Birding Braunie

Saturday 26 October 2013 So everything was planned down to the last bacon roll. My yearly (this may change) pilgrimage to the birding hotbed of North Norfolk had arrived. With my good friend Ed riding shotgun, nothing could go wrong, could it? On Friday evening I set up a text account with RBA (Rare bird alert) for a free trial. Brilliant, I get 5 free texts for Friday night only. Totally useless and so they’ve now lost me. At least I have a Birdguides App staring at my on my phone, so we wouldn’t miss a thing so long as the 3G works up there............... With the car loaded with beer, bacon and binoculars, we dashed up the A11 to Thetford. Just north of Thetford lies Lynford Hall, famous for it’s Arboretum.  And here was where a Two-barred Crossbill had been seen rubbing wings with a flock of 20 or so Common Crossbills. We found the spot and a few other birders and began staring up at the top of a few larch trees. The first bird we found was a Hawfinch . wasn’t expecting thi...

This week I have been left questioning my own commitment to getting out and getting the bird. Only a week or so ago, I was up a ladder working on house repairs, hoping to finish in time to do some good birdwatching. I stuck to the task of renovating the home and even managed a Mistle Thrush, a flyby of three Ring-necked Parakeets and a female sparrow hawk, all from the dizzy heights of my ladder. So I had collected enough Brownie Points to go somewhere exotic like Dungeness or Dunwich on the Sunday. Excellent prospect. However, when Sunday came, it was hammering with rain. There was a party of four Parrot Crossbills close to where I worked showing well but I ask you, in the rain??? No thanks. I did keep looking to the sky for improvement but when it came, it was too late to get there for daylight conditions. Always tomorrow I thought. So an early sortie to Gunners Park on Monday morning with clearing skies in the east making me think of biblical references and hoping for that beam ...