What a Pile of Shi...

I fell in with hardened twitchers today as a car load of that singularly determined breed set out in search of an eastern goody. Our quarry was an Eastern Yellow Wagtail which had been frequenting some dung heaps near Ringstead in Norfolk. Leaving bright and early (well one out of two aint bad) Ken, Phil, Paul and I arrived to find quite a crowd of admirers.

Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Happily for us the bird proved to be obliging and we were able to watch it for rather a long period. In all honesty it looked quite a bit like a normal Yellow Wagtail but I'm reliably formed that the call perfectly matched this recently split species. I was able to take a couple of record shots of what was my only new bird lifer of the year. a trio of hunting Marsh harriers were the only other birds of note here.

Curlew and Rough-legged Buzzard.

Our next stop was at Thornham to search for the reported Twites. Once again fortune favoured us as we were lucky enough to see nine birds split into two groups of five and four. Views were brief but half decent and while I couldn't get any pics it was good to see this declining species again.

Pink-footed and Brent Geese.

Whilst making our way along the coast road to Wells we stopped briefly near Burnham Overy to look at a large flock of Pink-footed Geese, despite searching we couldn't find anything else amongst them. At Wells the reported Rough-legged Buzzard showed well if distantly and it was seen on and off for perhaps as long as an hour. Other wildlife in the general area included Muntjac and Golden Plover.

Snow Buntings and Muntjac.

Holkham was our final stop and it turned out to be time well spent. Half a dozen Shore Larks were seen though the long grass in which they were feeding obscured them for much of the time. Slightly more obliging were the fifty or so Snow Buntings which although a bit on the flighty side showed well. With the sun setting we decided that enough was enough and headed home.

Norfolk sunset