Trip to Benacre

On Sunday 12th January, I drove to Covehithe navigating the icy, frosty road with due care and I carefully parked up walking down path by the cliffs, I saw first a female and then a male Stonechat in the weeds by the precipitous cliff edge (with new cracks in the ground by the existing path) and a wonderful Dartford Warbler, typically a small slender bird with distinctive long tail. It flitted around flying short distances. Into further groups of weeds. As I viewed it I saw a fine Whooper Swan flying overheadband flying north- west. Walking down to the hide, the Broad looked completely frozen over but there were small pockets of unfrozen areas, especially the back where in the south- west corner a group of around 20 Swans included at least 3 Whooper Swans were seen, mostly asleep they revealed their true identity when they raised their head from their slumbers. A strip of water unfrozen was crowded full of ducks including Gadwall, Teal, Wigeon, one male Pochard and in another unfrozen area a female Goldeneye surfaced. The iced areas sported large flocks of Gulls, BH, Common, Herring and the odd LBB Gull but no Arctic white-wingers sadly. Finally a young female Marsh Harrier flew over the Broad. Walking back lots of Gulls on the sea, with a Grey Seal slowly and steadily swimming north, whilst further back, a group of 5 Red- throated Divers flew together north, this quintet of Gavia was a sight to see, closely followed by another singleton of that species.