Purple Heron at Cley and Dotterel at Docking

We travelled up the A11 this morning arriving at Cley for 7am parking in a layby under the westbank we walked up the steps to find a few birders already in place and luckily they were on the Purple Heron. No sooner had we got on it the Lapwings started to give it a hard time so it took flight and flew away dropping out of sight but we'd achieved our first tick of the day so we left to travel across to Docking were we again parked up on the side of the road to scan the stony fields. We found a pair of Grey Partridge, a pair of Wheatear, a pair of Osyercatchers and a single Golden Plover before eventually finding two female and a male Dotterel in the distance. Throw in a couple of Barn Owls and the day was of to a good start and with the pressure off we headed into Titchwell for a bit of general birding.

Purple Heron (a bit dark shooting into direct sun from Westbank)

A Red-crested Pochard gave us another year tick before we connected with two Little Gills, a couple of Common Sands and a Spoonbill on Freshmarsh. At the sea we found another year tick with three Little Terns fishing on the shore line and a Grey Seal had beached giving a quick photo op using the 400mm so as to keep a good distance. I sat and watched the Sanderlings for a while grabbing a few images as they marched along the shore line.

Year list now 209 

Grey Seal

Grey Seal

Knot

Little Tern

Sanderling

why?

Sanderling

Sandwich Tern

Sandwich Tern