Cley (again) & Morston Quay - 8/3/2019

After spending the morning in the company of David Tipling, it was midday and too early to go home yet. With the weather a bit better today I thought I would have a look at the sea and the beach at Cley habitats that I missed through the poor weather yesterday. Despite that the sea was still pretty choppy, and there weren't many birds about anyway.
The only exception to this, on the sea by the beach car park, were some COMMON SCOTER, a sea duck that is all black with an orange bill, in a flock around 600 strong. That was a fairly standard observation for the time of year, something I would expect.

Morston Quay, Blakeney Church in the background

 



From Cley I went over to Morston Quay, a few miles along the coast, which had a mixture of saltmarsh, and tidal creeks where boats were moored. Among the small numbers of WADERS, I heard a familiar call and a GREENSHANK flew in to feed on the creek. This is a common wading bird on migration, but in winter is quite rare, its winter plumage slightly different to its summer one, with a white face and a light grey back of the neck. It was a nice sighting to end the day on.

GREENSHANK



I left North Norfolk then and headed south to Suffolk, having spent a good couple of days up here. For anyone with the slightest interest in bird watching I thoroughly recommend a visit to North Norfolk. Aside from that it is a "heritage" area with lots of touristy places to visit, if you like that kind of thing (I do not).