Don't believe anything (everything?) you read in the papers! The online media were predicting a spectacular auroral display last night, so Linda and I crawled out of bed at 'WTF o'clock'. There was an aurora for an hour or so, but it was only just visible to the naked eye..
A quick run out to Filby Broad was most noteworthy for meeting old birding chum David, as well as the fascinating Jeremy Gaskell: he has forgotten more about wildlife than I'll ever know! Luckily he and David both had scopes, so we eventually located the extraordinarily distant Ferruginous Ducks from the boardwalk. A walk through the woods added Some well-marked Common Darters and my first Willow Emerald Damselfly, while the viewing platform gave us glimpses of a Lesser Emperor DF, but only photos of the Migrant Hawker that kept driving it off!
With a bit of luck we might be treated to another naked eye comet in a few weeks. At the moment Comet Lemmon is just detectable on a long exposure photo: it's in Gemini, which rises just before dawn. Cometary astronomers are predicting that it might brighten to fourth magnitude by October - watch this space!
Linda bumped into a Bigfoot in the Castle Mall yesterday! (Unfortunately it had vanished by the time I met her!)
Just as the Sun set, the clouds cleared to reveal a very healthy crop of sunspots. (NB! I have a special filter: don't ever look at the Sun directly!)
It seems ages since I've had a day out with Norman & Brian (what with covid and other mishaps!) so today was a very welcome break. We started the day with half an hour scan of the tamarisks at the Salthouse beach road turnoff, in the company of a very pleasant couple from Blakeney. The target was a 'somewhat elusive' Greenish Warbler: they'd seen it the previous evening and a couple of times before we arrived. Amazingly we 'enjoyed' two second views: brief, but conclusive.
Next stop was Bishop's Hide, where we quickly located (with directions from a friendly Scots birder) a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper. It was as far away as it could possibly be, but we all managed a few record shots. (Our Scottish friend let us see the bird really well through his telescope!)
Other birds began to appear: Green Sandpiper, Snipe, lots of Ruff and Black-tailed Godwits and a patrolling Hobby. A walk along the East Bank was unproductive until we reached the sea, when the familiar 'seven whistles' alerted us to a passage of Whimbrel. The centre hides added nothing in particular, so we called it a day....
Sometime during the night Birds of the Heath had its 1.5 millionth visitor! Many thanks to all of you - regular and occasional - for inspiring me to keep going when so many blogs are fading away...
These surveys seem to take place later and later each month: a function of how busy all four of us are! Not too many birds around today - I'm sure things will be different next month...
Some terrific passes this month: I've left out the dimmer or really early ones!
Unexpectedly, when we arrived at the Copper Beech, we found we were playing outside! Despite all the recent health issues we turned in a good performance and are back (inside!) in November.
