Bird Therapy at Cley & Salthouse!

Stunning sunset this evening at Coastguards, Cley

You can sense the fear of the Coronavirus pandemic all around you. Every step you take, every mile driven, every shop visited, the constant news on the TV and radio. Its here and its not even hit us yet – its going to be a long few months. It will affect every aspect of our lives, our health, our loved ones, our jobs, our movements, our birding, everything. It is consuming us, everyday and it will affect people's mental health and wellbeing, the longer it goes on. I'm not looking forward to returning to work tomorrow at all – I know it will feel very different – with no visitors allowed, it will be very weird indeed. As time goes on, we will more than probably end up nursing instead of doing therapy and being moved to other parts of the hospital to cover for staff who fall ill to this awful virus.

Anyway..... back to today! I think I have sorted out the awful rat situation I have had over the last few weeks – it got so serious that I had to take all my bird feeders down. Today, I put all the feeders back up – the birds were so happy! No sign of any rats so far, fingers crossed! Cleaned all the bird ponds out and then spent a while indoors thinking about all the awful things going on in the world, including very sad things going on with people I know and then fell asleep.

I decided I better get some birding in before we all end up quarantined! Headed east and popped into CleySpy briefly to return something and then headed to Salthouse. Parked up by the duck pond and scattered some of my home-made bread that had gone a bit stale, for the ducks and gulls – it seemed to be very much appreciated. Walked up Grout's Lane to see the Waxwings and luckily managed to see one only, that was perched high up on a pine tree branch in the sunshine – but it flew shortly after I saw it, so no pictures. I can't remember the last time I got a decent picture with my SLR! Grout's Lane has some very pretty gardens and leads up to the church.

I passed John Furse along the road, who stopped briefly to tell me there was a Wheatear at the pill box by the Eye Field. I headed east to try and find my own at Gramborough Hill, Salthouse. Parked up along Beach Road and had a lovely walk to G.H. Found some Pied Wagtails, Meadow Pipits, 2 Little Egrets, a Hedge Sparrow and 2 Redshanks in the pool just west of the hill and also 2 Ringed Plovers flew across the field. Sadly I didn't find my own Wheatear! Ambled back to the car. Saw John again, who kindly told me the white Barn Owl was sitting on a post along the main road near the bottom of Old Woman's Lane – stopped briefly to watch this wonderful Barn Owl and saw it dive down into the grass to catch something – it returned to the post to enjoy its meal! I tried to do a phone-scope video, but poor light and distance resulted in a rubbish result – headed to Coastguards.

Saw Richard Porter at Coastguards, who had just seen the Wheatear and kindly gave me some directions to the exact spot where he had seen it. I walked way beyond the pill box and initially could not find the Wheatear. Lots of Brent Geese and Greylag Geese were looking beautifully orange as the sun was setting. I took some sunset pictures and was close to giving up in the fading light, when I suddenly found the cracking male Wheatear – the first one of the Spring at Cley! It was a magical sight to see – my first Spring migrant! Returned to my car, had a coffee and an egg sandwich and drove home listening to Hayla's NAKED, Example's Sun Hits Your Eyes, All Night and Show Me How To Love. Good Night.