Some decent - if distant - birds at Cley

Brian is back from his foreign trip, so it was a full house today: Norman's turn to drive (in his new Mercedes) so we were at the Coastguards nice and early! Lots of Auks passing in both directions: mostly Razorbills, but a few Guillemots too. We paused to photograph a flock of Golden Plover on the Eye Field - the 'super' of one looked good for an American GP, but as Steve G was kind enough to point out, the wing extension wasn't there... (Nice to chat with Bill, a local birder from Holt)

A session in Bishop's was fairly unproductive, so we walked out to the sea along the East Bank: flocks of Redwings were streaming in from the coast - my first of the Autumn! Plenty of close Red-throated Divers: some still had plenty of red on their throats.

After coffee, we visited the centre hides, being trapped there for an hour by the rain. Highlights were a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper and a well-marked Meadow Pipit. 

Another visit to the beach added Red-breasted Merganser and Scaup to the day list.

October wildlife survey at Hemblington All Saints

Peter, Sue, Linda and I (latterly joined by new recruit Susan!) have carried out monthly recording of the wildlife in and around the 'little church on the hill' for ten years now! Sue was delighted to receive this wooden plaque on behalf of the group: All Saints came first out of the thirty three churches that were entered in the competition.

Today's count wasn't the highest total, but it was interesting to note three Yellowhammers, a Marsh Harrier and three more Kites after the hour was up!

Bargain Hunt at Norwich Showground!

As we were prowling around the Antiques Fair this morning we came across Tim Weeks and Kate Bliss filming 'Bargain Hunt': their second day apparently. (No sign of Roo Irvine who was the blue team expert) It was amusing to watch the 'spontaneous' greeting between Tim Weeks and his red team - they filmed it four times while we were browsing along the aisle!

We bumped into old mate Andy and his lovely wife Dawn: we had no idea they were antique dealers! Lots of terrific stuff on sale, but I restricted myself to a single inexpensive uranium glass, while Linda bought a couple of items of jewellery. A great morning out!

Decent Aurora tonight!

As the clouds cleared from the south at around 20.30, a colourful aurora was revealed!

Beautiful pre-dawn skies

I was up half the night with terrible cramp: when it subsided I was able to grab a shot of Orion - a lovely sight in the southern sky. Since a number of you apparently enjoyed the lunar labels, I thought I'd do the same for Orion!

North Coast sea watch - a Honey saves the day!

With Linda needing the car tomorrow, I thought I'd brave the weather and drive through the pre-dawn rain and darkness to see if any of yesterday's excellent Skuas and Shearwaters would be hanging around. I spent two hours in the shelters at Sheringham with just a few distant Gannets and Red-throated Divers to show for it, so I moved westwards to the Iron Road. Nothing exciting on the sea here, either: a Kinfisher and a bright (but distant) Wheatear were about the best.

A final seawatch at Cley gave very long-range views of a couple of Skuas, lots more Red-throated Divers and a probable Black-throated. An Arctic (?) Tern, several skeins of Brents and literally hundreds of Teal and Wigeon heading west was about it...

At around 09.30 as I was driving home along the Holt Road (just before the Roman Camp Inn), a beautiful pale phase Honey Buzzard flew low overhead: needless to say, by the time I'd found a place to turn the car it had disappeared.