Monday 2 June 2014

Spectacled Warbler at Burnham Overy

We decided to try for the Black-headed Bunting at the pig farm in West Runton today and arrived on site at 7am to find a group of around fifteen other birders already there but reporting negative news. We waited over two hours noting several Whitethroat, Goldfinch, Linnet, Dunnock etc but no sign of the Bunting.
A Barn Owl came out to hunt the field in front of us and break the boredom.

Barn Owl dive
Barn Owl
Barn Owl
We headed across Norfolk stopping at Choseley where we found Grey Partridge but the reported Turtle Doves failed to show so we moved on to Titchwell where a nice walk out through the reserve gave us good views of Avocet, Godwits, LRP's, Red Crested Pochard and Spoonbill to name a few.

Avocet

As we headed back down the track the pager bleeped into life with news of a Mega at Burnham Overy.
A Spectacled Warbler had been reported and within half an hour we had pulled up at the layby on the A149 and started the long walk down to the dunes. We made the boardwalk and could see a couple of birders close to Gunn Hill so headed of west towards them arriving to news that the bird was in the bushes n fron of them and straight away we heard it calling. Within a couple of minutes we were enjoying good scope views of the lifer. The bird them flew off back towards the boardwalk were we sat and waited with a crowd swelling towards the fifty or so mark. Once the bird flew back to Gunn Hill we left it to the gathered crowd and made our way back along the track were we enjoyed good views of Little Tern.

Distant record shot of the Spectacled Warbler
The Twitch (this within an hour of the news breaking)


a cracking result after the mornings dip.

Year list now 213

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