Lowestoft Life - A windblown Broadland circuit - 25th October 2026

When new broke yesterday morning of the much anticipated Nutcracker an hour up the road in Mundesley in Norfolk, I was in several minds as to what to do.  

A)  I would love to see a Nutcracker… 

B) I was truly exhausted after the Yorkshire week and just could not face more road time 

C) I was fortunate enough to see the October 1991 Staffordshire bird and the one afternoon wonder down at Kingsdown in Kent in September 1998 

D) I had seem them in Estonia in March this year.

E) I would be driving over half way there the next morning to take Andrea to the Ludham craft fair.

Anyway I dithered too long and the weather closed in and I pressed on with vaguely important tasks like bloggage, washing and packing for South Africa.

After Storm Boelo hit that afternoon and the rain lashed down once more I just kept my fingers crossed that Sunday would be a better day.  It was a sunny, blue sky day but the wind was absolutely howling.  We drove to Ludham and got set up and then I poodled up the road for another half an hour through the leaf, puddle and branch strewn byways. 

I knew that the Slender-billed Nutcracker had been seen and my approach allowed me to park safely before the end of Water Lane and walk down.  A crowd was standing by the small bridge but it had gone missing so I immediately carried on only to be told by the first two people that it was showing just ahead.

A fantastic time was spent in the company of this delightfully spotty beast as it bounded around the lawn seemingly eating what I think were very drowsy Wasps.  I watched it through a hedge from the road and felt no need to start sneaking up driveways for uninhibited views.   With the first crowd that I saw now heading down the road to join us, I decided to escape before a squeeze started and make room for those who had not seen it.

Slender-billed Nutcracker

The wind was getting seriously strong as I vaguely retraced my steps so I pulled off at the imposing looking St Margaret’s in Paston.  It was a fine churchyard and like many, offered shelter from the wind.  An engaging gentleman by the name of Karl Jermy  was using a fine scythe to cut the herbage around the stones. It is always a pleasure to see someone using old style country tools.  My Dad would have no doubt chatted with him for hours!  Like me, he was clearly someone who loved his job.

St Margaret’s, Paston

Karl Jermy at work

I told him what I was looking for - Luffia as usual - but could not find any but there were some inevitable leaf mines (which of course I took back to show Karl) and the boundary wall was covered in sunning Harlequin Ladybirds, Calliphora, Pollenia and Phaonia. 

Calliphora vicina

Seven Spot & Harlequin Ladybirds

Neomyia cornicina

Phaonia valida 

Phaonia valida 

Pollenia sp

Pisaura mirablis

Phyllonorycter tristrigella on Elm

Spurge-laurel - Daphne laureola.  Having only been surprised to see it on the Humber on Friday, I was equally surprised to find it in a Norfolk woodland behind a graveyard

But with Butcher's Broom - Ruscus aculeatus - also present perhaps it is an old site than it looks?

Aceria pseudoplatani on Sycamore

Nostoc commune is a species of photosynthetic Cyanobacterium with many names including Star Jelly.  PSLü

I saw a sign just down the road to Bacton church and had a potter around St Andrews although this one was wide open and windswept – it took your breath away.   I found some regular leaf mines along with Cosmopterix zieglerella on the Hop and just the one Luffia lapidella but soon retreated to the car.

St Andrew's, Bacton

Luffia lapidella

Tachina fera

Onwards and a stop on Walcott sea front (remember the 27^th December 1991 Laughing Gull?) for a look at the very wild sea.  There were no waves crashing on the beach as the gale was blowing them out but sea was basically one great big white mess of churning water.  A fishing boat heading north looked uncomfortable but the dozens of Gannets thought that the weather was just great for minimal effort.

Happisburgh next for a 1w Rose-coloured Starling that had been around a few days.  It was so windy that you could barely stand up and the bird was not doing ‘starling things’ like probing fields or sitting on roof tops but lurking deep with a huge fenced off spoil heap where apparently it had been quite happy for the some length of time.  Fortunately a Wood Pigeon spooked it and it got blown towards us before battling low back into the hedge where it dropped back out of view.  It had a nice yellowy bill and in flight you could already seem some dark adultish remiges.

The iconic Happisburgh Lighthouse 

I opted not to stay any longer and had lunch at Sea Palling at the Black-winged Kite gate but had no joy and I am not sure when it was last noted but there were birds to be seen from the shelter of the car with an adult male Peregrine keeping low and finding a suitable clod to sit on and a flock of 27 Russian White-fronted Geese with at least four Tundra Bean Geese with them.  I looped through the village and then onto the Hickling road where a check from my usual hard standing spot immediately gave me 16 Cranes working their way through a sugar beet field.  I do love the casualness with which I can now find these majestic birds.

Common Cranes 

Two more Cranes flew over Potter Heigham as I turned off onto the Ludham road but my search from the end of Marsh Lane did not give me any more out on the marshes but there were at least two Cattle Egrets with cows and some Golden Plover and a couple of Pinkfeet getting blown around.

The fair was coming to an early close as the punters had dried up so it was an early pack up before heading for home passing Curlews probing the meadows along the Acle Straight on the way.