Graham's Birding Blog: North Norfolk

Made my fist visit of the winter to north Norfolk today (I know, it's almost spring!). It was a lovely sunny winters day, with temperatures pushing double figures. I started off at Titchwell RSPB, where a couple of Water Pipits and some nice photos of Brent Geese were had. The best birds though were on the sea. When I reached the beach I headed over to some birders using the largest dunes as cover and the told me they'd had 18 Velvet Scoter, all of which were shifting west in small flocks along with the Common Scoter. I joined in their count and within about 30 minutes the count had reached 39. This included seven birds that were sat just offshore, feeding with some Common Scoter. I don't know what the record count of Velvet Scoter is in Norfolk, but I'd imagine this might be close, especially over the past couple of decades.

It was then off to Stiffkey Fen to look for divers in Blakeney Harbour. Unfortunately, one of the seal boats had been through the harbour 15 minutes before I arrived and had pushed most of the divers up a channel, which wasn't visible from the coastal path. After about 30 minutes though, some of the divers emerged, with around 6+ Great Northerns and a Long-tailed Duck moving back out into the pit.
As well as the divers, there was a nice adult Black Brant, a Black Brant x Dark-belled Brent hybrid, a few Water Pipits flying around, Yellow-legged Gull and quite a few Med Gulls.