Norfolk + winter + good weather = fantastic day.

We drove up to Norfolk on Friday night, giving us Saturday in fantastic weather along the coast. I guess that almost guaranteed that something good would be at Grays - in this case 11 tundra bean geese - but I'm not sure I feel I missed out too much. To those that did, thanks for the calls/voicemails, by the way. We stayed in Burnham Deepdale again, but in the pub itself this time. Too cold for camping. 

I opened the curtains on Saturday morning to skeins of pinkfeet overhead, brent geese on the channels and a raptor-induced wader panic out on the marsh. Raised bins and... rough-legged buzzard heading slowly west. Ridiculous start to the day.

As the sun burnt off the mist we headed to Holkham gap. There was no sign of the ross's goose, and not that many pinkfeet so we went straight onto the beach. We didn't really expect to find the shorelarks - it's a really big area for four small birds - and so it was a surprise to pick them up about 50 feet away to one side. I snapped off a few record shots and then sat low on the mud and waited. They came down to around 10 feet away, constantly calling quietly to each other. The larks didn't care about our presence at all but flushed the second that the first of many idiot dog owners let their darling hounds off the leash... one pair of walking penises encouraged and rewarded their pooch for chasing the sanderlings on the beach.

I have lots of pictures of these. I'll probably add them when I have nothing better to write about.

Seawatching was good - a few each of great northern and red-throated divers were about, as were groups of scoter and the occasional eider.

Back at Lady Anne's, the pinkfeet had increased in number but we still couldn't find anything good. Scanning the fields gave us a few grey partridges though, and a fantastic mixed flock came through the edge of the pines. A firecrest was in with it as well as several phyllosc warblers - at least three chiffchaffs and, really, really confusingly, a willow warbler. It showed everything you'd want structurally, general colouration, the legs, super. I'd have doubted it if it wasn't for the couple with us who also had it. Definitely not something I had expected to bump into and given the time of year probably the rarest bird of the day.

Not a great picture, but better than I'd expected. Especially as I hadn't expected a firecrest.

Next stop was Cley, for food and that sandpiper. It was out on Arnolds Marsh, so we set off up the east bank. Luckily, it was on pretty much the closest sandbar it could be on and we got good lengthy views. If the shorelarks were an amazing life-tick bird, the western sandpiper was... well, shite, really. It's a calidrid, so sure, it has a certain built-in cuteness which I can appreciate, and yes, it was also nice to be able to compare it to the semi-palmated sand I saw at East Tilbury not that long ago (see very informative paragraph at the bottom here). With it being so close and in good light I was even able to see some of the "important" features - something about some funny scapulars and a longer bill - but... whatever. I'm still not sure I could ID one for myself and, as the Girl said, "I don't think I've ever twitched such an underwhelming bird". Quite. 

Er. Is this the bit where I'm meant to get excited? Oh.

Elsewhere on site we had a couple of whoopers and the sea had a few more divers, a couple of slavonian grebes and a razorbill. Walking back up the west bank - no sign of snow buntings - we added another barn owl, a ringtail hen harrier and bearded tits to our day list.

Not great, but it's all I've got.

Final stop of the day as it got dark was the roadside pull-off at Burnham Overy for more grey partridges, barn owls and another distant rough-leg.

And then good local ales, good whisky and good food. Amazing day.

I'll write about today another time. Probably. It involved a shrike at Fakenham, yes, that one, lots of the WWT's pet swans and white-fronted geese pooing.