Birding Braunie

Electricity is a marvellous thing. It can give you power, heat, light and if you’re stupid, it can kill you. And I’ve always got on with the sparky stuff even on the odd occasion I’ve been stupid. And then there’s my car. My Peugeot is an electrical engineering feat of ineptitude. The lightbulbs can’t be reached, the electric pump for the screen washer reservoir can’t be got at easily; you basically have to dismantle the car to be left with it. The car had actually been in a 'good' garage the day before to have a new pump fitted which is why I know how hard it is to sort. And when the battery goes flat, the lights still work. In my case and just as my brother had carted all of his stuff from his car to mine it waited until we were ready for weekend of blistering birding to say fuck you. My brother is a hero. He wasn’t expecting to have to drive all over North Norfolk with me pointing at all the pubs we could go to when the weather turns but he did and he was awesome (rarely d...

Not sure when the American phrase 'Jaywalking' came into existence but it should now be called Jay-flying and be attributed to Norfolk. There has been a huge influx of Jays across the county and my brother Ant and I saw it first hand as we stopped in Hunstanton for a hot sausage roll breakfast. We witnessed squadrons of Jays passing overhead as we headed for Holme Dunes at the start of our epic weekend of birdwatching on the North Norfolk coast. Holme Dunes NNR (just as it says on the picture) Normally this time of year heralds the right migratory winds from the east that would make any birdwatcher salivate at the prospect of the rarities in abundance falling at their feet. Not this weekend though. With a very light North Westerly, things were quiet on the land and on the sea. Nice day for a stroll though. There were a few wader species on the beach. Knot, Turnstone, Sanderling, Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank and Oystercatcher all allows close viewing with only the oc...

With my year list languishing down in the near pathetic, I bit the financial bullet and fuelled the car up for a trip to Cley in Norfolk. On paper, the plan was sensible as Cley Marshes usually produces a good number of birds to fatten any weedy year list. With a blustery north-ish wind, my hopes of a bag full of seabirds was high, as well as a previous day list of sightings including red-backed shrike, wryneck and Balearic shearwater to whet the appetite. My routine is always the same at Cley. Park at the East Bank and do an anti-clockwise sweep around the reserve. The strong winds prevented any bearded tits showing but their presence was noted by the ting-ting calls coming somewhere deep in the vast reedbeds that swayed heavily in the gusts. Spoonbill flock Spoonbills In the pools, east of the East Bank, around 20 spoonbills were feeding. Cley regularly attracts these amazing waders with a small colony recently becoming established a few miles up the coast. At the...