understood that I hadn't got time to chat! Also saw a few familiar faces and some new blog readers – nice to see you all. Anyway, highlights here were redpoll, siskins, a cracking male brambling, a cettis's warbler seen skulking off the main path and a red kite! Unbelievably there were no long-tailed ducks to be seen, no one seemed to find a ringed plover and Ray Kimber (volunteer) told me there hadn't been any for weeks and that he had heard they were 'all at Heacham', so why that is I have no idea! Also didn't get treecreeper which is usually seen on the willow tree at the start of the main path. I didn't see water rail on the way down and I declared to others that I wouldn't be leaving until I had seen it, which luckily I did eventually. Frustratingly I didn't see a snipe either or tawny owl or woodcock later on. I walked into the visitor centre only to view the sightings book in case I had missed anything. Pauline who works in the shop kindly asked how I was doing and I replied with '96 so far I think' as I was speedily walking out of the shop. When I got back to the carpark it was a crazy scene of cars queuing to get out and cars queuing to get in!

Thornham Harbour – stopped here briefly where there were other birders too, looking for greenshank which had been here yesterday, but it wasn't now!

Holme Marsh Reserve NWT– was hoping for bullfinch etc, but no luck.

Redwell Marsh NOA – nothing here but teal and a barn owl.

Old Hunstanton Church and duck pond – this can be good for grey wagtail and nuthatch, but no luck with those, but did see great spotted woodpecker and a small flock of linnets.

Hunstanton Cliffs – Fulmar and Rock Dove ticked here. Scanned the beach for ringed plover etc but there were very few birds to be seen at all, as everything had been flushed by the massive numbers of walkers and bounding dogs on the beach. In fact it was the biggest number of people I have ever seen walking below the cliffs today!

My next stop was going to be Snettisham Coastal park to go and look at some waxwings in the carpark that someone had told me they saw. But as I joined the A149 coast road at Hunstanton I was horrified to see traffic at a standstill and queuing in the King's Lynn direction. My heart sunk, this would waste valuable light and time. After sitting in the queue for a while I had to change my plans and turned left at Heacham lavender, nipped inland via Sedgeford and through Dersingham to go to the Sandringham bird table. At least this got me away from the traffic queue! The bird table was very productive and gave me a beautiful nuthatch who was coming down to feed on the table and at least 8 coal tits. I waited here for a good while, hoping for marsh tit, which I have seen here before, but not today! Very unusually I didn't see treecreeper here either. There were the usual blue, great and long-tailed tits here, but I had seen those already earlier in the day.

Because of the traffic, I had to re-plan and I realised that if I re-joined the queuing traffic on the A149, it wouldn't be too bad, if I nipped straight across it to Wolverton in the vague hope of ticking golden pheasant. This turned out to be a very good move. As I drove slowly along the triangle at Wolverton I couldn't believe my luck – bang in the middle of the road was one of the best views of golden pheasant I have seen, a stunning male bird just ambling along! I decided I needed a picture of this as no one would believe I had seen this and especially at this time of the day. I opened the car door very carefully to go and get the camera from the boot of the car, but obviously not carefully enough. I had been clocked and the golden pheasant's amble turned into a full scale olympic sprint as it dived into the cover of the rhododendrons! Oh well!

The light was fading fast now. The traffic was still crawling along to King's Lynn, but it was fine in the opposite direction, so I got to Snettisham Coastal Park quite quickly. Obviously there were no waxwings here now that I could see, but I did tick knot and dunlin which was an added bonus. Doing a bird race is fun but equally stressful and as the light starts to fade you have to make very quick decisions about where to go next.

Snettisham RSPB – I have not been here for quite a while and the light was not sufficient enough to be able to walk to the main reserve, but I remembered that there is often a good number of different geese in the first lake by the fishing ponds. I had not yet ticked canada goose today. I parked the car up and I could see that several people were looking at me as if to say what an earth is she doing, walking to the reserve in semi darkness! There were only greylags on the lake and a few other ducks. I was just about to give up, but walked up the steps at the end of the footpath to gain some height. As I scanned the fields on the other side of the lake a single canada goose came into view! It was now 4.25pm!

Hunstanton Cliffs – yes I know it was almost completely dark, but I was determined to see very bird that I could! Parked my car by the cafe/bowling green and ran to the seats/viewing area at the top of the cliffs. I tried to focus my bins on the outline of the end of the cliffs where the shags roost, but however hard I tried, I could not see any shags! There was just enough light to be able to see any that might fly in, but sadly they were now all roosted for the night! Well you can't say I didn't try!

I drove around Chapel Bank at Old Hunstanton as this can be a really good spot for woodcock, but not this evening! I tried several other places for tawny owl, but no luck there either.

Spent the evening with my parents, which was a really nice way to spend the rest of New Year's Day. I didn't leave Holme until 9pm. The earlier heavy traffic had dispersed thank goodness.

On my return home it took ages to sort my list. I thought I had seen 105 species, but I soon discovered I had written a few things down twice, as you do! Also I had missed two birds out. Quite weird and rather nice to find that I had seen exactly 100 birds at the end of my day. Although it was fun to do, I just couldn't do this all year round, its much too stressful! Although as some of you may remember I did year list as a one off in 2009.

100 Species seen

1. Robin
2. Blackbird
3. Song Thrush
4. Carrion Crow
5. Hedgesparrow
6. Goldcrest
7. Jackdaw
8. Rook
9. Barn Owl
10. Collared Dove
11. Common Pheasant
12. Blue Tit
13. Pink-footed Goose
14. Grey-lagged Goose
15. Coot
16. Moorhen
17. Mallard
18. Stock Dove
19. Woodpigeon
20. Little Grebe
21. Teal
22. Lapwing
23. Gadwall
24. Common Gull
25. Jay
26. Kestrel
27. Red-legged Partridge
28. Starling
29. Curlew
30. Kingfisher
31. Chaffinch
32. Tree Sparrow
33. Yellowhammer
34. Reed Bunting
35. Egyptian Goose
36. Great Tit
37. Mistle Thrush
38. House Sparrow
39. Mute Swan
40. Grey Partridge
41. Common Buzzard
42. Goldfinch
43. Greenfinch
44. Redwing
45. Sparrowhawk
46. Black-headed Gull
47. Magpie
48. Cetti's Warbler
49. Little Egret
50. Shelduck
51. Brent Goose
52. Golden Plover
53. Shoveler
54. Pochard
55. Tufted Duck
56. Wigeon
57. Pintail
58. Avocet
59. Great Black-backed Gull
60. Meadow Pipit
61. Skylark
62. Pied Wagtail
63. Spotted Redshank
64. Black-tailed Godwit
65. Redshank
66. Grey Heron
67. Herring Gull
68. Sanderling
69. Oystercatcher
70. Eider
71. Turnstone
72. Dunlin
73. Knot
74. Great Crested Grebe
75. Common Scoter
76. Red-throated Diver
77. Cormorant
78. Guillemot
79. Golden Eye
80. Red-breasted Merganser
81. Grey Plover
82. Bar-tailed Godwit
83. Red Kite
84. Marsh Harrier
85. Ruff
86. Long-tailed Tit
87. Siskin
88. Red-crested Pochard
89. Common Redpoll
90. Brambling
91. Wren
92. Water Rail
93. Great Spotted Woodpecker
94. Linnet
95. Rock Dove
96. Fulmar
97. Coal Tit
98. Nuthatch
99. Golden Pheasant
100. Canada Goose
101. Barnacle Goose (dodgy one)