North Norfolk.

 I love north Norfolk with its amazing wildlife. In late winter to early spring the birdlife is superb with large numbers of birds. 

We started with an early morning walk where we were able to enjoy the sunrise with a backdrop of Blakeney. There were a few waders along the river walk, including Curlew, Redshank, Oystercatcher and a Greenshank.

Sunrise, with a backdrop of Blakeney church.

With much better light, and a gorgeous day ahead, we decided to head back to Sheringham for the stunning Eastern Black Redstart. This time we knew where it was likely to be, and sure enough, we had seen the bird before we had even parked the car properly. We then spent two to three hours with the bird. It was generally on show most of the time, although a birders' wife was not very popular with her husband when she arrived at the scene a bit like a bull in a china shop, asking loudly if the bird had been seen. As it was she had almost trodden on the bird, and in doing so she had flushed the bird, where it went into hiding for around twenty minutes!!

However, it did show again, and after a lot of waiting the bird settled in a couple of decent places, which showed it off much better than most of the bushes it favoured.

Eastern Black Redstart.

We followed this with a walk on Kelling Heath, but we didn't see too much of interest here.

The following day, we started off at Titchwell RSPB. It was a little cool and breezy, but still sunny. On the main reserve we searched for Woodcock with no success. The most interest came from a regular roosting Tawny Owl and a pond full of mating Toads. We headed to the beach where waders can sometimes show very well. We had a few opportunities to photograph Turnstone and Curlew, but the most interesting species to us was the Red Knot. This species is extremely numerous in the Wash area, totally different to Sussex where the bird is a notable species. There were just a couple of Knot on the beach, but later on we would see much larger numbers along the coast at Snettisham.

Curlew.

Turnstone.

Red Knot.

I had checked the tide times before leaving home, and was quite pleased to see that there was a pretty high tide around sunset on the Monday. So after leaving Titchwell, we moved along to Snettisham to hopefully see the World famous Red Knot murmurations. We arrived in plenty of time, as neither of us had witnessed this before. I had been to Snettisham beach a few times, but the tide had never been right before for the murmuration. It was quite impressive seeing the sea coming in so quickly.

We also had some entertainment while we waited with a couple of Barn Owls hunting across the saltmarsh and a lovely Red Kite that was heading straight for us until it turned very dramatically.

Red Kite.

The tide at its highest was just over 7 metres. It probably needed another foot or two for the best murmuration, but eventually we were treated to the sight of thousands of waders flying together, mostly the Red Knot, but also plenty of Black-tailed Godwit, Oystercatchers and various other waders.

It was certainly a fabulous spectacle, especially with the approaching sunset!!

Red Knot and Oystercatchers.

Birds dropping down.

Birds Everywhere.

It certainly was a very impressive sight and a great end to our first two days of our Norfolk break.