Good day in East Anglia

Today we set off at the crack of dawn and made Fincham by 6.30am. We found the field by the farm full of Hares and Roe Deer. Grey Partridge and Yellowhammers entertained us while we searched for the Great Grey Shrike that Jim wanted for a year tick and that we'd dipped last weekend. By 7am we hadn't found the target and then as I scanned the wires around the farm I noticed the Shrike sitting with a Blackbird and a Yellowhammer and Jim now had his year tick.

The Shrike at Fincham

We then continued north arriving at Thornham to find Twite, Greenshank and Spotted Redshank of note.

Twite, Redshank, Rock Pipit and Greenshank at Thornham

From Thornham we moved on to Titchwell and finally connected with the Woodcock that although regular is very elusive but what a great bird!

The very elusive Woodcock

We connected with Water Rail on the walk down to the hides and then enjoyed good views of Water Pipit from Parinder Hide. Jim got a year tick with the Med Gulls that have started to gather on the island and a particularly PINK blushed Black-headed Gull took our eye. Two Cranes then flew over  to add to the feast of bird life on offer.

Cranes over Titchwell

Still flush from this success we headed down to Lynford and here had great views of Brambling and distant views of Hawfinch. The feeding station at the bridge provided some good opportunity to grab some images of Nuthatch, Blue Tit and Marsh Tit which will follow in a seperate post.

We left Lynford and drove back up to Cockley but only had a single very distant Goshawk in the air with several Buzzard for company. Our last point of call was again a little closer to home at Lackford Lakes where our reward was another year tick with a single Lesser Redpoll on the feeders here.

Curlew at Thornham

A terrific day in East Anglia where our total for the day was a decent count of 102 species.

Year list now 187