Twicthing

Bluethroat

We headed up to Norfolk with Rob at 4am for the white spotted Bluethroat which has returned to welny wwt for the second year, we dipped it last year, along the road leading towards welny rob spotted a barn owl sitting on a post right next to the road, we stoped to take a look, but the bird soon flew of and started to hunt along a ditch it soon stopped on a small bridge wear we got good views.

We got to the reserve 20 minutes before it opened.

We showed the person on the desk our membership and headed straight to the Lyle hide were the Bluethroat shows best, after about 30 minutes scanning with no sign accept from a nice Sedge warbler showing really well.

about 20 minutes later the Bluethroat was found by another birder who had it in a bush were it showed well for 6 minutes we had good scope views but photography was not good because of the light and branches .

 It then dropped down into the reeds and we didn’t see it again, but we had a nice cuckoo fly over the path, on the way back to the Visitor center we stopped in the observatory were we had close views of House martins, avocets two Egyptian goose and 1 Pink footed goose.

Blue-winged teal

We then headed over to the Ouse washes for this adult drake Blue-winged teal which showed really well from the welches dam hide were it came out from the bank with a female shoveler then flew on to the main pool and went down a channel and out of view we also had two Little ringed plover on the far edge and  a Cuckoo called in the distance.

We then  headed down to Essex for a Night heron that has been there for about a week now, we arrived at two tree island at 4:00, on the way to were the Night heron had been seen i heard two Grasshopper warblers singing and one of them showed really well, you could see the tail vibrating in the scope .

Nigtingale

We then headed down the path just to find the heron had just flown into a small elder bush and was lost to sight.  But we were sure we would see it, but after 2 hours of scanning there was no sign until dad noticed 3 white spots in amongst some branches and reeds and he was sure that he had the bird. And all of a sudden he was surrounded by other birders trying to make it out. which was not easy seeing as there was only a small area it was visible from, other birder had a look in dads scope but only a couple could make it out . Then it started to move a little. You could see the eye ring and the beak rob and I manage to see the heron as it moved around.

other birds around were a nice cuckoo sitting on top of a bush calling, loads of whitethroats 1 cettis warbler was picked out by me also there was at least 2 nightingales singing . We really enjoyed this sight.

 Sorry for the pictures.

After a nice and amazing day birding we headed home thanks Rob for an amazing day.

Other year tick we got during the week.

Nightingale.

Redstart in our backgarden.

This now brings our UK year list to 201

Bluethroat

Sedge warbler

Blue-winged teal

Nightingale



Nightingale