Review of 2019 and 2020 - Birds: Waders

STONE-CURLEWS (family BURHINIDAE)


Stone-Curlew Burhinus oedicnemus - Calling birds heard while out mothing on one night each year, one site in the Brecks and the other quite close to another known breeding area.

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OYSTERCATCHERS (family HAEMATOPODIDAE)


Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus - Occasionally seen flying over the house and the meadows during the summers.

Oystercatcher, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 3rd May 2020

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PLOVERS (family CHARADRIIDAE)


Lapwing Vanellus vanellus - At least one pair bred in farmland adjacent to the meadows raising well-grown chicks in 2019, though I was unable to confirm they definitely fledged.  Small numbers occasionally seen flying over (max 57 migrating west on 30th October 2019).

Lapwings, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 20th November 2020

Golden Plover Pluvialis apricaria - Heard after dark at the meadows on 2 dates in February 2019 and during the day on 15th August 2019.  One seen flying over there on 30th November 2020.  75 at Pendeen (Cornwall) on 4th October 2020 and 60 at Porthgwarra Moor on 6th.

Golden Plovers, Porthgwarra Moor (Cornwall), 7th October 2020

American Golden Plover Pluvialis dominica - I missed one at Pendeen (Cornwall) on 4th October 2020 but got a second chance when it later reappeared on Porthgwarra Moor two days later.

American Golden Plover, Porthgwarra Moor (Cornwall), 6th October 2020

Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula - No records worth mentioning.


Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius - Recorded at the local gravel pits and at Tichwell in 2019.

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SANDPIPERS and SNIPES (family SCOLOPACIDAE)


Curlew Numenius arquata - At least 2 heard calling as they flew over the meadows in the wee small hours of the morning while I was mothing on 8th July 2019.  One heard flying over home on 9th August 2020.

Curlew, Hayle (Cornwall), 10th October 2020

Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica - No noteworthy records.


Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa - A ringed Continental bird (race limosa) at Titchwell on 21st July 2019.

Continental Black-tailed Godwit, Titchwell, 21st July 2019

Turnstone Arenaria interpres - No noteworthy records.


Knot Calidris canutus - No noteworthy records.


Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea - One at Titchwell on 21st July 2019 and one at Hayle (Cornwall) on 10th October 2020.


Dunlin Calidris alpina - One heard flying over the meadows while I was out mothing at 25 past midnight on 1st July 2019.


Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritima - Singles at West Runton on 18th March and Cley on 12th November 2019.

Purple Sandpiper, Cley, 12th November 2019

Semipalmated Sandpiper Calidris pusilla - One at Titchwell on 21st July 2019 was a belated Norfolk tick for me - another great James McCallum find.


Woodcock Scolopax rusticola - At the meadows 2 flew low over the railway at dusk on 9th February 2019 and on 17th February I found at least 2, probably 3, feeding on the meadows by torchlight.  Another found there by torchlight on 4th January 2020.  Elsewhere singles heard at Sculthorpe Moor and on Mull in 2019 and a migrant flushed at Brancaster on 17th October 2020.

Woodcock, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 17th February 2019

Jack Snipe Lymnocryptes minimus - One seen in flight with Snipes from the meadows on 16th October 2020.  They had been flushed from an inaccessible part of the valley by a Marsh Harrier.

Jack Snipe, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 16th October 2020

Snipe Gallinago gallinago - Small numbers occasionally seen from the meadows, either in flight over the meadows or in a flooded field just visible from the recording area.  I have seen 8 on 3 occasions but, aided by a Marsh Harrier that was flushing them, 45 on 27th Novemebr 2020.

Snipe, Llobregat Delta (Spain), 22nd February 2020

Snipe, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 27th November 2020

Grey Phalarope Phalaropus fulicarius - One east past Sheringham on 21st October 2019.  Compared to others I've seen on seawatches previously I got an unusually good look at this one.


Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos - A nocturnal migrant heard over the meadows on 23rd June 2019.  Also seen at Minsmere and Titchwell in 2019 and at numerous sites around Mull.


Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus - One heard flying upriver at the meadows on 25th April 2020 - despite calling 4 times I didn't manage to see it.  Elsewhere one at Ryburgh in April 2019 and singles in Spain and at Warham Greens in 2020.

Green Sandpiper, Llobregat Delta (Spain), 22nd February 2020

Redshank Tringa totanus - No records worth mentioning.


Spotted Redshank Tringa erythropus - 2 at Titchwell in December 2019 and one heard at Stiffkey in October 2020.


Greenshank Tringa nebularia - Singles at Bintree Mill on 17th April and Bittering on 18th May 2019 were my only local records but half a dozen more at the coast.


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Summer birding (or lack thereof)

In July I did very little birding away from the local area - well, like none really!  Apart from a Red Kite near Lenwade all my bird records in July are from North Elmham, either home or Cathedral Meadows.  The clear highlight at home was hearing a Turtle Dove purring in next door's garden early on 19th July, a new bird for the house and one I wasn't really expecting now that they're so hard to find anywhere.  I heard Siskins calling a couple of times around then too which is something I've not had in the summer here before.  I heard Little Owl calling here too, and regular Green Woodpecker and Bullfinch.

At the Cathedral Meadows I also heard Little Owl, had numerous records of Green Woodpecker and Bullfinch, a Treecreeper and a pre-roost gathering of 30 Swallows over the river.

Long-tailed Tit, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 2nd July

August started the same way with Little Owl, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch and Treecreeper at the meadows.

Blackcaps, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 4th July

Starlings, North Elmham Cathedral Meadows, 6th August

Then on 6th August I was surprised to hear the Turtle Dove singing again in next door's garden, this time in the middle of the day.  I managed to locate it sitting on top of one their trees.  My first attempts at photographing it were with the DSLR, but it was too far and looking into the sun...

Turtle Dove, North Elmham, 6th August

I erected my scope but the usual eye-piece was away for repairs and the replacement I was loaned in the meantime, good as it was, didn't fit my camera adaptor, so too wobbly for digi-scoping and when I did eventually get a vaguely sharper picture it had its back turned...

Turtle Dove, North Elmham, 6th August

So not a photographic success but a great bird to see from the bedroom window, especially now that they have become so rare.

I had to visit Titchwell to collect my repaired eye-piece from In-focus on 11th August.  It would be cherlish not to visit the reserve while I was there.  There were 6 Spoonbills, 2 Green Sandpipers, 2 Common Sandpipers, Turtle Dove and some Bearded Tits.  Also heard Greenshank and at least 2 Whimbrel.

Green Sandpipers, Titchwell, 11th August

Ruff, Titchwell, 11th August

House Martins, Titchwell, 11th August

Pied Wagtail, Titchwell, 11th August

One or two visits to the Beetley/Bittering gravel pits produced nothing better than a single Common Sandpiper.

Other birds seen, or mostly just heard, from the garden included Grey Wagtails, a Yellow Wagtail on 21st (another very decent garden record!), and Barn Owl.

The meadows continued to produce similar birds - regular Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Green Woodpecker; also Little Owls, Kingfisher and, on 26th, 2 Spotted Flycatchers.

Towards the end of August a flock of hirundines (mostly House Martins - up to 25) became regular at the meadows and it was probably no coincidence that I started to get regular sightings of up to 2 Hobbies for a short while.

Hobby, North Elmham Cathedrasl Meadows, 1st September

Green Woodpecker, North Elmham Cathedrasl Meadows, 1st September

Local Wood Sands, a Great Shearwater but no Thrush Nightingale

A singing Yellowhammer audible from my study was unusual on 22nd July.  Next day I met Dave at the patch at Bittering where Joe had found a nice selection of waders earlier in the day.  We found the Wood Sandpiper and Redshank (a good local bird) still present, along with at least 10 Green Sandpipers.  A flock of 253 Lapwings was also present in the area, and 2 Common Terns.

Wood Sandpiper, Bittering, 23rd July

Redshank, Bittering, 23rd July

Two days later I added a new bird to my garden list - a Curlew heard flying over at 3.55 am.

