With clear sunny conditions and little wind, the day looked good for raptor movement, and it didn't disappoint. In between looking, I had to take a brief trip into Cromer and whilst walking into the town, still looking skywards, I noticed the distant silhouette of a raptor approaching from the east, and even without bins its flight action made it instantly recognisable as a Kite.
A mad dash back to the car to get my bins and then an equally mad dash up to a high point so I could see over the town initially resulted in frustration as there was no sign of it, but after a quick scan further west, I picked up a (second) Red Kite circling round with a Common Buzzard before it slowly drifted off westwards along the Cromer-Holt ridge. Two Red Kites had earlier been seen near Northrepps and two birds were tracked moving west further along the coast, so presumably these were the same two that had temporarily been separated.
A mad dash back to the car to get my bins and then an equally mad dash up to a high point so I could see over the town initially resulted in frustration as there was no sign of it, but after a quick scan further west, I picked up a (second) Red Kite circling round with a Common Buzzard before it slowly drifted off westwards along the Cromer-Holt ridge. Two Red Kites had earlier been seen near Northrepps and two birds were tracked moving west further along the coast, so presumably these were the same two that had temporarily been separated.
Just over an hour later a third bird was picked up over the council offices, and although distant from where I was watching from, it was on view for at least 20 minutes as it too lazily drifted west off along the ridge, getting occasionally harassed by the local crows and Sparrowhawks on the way.
A few more Willow Warblers were evident today, and a few Sand Martins were going through.
Yesterday there was also a fairly good passage of Sand Martins moving west, and a flock of at least 25 were prospecting the cliff face near West Runton. Also yesterday, a Ring Ouzel was seen briefly in flight along the undercliff below the golf course before disappearing into dense scrub, a flock of c25 Common Scoter where seen offshore from Overstrand, and the first Small White butterfly of the year was seen at Cromer.
