1st January 2012

January 1st.....The start of a new year and a new list. A trip to Norfolk is a must to get the year list of to a good start. Picked up the boys and headed up the M11 picking up a nice Barn Owl on route we headed for Titchwell were we picked up an impressive list of 74 other species including Common Scoter, Red Breasted Merganser, Red throated Diver, a nice early Merlin sitting on the beach, lovely views of spotted Redshank but the real highlight of this first stop off was the tree in the car park that housed Lesser/Mealy and Arctic Redpoll. With our count now at 75 we moved on down the A149 and stopped at Brancaster and picked up 3 more (ringed plover, common gull and a bonus purple sandpiper) We made a short stop at Burnham and whilst checking out the Rough Legged Buzzard we had a Lapland Bunting fly over and a flock of Redwing drop in, add to that a nice Grey Partridge and we moved on towards Cley. (82) Along the road to Cley we picked up Kestrel,Pink footed Geese, Egyptian Geese, R L Partridge and Stock Dove (well I did...Jimmy mssed a couple sitting in the back) At Cley we were on a mission to locate the visitor from America (The Western Sandpiper) and whilst looking saw a Peregrine take a Lapwing out and a GBB gull pushed us through 89 and then we found the Western Sand and hit 90 for the day.....secretly we all wanted 100 from day one. We heard there was a Shrike at Fakenham and after a quick pied wagtail at Salthouse we moved to Fakenham where we dipped on the shrike but picked up a nice Starling and Song Thrush. (92) A nice start to 2012 and I've set a target of 250 for the year hoping that having the target will get me out and about a bit more.