Saturday, 2 April 2011

Spring out of the traps

Blurry, distant male & female Garganey at Titchwell Common Buzzard & Crow near Fring I had a splendid walk at Titchwell Marsh this morning, a reasonable amount of time available between family commitments, a warm south west breeze at might back and a warming spring sun in the sky. Marvellous its been a long protracted winter. Even better than the weather were the birds, a real sense of the season having properly turned now and spring is in the ascendant. Most obvious were the singing Chiff-Chaffs in the woodland around the car park and visitor centre. Also by the VC was a male Blackcap in full exuberant song. Looking west across the cow pasture at the start of the West Bank path I could see a single Wheatear and as the Fen woodland thinned into reedbed I saw and heard Willow Warbler. Overhead the odd Swallow slipped past heading west and in the hour and half I had on site I saw 10 - 20 Sand Martins also heading west. On the dried out mud of the Brackish Marsh was a mixed flock of Pied and White Wagtails and in amongst these a glowing Yellow Wagtail. All this plus the 'usual suspects' of Avocets and Marsh Harriers. After Titchwell I had time for a slow drive home, I had hoped to have a go at Photographing Hares but although I found some good fields with lots of Hares none were close enough to the road to make photography viable. I did though stumble across a couple of Common Buzzards including the one pictured above, These are becoming an increasing frequent and welcome sight in the county as they recolonise their former range. Even better on Thursday I had a Red Kite near Guist a species which has been absent from the east for even longer than the Buzzard. Apologies for the formatting being wonky, can't work out how to fix it.

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