Glossy Ibis, Black-thorated Diver and Rough-legged Buzzard

On Sunday 19th January although the mornings weather was pretty awful I decided to have faith in the weather man and head to Cley knowing the rain was meant to stop. 

I arrived and you could see some brightness in the distance although it was still raining, I started to scan the meadows between Wiveton and Cley. Saw a quite a few Curlew around. Then a message on the pager suggest the bird I was looking for was just up the road near the Three Swallows pub.

I head up and sure enough there was the Glossy Ibis, it was distant and first but eventually got closer giving wonderful views and even the sun came out for a short while allowing the bird to show off its gloss.

Glossy Ibis Cley 19/01/2014

After this I headed for Stifkey. This is where I got views of 4 Great Northern and 4 Black-throated Divers, a very rare occurrence with these sort of numbers in Blakeney Harbour. Also saw two Red-breasted Merganser and a tour guide that was there had found the Black Brant on the Saltmarsh looking towards Wells.

Next stop was Burnham where a Rough-legged Buzzard had been seen earlier in the morning around Gun Hill. I pulled in at the layby and scanned the marsh. I was straight onto Marsh Harriers and Common Buzzards, a Peregrine flew through causing a stir amongst the many Golden Plover, Lapwing and Pink-footed Geese.

A couple on their bi-annual holiday to Norfolk then stopped and scanned also. They soon spotted and interesting looking Buzzard which disappeared over the dunes and Gun Hill, we then waited to see if it would fly back over.

During the wait a Short-eared Owl flew along the dune edge and landed in one of the furthest fields out of sight.

About 30mins had past from the original sighting of the interesting Buzzard when I spotted it coming back over the dunes from the same spot it went over. This was clearly a Rough-legged Buzzard, it looked larger than the Common Buzzards as it flew across the marshes, its White rump was clearly visible and flew flat winged. I would say it was a near adult male with a dark head and incredibly pale underneath. It landed on a post where is sat preening for 30mins before flying into the flied and out of site.

I stayed on hoping to see the Rough-legged again adding Merlin, Sparrowhawk , Kestrel and Hen Harrier completing a good number list of birds of prey seen. I then found a Barnacle Goose in amongst the Pink-footed Geese some else found and additional 6 later on.

I got one more view of the Rough-legged before I left, which was when a group of birders all had the Rough-legged Buzzard and were admiring it only to find they were looking at three different birds and all of them were Common.


I popped to Wells after this and saw the Shag in the harbour it didnt seem to like me though as it kept swimming the other end of where I was, so I took this picture of a Redshank instead.

Redshank Wells Harbour 19/01/2014

I had time to pop into Sheringham on the way home and got to see two Purple Sandpipers although they were distant as so many people were on the beach but never mind, heres some I filmed earlier.

Purple Sandpiper Sheringham 12/02/2012