Birthday odds and sods

23rd & 24th January 2010
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My birthday weekend (I'm like royalty - I claim two days), and a necessary reduction in birding to avoid alienating my family. I pulled rank and still went to Whitlingham for dawn on the Saturday, in the vain hope that the Slav was still around. It wasn't. The supporting cast were still there, I directed four birders to the R-N Grebe, although they were all very pleasant, nowhere near as dippy as those that Jono Leadley met. Incidentally my favourite question so far has been if the "Great Throated" Diver is still there, having walked past the GND. It could have just been a spoonerism. Maybe. We also saw the Smew, Ruddy Duck and Goosander, before my wildfowl scanning was disrupted by a) fog, b) canoeists, and the final disgrace, c) men with their remote control yachts. The dubious highlight was a lone Greenfinch, my 65th patch bird of the year so far.

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Leaving the broad, we went to the White Horse in Trowse for lunch. In the evening the great and good of North Walsham High School alumni joined us for drinks at the Rose Tavern and Eaton Cottage. Amongst the topics of discussion was our Scottish birding holiday later in the year, something to look forward to!

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On Sunday in between visiting relatives in Edingthorpe and a family meal at the Poacher's Pocket I got half an hour at Sea Palling. The tide wasn't fully in, so I had to make due with distant views of Purple Sandpiper, but a flock of Turnstones & 6 Sanderling came closer to feed on the strandline. Cath found a cuttlefish, the first one I can remember seeing locally. On the way between Walcott and Sea Palling we had a quick look at the Brent flock from the car, seeing 25-30 Pale-bellied Brents. Earlier in the week James Appleton had 44. This is probably the biggest flock for over 20 years, 23 at Salthouse (1996) and 38 in Salthouse (1985) (Birds of Norfolk, Taylor et al.) being the only comparable recent maxima.