A Wild Goose Chase

It's the north Norfolk coast in mid-winter. The temperature is hovering just above freezing and there's a strong north-westerly blowing in off the sea. Just the thing to awaken me from my post-Christmas torpor and kick-start this blog into 2022.

If you park in Lady Anne's Drive, opposite Holkham Hall, you'll find wet meadows on either side of the track that are teeming with wildfowl at this time of year. The ducks in the picture above are Wigeon. Although there's only a tiny breeding population in the UK, as many as 450,000 birds fly to these islands every year to spend their winter here. Compared to their usual haunts in the far north, these windswept marshes are their idea of a winter sunshine break!

Pink-Footed Geese also arrive here in huge numbers. 100,000 of these birds arrive along the north Norfolk coast every winter from their summer homes in Iceland, Greenland and Svalbard. Their numbers have increased tenfold in the last seventy years, since selling shot birds was made illegal. They feed on the sugar beet waste left in the fields during the winter harvest. They are supposed to be shy, timid birds, but this one was parading itself up and down just over the fence from the parked cars and assuming perfect guide-book poses.

Oh, and there's a wader in amongst the Wigeon. It's a Ruff, a bird which we see here all year round, but never in large numbers.

But we're off to find some more geese that are much less common visitors. On the way we can pass through a reedbed which, during summer, will be full of birds. The reeds made an interesting picture when looking almost straight into the low sun.

The trouble with wild geese is that they see you just a fraction of a second before you see them and can get a proper look at them. They don't call it a "wild goose chase " for nothing! The one at the back, with the big orange beak, is a Greylag Goose, which are common here all year round. And the others? Well, I hope...maybe...quite possibly....But if we just peer over this wall, we might...

Aha! The geese in the foreground here are White-Fronted Geese that may well have recently arrived from Russia. As you can see it's not the whole goose that's "white-fronted", just a small patch above their beaks. For some reason, with all this huge watery meadow to choose from, they always seem to like this little corner best.

Next we're going to walk through the pines towards the coast. Corsican Pines are not natural here, but were planted on these sand dunes by the Holkham Estate to stabilise the dunes and to act as a windbreak.

It's a grand place for a wander.

You can follow paths back through the trees or along the beach back to Holkham Gap, which is where we started from. 

I try hard not to have any favourites among birds, but it's easy to soon fall under the spell of these tiny, hyper-active little waders. They are Sanderlings.

You can't have too many of them.

If we carry on along the coast there's a little area that's often home to two little birds - Snow Buntings and Shore Larks (known as Horned Larks in North America). We saw a little flock of Snow Buntings flying by, but the Shore Larks remained hidden - it's thought there are only two of them here at the moment. I couldn't get close enough for a photo of the Snow Buntings either, but here's a picture borrowed from Wikipedia....

I can't go to the coast though without getting close to the sea...

Along this stretch of the beach that can involve quite a hike, and negotiating many shallow creeks and pools left by the retreating tide.

This is an absolute wonderland for dogs and many owners exercise their pets here. Horses are also ridden along this section of coast and, in summer, the Household Cavalry come on a summer break here, bringing up to 100 horses with them.

But the airspace all belongs to the gulls. (The above is a composite photo of three different shots) On calmer days than this it's a good place to be peering out to sea through a telescope, searching the waves for birds, but today it's more sensible to flee to the shelter of the woods.

And make our way back to the car where sandwiches and flasks of hot chocolate are waiting.

Besides, the clouds are rolling in over the Freshmarsh, though no rain is forecast, so we should be OK for where we want to go in the afternoon. I'll tell you more next time, but for now I must fly....

Take care.