The final fling

First post of 2015 and the last bit of festive birding before reality took a grip! On New Year's Day I walked Eaton Common and Marston Marshes. Little Egret, Common Snipe and Stock Dove were the highlights. There's no Foot-it challenge this year for some reason but a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker was found in Cringleford which we tried for unsuccessfully yesterday morning. Still, I now know the area to look so will check again in the coming months - thanks to Nick Robinson for the finding it and for the 'gen'.
After that Nick Watmough and I checked a landfill site at Aldeby near Beccles for gulls, nothing of note really, mainly Black-headed, Herring and a few GBB Gulls. From there we scanned Haddiscoe marshes for Rough-legged Buzzard but the only raptor was a Kestrel. Birdguides reported that a RLBuzzard was being seen from the Halvergate side so we drove that direction via Great Yarmouth and enjoyed nice scope views of the bird hunting and perched on a distant fence post. Unfortunately the strong light and distance meant that all I could do was phone-scope it - hence the crappiness of the shot!

Rough-legged Buzzard, Halvergate Marshes, Norfolk

After that we stopped off between Ludham and Catfield for Bewick's Swan en route to the raptor roost spot at Stubb Mill. A beautifully crisp Norfolk evening with calling Cranes and at least twenty Marsh Harriers plus one Common Buzzard rounded off the final day of the holidays before returning to the real world of work this Monday morning!