Norfolk for Oriole Birding - 14th September 2025

With seriously grotty weather pushing in from the south-west we opted to stay local to Briarfields and re-visit Titchwell.  It was a glorious morning with clear blue skies and an autumnal crispness to the air.  The car park was a heat trap and there were Migrant Hawkers and Common Darters patrolling and the background bird song was almost solely of Wood Pigeons and Robins as we walked down through the trees and out onto the track to the sea.

I do like a Wood Pigeon

Wood Pigeon

Migrant Hawker

Lyonetia clerkella

Eupeodes sp

Calliphora sp

Lucilia sp

It was a leisurely amble with lots of stops to scan the waders once again and this time we enjoyed excellent close views of two of the juvenile Curlew Sandpipers as they actively fed with various sized Ruff.  The pale Red-necked Phalarope was still spinning and bobbing but its browner buddy had seemingly taken by a Hobby the evening before!

Curlew Sandpipers 

Curlew Sandpiper

Ruff

There were 38 Spoonbills but Pete Merchant had had 68 a little earlier and it now seems that the Snettisham birds are different to those on this bit of the coast suggesting that we had seen about 110 in just three days!  Even this morning’s flock would have been the most I had seen in the UK in a day! 

Spoonbills

We did not see an Osprey this time but there were Kites and Marsh Harriers all around and two Ravens spiralled high and west while out on Thornham there were more Starling and Lapwings flocks as well as good ball of bouncing Linnets. Mark found a cracking male Wheatear sitting on some dead Thistles where more Linnets and some Goldfinches fed. Hundreds of House Martins and Swallows swept back and forth over the marsh and once again a Common Swift was picked up.

Red Kite

As we neared the beach we found the hoped for little colony of Sea Aster Mining Bees and watched them going to and from their sandy path side burrow that must get filled in by careless feet a hundred times a day.  A Satellite Fly was lurking around the burrows waiting to sneak in and do the dirty deed on the larva of the Bee.

Sea Aster

Sea Aster Mining Bee - Colletes halophilus

Satellite Fly possibly Miltogramma germani

Down at the sea the tide was still coming in but the fort was visible and sea looked flat and dead but our patience was rewarded with a dark Arctic Skua and hulking Great Skua going west and a cracking adult Pomarine Skua with the best part of its tail languidly heading the other way closer in – three Skuas and three species and completely unexpected.

There were a few silvery juvenile Gannets and our first adult too and on the sea we found seven sum plum Red-throated Divers, five Great Crested Grebes, Common Scoter and some Auks with a Guillemot and a flotilla of five Razorbills.  Juvenile Sanderlings arrived and scuttled on clockwork legs along the tide line while Oystercatchers headed to their Scolt Head roost.  A line of Geese were found coming in from the west at height and although at that point we could not hear them there was no doubt that we had our first 41 Pinkfeet and for me a true sign that autumn had arrived.  The scavenging Black-headed Gull had been replaced by a Common Gull that snaffled a bit of dropped cake.  A large flock of distant hirundines made landfall off towards Thornham Point.

Sanderlings

Pinkfeet

Red-throated Divers

Oystercatchers

Common Gull

We slowly walked back and the Pinkfeet flock chose to circled back to land and drifted west over our heads at which point the tell tale ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ could be heard and there were smiles all round – partly because of the Monty Python reference!

Pinkfeet

The Curlew Sandpipers and Phalarope were still on show and there were so many people on the reserve that I had not seen in an age which was good.  I spend so much of my time now not birding at regular birder haunts in the UK that it was good to reacquaint my self with so many ornithological acquaintances.

Black-tailed Godwit and Teal

Back near the centre we followed a Tit flock which contained several Chiffchaffs and Goldcrest and a Reed Warbler was heard calling but did not show while two immature Moorhens were feasting on Blackberries quite unkerned about us standing there.  We all had a relaxed final lunch in the car park, once again lounging under the apple trees before going our separate ways after a very rewarding few days in north-west Norfolk.

Moorhen

I walked back to Briarfields to pick up the van and the sheltered back trail was alive with Common Darters and Migrant Hawkers and I counted eight Wall Browns along with Peacock, Red Admiral and a very cryptic Painted Lady.  

Not sure what this blotch mines are on Osier

Wall Brown

Ivy Bee - Colletes hederae

Cryptic Painted Lady

A female Sparrowhawk sat up on the dead Elms and had a preen and a Hobby shot through.  The sky was darkening as I sorted myself out and by the time I had dropped the van off and then got to Norwich it was raining hard and six hours later it is still hammering down here in Lowestoft.

Tomorrow I have to repack before Mallorca and the sun once again beckons on Tuesday.