The weather was calm after yesterday’s northerly, and with a free day I arrived at Burnham Overy Staithe at exactly 9am. Checking the bushes and scrub it was clear there had been a big fall of Robins, sometimes with three or four in a bush; throughout the day I must have seen over a thousand in total. Blackcaps were also numerous and there had clearly been a fall of those too. Thrushes were not as numerous as predicted.
Walking towards the coast, around 10am I stopped at the sluice gate to look at what turned out to be a Goldcrest (also numerous), when a Great Grey Shrike flew into the bush! A great find but it disappeared as quickly as it arrived.
I then carried on my walk and near to where the path splits towards Gun Hill and Holkham Pines there were a large number of small birds. Mostly House Sparrows, Blackcaps, Goldcrests, and Robins, but also a Chiffchaff and two Mealy Redpolls. I was also told about an interesting Eastern-type Lesser Whitethroat. I quickly picked this very pale looking bird up and managed a couple of photos:
I headed left towards Gun Hill and did a seawatch for half an hour, but there was little going past apart from Gannets. Walking to the tip by Scolt Head, I found little apart from lots more Robins, Goldcrests, and Blackcaps, as well as a Common Seal. However, on my return, I did manage to pickup four Bramblings. Redwings were coming in-off which is always good to see and allowed for the odd photograph as they plonked themselves down to recover.
I then headed towards Holkham Pines, bumping into a party from Tom’s new school, Hills Road! In the dunes I found another Great Grey Shrike! I guess it could possibly have been the same bird but it was a reasonable distance from the first and there was obviously a fall along the coast. I managed a distant photo:
Birding was quiet until I got near to the pines where there was a large Long-tailed Tit flock that included quite a few Warblers (nothing special, just Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs). However I soon found a Redstart followed by a flyover Ring Ouzel.
The rain started to come down heavily at this point so I went into the pines to shelter and bumped into some people watching a Yellow-browed Warbler! The rain showed no sign of stopping so, rather tired and it beginning to get dark, I made the long walk back to the car.
