A very wet morning with frequent heavy showers and a really strong south westerly driving rain sideways. Not pleasant to bird in. The Spoonbill was still around and I had it flying over the grazing marsh. With the weather conditions, there was a decent number of Swift, House Martin and Sand Martin all feeding really low around the NOA car park and over the pines. An afternoon seawatch was quiet, with only 11 Sandwich Tern, 1 Little Tern and 1 Cormorant.

After the showers passed over, I walked down to the coastal public footpath that runs behind the Pines and is usually really sheltered in a south westerly. After a few minutes of checking passing birds, I found a Spotted Flycatcher fly catching from the pines! I watched it for about 30 minutes feeding actively before stopping to perch for a few minutes in the Yew tree. A lovely wee bird, and possibly dropped in with the heavy rain showers? Hopefully it sticks around.

Spotted Flycatcher

Moths were quiet as expected with 1 Straw Dot, 4 Mottled Rustic, 2 Cinnabar, 1 White Ermine, 1 Common Swift, 1 Large Pale Masoner, 1 Common Groundling, 1 Small Square Spot, 1 Lyme Grass and 1 Pallid Grey. It’s been a few weeks since I last had a Flame Wainscot here which are a lovely nationally scarce moth that rely on Common Reed. Very few other insects around today with the weather conditions.

Flame Wainscot

Shannon Clifford – Assistant Warden

NORFOLK BIRD NEWS FROM RARE BIRD ALERT

Norfolk Caspian Gull 1s Cromer on beach at 9.02am c52.9327,1.3

Norfolk Night Heron ad Mundesley again flew to north end of mill pond viewed from footpath at 5.55am but no further sign by 8am c52.8760,1.4386

Norfolk Purple Heron Hickling Broad NWT flew SW from 100.Acre Reedbed at 5am c52.7402,1.6006. Park at c52.7422,1.5949