Lunchtime Peregrine

I've taken lunchtime walks in and around Norwichs' Rosary cemetery and surrounding residential streets at least once a week for the last ten years or so. Some of these walks are real stomps to clear my head between meetings, some pass in a daze as I think about challenges at work and others [my favourites] are when I pause to take pictures and do a spot of birding with out binoculars.

Crap picture of a Peregrine over Norwich last week

During the week one walk started as a stomp, but as I walked up a side street with my head down against the wind a movement caught my eye and I instinctively looked up to see the distinctive low flying shape of a Peregrine as it flew past me and over the cemetery fence. Now I'm used to seeing Peregrines but the unexpected context and brief views left me doubting the sighting and keen for better views. So my stomp turned to a measured stroll as I walked downhill through the cemetery, constantly looking at the window of sky framed by the mature trees that grow here.

Just as I was about to walk out the cemetery gate into Rosary road I picked out the peregrine it's distinctive silhouette high above the cemetery.  As I walked down the road back to the office the bird drifted towards me and I took a few shots with my compact camera. Then it peeled away to half heartedly chase a gull, before giving up, at this point a woodpigeon flew over the office roof and did a sharp U turn when it saw the peregrine, which them drifted away to the south.

End of one year list and the start of the next

Last year my UK year list ended on 179, poor by the standards of most folk who keep year lists but judged against my last few years birding pretty good and evidence that the boys although still small are slightly less demanding, that and the time saving benefits of internet grocery shopping that I have become a big fan of over the past few months.

Blue Tit, Rosary Cemetery Norwich

That 179 also includes some great birding moments that I can look back on last year. Below are some that with no reference to my notebook stand out in my memory.

Half a day at Bempton in the spring, good company, nice weather, spectacular seabirds and a great peregrine.

Five minutes in the company of some ring necked parakeets feeding on the seed pods of an Indian Bean tree in St James's park a real biological mash up in the heart of London.

This winter finally getting some birds into our pocket handkerchief Hunstanton Garden the highlight being an autumn Coal Tit. Like I said all things are relative.

A morning a Holme in the spring with our then two year old boy, lovely weather and summer migrants  in force and singing away.

A spring lunchtime in the Rosary cemetery in Norwich, it just felt perfect, warm and sunny with singing Chiff-Chaffs, Blackcaps and a Stock Dove.

Roydon Common before Christmas with no1 son and locating the Great Grey Shrike. It was just lovely to share the moment with him.

Another Shrike moment a mad after work dash in the autumn to Burnham Norton taking advantage of the new flexitime rules to see the Steppe Great Grey Shrike.

A morning at Burnham Overy Staithe in the midst of a autumn fall, with my personal tally including a Yellow Browed Warbler and two Red Breasted Flycatchers.

And finally that New Years Eve Waxwing in my late father in laws Brancaster garden, this was rather wonderful.

So for 2015 well, it will still be a full on year at work and at home and it includes a big birthday for me to mull on. But I've set myself a modest personal goal of seeing 200 plus species in the UK this year. Having made this resolution I decided to focus my efforts early in the new year on getting a few of the less reliable winter birds under my belt and so far as you'll read below I've done ok in the limited time I have had available, with Twite, Rough Legged Buzzard, Great Grey Shrike, Red Kite and Black Necked Grebe all seen.

Thursday 1st January 2015
A brief visit to a grey, overcast and cold Titchwell Marsh where I spent an hour in Island hide. There were high water levels, but I saw most of the freshwater ducks and four marsh harriers. Earlier in teh day I'd popped into Brancaster Staithe and seen a few of the common waders. A bonus was a Tree Sparrow in a friends garden in Brancaster on his bird feeders.

Brancaster Staithe, New Years Day 2015

Sunday 4th
A 149 East on Burnham Overy Staithe overlooking Holkham freshes. Saw maybe three Common Buzzard and a single distant Rough Legged Buzzard, also year ticked White Fronted Goose from here.

Monday 5
The day before the kids went back to school so I took the morning off work to look after them and we headed to a bitterly cold Thornham Harbour. On the drive down to the harbour a pair of Bullfinch flew across the road between tall hedgerows. We walked a little way out towards Holme and soon found the flock of Twite and I eventually counted 58 on the ground together at one point. Aldso added Rock Pipit and Linnet to the year list.

Twite, Thornham

Tuesday 6th

A real surprise on the morning commute into Norwich was a Merlin bombing across the rod just south of Guist. A brief but distinctive barrel chested arrow shaped falcon.

6th and 7th

Lunchtime walks in Norwich's Rosary cemetery were quiet but added Nuthatch, Long tailed tit, Redwing and Great Spotted Woodpecker to my year list.

Thursday 8th
Train south from King's Lynn to London added Bewicks and Whooper swans to the year list plus the usual smattering of Roe Deer in the Fens.

Friday 9th
Lunchtime and a quick in and out visit to look at the southernmost pit at Snettisham RSPB where I quickly scored the Black Necked Grebe I was after. First reaction on seeing it was, what a cutie with its fluffed up feathers and ruby red eye.

Black Necked Grebe, Snettisham

Sunday 11th
I needed to visit the municipal dump in Heacham and took the opportunity to carry on down the road and pop into Roydon Common to see if I could see the wintering Great Grey Shrike. On arrival the rutted, muddy car park was surprisingly full and one old boy with an east midlands accent said that there were lots of folk looking for the Shrike but that it wasn't showing.

Roydon Common

Heading out and following the path along the southern edge of the Common I quickly located the silhouetted Shrike alternately perched and hunting the top of the rise to my south. It then flew down out onto the heath perching at the top of a lone birch tree from where it was flushed by a couple of dog walkers and disappeared from view.

After this I headed back to the car stopping for a few scans which turned up two to three Common Buzzards, a Red Kite, male Stonechat, a handful of Fieldfares and the distant yaffling call of a Green Woodpecker. All in all a productive half hours birding.

Waxwing - Great Bird to end the year with.

New Year's Eve Waxwing, Brancaster, Norfolk

Was it a birding sixth sense that made me look into the berry laden bush that overhung the shed in which my kids were noisily playing? I'd' clocked the mass of red berry's earlier and thought it ought to be good for winter thrushes or even in a better winter for them waxwings. 

As I walked towards the shed on New Years Eve my eye was first caught by a male blackbird diving into the depths of the berry laden tree above it, and then a pale starling sized bird sitting on a branch that was weighed down by red berry's, a waxwing.

Now at this time of year as I walk and drive around Norfolk I am constantly, almost subconsciously, scanning trees and shrubs for waxwings. Day in day out my mind is scanning and filtering likely spots for a waxwing to perch and feed and then filtering out the perches with no birds on them and the rag bag of birds such as Starlings and Thrushes that more than 99 times out of 100 I do see. 

I guess these fleeting non-sightings are as much a manifestation of my birding sixth sense as the rare occasions when all those conscious and subconscious habits that are the culmination of  more than 10,000 hours in the field come together and turn up a quality bird.

New Year's Eve Waxwing, Brancaster, Norfolk

Over the last few years driving around Norfolk I've found a autumn Great Grey Shrike, instinct telling me to vary might commute home and take a slightly longer route via the coast. Various Red Kites who's' distinctive long winged flight triggers something in my birding radar to distinguish them from large gulls even at some distance. And of course on several occasions flocks of Waxwings.

One of the great things about waxwings is that they are pretty distinctive with their head crests and face masks and so within seconds I'd been able to call my wife over and show her and our two small boys the Waxwing. I quickly ran indoors and grabbed my little compact super zoom camera and was able to spend ten minutes grabbing some record shots before the bird gave its trilling call and flew off.