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...

After days of dark clouds and heavy rain, the weather finally abated and gave us blue skies and a chilly ground frost that warmed my heart. The bird I have been chasing for a few weeks now doesn’t really enjoy damp wet conditions and so with my new fur-lined trapper hat attached to my head, I headed out to the Wild Coast Project at Wallasea Island. I was a man on a mission but a man without wellies which would prove to be only a small oversight as it would turn out. Reed Bunting So I had light, I had a camera (of sorts) so all I needed was the action. I’m still not totally sure about my little Nikon in terms of its ability to do what it says. The Sports mode seems to blur things even more than the Auto mode and everything else seems to do nothing I need. I did get this smart Reed Bunting though so it can do it when it wants but I need good light. The mudflats held pretty much the cast I would expect for this feature. Dunlin, Common Redshank, Shelduck, Ringed Plovers, Lapwings, ...