Divers and Beans! A productive trip to the North Coast

Brian picked me up just before dawn for an uneventful drive through the snowy countryside, arriving at a frosty Cley at around 8.30. Following a fruitless seawatch (just a seal pup in the surf) a visit to Bishop's Hide revealed that the whole reserve was frozen solid: no waders or waterfowl! We quickly decided to head west to Wells North Point Pools, where the Taiga Bean Goose was immediately viewable with a flock of Greylags. Next stop was Wells Harbour: we paid for a couple of hours parking and walked to the Lifeboat Slip. Almost immediately we were enjoying fabulous views of a Great Northern Diver and a Red-throated Diver, both at close range! A short walk towards the town added a distant Red-necked Grebe out in the channel.

We made the short hop to Lady Anne's Drive where I quickly located two Tundra Bean Geese: frustratingly I failed to find them with the camera!

Back to Cley for coffee before moving eastward to Sheringham. Despite a long search, we failed to locate the Eastern Black Redstart, but added an unexpected Snipe to the day's total - it was sheltering beneath a bench by the sunken garden!

It's all happening here!

Good gracious! There's a Buzzard perched in our sycamore tree! The locals aren't impressed!

New garden bird! And more year ticks from the office window

I was thoroughly enjoying the antics of the dozens of birds that have been drawn to the garden by Linda's heavy feeding regime when a Great White Egret flew low across: by a fabulous piece of good fortune I had the camera pointed at the Ginkgo tree, catching the Egret as it flew north west (Straight over Peter and Sue's garden!)

Garden Fieldfares: about time!

Linda and I were wondering when some winter thrushes would find our cotoneaster tree: it's weighed down with lovely ripe berries, but until this morning it remained untouched. Then, at 9.30, a flock of twenty or so Fieldfares descended briefly to feed, before being spooked by something. In other news: a pair of Jackdaws are prospecting our owl box...

The Moon and Jupiter

Following the day's snow, the night's freezing temperatures produced a stunningly clear sky at dawn: Jupiter and the one day waning Moon were incredibly bright... The last shot is through the garage door!

Snowy day: someone's pleased!

Today was the first proper snowfall since Snowie (the little snowman) first appeared! He's had a bit of a spruce up following these photos!

The Wolf 'super Moon'

This month's full Moon is a 'super Moon', because our satellite is at perigee - its closest approach to the Earth. This makes it appear 14% larger and, hence, 30% brighter than normal. Nearby is Jupiter which - at magnitude -2.5 - is currently the second most brilliant object in the night sky. Here they both are, with a shot taken from inside my garage to show how bright they are!

A trio of scarce ducks at Filby

Linda and I took a mid-morning run out to Filby Broad to see if we could connect with any of the scarce ducks that have been present for a couple of days: in fact we managed all three! First was a delightful drake Eider (with two females) Not scarce in the greater scheme of things, but, being sea duck, most pleasing to find so close to home!

A walk through the woods to the viewing platform gave us numerous year ticks, including two delightful Treecreepers - this has been a difficult species for me in recent years!

A drake Ferruginous Duck (which had been very elusive) relocated to the north of the road: with some help from Marcus Nash I managed a few sleeping shots of it through the reeds. We crossed the road again and eventually located the female Ring-necked Duck - hard to find / photograph against the Sun among hundreds of Pochard and Tufties! On the way back to the car we found the gallery had increased substantially: one well-known / notorious lister had managed the Fudge, but had apparently missed everything else...

Last tick of the day was a House Sparrow on neighbour Sue's hedge! They all count!