Birding Braunie

Admittedly, I only go there because I promised to. I guess it’s like the last kid to get picked for the football team at school and unfortunately Nazeing Meads had no one going there to do the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS), a survey carried out on key dates through the year to log the numbers of wetland species, so I volunteered. It’s alright really. A few anglers, the odd dog walker (they’re all odd) and absolutely no birders. Why? It’s got plenty to see. Kingfishers, Bullfinches, Redwing , Fieldfare, Goldeneye, Goosanders, millions of Great Crested Grebes and the most Tufted Ducks I ever saw. Cormorant Things seem to have quietened down now as we reach the beginnings of spring. All the Goldeneye have gone and of the 12 Goosanders that were regularly there, only one remains. I guess the others could have been hiding for like a joke or something but that isn’t in their nature. I can see you! I did my normal route watching for any fly over birds that might mess the count up...

What turned out as the warmest day of the year, found me stupidly volunteering to give our sorry internal door a fresh lick of non-drip gloss. I really need to think before I open my gob. With the skies clearing to a colbalt blue, I prepped the doors and swore into my tea. My good lady is more sensible; she had already planned to go on a group walk around Wanstead followed by a historical talk somewhere. Which ever way I tried to look at my task in hand, it was going to take most of the day. On top of all this, I had to go and buy a new toaster from Currys. What a life right? Try and keep up. The math was simple. If I took ten hours to do the doors, I could probably steal an hour or so without anyone asking why I was taking so long to slap a bit of brilliant white on some doors? Okay so the best place for me to get that hour is usually Connaught Water. It has average ducks and stuff on the water and always a teasing nuthatch or treecreeper that draw me to them like a siren does a...

You can’t choose your parents but you can choose a better weekend to go birding on the North Norfolk coast to be frank. However, a weekend that required planning cheap accommodation and at least a month for Ed to tap in all the birding locations I had set him, choice wasn’t an option. We met at my house (made of brick so any huffing and puffing of the wind made no difference) and we had pig in a roll for breakfast (clearly one that had a house of straw) and then loaded up the Ed’s Qashqai which I was blown away by, by the way and set off toward our first port in a storm, Santon Downham. I had hoped for Brambling here but as things went, we had little to see at first with only a fleeting glimpse of Siskin and a Nuthatch . We took the path along the Little Ouse towards the small church before playing out a scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Ed holds on.  The light was poor and the light rain affected our optics and glasses but we soldiered on. The walk back t...