Hot Birding at Wells, Choseley & Thornham!

Spotted Flycatcher

An annoying little branch over the eye, giving the impression of green eye shadow!

My highlight of the day was finding a lovely Spotted Flycatcher in woodland (but sorry, can't say where) – in the same area I saw a Red Kite directly over my head, whilst I watched the Spot Fly. Also saw Blackcaps, Goldfinches, Greenfinch, Blackbirds, Wood Pigeons, Red Admiral, Peacock and Orange Tip butterflies.

Red Kite

After having lunch and a quick snooze, I headed east to North Point Pools at Wells again. Bumped into some familiar faces here including Mike S., Ashley S., and met Sean (not sure of spelling) who I had given directions to for here last year he told me – nice to meet you), Gem and another Wells local birder. Saw the same selection of birds as last night, but didn't see any Yellow Wagtails or Common Sandpipers. New birds seen that I didn't see last night were Short-eared Owl and Temminck's Stint. Also 2 Wood Sandpipers were seen too. Beautiful weather, beautiful light.

Headed west and ended up at Choseley Drying Barns in hope of seeing a Turtle Dove. A photographer was photographing birds from his car on the road. Birds seen here: Stock Doves x 3, Red-legged Partridges x 4, Magpies x 2, Pheasant, Robin, Goldfinch, Marsh Harrier and the second best bird of the day was a Little Owl, perched almost motionless on a piece of farm equipment! I have never seen one here before, what a treat! Also saw a beautiful male Yellowhammer sitting in a tree as I drove down the hill to the main road.

Parked up at Thornham Harbour car park to have my tea and a coffee. A couple (wearing city designer clothes and shiny shoes) turned up in a car – the man got out and walked across to the already full bin and stuffed in a large bag of rubbish, which looked like a takeaway they had consumed. Funny that, I had rubbish in my car too – it went back with me to King's Lynn and I put it in my wheelie bin! Had lovely views of a particularly striking male Marsh Harrier over the reed beds in beautiful orange light at dusk. An Oystercatcher was perched on the one of the boats and Pied Wagtails were coming into roost. Cruised home to King's Lynn via Hunstanton. I was horrified to see the huge Bennett's Home estate in its early stages of being built, along Old Town Way – with tons of machinery and diggers parked up – what an awful view for all the houses along that road, when they have been used to views of beautiful fields and trees and now looking at a building site!

Arrived home to find that one of my work colleagues (who knows how much I love Bee-eaters) had linked something on Facebook for me..... a man had photographed two Bee-eaters for three hours at Horsey yesterday morning from 6.30am to 9.30am and nobody else knew! David Brooker took some stonking pictures and put them on the FB Norfolk Countryside Photos Group. The last Bee-eater I saw was at Cley on 21st May 2012. The next one is overdue!!!