Foreshore and Tideline
The day begins with a sharp crescent moon, bright Venus and a Blackbird clucking. The sun rises as I breakfast and make the short journey north: Rooks, Starlings, and Red Kites cross the roads, most traffic passing south for Norwich. A Robin, Wren and Blue Tit flit in a small tree at the meeting point, Stock Doves cooing. Meeting my guide, I swap my Doc Martens for wellies, car for land rover, and so begins the adventure.
We head out on country lanes, peering at the sky or over hedges. A Pink-footed Geese skein; two white pheasants. I talk up Waxwings: an alert arrives for a flock at Wiveton and so we divert.
Low grey cloud descends with a chill.
The flock is immediately apparent, 30+ birds in the top of a tree, trilling away. Some make sallies for Cotoneaster berries in the Wiveton Bell's garden, nervous of the awaiting crowd. Amongst the berries they're surprisingly camouflaged, but for the bright yellow on their tails.
Far high above the church, a Pinkfeet skein flies north.
Waxwings
We hit the tarmac, west across country, down green tracks, through puddles and between hedges busy with Blackbirds, finches, a Yellowhammer. We poke our nose into field margins: twenty or so Pink-footed Geese become a vast flock of hundreds as they lift out of one field; in another, an old wheat crop, another nervy gathering reveal themselves as they take to the sky, deer bolting across them. In another corner, more evident to our ears than our eyes, Grey Partridges call and feed. Closer still, a pied wagtail hunts across the stubble.
Another field and Goldfinches feast on sunflower heads whilst next door a large covey of Grey Partridges is a delightful find.
Cutting west across a wooded lane, we scour dark verges for Woodcock. Gaps in the clouds promise brighter conditions as we arrive at Burnham Overy Staithe. A hand-warming mug of tea and a wedge Norfolk fruitcake are consumed to the piping of Oystercatchers feasting round mussel pots. The more you look, the more you see: Dunlin, Curlew, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Lapwing, Little Egret and more catch my attention. A short run west to Brancaster Staithe gives a now not-so-rare vision of Cattle Egret.
Flighty Teal keep their distance. There's something of the penguin in the chatter of Brent Geese, a true sound of winter.
Increasingly narrow hedges open to wide saltmarsh at Warham. Brent Geese are sifted through for a Red-breasted Goose that's been moving amongst flocks, a skyward eye alert for a recently-local Pallid Harrier.
Continuing east, a quick stop at Wells harbour rewards us with a group of Little Grebe.
From a morning inland we work our way to an afternoon stretching our legs at the shore. From muddy paths, a slosh across a creek, picking a path across wellie-sucking saltmarsh and out onto the sand where the sea comes to meet: the tide's incoming.
Clouds have opened up, sunlight's variable but it remains bright. A chill comes from the sea: almost glove weather.
We cross a creek by canoe that earlier had been traversed by foot.
Rainclouds are shedding in the west; we continue eastward, popping into Cley and Salthouse.
A trek up the shingle rewards with another guise of the sea, rougher, wilder. Snow Buntings shoot past, bounce up into the air and away.
Rain in the west
