Mayday Farm & Lynford Arboretum, Norfolk 10.03.07
It promised to be a glorious day as we left Hemel Hempstead at 7am. We stopped en-route at Barton Mills on the edge of Thetford forest for breakfast.
From here we set off for Mayday Farm. From the car park, we walked up the track in warm sunshine. There were many Red Admiral butterflies and other insects on the tree blossom. We arrived at the woodland pool noted as a drinking area for Crossbills, where we stood and waited for a while before continuing up the track.
Three birders passed telling us of the views they had just had of Buzzard, Goshawk & Woodlark. We were lucky enough to see all these birds plus a Stonechat, albeit the Goshawk was some distance away. As we returned to the pool, a birder told us we had just missed a pair of crossbills. He showed us a photograph he had taken on his digital camera some five minutes earlier. We loitered for a while but the crossbills were to remain elusive.
We then went to Lynford Arboretum. After lunch in the car park, we went to the disused gravel pit where we saw a pair of Goosander, Grey wagtails, five types of tits, Siskin & Redpoll.
We went into the Arboretum proper. There were many birds about, as we made our way to the lake. There were many people scanning the trees beyond the lake searching for Hawfinch that are traditionally here. They had been seen by a lot of people so we waited for a while. We were told of a Firecrest showing well a few hundred yards away so, as we had been unlucky with the Hawfinch, we went to look for it. After a very short time we had good views of the Firecrest and also a Goldcrest.
At this point several of the party decided to make their way back home. The remainder returned to look for the Hawfinch. We waited for about an hour, scanning the hornbeam trees. A male Brambling was seen plus Mistle and Song thrushes and a redwing.
Suddenly a shout went up and two Hawfinches flew in. They were perched high in the tree, with the late evening sunlight on them and we had really good views. This sighting made our day and we went home happy after seeing three of the four target birds for that day. In all we saw over fifty species.