January 20th to January 22nd.

A few hours on the reserve away from my desk in the last few days and I have to say it's pretty quiet.

One reason being the water levels continue at their winter high. We keep the water levels high in the winter to help control the growth of vegetation later on the year (the roots get drowned).

This year the water levels are slightly higher than normal because in a few weeks time we have a floating reed cutting machine paying us a visit. The last thing we want is for the it to get 'beached' on the freshmarsh. This machine called a Truxor, gives a quick and easy way of trimming the reed growth.

My colleagues who love boy's toys are already salivating at the chance of having a 'voyage' in this 'boat' as it works its way along the northern edge of the reed bed.

The sea has been very quiet except for five long tailed ducks and a few kittiwakes. However, the area around the visitor centre has been good with all three redpolls still present, water rail, bull finch and chiffchaff.

A few images left taken around the visitor centre with my fantastic new camera.

10 minute stroll.

A quick ten minute stroll at lunchtime and I managed to get water rail on the year list. The bird was in the ditch to the west of the west bank path. Taken at 535mm, through intervening branches, this image shows what a great camera the Panasonic FZ150 is...I am really pleased with it.

It is compact, has great features and at the necessary longer focal lengths needed to get good quality on-screen record shots, you can see the image stabilisation really works.

Must update more often....

Not an aspicious start to the blog...nearly 10 days without a post. Been out on the reserve a few times, the highlight being the con-trail formation made by a flying A-wax. I am not a plane-spotter so I might have I'D it incorrectly....it had a large mushroom on it's back anyway!. It was flying in these circles somewhere over Hunstanton for around an hour.

More good birds!

Todays two hour sea watching fix from the platform yielded 125 kittiwakes including 3x1st winters, 5 more goosander west, a handful of red throated divers and a couple of common scoter. Frustratingly, I also had a very distant skua...not a bonxie....most probably a Pom but my conscience says I need a better view to get it on the year list. I'll see if I think the same later after half a bottle of wine! 35 snow buntings flew west over my head and thanks to Rob Gordon a spoonbill was seen distantly over Thornham Marsh.

On the way back down the path the Coue's arctic redpoll was showing down to ten feet on the ground. The photographers were filling their boots (and their memory cards)

Warm as toast!

Saturday 7th Jan. First day out today wearing my new thermals and down jacket and I was as warm as toast. In fact I was too warm and ended up having to take a layer off, leaving me with just the thermals and the jacket! It was such a pleasure to be able to lift bins up and not feel like I was fighting multi-layers trying to stop my bins from reaching my eyes.  I can thoroughly recommend Helly Hansen 'warm' merino wool thermals...astonishing!

Great day on the birding front but boy was the reserve busy. Three goosanders were good fly-bys from the platform but best of all was an adult Iceland gull that put itself on theyear list by flying right through my field of view as I was sea-watching. A minute later it landed on the beach and for a time was foraging right next to an adult Med gull. A quick call on the radio resulted in a rush for the beach, the fitter birders managing to get on the bird before it disappeared east. There was also an adult Med gull in the afternoon roost.

First post.

First post on my first blog. Bright but cold day at Titchwell. Coue's arctic redpoll in the picnic area. Other highlights 2 little gulls and a handful of Kittiwakes offshore with razorbill and 20+ red throated divers for good measure. On the freshmarsh 2 scaup, redhead goosander, 2 adult and a first winter Med gull and a very brief glimpse of the mandarin. Image of little egret taken with my new and amazing Panasonic FZ150 camera.

Ferocious!

What a windy day out on the reserve today! At around 3pm I went down to Parrinder hide with some new posters...just look at the average wind speed at the time.

On the way back there was a gust for around 15 seconds which had me panicking in it's ferocity. It was quite unnerving to be enjoying the wind one second, and in the next feeling I was going to be blown into the marsh! Not sure what the speed of the gust was but I hadn't felt anything like it since in my twenties when we had to crawl off the top of Great Gable! Fortunately, the wind is set to moderate tonight.

Weather info kindly providied by Hunstanton weather