Our first day back birding in Norfolk in nearly a month turned out not too shabby. Duty day at Cley started with a modest passage of Swallow west, Sedge, Reed and Willow Warbler around the reserve and a Wheatear along the shingle ridge. A Bittern booming close to Bishop’s hide and, at the end of the day, Cattle Egret near the Dun Cow were the highlights. News broke on Sunday evening about the discovery of an Eastern Subalpine Warbler at Holme, in a fall of migrants during wet weather – it was still present on Monday morning. We cut short our volunteering after lunch and headed to Holme. We bumped into Stew & John at Thornham harbour, who had the male Garganey in their scopes (and another Cattle Egret close by) and gave us directions to the bird. We parked up, walked to the end of the boardwalk and within a few minutes had reasonable views of the bird as it flitted between the bramble bushes. It took another 45 minutes before we got really good views. ‘Subalpine’ was split a few years ago into three species – Western, Eastern & Moltoni’s. Since the split I’ve now seen the latter two in Norfolk – just need to catch up with Western – the ‘common’ one!
Cromer Nature Notes 