Sunday 10 May 2015

Local birding and a cheeky finch twitch

I have been checking Buckenham and Cantley on a near daily basis lately in hope of finding a rare wader or similar, I still have not found said rarity. However I have seen a few local goodies in the past week. There has been a fairly steady flow of Wheatears lately, with 3 at Cantley and 4 separate birds at Buckenham. Yellow wags have been all over the marshes but only posing for the camera once or twice in the week. I also found a rather odd pied wagtail which had a completely white throat, as far as I can tell it was just a Yarrellii in full winter plumage, which seems odd for May! Finally locally today there was an arrival of whitethroats at Buckenham which were making themselves obvious with their scratchy songs.
I did try my best to string a Honey Buzzard mid week, I was pretty convinced, however the expert opinion has ruled it out due to wing shape, some did agree with my original id though. (some pics below) I first picked it up as it was looking from left to right and its head and long neck were twisting around all over the place, I thought the body shape looked good too.











bottom right bird. strange how the head was constantly pertruding much more than the others

I then got home and saw that a Ciril finch had been seen at Holkham, the description of mobile and illusive left me waiting for another message or two. After cleaning all the windows in the house I decided to go. As I parked at Lady Annes Drive there had been no sign for over an hour and another message saying still no sign so I didn't hold a lot of hope, but since I was there I'd give it a few hours. Luckily I had thought about the walk and put my bike in the car, a great idea as it meant that the 3 mile walk was a pleasant 10min cycle. I arrived at the dunes, ditched the bike and got onto the bird immediately, it was showing well in a large dune slack, I took some photos and had good binocular views for 5 mins and it then flew off. So was that the easiest twitch for a second for Britain? Probably. Having seen it very well and had some shots I decided that would do and I'd head back to Lizzie and Toby to spend the rest of the day with them (some brownie points retrieved). My bet was on a Bee-eater or two today, but I'll certainly settle for this mega! What a beauty and the bike was such a good idea; I left at the same time as some other birders from the car park and managed to get to the dunes, see the bird, I passed the same birders still on their way up just passing Meals House!






What will the next week bring? I'm mothing with dad on Thursday and Friday so some good moths would be nice, some good mothing weather would be just as welcome!

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