Norfolk - Day 2

As I was staying just down the road at Kelling on Thursday I decided to have a day at or near the reserve at Cley. I never do any good on the photography front at Cley so I was not at all confident I was going to have a good day.

I spent a couple of hours in the three hides in the middle but didn't take any decent shots.There were some good birds there but they were a long way off and nothing came close.I then walked round to the Bishops hide just as a Peregrine flew over and every bird flew off.It was like sitting in the Carlton hide at Brandon.

It wasn't too long before birds started to come back the best being a couple of Spoonbills which magically turned into four.No one saw the other two arrive.

The only wader that came any where close to the hide was a Black-tailed Godwit.

There was a bit of excitement when one of the Spoonbills which must have been a juvenile because it started very aggressively to demand feeding.The adult was not impressed and soon flew off much to the annoyance  of the juvenile.Great to watch.

I then made the first of a series of mistakes.I walked down the East bank to the beach and saw virtually nothing despite looking everywhere.The only shot I took was of a Little Egret trying for once not to blow out the whites.

I then made another mistake by ordering a Belgian bun with my lunchtime cup of tea in the Cley cafe.These buns are covered with icing and if you are not careful you can make a right mess which of course I did.The icing they use is amazing stuff because if you don't get it off your fingers in 30 seconds it sets like superglue and you need to go to a garage that's got a high pressure steam cleaner to get it off.

The next mistake I made was in the afternoon when I spent most of the time at Salthouse beach.Why was it a mistake because there was a strong wind blowing and there were hardly any birds showing and I didn't meet one other birder.All I saw in nearly two hours were some Linnets and a lone Stonechat which I could not get close to at all

Another disappointing day at Cley.