NORTH NORFOLK 2

SNETTISHAM........

This is the second reserve I visited on my holidays to the north Norfolk coast. The car park is situated about a mile from the reserve and there is a gravel path and some steps that you walk along which takes you onto the reserve. ( Be aware that there are no toilets at Snettisham so my advice is - do your bodily functions before you get here).You'll walk passed a couple of nice lakes with some scrubby bushy areas, as soon as I walked out from the car park I could hear the Common Terns and the noise of the Geese the lakes are quite active with Greylag and Canada Geese and I also spotted a small group of Egyptian Geese. There is also in Winter a huge migration of Pink footed Geese here.

greylag geese

common tern

This Egret was also fishing at the edge of one of the lakes.

little egret

I finally came out onto the shore line where there is a large estuary, luckily it was still high tide so the birds were still on the edge of the water waiting for the tide to go out.

There were Oystercatchers, Ringed Plover, Sanderling and Dunlin along the shore and out on the estuary were hundreds of wading birds which the main bulk of them were knot.

ringed plover, sanderling and dunlin

adult and juvenile oystercatcher

sanderling

estuary at high tide

There are three hides at Snettisham two of which look over a lagoon which is opposite the estuary. The other allows you to look over the mudflats of the estuary where once the tide recedes is very busy with feeding waders.

common sandpiper from one of the hides

 

the birds gathering on one of the scrapes in the lagoon

a greylag

The Common Terns nest on the lagoons and some were still feeding chicks, the Terns as well as a few other species were constantly flying back and forth from the sea to the lagoons.

cormorant

 

grey heron

little egret

more common terns (they were everywhere)

 

Finally when the tide goes out revealing the mudflats the birds all take off  in one cloud of whirring birds it was an absolutely incredible sight.

the waders take off

In late autumn and winter the birds numbers swell into the tens of thousands (or maybe even more) what a spectacle that must be. 

The North Norfolk coast is an incredible place for birds I only went to two reserves but there are a lot more reserves and wild places to visit and I wish I could have gone to them all but it was a family holiday and we were only there for a week so I had to make do with my two day passes off the wife " thanks love"but the memories will last a life time.