You see some and you miss some, that is the joy (or not) of yearlisting. On the whole it has been a pretty good week with jack snipe (194) and Bewick's swan (195) added and 200 is now in sight. Having said that I have missed shag, purple sandpiper, whooper swan and shorelark in the last few days which would have made things look a bit better. However, the highlight from the last coupe of week has been the waxwing passage. In the last 10 days we have had just over 200 birds moving west over the reserve. Mainly in small groups with the peak of 28 last Friday. Along with the waxwings there has been a massive movement of starlings. Yesterday I decided to do a sample count as there was a stong movement and had 945 west in only 3omins - in the whole day there must have been well over 10,000 through.


Decided to head out early to beat the dudes and have a look for the rough legged buzzards that have been haning about the Burnham Overy area for a couple of weeks. Got there about 9am ( after a couple of hours ringing in the garden) to find that there were already a few people there. It was pretty murky and it wasn't until I got nearly out to the dunes that a bird was spotted. At distance the 'buzzard' looked pale and good for a rough leg but as it gradually got closed it turned out to be a common. Luckly a cracking juv had just landed in a field fairly close to the path giving good views. It then decided to have a fly around and head over to the dunes where it was still sitting when I left. The only other highlight was 7 barnacle geese feeding close to the path on the way back.






When I got back to the road it was amazing that there were people watching and ticking the buzzard. When I put my scope on the one in the dunes you could barely tell if it was a bird or a rabbit but that was good enough for some - I didn't stay any longer!