Holme Marsh Reserve NWT & Holme Bird Observatory NOA!

Holme Beach this evening

I have been busy doing various jobs over the last couple of days, including editing pictures! Its obvious that I won't be moving house this year, being as we have not yet sold our parent's house, so I decided to buy some items to improve my comfort on my patio in the evenings after work. I've ordered a large green wooden parasol and heavy base from Amazon and a bistro set. I also need to do some major work in the garden. I really regret planting elder for the birds, I now have towering elder trees! Before I started my blog, my garden was all in order, it is completely the opposite of what it used to be! There is wild and then there is jungle, mine is a jungle at the far end of the garden! The blog has taken over my life, completely! I really need to get my life balance right and I'm not doing a very good job of it at all – oh well.

I just made it in time to "Moulham & Horn" at Heacham, to buy more bird food before they closed up shop. I then went to Holme Marsh Reserve NWT (the village hides x 3). Along the path to the kissing gate, before reaching Hide 1, I saw an Orange Tip Butterfly, 2 Walls and 1 Red Admiral and heard a Blackcap. Nothing else of note and not a single Dragonfly seen.

Orange Tip Butterfly at Holme Marsh Reserve NWT

Gadwall at Holme Marsh Reserve NWT

 Wall Butterfly at Holme Marsh Reserve NWT

 View from Hide 2 at Holme Marsh Reserve NWT

Holme Marsh Reserve NWT
From Hide 1: Tufted Ducks x 2, Sedge Warbler singing, Mute Swan, Magpie, Cetti's Warbler singing, Canada Goose, 2 Mallards, Lapwings x 2, Starling and a Marsh Harrier.

Hide 2: Cuckoo calling, Gadwall x 2, Reed Bunting feeding on Reed Mace, Swallow, House Martin, Pheasant, Moorhen, Linnets, Chaffinches, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Blackbird, Coot and a Bittern booming distantly, from way over the marsh.

Hide 3: Oystercatcher, more Marsh Harriers and a group of three visiting birders in the hide, who were staying locally – nice to meet you all.

Holme Bird Observatory, NOA
Parked on the NOA car park at 8pm and walked straight across the dunes and walked along the path through the pines and up onto the boardwalk and down to HBO. Sat on the seat where my father used to sit outside the observatory and pondered and reminisced. Heard a Cuckoo, didn't really see anything else of note this late in the evening. Beautiful skies and sunset.

Redwell Marsh Reserve, NOA
I unlocked the hide, sat on the seat and carefully opened the hide flap – I was absolutely shocked, there was nothing in front of me apart from dry hard mud, not a drop of water anywhere and obviously not a single bird to see. I couldn't understand it at all, as last time I had visited there was a full pool of water and lots of birds. I texted Sophie and she explained it was because we had had no rain at all and that unless we had a deluge of rain, it would remain like that until winter time, how very sad to see this reserve like this.

With no east winds on the cards this weekend or any time soon, when I looked at the long range weather forecast, I wonder if anything exciting will turn up this weekend? Also, will the Black-winged Stilts be relocated? My bet is that they are on the private nature reserve that is somewhere near Burnham Deepdale – the one that had the Terek Sandpiper on (that nobody could go and see) on 25th June 2015.