Holkham National Nature Reserve!

Holkham Beach

I had a beautiful walk this afternoon and saw a fabulous selection of birds. I paid £3.50 to park for two hours at Lady Anne's Drive – there was so many cars here! Walked up to the 'Look Out' cafe and bumped into birders Chris, Ian, Paul and Richard here and also Paul Eele. I headed east along the path to Wells and then diverted through the pines and onto the beach to find the Shorelarks. The light was beautiful and dramatic. I found a flock of 50+ Snow Buntings in the roped off area (see pictures above) and 5 very distant Shorelarks feeding – no hope of any pictures. Retraced my steps back to the path and had a lovely selection of birds including Treecreepers x 3, Goldcrests x 2, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, several Long-tailed Tits, Chaffinches, Robin and Blackbird. I don't get why people need to walk along with Costa Coffee cups?!

Back opposite the 'Look Out', after a short rain shower, I counted at least 6 Goldcrests feeding in a tree overhanging the path – a couple of them came down to feed on the path! There were also Chaffinches, Great Tits, Blue Tits and a Robin feeding here too. A Red Kite scattered everything over the new pools – but it didn't take long before everything resettled to feed again. Huge selection of birds here including: 2 Ringed Plovers, Redshanks, 2 Snipe, 1 Mistle Thrush, Marsh Harrier, Egyptian Geese x 2, Greylag Geese, Brent Geese, Pied Wagtails x 3, Oystercachers, Curlews, tons of Wigeon, Teal, Shovelers, Mallards, Gadwall, Shelducks, Coot, Moorhens, Lapwings, Black-headed Gulls, Pheasants, Mute Swans, Meadow Pipits, Magpies, Grey Partridges x 2, Cormorants, Blackbird, Wren and Wood Pigeons. This new wetland area reminded me a bit of the Serpentine along the East Bank at Cley – it looks very promising indeed.

West of Lady Anne's Drive, Holkham

After warming up with a coffee in my car, I headed west along the A149 and stopped briefly to scan the marshes over Holkham and counted Spoonbills x 3, several Little Egrets, a flock of Starlings and tons of Cormorants in the roost. Headed back via Burnham Market to King's Lynn. I also had 2 Red Kites over Wells on route this morning.

MORE PICTURES TO BE ADDED