A walk down the East Bank at Cley.

Last Tuesday feeling bored with the local birding I thought I'd chance the weather and have a couple of days in Norfolk so early Thursday morning I set off hoping the weather wouldn't be too bad.

Headed straight to the small car park at the end of the East Bank at Cley arriving not long after 9.00AM.It was bright but chilly in the brisk northerly breeze so it was a nice surprise to see some Bearded Tits in the reeds despite the windy conditions.

Half way along the bank I bumped into an old friend Kevin Grocock and after a bit of a chat we decided to head to the shingle banks and try for some shots of the Lapland Buntings that had been seen there recently.We joined some birders at the top of the shingle and soon had distant views of a flock of about nine but they were very nervy and kept flying off.We did have a bit of luck as a couple of them landed near to us and we were able to rattle off some shots.

For while we joined some sea watchers and they put us onto some decent birds including a Great Skua and even better for me as it was a life tick a Pomarine Skua.No pics though!!!

Other decent birds seen in the morning included Black Tailed Godwits,some Pink footed Geese,a Peregrine,3 Marsh Harriers and 3 Spotted Redshanks.

As we walked back along the East Bank we spotted a dozen people and the end of the bank with cameras etc. and we wondered what they had got.Some rarity!!!! No this is what they were waiting for

It was a British cycle race.To keep the road clear off traffic for the cyclists a group of 40 police motorcyclists operated a rolling road block.

After a coffee at the centre the rains came so I went to the hotel to unpack.There was a brief respite mid afternoon so I went to the nearby Salthouse beech to see if anything was about.It was hard to park not because it was busy quite the opposite in fact but because there were huge puddles in the car park making it hard to find a dry spot.I braved the dull drizzly weather and had a walk round and I was pleased to find a couple of Wheatears.