North East Norfolk

Sorry about the slightly late update on 29th Oct James, Gay and myself after a bit of furniture moving at Gary's headed to Trimmingham for a final bash at finding some late migrants. Getting out of the car Gary noticed a Buzzard sp. finding a gap in the treeline we were able to confirm Gary's initial thought Rough-legged Buzzard. News of a Red-rumped Swallow flying north through Sea Palling with 2 Swallow had us move to the clifftop hoping they would continue north. While waiting we scanned the sea, eventually picking up several groups of Little Gull and Kittiwake and a few Wigeon. Red-throated Diver appeared then disappeared on the sea and a lone Snow Bunting appeared to come in-off. At about 12.30 i located 3 Swallow heading north, but as the passed overhead they became silhouetted so we tried to ID them over the stubble, 2 where clearly Swallow, the third we could not clearly see however no obvious rump. We had to conclude as unlike as it may be there was 2 groups of 3 Swallow heading north at the end of October in NE Norfolk.

As it was lunch time we headed to the Poachers Pocket at Walcott, ordered our cheesy chips and sat outside to scan the sea. We picked up many similar sea birds as at Trimingham, with Little Gull, Black Tern and Kittiwake being Pub Ticks. A few Guillemots lingered off shore and a Common Scoter flew through. 2 Red-breasted Mergansers west, a flyover Redpoll and a Great Northern Diver were a further 3 Pub Ticks. The best bird though was a Black Guillemot, a Pub Tick, a Norfolk Tick, a rare bird for Norfolk, it flew in and eventually gave good enough views to clinch an ID. We then located a flock of Pink-footed Geese we could hear from the pub, only a couple of fields over. We couldn't find any rare geese mixed in but a neck collared bird (pale blue CCI) has since been reported back to us as a bird ringed in 202 in Aberdeenshire and been seen in Norfolk most years since.