Saturday 9th May

Breckland / Nene Washes

As I was back in London for the weekend my mate phone Friday night how about a trip to the Brecks. So we set of from his house about 20 past 8 our first stop was the comfort café for breakfast. Then it was of to Weeting Heath the Norfolk Naturalist Trust has a reserve there for Stone Curlew we duly arrived and asked the best hide to view from we where  told the west hide was best as we got there 1 was being watch and we had good views but a bit distance  as there is not a lot more to see we the set of for the RSPB reserve at Lakenheath. This is a area that we have been birding for the past 30 years and in creating this reserve from scratch we think they have done a very good job, Our target bird was Golden Oriole, On arriving we asked where the best place was for seeing the Oriole and the very friendly chap told us, So we set of along the path round the back of the reserve on route we had lots of Whitethroats, and head a cuckoo calling then as we came around the corner we could see a group of birders looking into the plantation so that is what we headed for as this was the place to see Orioles as we walked along we had Hairy Dragonfly, Blue Tailed Damselfly, Orange Tipped Butterfly, we also had 6 Hobbies feeding on the dragonflies  On arriving at the spot that every one was we heard a Bittern booming we then concentrated on see the Golden Orioles we had 2 Males flying around chasing each other and we also heard a Female calling, We the continued our walk to the end as we could still hear the Cuckoo calling and as my mate had not seen one this year we set out to find it after about a hour the bird finely flew out of the wood and sat on top of a bush well at least it stop me mate from moaning he had not seen one yet this year by now we had more Hobbies the count was up to 25, We then decided to return to the information centre as we past the spot for the Orioles we again had the 2 males and the female calling we then continued back along the track and again heard a Bittern Booming as we approached to chaps taking pictures a Bittern flew across the reed bed in front of us and yet more Hobbies we are now up to 30 then as we continued along the track we could hear the Cranes calling the other side of the railway I then spotted them fly low across the field where they landed in a ditch so we continued back to the info centre by now our Hobby count was up to 35+ birds there have been up to 47 seen over the past week, On arriving at the information centre we decide a well earned coffee was what was needed and we gave our information to volunteers on duty which they where glad of (this gives them a idea of what is about and how many Orioles there are)

Our next stop was the Nene Washes to see if we could find the Cattle egrets that had been present for the past week on arriving we had 1 along side a fence this was being harassed by 2 Little Egrets it then flew of and landed in a ditch where we found the other 2 so all 3 where seen, We then had a quick  look around  the back of the  reserve to see if we could hear Corn Crake (as there is a introduction program of the birds in this area) We then had a look at the pager to see if there was anything we could see on our way back to London we noted a Temminck's Stint in Bedfordshire so a quick look at the map and we said it is only just of the A1 so of we set to Willington Gravel Pits as we did not know this site it took us a while to find the pit we needed to look on but we did have a pleasant evening stroll around Birds see included 6 Little Ringed Plovers, Oystercatcher, Redshank, Linnet, Grey partridge, Mallard, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Blackbird then just we had decided to leave my mate said I will just have a look from the point over there and called me over the on the edge of one of the little islands was the Temminck’ Stint

So all in all another good days  birding