A Round trip

Overnight, we had about 2 inches of snow and a white blanket covered the Lowestoft landscape. As we were walking to the car in front of the house I heard the familiar scraping "catch" call looked up at 10.20am and saw 2 Snipe flying due west and directly over the house and front garden.

First stop was a look around Mutford for Fieldfares, the first ones were seen 4 perched on telegraph wires and a Kestrel flew over as well.

A Field (7 Fieldfares), trees and field entrance revealed another 7 birds.

Benacre Broad was full of birds, 11 flying lapwings seen on the way down, but sadly no hard weather fowl could be seen on the Broad whatsoever. Loads of Gulls BH Gulls (c500), Common Gulls (c30)and 15 Herring Gulls were observed right in front of the hide.

In the small inlet to the right, Little Grebe, a fine drake Pintail, Teal and mallard seen.

In total around 4 Little Grebe seen, 4 Pintail (3 males and 1 female), 500+ Teal, around 100 Wigeon and 30 Pochard together with 9 Goldeneye over the far side, including 2 very smart males and 7 females. The ducks were disturbed by a female Marsh Harrier quartering the reeds just north of the Hide.

Travelling to Southwold around 60 Fieldfare were seen feeding very close to the road in a field south of the road. Very little seen at Southwold save for a BH Gull feeding on a small Sand Eel in the Harbour.