Office Birding

Now that I am stuck in the office birding time is limited but this week I have made a concerted effort to check the beach near work in Yarmouth before work. The vast amount of Med Gulls keep me entertained (still!!) and on Tuesday the strong easterlies brought in a 1st winter Little Gull feeding along the surf, while a Common Scoter has stayed near the coast all week and a flock of 35 Sanderling have been present. Wednesday moirning was especially good, bringing about two patch ticks, a flyover Snow Bunting and a Grey Phalarope flying south. Further out there was a bit of movement with a couple of male Common Scoter, two Brent Geese and 6 RT Divers all heading north and a Fieldfare flew in off the sea looking thoroughly exhausted. As the winds turned westerly the rest of the week was quiet with no new birds apart from a pale phase Arctic Skua heading south on Thursday. Oh, and the Waxwings are still here.

Med Gull - Great Yarmouth

Common Scoter - Great Yarmouth

Little Gull - Great Yarmouth

Med gulls and Waxwings

After missing the most of the autumn while offshore it was good to get back to the patch this week. On Tuesday I found 3 Waxwings at Camden Road, GY while walking to work. This was somewhat surpassed by the 100+ on Pasteur Road which I managed to get a few photos of. I stopped in past the beach to have a look at the increasing numbers of Med gulls arriving in GY for the winter. On Thursday I stopped in past Breydon Water at high tide. There was an amazing amount of birds (2000+ Golden plover, 285 Shoveler etc etc) and the highlight was a Jack Snipe flying close past the hide before disappearing into the salt marsh.