Weather: Occasional bright spell interrupting frequent, wintry, snowfalls.
Heading onwards from 1pm with the Easter birding extravaganza & leaving base in King's Lynn to head towards East Norfolk & Great Yarmouth via the A149 coast road.
I had been reading about an organised birding trip that took in barns at Chosely so I decided to head there first, just of the A149 in Thornham. Before getting there a nice view of a Sparrowhawk in a pine-treed garden was had as well as Blue Tit & Great Tit in the hedgerow by the road & Kestrel in typical roadside hover.
The Chosely Farm Outhouses weren't too hard to find & I was instantly rewarded with the reknowned Corn Buntings that many go there to see. Also good numbers of other passerines: Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Dunnock & several pairs of Yellowhammer. In the fields & overflying the area: Red-Legged Partridge, Stock Dove, Pheasant, & ubiquitous Woodpigeon.
Back on the A149 motoring up through Burnham-Overy-Staithe & a large raptor soaring initially looked like a simple Buzzard but after looking, & observing leg-trailing it might well have been a Marsh Harrier, although I came away still favouring Buzzard simply for the time it spent soaring, behaviour I've never seen with Marsh Harriers. Whilst observing the Buzzard a Curlew was spooked & flew over the road.
Into Wells-Next-the-Sea, a lovely village, with a huge salt-marsh facing the quay, upon which skeins of Brent Geese regularly shifted position; also in the mud on the quayside: Oystercatcher, Cormorant, Little Egret, Black-Headed Gull (another ubiquity), Redshank, Grey Plover. Scanning further onto the marsh I could pick out Herring Gull, Lesser Black-Backed Gull, Common Gull & the odd Carrion Crow.
Further along on lakes outside Stiffkey: Greylag Goose, Mallard, Shelduck, & in the village, Collared Dove.
Blakeney had impressive numbers of Jackdaw as well as flocks of Starling.
Making it to Cley & the seemingly vast expanse of reedbeds there, it was unfortunate that I had no time to park-up & join the numerous other birders' cars & venture onto the reserve, nevertheless in the marshes & creeks alongside the road: Moorhen, Lapwing, Mute Swan, Egyptian Goose, Coot.
At Salthouse, Wigeon, at Kelling, Rook & Grey Partridge.
After reading of a few of my previous visits to Weybourne I decided to leave the car & venture out onto the pebbly beach there, hoping to observe sea ducks or if I got really lucky a very early tern. How wrong I was! Apart from a Meadow Pipit in the car-park, nothing but the usual gulls were seen in the storm-tossed & impressive-looking sea. I think it must have been the wildness that caused family outings to stop there in days gone-by because the bird-life (or lack of it) would not have been a draw, & it won't be in future.
Cutting inland to head south to Great Yarmouth, & just before Rollesby, another raptor flew over the road, inital thoughts were a Sparrowhawk but I had an impression of a white rump, however I'm not sure enough to say that it was a Hen Harrier if the white rump was something other than my mind playing tricks on me.
Then before the light faded & more snow-storms set in, just before Ormesby, on a good stretch of water a couple of Tufted Duck amongst the usual mallard.
Finally I arrived into Great Yarmouth at 6pm.
42 species, none new.
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