Sunday 17 October 2010

mixed morning in the Waxham area

It was a morning of mixed feelings, on the one hand I had nothing amazing to show for the visit, however I did have three interesting/annoying sightings and a Norfolk tick so its not all that bad.
I arrived before dawn so decided to wander towards the pipe dump and get to a high point in the dunes to do a bit of viz migging, I managed a/the hooded crow in the morning half light a new Norfolk bird for me. As it got light there were a few bits on the sea, the first annoyance/excitement came when a gannet was at mid to long range, it looked very much like an adult but had a neat black set of primaries and secondaries! I immediately changed lens and watched it at higher power, it definitely had pure black in the wing feathers but everything else was pure white in the wing, I could not make out the tail colouration which would have helped...the one that got away or just an oddly patterned 4th yr/subad gannet (never seen one so clean cut) I had one hand on my phone but then had second thoughts, I'd probably be ridiculed for such an outrageous claim, shame though... I do wonder!

Other bits on the sea included 27 Red throated Divers, 1 Black throated (not seen too many of them in Norfolk) a nice female Velvet Scoter close in as well as a lot of the usual stuff.

Then came the next bit of excitement a bunting which flew North with an interesting tick call, again not enough to say what it was but listening to various buntings on my mp3 player minutes after hearing the call would point to a possible Rustic bunting! double drat!

I then carried on a bit further and had a couple of blackcaps and chiffchaffs, 2 Lap bunts flew over in land as well as 4 Snow buntings seen to come in off and then North.

Then the final bit of torment came overhead loosely assosiated with a flock of siskins heading north, a fairly clean whistle followed by three notes slurred downward (a terrible description but it really stood out as different!) I'm not sure I saw the bird itself but it sounded like a finchlike call, not Siskin though.

There was a large movement of finches North throughout the morning including siskins, greenfinches and a few Redpoll. There seemed to be a lot of continental blackbirds around this morning the large ones with black bills but apart from that it was quiet.

All in all it was the day that could have been fantastic, I know most of my calls but the three I heard this morning were certainly not on my radar! Must revise more now

1 comment:

  1. Ben,

    Black-throated Diver is an excellent sighting for this part of the coast. We've only had one so far despite the sea being watched daily.

    For an adult Cape Gannet you need the underwing (covs showing no sign of dark feathers) and a pretty much wholly black tail.

    Here's a relevant Northern
    http://www.biscay-dolphin.org.uk/photos/Image%20148_SKua%20&%20Gannet_Kate%20Lewis_13072010.jpg

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_B_5jvio717o/S3DHHIlNp1I/AAAAAAAAB3c/Msw8Po1GEfc/s1600-h/Northern_Gannet_6038_20100129.jpg

    and another here:
    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AuY0AqKJKDs/SZMm5WcbphI/AAAAAAAAAIk/mpT1GmZh_bE/s1600-h/NOGA-flock.jpg

    or imagine this minus the two white secs:
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7M3r8Nh7lBU/TCkIqlchoPI/AAAAAAAAAkI/o70JpFhZosg/s1600/GANNET.jpg

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