It's a start

With the recent increase in Linnet numbers at Caister an early morning start on Saturday 17th March was the order of the day.
We arrived at 05:30 to find a cool cloudless pleasant morning, however by 08:30 it was overcast and raining. Luckily we had packed up by then as the birds were not playing ball!
Surprisingly there were still 8 Snow Bunting on the beach, they seemed a bit reluctant at first , but eventually 5 were caught. 3 were new and 2 were colour ringed birds, one of ours that had been to Kessingland and one from Kessingland, Suffolk.
All were Nivalis birds, and were probably the last of the Winter here.

5 Male Nivalis Snow Bunting.

Same bird as above, showing wing and tail pattern for  5 Male Nivalis Snow Bunting.

There was a lot of Linnet activity in the area behind us and several small parties flying over the food but only one group of 5 landed. These were duly caught and resulted in 4 new birds and a retrap from 02/04/2011.

At least it's a start and hopefully there will be more to follow.

Male Linnet

While we were there Dave had a probable Woodlark fly over with 2 Skylark and a Red throated Diver flew north offshore. Also during the course of the morning several flocks of Starling were flying south.
At least 7 Grey Seals were patrolling  offshore in the breakers.