Titchwell RSPB, Burnham Overy Dunes & Gun Hill!

Sunset at Burnham Overy Staithe

Taken with iphone 5s and 'Process' Filter added.

Worked this morning and on my return home I found a Migrant Hawker Dragonfly (see pic) resting on some dead leaves in my garden!

Bumble Bee in my herb garden.

Migrant Hawker Dragonfly in my garden.

Titchwell RSPB
Briefly stopped here to buy and collect a book for mother. Quick walk around the Fen Trail – heard a Chiffchaff or two, that was about it. Saw 12 Spoonbills fly west over the main path at 4.45pm.

Burnham Overy Dunes & Gun Hill
Quite weird that I started my walk at the same time as yesterday at 5.45pm. Also the same birds in the same sallow bush as yesterday! This included several Chiffchaffs, a party of Long-tailed Tits, Great and Blue Tit. Met a lovely birding couple, whom I chatted to for a while and we all had a rant about the massive increase in dogs that were out of control. As we chatted a huge muzzled alsatian dog came towards us, off lead – the owners saw us and called dog to put on the lead.... now if it needed to be put on the lead, then a dog like that (with muzzle) should have been on the lead the whole time!

An addition to yesterday's list was a female Blackcap. Hirundines still around, but nowhere near the numbers as I watched gathering yesterday. 7 Spoonbills on the pool east of the sea wall along with a Little Grebe, 6 Shelducks, 1 Heron, 5 Black-tailed Godwits. Further along the track the same juv Kestrel sat on the same post (same..... excess use of this word, sorry!!), but with a second bird sitting further along the fence line.

It didn't have the same feel about it today and I knew I would waste my time walking out to Gun Hill, no birds of note at all out here, oh apart from a single Hedge Sparrow. There were however tons of dogs off leads (when they should be on leads) and annoying owners. I kept my mouth shut as two ladies walked behind me with their 5 dogs (off leads) and when they walked past me as the dogs seemed quite well behaved, but when they got about 20 yards past me they all decided to charge like bullets out of a gun into all the bushes at the end, with the risk of flushing out any birds that might be in there – I couldn't keep quiet any longer and said to the owners 'did they not know that this is a nature reserve and that all dogs must be on a lead' to which the owners called the dogs back. But, it took forever and involved the usual shouting and whistling and one dog did not return for ages, it was having great fun under the fence on the marsh chasing rabbits and a hare and generally causing havoc!

It was really cold as I walked back. The setting sun was particularly spectacular and I spent a while taking pictures and also some with the brilliant choice of filter settings, which you can set up before you take the picture on the iphone 5s. Also took some mono pictures.

The best birds this evening were two Little Owls – one on a wire just before Burnham Norton and the other on a wire just before Burnham Deepdale!

Burnham Overy Harbour from Gun Hill.

Scolt Head Island

Normal Setting in iphone 5s

'Noir' Filter in iphone 5s

Panoramic Setting in iphone 5s