Birding At Cley and West Runton!

Today was the first day I felt awake enough to drive any distance since I have returned from Shetland. I headed east and met up with Eddie, Andy J. and John F. in the Visitor Centre at Cley NWT for a cheese scone and cup of tea. I hadn't realised it was half-term. I was quite shocked by the amount of people around today – never seen so many cars at the beach car park in November!

Some of us then headed to Coastguards, where I saw 7 Barnacle Geese on the Eye Field along with a lots of Brent Geese, several Gannets, Cormorant, Bonxies x 2, Red-necked Grebe, Red-throated Diver, Common Scoters x 7, Guillemot and Razorbill. Sadly I wasn't lucky with the Puffin which had been seen earlier this morning.

Returned to the visitor centre for lunch – no chance! It was jam-packed, not a single seat spare and looking around, not a birder to be seen. I didn't fancy sitting outside, so left and headed east. Had a lovely jacket potato lunch at Kelling Tea-rooms and even that was pretty packed. I was asked if I minded sharing my four person table with other people – of course I didn't! Three people came and joined me and it was nice to chat to them whilst having lunch. I got up to leave and a lady kindly called me to say I had left something – shockingly I had left my binoculars hanging on the chair! Huge thanks to that lady! I then purchased a piece of ginger cake to take away.

I wanted to see the flock of Snow Buntings, but I wanted to see the Lesser Whitethroats at West Runton more, so headed there. Parked up in the car park at the end of Beach Road and started to walk to what I thought was the correct field/area, but was kindly guided to the right spot by Simon C., who had found both these birds recently. I spent a long time there and only had a brief and fairly distant view one of them – no photos whatsoever. Other birds seen were a distant Chiffchaff, close views of 2 Goldcrests above my head! A party of Long-tailed Tits +++, Blackbirds, Hedge Sparrow, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robins and a big flock of Starlings in one of the fields.

Walsey Hills NOA – stopped here, as someone had said that 2 Firecrests had been seen. I soon realised with the failing light I wasn't going to be seeing any Firecrests. One of them had been ringed earlier by Warden David B. and he had put the news on the RBA website. Great Spotted Woodpecker knocking on wood in here, which David highlighted to me – I could only just hear it though #advancingyearsrubbishhearing.

East Bank (where my parents met💕) – in failing light I saw 17 Pied Wagtails, Teal, Mallards, Wigeon on The Serpentine and a Cetti's Warbler called from the west side of the path. Further along I saw a Reed Bunting, Wren, Heron and a Marsh Harrier. Bird of the day was a Short-eared Owl, which a couple close by me spotted – we watched it for quite a while, hunting over Arnold's Marsh and then it landed on the path not far from the viewing shelter! Light was far too rubbish to even allow for my camera to take pictures though – it flew off and around the west side of the path and then landed on the path south of where it landed earlier! Walked back to my car in the dark and drove home listening to my new Shetland fiddle CD's. Back to work tomorrow!