Cley Marshes, situated on the North Norfolk coast, is an internationally acclaimed nature reserve for its birdlife, and maybe the greatest of the nation's local wildlife trust reserves.
It consists of a large area of grazing marsh and reedbed, which attract a lot of birds, but the show piece of the reserve has to be its freshwater scrapes. These areas of shallow water, like the Scrape at Minsmere, are a mecca for migrating WADERS, as they are attracted to areas of mud as they migrate along the North Norfolk coast. On a good day there are large numbers of birds of different species with maybe something unusual present, something American or Siberian perhaps.
GREEN SANDPIPER - they are a common migrant at this time of year. Despite their name I have never found them to be green, more a dark brown.
However today wasn't going to be a particularly good day as I took the long journey up to these hallowed grounds. That's not to say there was nothing around, an average day at Cley is as good as anywhere else. It was just I was expecting there to be, well, more.
LAPWING
There are two scrapes which are the centre of activity, Pat's Pool and Simmond's Scrape. They are overlooked by a couple of hides. On the approach path the locally born HOUSE SPARROWS were feeding on the pathside reeds, something that was so strange to see.
Out on the scrapes there were a lot of waders present. On Pat's Pool there were a large collection of birds made up of GODWITS and RUFF. The RUFF were very distinctive, as the sexes are different sizes, and the males were moulting out of summer plumage, creating . There were as many as fifty of these birds on this scrape.
The scrape hides overlooking Pat's Pool
Most of the other WADERS were spread out and were present on both scrapes. Best of all were around ten WOOD SANDPIPERS, a small wader, brown but elegant. There were also ten GREEN SANDPIPERS (see photo), fifteen RINGED PLOVERS, five DUNLIN and one SNIPE.
Present on Simmond's Scrape were around fifteen AVOCETS, in various states of age, most of the adults had departed and there were a few fledged birds about. The only adults about were a pair with two chicks, leaving things a bit late. The parents went crazy and attacked anything that came near, be they godwits or a tiny green sand.
The AVOCET parents would attack any bird that would come near their chicks, such as this MALLARD
Two HOBBIES flew over briefly, causing much consternation amongst the birds on the pools. This is my first record for this reserve. This species likes to congregate in certain areas, like the reedbeds at Lakenheath or North Warren. One oversummering BRENT GOOSE was also present, looking pretty lonely on its own. I heard a party of BEARDED TITS in the surrounding reeds and finally got a brief view of the birds, always nice to see.
There weren't many DUCKS about. All the adult SHELDUCK have left the UK to moult over in Germany, with only this year's juveniles present here, which shows just how nature doesn't respect national boundaries. There were still plenty of juveniles about, which means they have had a good breeding season.
Two juvenile SHELDUCKS - the adults have gone over to Germany to moult
So that was the centre of the reserve. The nature trail walks the edges of what was the original area of reserve (it had been since expanded) and takes the shape of a square. The east side, imaginatively called East Wall, as it rises above the surrounding marshes, was fairly quiet. The grazing marshes were all dried out this summer, but contained a pair of SPOONBILL, as usual asleep. A newish path that takes a detour into the newer areas of the reserve, leads to a hide with a pool, that attracted the SPOONBILLS out to feed for a while. It was obvious one of the birds was a young one, it was smaller and kept begging its parent for food, maybe its locally bred as they do nest in the area.
Pair of SPOONBILLS the one on the right was clearly a younger bird.
Arnold's Marsh, where the East Wall meets the sea, is a pool set just in from the beach. Its pretty much a salt water lake and attracts estuarine WADERS, which today included REDSHANK and CURLEW. There were some COMMON and SANDWICH TERNS roosting on the mud.
The north part of the square is the beach and then the sea. As I came to the beach a little flock of four LITTLE TERN flew past, but apart from a lot of SANDWICH TERNS, the odd OYSTERCATCHER and SANDERLING flying past I didn't see much as I had my lunch on remnant concrete blocks amongst the shingle.
The AVOCETS on Simmond's Scrape were very dedicated parents hounding anything that came near their chicks, which made for some good photography.
And this was what they were protecting, an AVOCET chick
For an August day bathing in hot weather, the beach was fairly quiet, the odd fisherman, dog walkers, birdwatchers of course, but that was it.
Just in from the shingle bank is North Pool, which sits, well, north of the freshwater scrapes. I was expecting a lot from this body of water. Alas when I came up to the viewing screen it was completely empty of any water. This was a strange site as there wasn't a drought on at the time, its been a rainy old summer, so I have no real explanation for this. Just one of those things.
The rest of the walk was fairly uneventful, a COMMON SANDPIPER in a small pool of water was about it.
As you would expect from a reserve like Cley there were plenty of birds about, lots to be seen. However away from the central attraction, the freshwater scrapes, the reserve was fairly quiet. With a lot of these reserves water is the primary force in making habitats work. Without water there are few birds. This can be an issue at this time of year, but also means places that do have water become a mecca for birds. With Autumn migration heating up hopefully more unusual birds will start to turn up and things may become more interesting.
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