Will's bird blog: Titchwell and Frampton

This weekend dad had to attend a meeting in Norfolk. This meant he passed fairly close to Lincoln (where I'm at Uni). This was the perfect opportunity to get to the coast for some birding. On Friday afternoon I got picked up and we headed down to a hotel in Kings Lynn. The next day was the dad had to go to the meeting. He said he would drop me off at RSPB Titchwell and join me later in the day, around 4pm. So at about 0800hrs I went out onto the reserve. I decided that I wanted to get to the beach to do some seawatching. Walking down the path to the sea I checked the pools briefly and saw Bearded Tits, Avocets, Black and Bar-Tailed Godwits, Green Sandpiper and big numbers of Ruff (many of the latter went inland). However much of the activity was taking place over my head with hundreds of Meadow Pipits and Pink-Footed Geese heading over, both calling all the time as they went. When I got to the dunes I was first struck by the sheer number of waders on the beach. Big numbers of Knot, Grey Plover, Godwits of both species, Curlew, Oystercatcher, Dunlin and Redshank littered the sand, dodging the oncoming waves to feed. The sea was fairly quiet but I did get nice views of 3 Great Skuas and a couple of Great-Crested Grebes. After this I headed back towards the pools where we got good views of a couple of Pink-Footed Geese. Mipits and Pink-Feet were still moving over in good numbers. Back towards the carpark I met up with local birder and friend Luke Nash. We headed back down to the sea and got a few Manx Shearwaters, Common Scoter, Red-Throated Diver and Sandwich Tern, however this was topped off with a Spotted Redshank on the beach. Overhead were a few Golden Plover as we walked back up towards the visitor centre, only to be told we had missed a Grey Phalarope! After something to eat we decided to go see the two Red-Crested Pochards that had been seen on one of the pools, although there is a lot of doubt as to how 'wild' British birds are, they're still nice to see. We got there and saw the male and female sleeping, and then saw a second female, so there were three! At this point Luke had to go and dad arrived, we headed round the pools trying to find the birds from earlier in the day (Spotshank, Red-Crested Pochard and other waders) with success. We also tried for Turtle Doves at the top of the reserve but with no luck. With one last walk around the pools before we lost the light we were graced by the appearance of 9 Spoonbills. A Hobby over Thornham on the way out brought the day list to 85 species.

The next day dad and I decided to spend the morning at RSPB Frampton. We knew there had been some good birds including Long-Billed Dowitcher. When we got there we walked to the first hide. Before we got there 14 Whooper Swans went low over our heads, our first of the autumn. Once at the hide we saw a few Avocet and Ruff, five Pink-Footed Geese also went over very high up. A birder in the hide told us where to go to see the Dowitcher (which was apparently elusive at times). He said 'walk up onto the ridge along to the first bush, the look back over the reserve as it likes to feed in the channels.' We took his advice and within a few minutes, there it was. Unfortunately it was quite distant. After this we decided to walk round to the small reservoir on site to try and see the Black-Necked Grebe. However when we got there it was nowhere to be seen. It was great to see so many Little Grebes but unfortunately no Black-Necked. This didn't matter as we did manage to see a Little Stint on the side of the reservoir. After lunch, both very happy about the birds we'd seen this weekend, we headed back to Lincoln.