Breckland Birder

Breckland Birder
Red Deer in Breckland, Norfolk Photo by Paul Newport

Sunday 23 December 2012

Little Cressingham and Bodney

Following recent rainfall the Watton Brook valley from Watton through to Little Cressingham, and onto Bodney, is under unprecedented levels of flood water.  Further flooding is expected with further rainfall predicted.

LITTLE CRESSINGHAM
Today saw a respite from rainfall, it was a bright day, very mild, and with a fresh to strong south-westerly.
At dawn, I parked at Little Cressingham Mill and walked north along the Peddars Way for a couple of miles, little was seen due to the wind strength, although Bullfinches were heard and seen at a number of locations with the best party being 6 birds close to the Priory Road juction with the Peddars Way.
Back at Little Cressingham Mill, a flock of 60+ Siskins were seen in the Alders alongside the mill, whilst close by on farmland, 70+ Fieldfare were feeding.

BODNEY (Smuggler's Road)
An early afternoon walk along Smuggler's Road to the STANTA access gate produced 4 Common Buzzards.
Looking north from Smuggler's Road, over a field of sugar beet, I saw a large raptor appear low over the crop, my suspicions were confirmed when I picked it up in my binoculars, it was a Goshawk and it was hunting Wood Pigeons.  One particular Wood Pigeon was singled out, however, it just managed to evade the talons of this very large, powerful raptor.  Having failed to catch the Pigeon, the Goshawk was seen for a while against the sky and tree-line before it went out of sight behind a line of Scots Pines.

4 comments:

  1. Hey Paul
    This is very evocative writing - glad you're prepared to get up so early.
    More, when you can. Alison

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    1. Victoria Louise, many thanks for your lovely comments, Paul x

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  2. Lovely to read about birds that I do not see out here in Spain - or at least not very often. As Alison says, the time that you take off birding I am still away with the fairies and we are an hour ahead of you! Happy New Year and keep up the blog; it's very enjoyable.
    Bob

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    1. Thank you also Bob for your lovely comments. Happy 2013 to both you and Jenny. Thanks also for your assistance last year with resurrecting this blog - I could not have done it without you with me being a technophobe. Roll on retirement in 9 months Bob.

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