With that I headed up to Sheringham for a seawatch.  There were various waders moving offshore but no remarkable numbers or species.  I saw 670 Common Scoter which was a reasonable count but seabirds were few and far between.   The best were 8 Manx Shearwaters; there were also Great Skua and 3 Arctic Skuas, 4 Kittiwakes, Little Gull, 5 Auks (inlcuding Guillemot), 3 Fulmars and 120 Gannets.

On Thursday 27th July I'd arranged to meet Kevin Shepherd at Burnham Overy and we headed out to the dunes.  It was good to catch up with him - I see him from time to time mainly when seawatching but much less than I used to when I hammered the Bird Observatory with him in the mid to late 90s.  I think we must have seen 5 Spoonbills flying over in the end, a Barn Owl and a distant Hobby flying west inland.

Spoonbill, Burnham Overy, 27th July

Waders included Common and Green Sandpipers, Greenshank and 1-2 Whimbrels but the star bird was picked up by Kev while we were scanning over the beach and sea from Gun Hill.  Clearly a Stint species it went down with Sanderling, Dunlin and Ringed Plovers on the beach where it looked a peach - quite a bright individual in full summer plumage.  But was it definitely Little?  We hadn't seen anything to suggest it wasn't a bright male Little Stint but we needed to completely eliminate Red-necked, just in case.  It was too far off from our position (on the water's edge at low tide) so we stalked through the dunes until we were as close as we could get without flushing it.  Of course it was "only" a Little Stint but it was fun to work through all the features just to make absolutely sure, and probably this made us a bit more ready to nail it when one day a Red-necked Stint does pop up in front of us.

Little Stint (with Ringed Plover, Sanderling and Oystercatcher), Burnham Overy, 27th July

In the dunes there were a number of Stonechats including juveniles from two broods.  We also found a juvenile Wheatear, my first of the autumn.

Wheatear, Burnham Overy, 27th July

Sedge Warbler, Burnham Overy, 27th July

Next day 2 Green Sandpipers were the only birds of any note at Ryburgh.

Green Sandpiper, Ryburgh, 28th July

Kestrel, Ryburgh, 28th July

A Green Sandpiper was still showing well at Ryburgh on 3rd August.  Also a Barn Owl seen.

Green Sandpiper, Ryburgh, 3rd August

A visit to the patch on 7th August produced not one but 2 Wood Sandpipers, along with the more expected Green Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plovers.  Also a Greenshank called but wasn't seen.

The wind looked good for seawatching on Wednesday 9th August so I headed up to Sheringham, but I decided the afternoon looked best and I saved my energy by not rolling up until after lunch.  If I'd been there all day I would have logged an extraordinary count of over 200 Manx Shearwaters but I was happy with the 60 Manx Shearwaters I saw.  There were a few skuas too - I saw at least 20 Great Skuas and 16 Arctic Skuas.  We also saw 30 Fulmars east and a few duck including 111 Common Scoter.

I can't remember who it was who first saw a bird flying east in the distance which looked very interesting - it might have been me but in any case Kevin was onto it before I'd dared to call it as anything specific.  It was clearly interesting, shearing through in regular arcs and I was becoming increasingly certain that it was a large shearwater - and if so, then surely a Great Shearwater.  It was only visible every now and then at the top of its arcing and travelled some distance between arcs so it would have been hard to keep track of but for the fact that it was following a Gannet, and regularly appearing just after the Gannet.  I quickly realised that whenever the Gannet appeared (and then disappeared) I just needed to look a short distance behind it and the shearwater would appear just after, and that tactic enabled me to look really hard at it rather than wasting time looking for it.  But the distance was enormous - it was a very long way out towards the horizon.  There wasn't a hope of getting any meaningful plumage details or even much detail on the structure.  You could see that the long narrow wings were long in the arm and short in the hand; the pointed hands were angled back slightly and the wings weren't bowed like they are on Cory's Shearwater.  But that and the way it was flying was basically all we had to go on.  It wasn't flying like a Cory's at all - it all added up to Great Shearwater and I have no significant doubt that that was what it was.  Kevin called it as such pretty early on and I concur with that identification.

