Norfolk days 1-3

Every year I stay at my aunt's house and go birding in Norfolk, usually for around 5 days. The weather wasn't good, but I still managed to fit in birding between the heavy rain and sleet storms. 

A boat trip was planned for the first day, which was a day of travelling from London to Norfolk. It was going to be at the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, but it was cancelled because of  the heavy rain and sleet. 

So after the rain cleared about an hour before it got dark, we stopped at Burrel Way in Thetford to look for gulls, but I didn't manage to find any Caspian Gulls, which is what I was looking for. The weather, unfortunately, made it impossible to do anything else during the day.

The second day was spend travelling down to Essex again, as the boat trip was rescheduled. My aunt drove there, but we got lost and so couldn't stop at Abberton Reservoir. The only birds on the journey were Kestrels and Buzzards. The boat trip was quite short, but we managed to see Red-breasted Merganser, Goldeneye, Little Grebe, Brent Goose, Shelduck, Great Crested Grebe and Cormorant and a lot of other common species. There were also a lot of waders including Grey Plover, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew, Redshank, Turnstone, Avocet and Dunlin. 

Grey Plover

The rest of the day was spent travelling back to Norfolk, which didn't take as long as the journey to Essex because we managed not to get lost.

The plan for day 3 was to go to Cley and Salthouse, and any other sites nearby. The weather turned out to be like the weather of the first day though, so all I could do was stay in the Cley centre and visit the three hides. 

After looking through the books, someone came to say that there was a Glaucous Gull that was viewable from the hides! I rushed down to the hides with the scope and managed to get there in time to see the Glaucous Gull, which gave good views, and was my first lifer of the trip. Also around the area were a few common gulls and a flock of Dunlin. 

The weather cleared up a bit later in the day, so I walked along the east bank, seeing all the normal ducks like Wigeon and Teal. I attempted a seawatch on the beach, but the weather decided to turn bad again, so all I saw was a Red-throated Diver flying through and a flock of 5 Fieldfare coming in off the sea. I had planned to search for Snow Buntings at Salthouse, but the weather defeated me.