So it finally arrived,the eagerly awaited BoozyBirders trip to Norfolk,hosted by our leader and Top bird man Howard "the cat" Vaughan.Sam was meeting me at mine at 5.30am but in good old Robert fashion,i was not ready.To be fair,i didn't get in from work till 1.30am so i had every excuse of being late but we managed to get to Brentwood for 5.45am to meet the others.Loaded up with a minibus full of birders and more cakes and savouries than Greggs we shot up the M11/A11 to our first port of call,Thetford Mcdonalds,where i smashed the granny out of a Double Sausage and Egg Mcmuffin and the complimentary Hash Brown that accompanies it.An hour or so later and we was arriving at Cantley,in search of wild Geese,especially the Lesser White fronted goose.On arriving i noticed the front wing of my car was knackered,it turns out that someone had hit me over night,scrapping all my paintwork and causing at least £500 worth of damage,probably a lot more,although with a chip sticvk and touch up it doesn't look that bad.If i find out who it is they are dead,whoever it was had a blue car,just hope its not the ex army northern bloke across the road as he is fucking massive.
Anyway,back to Cantley,we didn't actually stay very long and i dont remember too much about it to be honest as i was still fuming about my car.The usual geese were on parade as were Peregrine,Buzzard and a kingfisher.Anyway,i got a call from Martin Blow who alerted us to the Lesser White front,which was being seen at Buckenham,cheers Martin,shaun et al.
We arrived to a packed Car Park at Buckenham but with some superb driving in my classic 8 seater with buggered wing,we managed to squeeze the old boy in,crossing the rail tracks we scanned the field for the Lesser but no such luck,until Sam Latched onto the bird.You really have to know what you are looking for to id such a bird,i could not tell the difference just by scanning,its only when you look at the birds properly you can tell but a lovely bird all the same.Other geese were some barnacles,a few eqyptians,white fronts and taiga beans.On the scrapes were hundreds if not thousands of "wild" Wigeon,i emphasise the wild as you would not believe they were wild as you walk within 6 feet of them and they seem not to give a hoot about your pressence.Other birds of note at Buckenham were Ruff,Thousands of very active Golden Plovers,Gulls a plenty,corvids a single Skylark and healthy flocks of Linnets.Late morning we nipped to Strumshaw fen where apart from a Marsh tit,we really didn't see anything of note.The wind was howling and clearly affected the place in terms of bird numbers.We stayed there for our lunch in the car park where it was a bit more sheltered and this at least seemed to help bird numbers.We headed back to Buckenham for the rest of the Afternoon where we had more of the same,mainly finding and watching the Lesser white front with some Barn Owl action before Dusk.We then went back over the Railway line and up the road to watch the Corvid roost,what a spectacle it was,i have seen the Ham wall starling roost,which numbered a couple of million plus but this was something else,the noise was unbelievable,definately recommend it and i will be going again,fantastic stuff.On the way out in virtual darkness i managed to get a Little Owl standing on a manure heap,a cracking end to a cracking days birding.
After a couple of hours back at our hotel,the Travel lodge in Acle,we then descended to the Swan Inn in Horning,nice little drive to a lovely pub set on a marina/broad (not sure it was dark but looked wet),we had a fabulous dinner which everyone enjoyed,still not sure how Pat managed to finish it off with bread and butter pudding,but he did and hats off.For what its worth i had King Scallops with braised pork belly for starters,absolute top gear and hunters chicken for main,once again,it hit the spot.Then back to the hotel for a decent nights sleep before day 2..................
Day two,i woke up late again and missed breakfast,not a problem as there was a Spa next door which sold crap,so i reverted to my second pack of savoury mini eggs purchased in Sainsburys Friday,er very nice,not,but did the job.
First port of call was Ranworth for the Ring Necked Duck,DIPPED!! but we did manage a Treecreeper though,another on the year list.After this we went looking for the Great Northern Diver at Rollesby Broad,DIPPED!! But we did manage an Otter and some Goldeneye,worth dipping to see only my second Otter in the UK.From here we headed to a field to find Bewicks & Whoopers,with lunchtime approaching we headed to Tescos in Stalham for some snacks,they had fck all so i bought some more Savoury Eggs,now if you are not in tune with the world of Savoury Eggs then Tescos is the place to go,more meat than Sainsburys.From here we headed to waxham for some seawatching,good job as well as we had plenty of Red Throated Divers,C35 fem common scoters,11 Snow Buntings,Black throated diver,plenty of Kittewakes,Purple Sandpipers,oystercatchers,2 Turnstones,superb seawatch.From here we headed to Hickling and Stubbs Mill for the roost,straight away about 2pm when we arrived were 4 Cranes feeding out in the fields,we got upto 13 but they soon dispersed apart from 2 who hung around for a while.We must of counted 35 Marsh harriers,a lovely Ringtail Hen harrier,3 Merlins,kingfisher,barn owl,redpolls,stonechats,Pink footed geese.We left around 4.30pm with most of us totally knackered after what was a cracking two days,we drove home but i had to stop twice as i was absolutely shattered,arriving home about 7.45pm,many thanks to Howard for organising it and everyone else for a cracking weekend,message to Howard,any chance of another one soon,maybe North Norfolk next time,have passenger vehicle,will and want to travel........
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