Gary had invited me to join him and James to go and s
ee the Northern Harrier, that had finally been pinned down at
Thornham long enough to be positively
ID'ed. Rising at 5.45 i wondered was it really worth it. A trudged to the station in the snow where i met James, from North
Walsham we slowly made our way to
Thornham. From the harbour we didn't have to long to wait, once a snow shower had passed the
juv. male
Northern Harrier showed well before drifting west over
Holme. The bird was much darker than i expected above, and below the orange/chestnut hues showed well as the bird banked and turned in
surprisingly good light. A food stop at
Titchwell RSPB saw us watching a female
Brambling among the commoner birds around the feeders, as well as brief views of an over wintering
Chiffchaff. Refuelled we headed onto Wells Woods. 2/3
Goldeneye were on the boating lake as we arrived and a exiting birder informed us that the Northern Bullfinch had been showing along with a probable Siberian
Chiffchaff and Northern
Treecreeper, all would be new sub-species for me. We soon heard the 'trumpet' call of the Northern Bullfinch, but initially could only locate its commoner cousins. A male Northern Bullfinch eventually flew across the path and after a bit of repositioning we got good views.
At least 1 female Bullfinch of a much heavier set was also probably of the Northern race. While viewing the Bullfinch
at least 1
Mealy Redpoll was feeding in the birch trees above us. A brief look for the
Chiffchaff produced nothing and news of a Baikal Teal in
Cambridgeshire got us excited before we opted for a drink in the Dun Cow at
Salthouse. Sadly there was not
alot to report from the pub-birding
hotspot but the 6+ Snipe were a new 'pub tick' and a Barn Owl was seen. A quick half at the Bluebell in North
Walsham before our train also failed to added more birds to our list.
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