North Norfolk

I've just returned from a family holiday to one of my favourite parts of the UK - north Norfolk and its wonderful coastline. I feel I have a special affiliation with this part of the world as when I first left school I spent a summer working with the RSPB at their Titchwell reserve as a voluntary warden, most of this time was spent maintaining the reserve for the public with a couple of excellent projects to keep you busy. Like the time we created habitat for bitterns by wading up to our waistline into the reed bed, cutting the reeds down below the surface of the water to create small open pools within the reeds for bitterns to feed, or sitting in a one man hide in shifts of up to four hours, overseeing a nesting colony of little terns on the shingle beach (sadly gone now) or trying to build up the natural sea defences by increasing the height of the sand dunes by laying cut down branches onto the existing dune in hope this would build up the height over time and protect the salt marsh from the rising tides, all of these activities were under the watchful gaze of Norman Sills (warden) who had a never ending passion and energy for conservation. After leaving Titchwell, Norman went onto manage the RSPB reserve at Lakenheath to continue his good work, anyone who has visited Lakenheath can see what a great success he has achieved - I look back fondly on the efforts of that summer and despite the hard work I found the whole experience rewarding and educating.

Although family commitments reduced the amount of time available for birdwatching in general I did manage a surprise visit to the NNT Holme reserve after finding out our planned trip to Brancaster had to be postponed due to the hide tide covering the only road to the beach! We spent a couple of hours on the beach with the children collecting shells, crabs and digging holes in the sand. Whilst walking along the shoreline we unfortunately discovered a dead Bar-tailed Godwit which by the looks of things had been deceased for some time! And this wasn't the only dead bird we found that day, we also found an adult Fulmar in pristine condition which after closer inspection looked like it had died from natural causes - we decided to bury the bird in the sand as I did my best to explain to the children the bird would go to some kind of 'bird heaven'.

The skull of the long deceased aforementioned Bar-tailed Godwit

All the time we were on the beach I kept a close eye on the skies and picked up my first swallows of the spring heading north closely hugging the Norfolk cost line, Sanderlings were still in their wonderful white winter plumage running up and down the sandy shore, looking out to see there wasn't much movement apart from the odd flock of Bar-tailed Godwit and a distant large flock of Brent geese. We decided to make tracks and head back to the car as the northerly breeze in off the sea kept the temperature's low and we were all starting to get hungry! On our way back to the car park through the sand dunes we flushed a couple of Wheatear's and as I approached the bushes around Gore Point, whilst still keeping an eye out for any arriving summer migrants I noticed a thrush shaped bird sat up on one of the bushes - RING OUZEL! a male, fantastic, after watching the bird for only a matter of seconds and kindly handing my bins to Mrs Brown for a quick look a second bird arrived and then quickly disappeared into cover, deciding to move around the bushes for a better view 'chuck', 'chuck', 'chuck' came the call and THREE birds flew out of the cover and headed in the general direction of Hunstanton further along the coast - what a great end to a day on the beach, especially as I had been on Wanstead Flats the previous weekend looking for a Ring Ouzel without success.

I've since found out there had been a decent influx of Ring Ouzel's over the last few days along the north Norfolk coast with up to seven birds seen together at Cley and several other birds dotted along the coast - Still nothing beats the thrill of finding your own birds!