NORTH NORFOLK: Bank holiday part 2 - Weybourne

Adam & I had arranged our day out in advance, and had hoped that the last week of August might yield a few migrant birds, but the wind direction had largely out paid to this. Instead we decided to head to the coast but concentrate on bees instead.

Our morning destination was Weybourne Cliffs, where I had heard that there was a colony of Heather Bees (Colletes succinctus) over a thousand strong. My previous experience of this species was of a few skittish bees flying about the heather, so this would be a good chance to observe them closer up. In addition, they were likely to be attended by the cleptoparasitic Red-thighed Epeolus (Epeolus cruciger), a species I'd not seen before (I saw the closely related Black-thighed Epeolus at the start of the month at Titchwell).

Starting off on the top of the cliff, we found some Lasioglossum sp and a few Heather Bees nesting in some sandy outcrops. It soon became evident that the main colony was in an area of sandy cliff, about two-thirds of the way up. The best way to view was evidently from the beach, so we went back down and round. Most of the bees were above head height, but enough came down lower for us to get some good views.

We were successful finding the Red-thighed Epeolus too. As well as finding several males and females, there was a dead one, which allowed for close examination. Given that many bees require close (often microscopic) examination, it was useful to get close up views to compare against the other species in the genus. Adam also located a large beetle, which as I hoped turned out to be one of the coastal specialists, Broschus cephalotes.

After spending a while at the colony, we moves across to the western cliffs. These seemed to have nothing nesting in them, so we moved on to scanning Weybourne Camp. I remarked that there should at least be a Wheatear about, at which point Adam found one. That was it for migrants though, so we headed back to the car and onwards.

NORTH NORFOLK: Weybourne Camp & Kelling

23rd April 2017

On Sunday the North East Norfolk Bird Club had organised a walk taking in Weybourne Camp, an area not usually accessible to the public, before heading past Kelling Water Meadows and across Muckleburgh Hill. I decided to attend to get a good look at the camp, and a lot of other people had the same idea. The meeting point at the Muckleburgh collection car park was already busy when I arrived, and by the start time around 50 birders were present!

We were led round by Moss Taylor, who has been visiting the area for over 40 years. We scanned some fields for migrants, seeing Stock Dove and a couple of Brown Hares, before heading over to the eastern edge of the camp. My first Wheatear of the year was seen, followed by another new year bird as two Whimbrel flew in off the sea. Sedge Warblers and a Cetti's Warbler called from the reedbed before we had a quick look out to sea.

There are some excellent looking bits of scrub on the camp, and a couple of Stonechats and a Lesser Whitethroat were present. A Whinchat was also found on a row of posts nearby. I hadn't seen many insects at this point, but we began to see large numbers of Brown-tail moth caterpillars in their communal tents.

We left the camp onto the coast footpath, stopping to to watch a colony of Sand Martins at the western end of the sandy cliffs. A couple of Grey Partridges flew up just before Kelling Quags, and a Yellow Wagtail was present at the edge of the water. At the end of the track a Hobby flew over, and as we walked along the edge of Muckleburgh Hill a Red Kite glided high above us. The last couple of birds of the walk were Willow Warbler and Bullfinch, before we returned to the cars.

Many thanks to Moss Taylor and the NENBC for organising access and for leading the walk.

NORTH NORFOLK: Kelling Heath

20th March 2011

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The downside to my increased focus on local birding so far this year has been that I haven't got out to North Norfolk much. I decided to remedy this with a trip to Weybourne and Kelling Heath. This proved more problematic than it needed to be as the train to Sheringham was replaced by a coach service (taking an extra 35 minutes) and this meant missing the 2-hourly Coasthopper by a couple of minutes. Rather than wait I decided to walk to Weybourne along the clifftop path. I failed to find Wheatears or anything other than hundreds of Skylarks on the gold course, and the buntings at Weybourne were too far away for me to convince myself that they were definitely Lapland.

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Having drawn a similar blank looking for migrants on Weybourne Camp, I walked up the hill to Kelling Heath, where the first hour was similarly bird-adverse. The lizards got so used to me wandering about they stopped bothering to run off after a while. My luck finally changed when I talked to a birder who had seen two Dartford Warblers earlier in the day. With an area to focus on and some bursts of sunshine I finally got a good look at a male Dartford Warbler, sat up on some gorse. It vanished as quickly as it had arrived, and I only got one flight view in the 20 minutes or so after the initial sighting. After walking back to Weybourne I found I had an hour until the bus , which I divided between a quick seawatch and trying Woodfordes Best Bittern at the Ship Inn.