Sunday 20 November 2011

Snettisham extravaganza


Although these two pictures were taken in very poor light, they give an idea of the huge numbers of mainly red knot driven up onto the shingle banks at Snettisham by a 7.4 metre tide. These do not occur very often and Les & I had wanted to see one for ourselves and apart from the weather we were not disappointed. Apart from the pictured knot, there were hundreds od oystercatchers,redshank, spotted redshank, golden plover, ruff, curlew to name a few. We both observed that when a large flock of waders flew just over our heads the temperature seemed to go up by a couple of degrees!
 Another part of this extravaganza are the huge numbers of geese that roost out on the wash mudflats. Early each morning they leave to fly off to the local fields in their skeins of thousands, ominously as the fly over the Sandringham estate they are greeted with gunfire and I can only hope hat their aim is poor, like their outlook on nature and their record for destroying wildlife thoughtlessly.  At least one of the culprits is the Emeritus president of the World wildlife fund and with his record I consider this to be a disgrace.

Robin & Nuthatch


A trip to the lodge produces a pair of Ravens flying over calling and my first redpolls and a siskin of this autumn.The pictures though are of a robin that appeared to be admiring itself in the water and a nuthatch that was searching among the tufts of moss around the drinking pool.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Great grey shrike

A digiscoped record shot