Day 1 of our Norfolk Tour - Cley Marshes and Lady Anne's Drive

5th March 2015

At Cley, having found our way round the building site of a car park where they are already refurbishing the new visitor centre which was only opened in 2007, we headed straight for Bishop's Hide overlooking Pat's Pool. Fairly quiet as you might expect for this time of the year although there were a couple of Avocets busy feeding right in front of the hide. Also on view was a lone Redshank picking its way along the reed bed margin.

We then headed for the central trio of hides where it was equally quiet, the silence only interrupted by the noisy fly-past of a gaggle of Grey Lag Geese.

Out on the beach car park which now seems to have been totally abandoned, a quick scan of the sea revealed not a lot, but there was a flock of about 50 Golden Plover hunkered down in the Eye Field out of the cold breeze

But the star of the show today was the female Marsh harrier which put in a brief appearance, sometimes coming close enough for a couple of reasonable shots.

Now time to move on to the hotel with a quick pit-stop at Lady Anne's Drive to see if there were any late geese stragglers. Simply, the answer was no. Not a single Pink-foot, White-front, Egyptian, Canada or even some Grey Lags, but I was more than compensated for by a rather confiding male Kestrel which was evidently more engrossed in staring at the ground for prey than worried about my presence. Thank goodness for small mammals!!

Now time for some dinner and to decide the plan of action for tomorrow.