My only hesitation with this is probably down to my experience, or lack of it.  I've seen a handful of Cory's Shearwaters on sewatches (a few more Scopoli's in the Med) and a handful of Great Sherwaters but not lots.  I've seen less than half a dozen Cory's off Norfolk and only one previous Great in Norfolk (and that wasn't accepted) so can I really say that I know all the possible ways a Cory's Shearwater might fly in different conditions?  Can I really be 100% certain that a Cory's Shearwater would never fly like this in conditions like this?  The ones I have seen (mostly in similar conditions) have flown quite differently from this bird - and the Greats I've seen flew exactly like this bird, but that doesn't necessarily mean a Cory's could never fly like this bird.  Kevin was quite certain that in these conditions a Cory's would never fly like this, and he has more experience than I do.  I believe him, and I believe this bird was a Great Shearwater, but if I were personally to submit a description of this bird I would struggle to honestly say "Yes" to the "Is this record 100% certain?" question.  I do feel certain that it was a Great Shearwater, but 100% certain?  That's as certain as I would have been if I'd been recording a Hoopoe that I'd watched feeding on my lawn for an hour.

Being personally happy that it was a Great Shearwater is one thing, documenting it as an acceptable record of a Great Shearwater is another thing.  Kevin would argue that it was definitely a Great Shearwater and so it should be recorded as such - but he isn't submitting descriptions at the moment.  I believe it was a Great Shearwater, but in my mind for a record to be published it needs to be proven, and that means that an honest description of what we saw needs to be judged by peers as sufficient to prove the identification was accurate.  If views aren't good enough to be able to put such a description together then it's not a record.  It doesn't mean it wasn't one and it doesn't mean I can't put it down in my own notebook, but it's not a formally documented occurrence... unless of course Kevin decides to do a description after all and the rest of the records committee accept it.

Anyway, another go at sea watching on Thursday 10th August was less successful - a similar number of Scoter, a Red-thraoted Diver, Whimbrel, 30 Redshank and at least 4 Little Gulls, but hardly any seabirds (1 Arctic Skua).

Jackdaw, Sheringham, 10th August (not on a snowy mountain, honestly)

That afternoon my parents were down visiting and I took them up to Holt Lowes.  We were walking round looking at butteflies and things completely oblivious to the news that would have been coming from Salthouse had there been any Vodafone reception on the Lowes.  I took my parents home, sat down for tea and the phone alerted me that the Thrush Nightingale was still at Salthouse.  What?  Thrush Nightingale??  Salthouse???  Still????  Perhaps second to Black Stork, Thrush Nightingale is probably the most regularly recorded rarity in Norfolk that I've never seen in Norfolk - and there had been one ten minutes away from Holt Lowes while I was there, and I'd just driven home in the opposite direction.  I eventually packed my parents off to their guest house and sped up to Salthouse, arriving at the same time as Sue Bryan.  We both reached the crowd at the same time, Sue making a beeline for the middle of the crowd while I stopped at the near end.  The bird was on show and I immediately realised I wouldn't be able to see it from my position so moved two feet to the left, which must have taken less than a second.  That fraction of a second cost me the bird - Sue got there just in time to see it fly off round the bush and I didn't!  It was never seen again.

A visit to Burnham Overy on 11th was fairly unproductive - a Red Kite en route, a Mediterranean Gull, a count of 174 Redshank and the Great White Egret at Holkham were the closest things to highlights.

On Saturday 12th my brother and his wife came up and we met up with my parents at Scarning Fen.  We successfully found the Small Red Damselflies there and then moved on to Hills and Holes near Great Hockham.  Bird highlights included Kingfisher, Hobby and Marsh Tits but what looked like a Goshawk didn't show quite well enough for us to be sure.  We also encountered Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers and heard Treecreeper.

Kingfisher, Hills and Holes, 12th August