Weather: cool, overcast, still. From 12:25pm.
A winter trip to Breckland on the chance of seeing my number one target bird that was reported as being present from the RSPB recent sightings blog.
On arrival a few species were noticed on the way to the car-park, where the road passes by a large area of trees & shrubs, so & as well as Kestrel (1), Jay (1), Starling (>10) there were large numbers of Goldfinch (~50) & Long-Tailed Tit (~6).
From the car-park towards the visitors' centre were Stonechat (2), on fences around the feeders though not feeding from them, & Carrion Crow (1s & 2s).
Instead of heading towards the main reserve area & the poplar plantations & reedbeds we decided to head out past the washland (lake/pond) & onto the river-wall, along the way: Greenfinch (3), Dunnock (2), Cormorant (2), Mute Swan (~12), Shoveler (>12), Black-Headed Gull (>20), Herring Gull (1, first winter), Redshank (3), Wren (~6) amongst the reeds & Fieldfare (6) flying along the far river-bank.
Heading back along the same way towards the washland a Grey Heron flapped over the reeds & Common Gull (2) were seen amongst the black-heads on the lake as well as a Canada Goose (1).
Instead of taking the path from the wall back to the car-park we decided to act on the tip-off received when we arrived, & elected to continue along the wall towards the more agricultural land outside the reserve, although to be honest I had given up on seeing the target bird.
No sooner had I finished the thought than I heard a "what's that?" & there it was, perched on a bush about 20 yards away, a Great Grey Shrike (1), which also explained the numerous chaffinch & blackbird alarm calls I was hearing from the nearby poplars! As mentioned before I have always wanted to see one of these enigmatic & charismatic birds & I was delighted to get a good look at one especially in Norfolk, as I had thought that with their non-breeding scarcity in the UK, I would most likely see one abroad. So there it was in front of me & there it perched in its neat grey & bandit black mask for a few minutes, before unfortunately it flew off towards the farmland building, disturbed by a couple of dog-walkers, what else?
No sooner had it gone that I spotted a distant Green Woodpecker (1) & alarmed birds also showed themselves as Blackbird (4) & Chaffinch (~10).
Unfortunately the shrike didn't come back despite a good few minutes spent on refreshments in the car-park, but on the way out there seemed to be even more activity amongst the scrub between the car-park & the main road, as well as the goldfinches, Redwing (2) , Great-Spotted Woodpecker (1) & Goldcrest (1) were also seen.
27 species, 1 new.
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