Barn Owl
A day trip to North Norfolk on the 19th February was a very good day indeed, our first site visited was Sedgeford near Heacham and our hope was to see the superb Blue Headed Eastern Yellow Wagtail .
Well we were not disappointed , the initial views were in flight and every time it flew the Blue Headed Eastern Yellow Wagtail called.
Calling in flight
Blue Headed Eastern Yellow Wagtail
We did see it on it's favoured Dung heap and also feeding in the nearby fields.
On favoured Dung heap
Brightly coloured bird.
There was also 2 Barn Owls in the area and several Yellowhammers.
From here we headed to Thornham harbour and had superb views of 10 Twite without getting out of the car.
Colour ringed birds.
Twite.
Really enjoyed watching these birds go about their business , at least half the birds had a combination of different colour rings.
We then headed to Holkham Gap in the quest to see Shorelark & Snow Bunting (Many thanks to Johnathan Farooqi for site details).
We walked through the pines hearing Goldcrest & Coal Tit and then eventually reached the roped off area where we enjoyed superb views of 49+ Snow Bunting .
Small selection of the main flock
Snow Bunting.
After watching these superb Buntings for quite sometime plus looking for the Shorelarks without success we headed to the sea and saw several Common Scoter & ♂ ♀ Red Breasted Merganser.
On the walk back i had another scan across the roped off area and manged to locate at least 4 Shorelarks with their bright yellow faces showing really well.
We made a brief stop at Wells-next-to-Sea but sadly drew a blank on the long staying Rough legged Buzzard but we did get good views of a roosting Barn Owl and several distant Pink footed Geese.
Brambling
On the way home the weather had closed in with lots of rain, however we still decided to call into Lynford Arboretum .
Looking through the 'Tunnel' we saw lots of Chaffinch, Yellowhammer, Great & Blue Tit plus a Nuthatch put in a brief appearance , we were also treated to 3 Bramblings.
We continued towards the paddocks and shown a roosting Tawny Owl high up in one of the pines before the bridge , a couple of Marsh Tits joined Coal,Great & Blue Tits on the nearby feeders and a flock of 50+ Siskin flew over.
Wow what a place to end the day , the rain was relentless now and photography was out of the question so sadly no further photos , However we did add 3 + Hawfinch, 10+ Greenfinch & 4 Mistle Thrush to our days total.
A really great trip to Norfolk today with an incredible 7 Barn Owls seen through the day.
Barn Owl (From previous trip)
