Midlands Birding Blog

When you plan an autumn trip to Norfolk months in advance, you can never count on good conditions. The chances are that you won't get them. So back in August, when I booked a 4 day trip to Norfolk from the 18th to the 21st of September, I was counting on a great trip full of resident specialities, lingering summer breeders and a few early arriving winter visitors which would make for a long trip list. Besides, Cranes, Bitterns, Bearded Tits and Spoonbills are more than enough to keep me happy even in the worst migration conditions. But as the days went by, I couldn't help but start to glance at the winds on Windy.com. And there they were - easterlies - starting a few days before the trip and continuing until the 21st. I didn't let myself get excited; after all, forecasts can be (and often are) wrong, with the winds all to often swinging back round to SW at the last minute just as you've got your hopes up. But this time my hopes were realised. To say that we were lucky w...

At the end of my university’s Inter Semester Break my family and I went on holiday to Norfolk for a long weekend from 31/01 to 02/02. As a family, we love coming here, especially Titchwell Marsh. Arriving late on Friday night, we had just one hour of light remaining and had a quick trip to Titchwell to enjoy the Harrier roost and flocks of birds coming to roost on the freshmarsh. There’s something quite enigmatic about Titchwell in the evening as it’s going dark, with skeins of geese passing noisily overhead, harriers circling silently over the reeds and the eerie silhouettes of Curlew and Egrets passing over the saltmarsh in front of the setting sun. For such a short visit, we racked up a healthy list of nearly 50 species including my first Pink-footed and Brent Geese of the year, a huge flock of Golden Plover, with a few Knot, on the freshmarsh and hundreds of waders on the beach at low tide, including Bar-tailed Godwit, Turnstone and Grey Plover. A Red-breasted Merganser was close ...