1st January 2012

January 1st 2012  (And the start of me using the blog as the diary intended)

The start of a new year and a new year list.

A trip to Norfolk is a must to get the year list off to a good start so I picked up the Jims (Dad Jim and brother Jim) and headed up the M11 finding a nice Barn Owl on route as we headed for Titchwell where we picked up an impressive list of 74 other species including Common Scoter, Red-breasted Merganser, Red-throated Diver, a nice early Merlin sitting on the beach, lovely views of spotted Redshank but the real highlight of this first stop off was the tree in the car park that housed Lesser/Common and Arctic Redpoll.

With our count now at 75 we moved on down the A149 and stopped at Brancaster and picked up 3 more with a Ringed Plover, Common Gull and a bonus Purple Sandpiper. Following that we made a short stop at Burnham and whilst checking out the Rough Legged Buzzard we had a Lapland Bunting fly over and a flock of Redwing drop in. Add to that a nice Grey Partridge (82)  and we moved on towards Cley. Along the road to Cley we picked up Kestrel, Pink footed Geese, Egyptian Geese, Red-legged Partridge and Stock Dove. At Cley we were on a mission to locate the visitor from America (The Western Sandpiper) and whilst looking saw a Peregrine take a Lapwing out and a GBB gull pushed us through 89 and then we found the Western Sand and hit 90 for the day.....secretly we all wanted 100 from day one. We heard there was a Shrike at Fakenham and after a quick pied wagtail at Salthouse we moved to Fakenham where we dipped on the shrike but picked up a Starling and Song Thrush. (92) A nice start to 2012. I've set a target of 250 for the year hoping that having the target will get me out and about a bit more.