North Norfolk is widely known as one of the best regions in UK for bird watching but it is an area that I have spent little time in so it was nice to have the opportunity to stay with a friend for a weekend and do some birding. Although early July is not regarded as a good time for birding in UK, I was still able to find some nice birds when visiting RSPB Titchwell. I have heard many birders complain about this location over the years due to large visitor numbers and was true that there were many people there when I went, but it is popular for good reason and it is a great place for beginner birders to get good views of large numbers of birds including quite a few scarce ones. I spent quite a lot of time sitting in a hide getting very close views of several male Ruff of various colours, with Little Gull, Caspian Gull, Red Knot, Pied Avocet and many others a little further away.

Beautiful sunny weather made the views across the marsh very pleasant and a breeze stopped things from being too hot; a nice day to see a surprising number of species given the time of year.

Titchwell

Sitting in Island hide (above) very few people came in and out over the hour or so I was in there despite there being a large number of visitors on the reserve. This gave me plenty of time to watch and photograph a few adult male Ruff that still had some evidence of breeding plumage.

It was really nice to watch these birds at close range but it also gave me time to spot a small group of Red Knot, several Little Gulls, Oystercatchers, Common Shelduck, Mediterranean Gull, Bearded Tit, Pied Avocet and many more wetland species.

Out on the beach there were large numbers of gulls including a juvenile Caspian Gull while on my walk back I came across Linnet, Skylark, Meadow Pipit and 3 flyover Eurasian Curlew. Feeders back at the visitor centre were attracting Goldfinches, Chaffinches and a few Greenfinches as well as a large Brown Rat!

On my way back I stopped at some wetlands in fields just a little east of Wells-next-the-sea. This area appeared to be newly created, probably as part of a stewardship scheme, due to the freshly made bunds and flooded crops. The area was obviously attractive to birds with many of the species I saw at Titchwell present here too as well as 1 adult Eurasian Spoonbill and 2 juveniles.

Calling Yellowhammers also drew my attention so I put some effort in to finding them which was fairly easy as they were sitting out on prominent perches to utter their song. This is always a beautiful bird and one which I don’t see too often due to its decline across much of the country.

Over all this was a nice day of birding which proved that one can still find some good birds in mid summer. The full list of species I saw can be found here:

eBird List, Titchwell RSPB, 30 June 2018

eBird List, Farmland Wetlands near Wells-next-the-sea, 30 June 2018