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Saturday 5 March 2011

Shorelarks, Spoonbill and Mackerel Skies!

Coastguards, Cley-next-Sea.

Cley-next-Sea

After a lazy morning I arrived at Cley just after lunch. Parked my car at Cley NWT Visitor Centre. Popped into the centre briefly to look at books and was most intrigued by the section on Holme Bird Observatory in the new edition of the Bird Observatories of Britain and Ireland by Poyser AND it was £60!!!!!! Had a catch up with Pat and then packed my camera bag up and went off on a long walk. Followed the path opposite the centre and went to Bishop's Hide - not alot there really. Walked along the East Bank. Canada geese, greylags, brent geese, shelduck and wigeon seen. At the end of the bank I turned right to view 7 Shorelarks half way down the ridge. I then walked west towards North Hide. On route I photographed some dunlin feeding in a small pool. 2 Goldfinches were seen along with pintail, little egret, teal and wigeon. Lots of geese flying over including pinkfeet and brents. From North hide there was a good general selection including one Spoonbill, a grey heron, redshanks, wigeon, avocets, dunlin, shelduck, godwits, gulls etc. The hide was packed full of people - quite unusual at this time of the year! Left here and headed for Coastguards and hoped to flush an early wheatear by the pill box, but no luck! Wrong winds though, need some southerlies not north easterlies! I spent quite a while taking pictures with my Sigma 10mm-20mm lens of the beautiful mackerel skies with the setting sun. Walked back to the car along Beach Road. 8 Pied wagtails flew into the reeds to roost. Drove along the coast road, west, picked up chips at Wells - arrived at Holme and spent the evening with my parents.

Dunlin, one of several near North Hide, Cley-next-Sea.



Coastguards, Cley-next-Sea.


Pinkfeet coming into roost, Cley-next-Sea.


Beach Road, Cley-next-Sea.


Coastguards, Cley-next-Sea.

4 comments:

  1. Would love to see Shorelark sadly something that alludes me.
    The 10-20mm lens is fab especially for those ups of people,pets and skies.

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  2. Hope you see some Shorelarks soon - they are unique birds. Yes, I love that lens, very useful for skies and landscapes.

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  3. Also a fan of the 10-20 although I got fixated by big skies and found it hard to use for anything else. A couple of weeks ago I traded it for a Fuji Finepix HS10 which is an amazing crossover camera about 2/3 the sizeand 1/2 the weight of my Nikon D60 with its 18-135 lens. The HS10 boasts a 24-720 optical zoom and 12 mega pixels, its like using a telescope on 16x setting and it fits into a hip bag!I used it to photograph the Cattle Egret we had down the road at St. Winnow a couple of weeks back and the results were better than digiscoping !! Check one out. By the way I have just received my Crossley ID Eastern Birds an amazing new book, I understand he has a British guide in preparation. Regards Eddy. PS very jealous of Shorelarks!!

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  4. Hi, the one with the geese is brilliant!! Eddy

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