Brief report  on my last 3 birding visits out and about, to Frampton Marsh for an hour on Friday afternoon,  Hunstanton coast on saturday & near my home today the 9th of March.

33 miles away!
Lovely and sunny at Frampton albeit windy and the odd cloud appearing. I saw my first ever Pintail and had lovely views of not 1 but 2 Peregrine from the 360 hide. Also got to see the Avocets on my way back to the car too but sadly just missed out on getting these lovely birds in flight as they just settled down in front of the reception building some way off. Loads of raucous Black Headed Gulls were about making their presence known. Below are a selection of photos from the brief visit …

70 miles away!
The following day a trip to Hunstanton with my wife was on the cards and as you would expect the camera went with us! I usually have an hour on the beach while Karen is in the amusements, perfect arrangement that suits us both, this is linked in with making sure I know the tide times for the day.

It was very quiet bird-wise on this visit with no big numbers of birds seen, 5 Brent Geese flew low and fast what seemed millimetres above the sea heading towards Heacham / Snettisham. My aim was to  see if a few Sanderling and Fulmar photos could be achieved. I saw loads of Black Headed & Herring Gulls, approx 10 Sanderlings, max 40 Turnstone, 30 Oystercatcher, 12 or so Fulmar on the day. But it was still enjoyable non the less with the pics shown below a little hint on what I saw.

3 minutes away!
I live a few foot steps away from a lane that has at times a surprising array of bird species in or around it, the other day I noticed more Goldcrest activity in a certain area and decided to go there this morning and hang about for an hour to see what I could capture with my lens in the glorious weather, the added benefit of this was to clear my head after a session the night before that ended at 2am!

When walking to the last spot that I saw Goldcrest activity I met my cousin and we stopped for a chat, I told him what I was doing and we talked about the fact he had been into Belton House grounds as he was a amateur photographer too and was trying to get scenic shots. At this time I said about the Goldcrests and 3 dropped in no further than 5 feet away from us and in a frantic 2 minutes they moved around the hedgerow chasing each other and calling all the time, I managed to get a few shots off here, 1 below …

We parted and I got to the spot and waited camera on my tripod all ready, within minutes the birds were buzzing around all over and i snapped away, some 250 pics taken in an hour, most of which were blurry, very blurry LOL! Below are a couple of the  shots I got.

Walking back the birds seemed to follow me up the lane and soon I saw 1 bird seemingly forage on the ground, never seen this before, I edged closer and closer, the bird was not bothered at all

I then saw a second but rather lethargic Goldcrest in the hedge and the other bird that was ‘foraging’ headed up to it and kept circling the bird for at least 5 minutes.

The lethargic’ bird was looking like it was nodding off  and eventually it actually fell off the perch, now i did think the bird was either dying or was possibly egg bound as it looked more fluffed up and lazy than the other Goldcrest and in my past experience as a bird keeper I had seen this before in egg bound hens, but after 5 minutes the bird fell to the floor and within seconds the two birds flew off together away from me down the lane, puzzling, your thoughts on this would be welcomed.

All in all a good 3 days for me, hope you like the pics 🙂