Lowestoft, 19 October 2014

With us both needing a walk and some sea air today we made our way to Lowestoft and parked at Ness Point. Walking north I'd soon caught up with the long-staying juv Red-backed Shrike which showed very nicely indeed in scrub close to the Birds Eye factory fence. A walk around North Denes/Denes Oval produced very little but a fly over Woodlark was a nice addition. Back at Ness Point a look at the turbine yard proved very worthwile with a late Northern Wheatear and 2 Black Redstarts chasing each other about.

 Red-backed Shrike

 Red-backed Shrike

 Northern Wheatear

 Black Redstart 

Cley and Walsey Hills, 18 October 2014

With me needing to escape the house I decided on a Saturday afternoon at Cley.
First up was the 1w Grey Phalarope of the last few days on Eye Pool. It duly obliged but with the fencing now set further back than in the good old days I couldn't get as close as I'm sure it would have allowed. A Common Buzzard flew hight west and the Eye Field was full of Brent Geese and Golden Plover while a Rock Pipit popped in briefly

With not a huge amount of interest further along the coast I then spent a fruitful couple of hours mooching around Walsey Hills with 2 Yellow-browed Warblers and then I jammed in on a Pallas's Warbler found late on in sycamores at the rear of Snipes Marsh. All afternoon Redwings were passing over as well as smaller numbers of Chaffinches.

Grey Phalarope 

 Yellow-browed Warbler

Yellow-browed Warbler

      

Steppe Grey Shrike, Burnham Norton, 14 October 2014

After 10 days in Belgium and then a day of atrocious weather yesterday I finally managed to catch up with the Steppe Grey Shrike on the marshes at Burnham Norton this morning. With the sun out and a showy bird it was a shame I had to dash back to north Suffolk for work much sooner than I wanted to! Another county tick though - yay!
Bearded Tit, Reed Buntings, Stonechat, Brent Geese and Pink-footed Geese completed the brief picture.
The dodgy photo below was phone-scoped.

  


Belgium non-birding trip

Strictly a non-birding trip around Belgium but a few (not very exciting) things seen.

A walk in the woods and hills around La Roche-en-Ardennes yielded 2 bigs flocks of Crossbills (40+ and 20+), Crested Tit, Willow Tits, Short-toed Treecreeper, 2 Grey Wagtails and several Black Redstarts in the town itself.

Another pair of Black Redstarts were at an abandoned coal mine near Liege.

On the way back to Calais a quick stop at Oye Plage added 6 Spoonbills, 3 Little Egrets, 2 Cetti's Warblers, Curlew, Stonechat, Linnets  and a singing Chiffchaff. 

That was it!