Lots of Twitching!

14/10/06 Stiffkey, Blakeney, Cley, Salthouse, Titchwell Leaders: Simeon, James, Connor
We started very early and left the house at 6:30am for Stiffkey. Connor quickly managed to find the Yellow - Browed Warbler in the campsite woods and it gave excellent views about 8 yards away on the outside of a bush! A cracking bird! Other birds we got there were; a couple of Bramblings, two Chiffchaffs, a few Redwings and some Goldcrests. The next bird was a lot rarer but didn't give nearly as good views! It was the Cattle Egret at Friary Hills on Blakeney Freshmarsh. It was easy to pick out amongst the cattle, but it was very distant. Other birds we got there included several Redwings, a single Fieldfare, some more Bramblings and another possible Yellow - Browed Warbler! Then it was off to Cley. On the seawatch we got a really close Red - Throated Diver, three Eider and about 27 Razorbill. We then walked to the North Hide and picked up several Dunlin, Little Stint and a White - Rumped Sandpiper although it was giving poor views and hard to identify in the light conditions. After that we went to Salthouse. Here we got a few more Razorbill on the sea and a lovely Shore Lark East of Gramborough Hill. Then we went to Titchwell and got stunning views of the Whiskered Tern from Parrinder Hide and from the path when it flew up to 10m away! Then an adult white - morph Snow goose came up on the pager between Brancaster and Docking in fields with Pinkfeet! We rushed there to find no Pinkfeet at all! Then we took a minor road and saw some birdwatchers on a hill. We got out of the car and saw several thousand Pinkfeet all in one field! Someone had seen the Snow Goose fly over the hedge into another field so I rushed along the road to the top of the hill. The goose was just over the brow of the hill out of site. This was a little annoying, but suddenly they all flew up and the Snow Goose gave excellent views flying right past us! I ran down the road again and saw it landed in the field amongst the Pinkfeet. This was another cracking bird! There were also two Barnacle Geese present and someone said that the Snow Goose had been tracked all the way down the West coast! With nothing else to do, we returned to Titchwell and James got some shots of the Whiskered Tern (see gallery) and I managed to get the Pectoral Sandpiper and Jack Snipe from Parrinder Hide at the end! It had been a brilliant day and we were really tired by the end of it!