A 1-day tour in North Norfolk for winter birds and an opportunity to look for our commoner resident owl species – Barn Owls and Tawny Owls.

Owls

Late in the winter is normally a good time to look for Barn Owls. With food increasingly scarce, they are most likely now to be active during daylight hours. Unfortunately we have had two poor breeding seasons in succession and numbers are likely to be lower in early 2025 as a consequence. We will look for them at dawn & dusk and hopefully over the winter we might find one roosting in a favoured box.

Tawny Owls are at their most vocal and we have a site where we can often see them emerging from their roost at dusk, but in recent years we were also fortunate to have one which roosted out in the daytime. This has been one of the highlights of our Owl Tours! We are less likely to see other owl species on the single day Owl Tours (check out our longer Winter & Owl tours if you want to see Short-eared Owls).

Winter Birds

The owls are most active early in the morning and later in the afternoon, so we have plenty of time to look for some of our other winter birds during the rest of the day.

Large numbers of birds come here to spend the colder months, including wildfowl, waders, birds of prey and owls. In December, numbers of geese are at their peak, including large numbers of Pink-footed and White-fronted Geese. Sometimes a rarer goose may be mixed in with them, and in some years it is a good time to find Tundra Bean Geese in the flocks. In 2023/24 we had a long-staying Red-breasted Goose in with the Brent Geese too. There is always a good selection of ducks and waders to see too at this time of year.

Our over-wintering Shorelarks are always one of the highlights of the season here, and should be back in residence by this time, and there may be flocks of Snow Buntings too. It is a good time for raptors and in some years we may have a Rough-legged Buzzard around for the winter.