Poppyland Nature: Cranes Galore

Monday, 4 April 2011

Cranes Galore

With a sunny morning forecast I headed up to Incleborough again this morning, with singing Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs brightening up the walk. On reaching the hill my first Willow Warbler of the year was heard singing but it went quiet and evaded detection.

I set myself up on the summit and after a few minutes whilst checking out a couple of distant Buzzards, I picked up a flock of 4 Common Cranes way off to the south-east. I watched as they continued their approach and as they hit the north coast they seemed to dither about what to do next so spent the next ten minutes just circling round over the west side of Cromer.

They drifted over to above the hill then started to call loudly to each other in seemingly some argument as to whether to carry on west. At this point one peeled off and started to head back east which caused even more loud calls but it just ignored the others and back-tracked towards Overstrand whilst the others carried on west towards Sheringham.

I called a birder in Overstrand so he could look out for the one heading back and he soon called me back to say he was actually watching three! As I was currently watching the other 3 disappearing off west over Sheringham Park at this point it was obviously another group and quickly turning round and scanning back east I picked up the others circling off in the distance. One of the three then peeled off the group seemingly wanting to do its own thing which made me think it was the single bird that had temporarily joined another two, but as to whether there was six or seven birds involved wasn't clear.

With the news on the pager, the three that went west were tracked all along the coast as far as Brancaster at least so it was nice to see that others had caught up with them too.

A few pics of the original four are included below both before and after the 'split'.

A visit to West Runton produced 5+Shorelarks still in the field there and then the rest of the afternoon was wasted failing to get Raven and the White-tailed Eagle on my Cley Square List!

My Patch

My patch covers roughly a 10 mile stretch along the north Norfolk coast, from Beeston in the west along to Trimingham in the east, plus a small area inland including Felbrigg Park, Roughton and Northrepps, although the vast majority of my time is spent concentrating on the area from West Runton along to Overstrand.
The main habitats of the area are the coastal bushes and scrub which attract migrants in spring and autumn, a few clifftop woods and fields, the park & lake at Felbrigg, rocky and sandy beaches, and the cliffs and sea which both present great potential for observing coastal passage.

My Photos

The bird photos on here are all digiscoped using a Panasonic Lumix TZ3 compact camera and a Kowa TSN 824 scope. I use a 50x wide angle lens on the scope with no zoom on the camera which seems to go against all the 'expert' advice you read on forums etc, but it works for me and I'm pleased with the results. Additionally I also just hold the camera in place by hand rather than use any adapters to fix it in place, and apart from altering exposure levels, I just go with the automatic levels on the camera so it is really just a case of point and shoot.
The Butterfly and Dragonfly pictures are taken with the camera alone using its macro setting and again mostly using no zoom, which naturally requires a lot of careful stalking of the subject to get close enough to get the quality of picture that I desire.

Poppyland

In 1883 the London based playwright, poet and theatre critic, Clement Scott, visited Cromer as a travel writer for the Daily Telegraph taking advantage of the newly opened railway to the town. On arrival he walked east along the coast to seek accommodation and fell in love with the idyllic villages of Overstrand and Sidestrand and the solitude they presented away from the nearby town. With fields of poppies carpeting the clifftops, he christened the area 'Poppyland' and subsequently wrote a series of articles about his visit in the Telegraph. These were later published as the Poppyland Papers, and his writings made the area probably the best known holiday destination in the country with many victorians visiting the area to enjoy its delights, and the most wealthy of them having houses built in the area, with Overstrand soon becoming known as 'The village of millionaires'. The term Poppyland has stuck ever since, and although it originally just referred to the Overstrand and Sidestrand area, the extension of the railway line to Sheringham and Mundesley, known as the Poppy Line, led to that whole stretch of coast becoming known as Poppyland.

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Monday, 4 April 2011

Cranes Galore