A Private Tour today, at Cley. It was a dry and bright day but with a very strong N/NW wind in the morning. Thankfully the wind dropped in the afternoon. It was a day of general interest birding, we were not planning to chase the rarities, rather looking more closely at some of our regular birds here.
With the blustery wind, we spent the morning in the hides. There were plenty of birds, a couple of Spoonbills, a nice selection of regular waders and lots of ducks. The drakes are mostly in brown eclipse plumage at the moment, so not looking their best, although some of the drake Gadwall are already starting to regain their breeding plumage.
The regular waders included lots of Avocets, Black-tailed Godwits, several Ruff, a few Dunlin and one or two Common Snipe. As well as those, there were some birds on the move today. Flying over, we had four Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Common Sandpiper and Greenshank.
A Cattle Egret was out with the cows beyond Whitwell Scrape as we walked out and then appeared on the back of Simmond’s Scrape.
The main surprise of the first part of the day (for the guide at least!) was a party of 43 Pink-footed Geese which flew high over the reserve calling. We also saw another 21 in the afternoon. The first we have seen since April, they are just now beginning to return from the breeding season in Iceland. They are one of the main sights and sounds of the winter here in Norfolk. So seeing them today means Autumn is now officially here!
We sat outside and had lunch in the picnic area by the Visitor Centre. A Vapourer moth caterpillar walked across our picnic table.
The wind seemed to be slowly dropping now so we decided to try a walk up the East Bank after lunch. There had been some Little Stints reported on Arnold’s Marsh earlier. So we drove to Walsey Hills and parked, before walking back and up onto the East Bank.
We had not seen a Kestrel all morning so when we saw a bird hovering over the near corner of the grazing marsh, close to the bank, we were just pleased to see something different at first. We should have twigged immediately, because its style of hovering wasn’t quite right for a Kestrel, very low, a briefer burst and less sustained, dropping down, then back up. It was back on to us and after a couple of seconds it turned. Now we got a flash of a very white cheek and the penny dropped – it was a juvenile Red-footed Falcon!
We lifted our binoculars and could see it had a darker brown back too, lacking the rusty tones of a Kestrel. Almost immediately, the Red-footed Falcon broke off from hovering and flew towards the East Bank. Across the other side, it turned and headed straight out to the NW over the reedbed. It was probably only in front of us for about 30 seconds in total.
We put the news out very quickly on a couple of the local WhatsApp groups and amazingly a couple of the locals were able to catch up with it. The Red-footed Falcon stopped again to hover over the west side of the reserve before flying off over the West Bank. It was then seen again, hovering briefly over Blakeney Freshes before disappearing off west over the harbour.
We continued on up the East Bank. What was presumably the same Cattle Egret was now out on the grazing marsh with all the Greylags and Canada Geese. Lots of Curlew were feeding out on the grass too.
There was nothing on the Serpentine beyond more of the commoner ducks, so we continued on to Arnold’s Marsh. A small group of Sandwich Terns was loafing over towards the back. There were plenty of waders to look through, including a couple of dusky juvenile Spotted Redshanks feeding busily over towards the back. There was no sign of any Little Stints on Arnold’s Marsh, but we did find one on the Brackish Pool opposite. Activity over the sea had died down since this morning but there were still lots of Common Terns moving through.
We called in briefly at the Beach Car Park to see if there were still any migrants around the Eye Field. They may have moved on anyway, given the wind, but someone was surveying through the weedy area between the fences where they had been. So perhaps no surprise there was not much left here. We didn’t have time to get all the way out to North Scrape, as we had to get back.
A very enjoyable day, pottering around the reserve. Red-footed Falcon was not a bird we would have dreamed of finding on a blustery N/NW wind. They are scarce visitors here, breeding in E/SE Europe eastwards and migrating to Africa for the winter. This one must have taken a wrong turn. It just goes to show that you should always expect the unexpected!
