A rainy and very gloomy Christmas

It rained almost continuously over Christmas (and it is still raining as I type!) and has been completely birdless, making it the worse Christmas ever (birdwise) and it was always going to be a difficult one following the year we have just had. We, Jenny, Matthew & I finally managed to get out on Monday 27th December to see the Seals at Horsey, parking by the bend in the road by the Nelson Head, a single Grey Seal seen near the slipway to the beach, but the entire area was cordoned off both to the beach and going south. The only way was to walk north and see the Seals by the pillbox area walking north towards Horsey gap car park. On the way we saw a female Stonechat and diverted up in a roped off area (unfortunately funnelling around 200 people into a small area not ideal with Covid Omicron raging remorselessly around the country at the moment, but I imagine there are a lack of volunteers to staff a wider area) by the pillbox with loads of Grey Seals c70 on the beach with several young pups including 4 cream white newly born ones, 2 adult ones fighting by the seas edge. On Tuesday 28th December, I firstly saw a Dunnock in the bush just behind the kitchen window which was a welcome surprise, these days. another break in the rain, I drove over to Cucumber Lane area, near Beccles which was difficult to find especially with the new road layout and roundabout west of Ellough. After eventually locating it after and initial drive into Coney Hill Beccles area. A thourogh look failed to reveal any Grey Partridges, a species I have continually dipped over the past 5 years (last ones seen were in 2016 at North Cove, courtesy of Dick W) even worse were 2 Buzzards seen in a field just off Cucumber Lane, which doesn't bode well. One was perced in a field feeding (hopefully not on a Grey Partridge!)