Only two of us for the latest car trip, myself and Steve B, with another joining later in the afternoon. We met for breakfast at Hunstanton Tescos at 0800 and had to wait for the chef to get the scoff ready. It was a sunny day but already getting cold and it smelt like rain (or was that the breakfast?).
We started off at a well known watchpoint where we saw absolutely hundreds of birds coming in off the sea; chaffinches in the hundreds, starlings, brent geese, goldfinches, redpoll, bramblings, fieldfares, a shore lark and probably hundreds more that were just too quick for my eyes to see. At one point it looked like I imagine waves of German bombers to look like during the war!
Up to Holme beach after that. There were a lot of birds on the sea, to be fair mostly at a good distance. There was a trawler/dredger that had it’s nets up and there was a huge crowd of gulls following and presumably grabbing free scoff. There was a lone Common Scoter and a few Red Throated Divers in the sea and then lots of birds passing over including Brent Geese, Goosanders, Red Breasted Mergansers, Oystercatchers, Sanderlings, Grey Plovers and many more, I am sure Steve will publish the full list. I just didn’t know where to look first!
We eventually made contact with John and headed over to Titchwell for a cup of tea and a slice of cake before a quick trip round there. The light, which had never been that good all day, was starting to fade fast, but we still saw plenty. The highlight for me was 5 – 600 Golden Plover, which were awesome, especially when they were spooked by a Marsh Harrier!
We also got some very good views of a lone Grey Plover as well as many other birds. Some pictures below.
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lincsbirders 