What’s the Point

With birding still a little bit August slow I tried an early morning stroll on the West Hethersett Loop. There was some activity with a lot of calling and singing as has been the case recently around the Great Melton Fishing lake The highlights were a green woodpecker calling , numerous Moorhen and young and some very vocal wrens with yougsters buzzing about the woods. I failed again to see any kingfishers but met fishermen who recently watched a pair of birds at the south end of the lake. The corn fields are clearly ready for harvest and I put up red legged partridge and pheasant whilst walking. I also played hide and seek in the grave yard of Great Melton church whilst trying to get the following photo. The pheasant in question is moulting and clearly didn’t want to be photographed not looking his best. Moulting birds usually hide themselves away making another reason for a quiet month.

Later in the day I had the opportunity with some good company to walk one of North Norfolk’s finest stretches of coast and bird-watching from Salthouse to Blakeny Point passing alongside the bird-watching Mecca that is Cley Marshes.

The walk produced the following in no particular order: Little Egret, Black Tailed Godwit (30+), woodpigeons (lots) Meadow pipts (Lots), starlings, common terns, Greater and lesser black-backed gulls, black-headed gulls, herring gulls, cormorants, ringed plover, dunlin, linnet, oystercatcher, redshank. With birds being too distant or too fast for decent photos the scenery won the visual award and it is breathtaking.

Cley Village from the coast across the marsh.

The Marker at the end of a long walk with added Greater Black-Backed Gull, and the small green item a Mac Donalds Happy balloon just to environmentally damage the scene.

The ramshackle group of buildings on the point reminds me of something you might see on an isolated Alaskan coast

‘The Plantation’. This is the only patch of growth on the ridge which offers more than knee high cover for birds and can attract all sorts of interesting finds peak migration but we are not quite there yet and it was all quiet.