The youth of today!

Young ducks and waders are undeniably (and I hate to use the word!) cute. They are just balls of fluff, but are very obviously birds, unlike other birds where the very young look like something from the Jurassic period! On my recent visit to Cley, two species of young bird were in good numbers, Shelduck and Avocet. The photos below are of a group of young Shelduck, very feisty youngsters that were constantly `attacking` the adult Avocets when they got too close and a couple of videos show some young Avocets, a group of three fairly young ones and a single that was nearly fully grown.

All together now, aawww!

Pacific Golden Plover

The Pacific Golden Plover at Cley in north Norfolk has been present for the past few days, another potential `lifer` was in the offing and so I made the not so distant journey from Peterborough on Sunday. The journey was made in less than quick time as the heavens decided to open upon reaching Kings Lynn, leading me to drive at 15mph! I did think of turning around, but pressed on regardless, fearing the worst, that the bird had drowned in all the rain! I arrived at Cley, the sun was shining and the bird was present and visible from the North Hide. I quickly made my way to the rather full hide and after ensconcing myself in a far corner I got my first views of a Pacific Golden Plover. This bird was in stunning breeding plumage and very active, constantly feeding and flying. Other birds present were 4 Spoonbills, dozens of Avocets, numerous Dunlin, a male Ruff and a rather splendid Spotted Redshank in breeding plumage (more of which another time).

I apologise for the above digiscoped images. The bird was constantly distant and these do not do justice to the absolutely stunning plumage detail of the bird, but there are useful as `record` shots, if nothing else!

The Pacific Golden Plover is a much rarer visitor to our shores than the American Golden Plover, with 80 or so recordings of the bird since 1870, with 80% of this total since 1990. The bird at Cley was showing the longer legs, longer tertials and the grey axillaries (under the wing) that help to tell this apart from `our` Golden Plover and it also called a couple of times, which helped in the I.D. department.

I am on a roll at the moment!

Pacific Golden Plover (video)

A trip to Cley Marshes on the north Norfolk coast produced this stunning adult Pacific Golden Plover in full breeding finery. A close relation to the American Golden Plover, but breeds in north Siberia and west Alaska and a rarer visitor to Britain, indeed another `lifer` ticked off.

This video is just a little taster until I wade through the hundreds of dodgy, distant digiscoped images and find something half-decent. Note the two Lapwing in the background having a `set-to`!

Western Sandpiper

A Semipalmated Sandpiper was reported from Cley Marshes in north Norfolk on Monday of last week and I toyed with the idea of going to see it, as Norfolk is not too far and it would have been a lifer. On Thursday this bird had been re-identified as a Western Sandpiper, an extremely rare vagrant to our shores in the U.K., a MEGA if you will. A couple of conversations with my friend Chris Orders later and we had decided to `go for` this bird on Saturday morning, work delaying us both until then.

Chris picked me up at about 6.45am as we planned to get to Cley by 8.15am. The journey was uneventful and we made good time, pulling up at the car park of this reserve at 8.10am. To our surprise there were very few cars parked and so we began to think the worst, the bird had flown away in the night, but no, a member of staff appeared and informed us the bird was present and showing well. We quickly walked to the hide and entered the hush where we were very kindly put on to the bird which was quite distant, but quite easily picked out. At this time there were only 9 people present, ourselves included and so we enjoyed good scope views of this lovely little bird. The hide slowly began to fill and so we left, letting others have the views we had just enjoyed. On returning to the car park, it was a lot more full than when we arrived and more cars were arriving, we obviously chose the right time to get there!

A much easier `twitch` than we both had imagined and a lifer for us both. Below are a couple of `extreme` record shots of the bird as it never really got very close, but in my minds eye I have some very good `photos`!

Thank you to Chris for driving.

I apologise for these photos as they are not what I would normally post, but the bird was something special and so I had to have some sort of record, even one as bad as this!

The Western Sandpiper is a very small north American wader, the size of a House Sparrow and this is only the 6th time that this species has been recorded on mainland Britain, the rarest of the American stints in Europe.

Whilst we were in Norfolk we also visited a couple of other sites, which will be in future posts.