The RSPB Titchwell Marsh Reserve


When I left home at 8am it was freezing, I had to scrape the car windows and warm the car up just so I could see out of the window. The air was cold and there was cold mist in the air. I set off to pick my two friends up, Clive and Sandra. After collecting them both we set off on our journey up North to the RSPB Titchwell Marsh Reserve in Norfolk. As we got further north the sun seem to come out, although it was still quite chilly outside.
On our journey we saw lots of different landmarks, the Cathedral in Peterborough and also went past the road where Prince Philip had crashed his car a few days before. There were still cameras and police officers examining the spot where it happened. 
We arrived shortly after 10.30am and parked our car and thenmet up with Sharon, another member of our Group, we then went into the Visitor Centre and got a map of the reserve to help us. We decided to walk up to the Beach first to see what was about. Before we had even reached the path, we saw a small friendly Robin, who was literally 2 feet away and nearly landed in my foot. 
So we set off on our way to the Beach, passing a lot of half frozen lakes on our right before we spotted various numbers of Little Egrets flying around looking for some food. 
It took us about half an hour before we walked over the Sand Dunes onto the beach, as we got half way along the pathway, we saw 2 Marsh Harriers floating around in the thermals. When we got to the beach, the tide was out and we could see lots of different birds in the distance by the waters edge, so we set off to see what birds were about. There were lots of razor shells on the way, which made a delightful crunchy noise when you stepped on them. We were quite lucky, as it was not windy at all. Very calm in fact.
The first birds we saw was a flock of Oystercatchers, they are nice birds, black and white and they have a bright orange beak. They make a distinctive call too. Among the Oystercatchers we caught sight of a Curlew, which is slightly bigger than an Oystercatcher and has an extremely long beak and is brown in colour. It has a nice plummage too. We also noticed a number of little brown birds on the rocks, flitting around, they were Dunlin and their were also Ring Necked Plovers (the Plovers looked a little like Lapwings and Dunlin, a smaller version of the Curlew with a smaller beak.
There were lots of people about and they told us what other birds were about, there was 3 Eider Duck out at sea, a Scoter Duck, Herring Gulls and lots of Redshanks and even a Knot.
We stayed for a little while and took quite a few pictures of the Curlew. I have never been that close to one and they are lovely looking birds. 
We then set off to the Main hide which was half way along the pathway back to the Visitor Centre, they had 2 hides one facing to the first lake and other to the second one. It was quite cold inside but it was lovely to see another Curlew walking around about 20 feet away looking through the rushes and water to see if it could find anything to eat. There were lots of Shelduck and Redshanks about too.
After having a cup of tea from my flask we then went off to the second hide, the water on that particular lake was half frozen over. We saw huge numbers of Brent Geese flying in from our right and land very cautiously onto the surface of the lake, some of them skidded as they landed, which I found quite amusing. That lake also had Shelduck, a Shoveller Duck and Greylag Goose and even a small group of Avocets mixed up within
the group of Brent Geese.
Before we got back to the Visitor Centre were quite fortunate to see a Barn Owl flying around the fields to our right and swooping down and then coming up again before disappearing into the distance and we also saw a Water Rail in the ditch/stream just before we got to the Visitor Centre.
After 3 hours of walking around we were all hungry, so we packed all our gear up and set off for Hunstanton to see if we could find a place that sold Fish & Chips.
It was only about 5 miles way, we parked and went to a Fish & Chip restaurant that Sharon had recommended. We all ordered and had a really nice meal, which finished the day off nicely.
I thoroughly recommend a day out at Titchwell Marsh, it is really nice and if it had not been so frozen over, I am sure we would have seen even more Birds and Wildlife.

Oystercatchers on the Beach
Curlew
A pair of Avocets
Shelduck (I always thought they were called Shielduck lol)
A Shoveller Duck on the Ice
Brent Geese on the Icy Surface of the Lake





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