Birding Braunie

Every year I try and get a weekend break to birding Mecca. I have to say that I was beginning to doubt this was going to happen until I was invited to join some of the ELBF (East London Birding Forum) on a two-day trip to North Norfolk. Over the past year, most of my trips out have been very local especially as volunteering in the Lee Valley Park has become more important to me – largely due to the people I met up with rather than the pure birding draw. So it was with great excitement as well as the fact that some of the seven people going were those very people I enjoy the regular company of in the park. Day 1. There was no plan. I agreed to be one of the two drivers and I had my passengers, Brenda and Ed and just a text to confirm our rendezvous point, the McDonald’s on the Barton Mills roundabout. We arrived at 9am and met with the others over coffee and the odd McMuffin before deciding to head up to the Cliff car park in Hunstanton for a spot of sea-watching. The w

March always brings me a premature hope of Spring; and by Spring I mean Spring migrants. While trying to overlook the boring winter migrants, already ticked and captured on camera, I focus on what  might be or could be seen as the earth spins inevitably toward the prospect of rarities and forgotten friends flying back from their winter homes. It is a time for re-remembering warbler call notes and pretending to understand impact of weather systems and logical drop zones of early returners to which I am a poor student. So here is a bad school report for the month of March. 6th March – Rainham Marshes After many attempts at getting a sighting let alone a picture of the long-staying Dartford Warblers on the reserve, my endeavour finally paid off. Thanks to a couple of birders who had the warbler in their sights, I was able to get some adequate images of the birds even though it kept itself at a distance that irritated the photographer in me. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose.