What have you seen

On an East Coast walk today, Lots of Common Blue butterflies about. What delightful creatures they are! A few Painted Ladies too. The former will hibernate while the latter will need to migrate south and over the channel to warmer climes. Maybe as climate change advances the habitats those Painted Ladies may just survive our colder spells.

A few hirundines still about but the swifts are absent. Summer is now officially over but that Blue Moon last night was a fabulous sight!

Had a stroll around Minsmere today. 

Nothing spectacular seen but an enjoyable day nonetheless. Highlights were probably Green Sandpiper, Bearded Tits, Juvenile Spotted Redshank and lots of Emperor Dragonflies.

We've been royally entertained by the Swallows on the CL plus a Green Woopecker.

Decided to have a late evening stroll from the Site. A Barn Owl flew over with supper.

Counted 40+ Swallows and House Martins sitting on telephone wires earlier on. They'll soon be gone.

Delightful day spent at How Hill nature reserve near Ludham today.

Mostly dragonflies with a wonderful Migrant Hawker (proper name) with supporting cast of various Darters, Hawkers and Emperors plus a few Common Brown Lizards, a Grass Snake, a frog or 2 plus an unidentified Deer. Not much birdlife but quite happy with the rest.

On our morning walk we spotted Red Kite and a Buzzard circling overhead close together. While the Buzzard was being harassed by 6 Crows there were none at all bothering the RK.

We were moving sites today to one in North Norfolk.

About 2 miles from the site on a back country lane we approached a crossroads. No one else around. We stopped and sat there watching this large bird of prey fly towards us. Just above tree level and we could see the magnificent markings on its breast. It was a Goshawk.

We were then beeped by an annoyed car behind us.

On entering the CL we had to wait at the gate to allow a covey of about 12 Red Legged Partridges to cross in front of us.

Must go out birdwatching with the caravan more often.

Had a super few hours spent at Cley Nature Reserve.

The birdlife wasn't spectacular, although we did see Little Stint and a Peregrine sitting on one of the scrape islands, but more for the other forms of nature seen.

We managed to get a few of them to sit still for a while. The little Bee with the Red Admiral is a Tree Bee, the dragonfly a Common Darter and the Lizard has been named George by OH. We also saw another Migrant Hawker and a few Emperors as well as a Firecrest whilst walking past the NOA reserve on a walk over to Salthouse. 

We were a bit apprehensive that most of the Swallows had gone but there were quite a lot of them still at Cley, including 3 chicks sitting on a Crossbeam in one of the hides being fed periodically by both parents flying in through open windows. Unfortunately they had their bottoms facing us and we didn't want to disturb them by moving in front just for a photo.

No photos to compare to  WN's but when out for my afternoon walk around the woods I spotted the third of the Muntjac Deer that we have seen since being here, and I nearly trod on a Grass Snake, the first I have seen in a while.

Today I saw a Sparrowhawk ! There is nothing special about that, I hear you all saying, but read on.

I was working just inside my shed doorway with my arm outstretched when the said sparrowhawk, trying to catch birds on one of my feeders, flew in and momentarily landed on my arm. I'm not sure who was surprised the most, me or the bird!

Nice one John.

Autumn definitely here as we saw, and heard, our first Skein of Pink Footed Geese flying over the caravan.