Time: from 6:45 a.m.
Weather: dry, sunny, strong wind, 5°C to 8°C
It was a cold morning today, exacerbated by a very strong north-easterly wind, and a complete contrast to some of the warm and sunny weather of the last few weeks. I think I have felt warmer seawatching for divers, grebes and sea ducks on the north Norfolk coast in January 😀.
After the success of seeing and photographing a Red Fox vixen and at least 2 cubs in the graveyard of St. Nicholas Church on Saturday (see here), I decided to visit the same location again today.
Arriving on site at 6:45 a.m., I had to wait until 7:30 a.m. (steadily becoming colder and colder sitting still in one place) before the first appearance of one of the Red Fox cubs as it peered out from a hole in the bottom of the hedge.
I saw the Red Fox vixen on 3 separate occasions over the next 1.5 hours as she arrived at or left the den area. On the second occasion, she emerged from the hedge and stared straight at me before issuing a warning bark and turning round to disappear back in to the hedge.
The cubs were visible momentarily on a few occasions but only within the hedge itself and they were clearly not as confident in venturing out as they had done 2 days ago.
If I hadn’t had such amazing experience on Saturday, I would have been delighted with today’s encounter but both the sightings and the photo opportunities were considerably less this morning and I only managed to get 3 photos.
I did not have an extended walk around the surrounding areas to St. Nicholas Church as I normally do and therefore my sightings were limited to walking to and from the church and whilst sat waiting for and watching the Red Foxes.
Nonetheless, I did add a further species to my site list with a fly-over calling Common Tern, which I unfortunately failed to see, bringing the total to 45 species.
With regard to other birds, I heard 2 singing Chiffchaffs and 3 singing Blackcaps without seeing any of them, saw a Green Woodpecker and heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker.
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in
italics):
Blackcap
Chiffchaff
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Wren
Blackbird
Goldfinch
Green Woodpecker
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Jay
Magpie
Carrion Crow
Woodpigeon
Collared Dove
Carrion Crow
Herring Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Common Tern
Red Fox
Here are a 3 photos of a Red Fox cub from my visit plus a Magpie whilst waiting for the main event and slowly get colder:
Photo: Red Fox cub
Photo: Magpie
Site totals
to date:
Birds = 44
Mammals = 4
Butterflies
= 16
Dragonflies
and damselflies = 3
Reptiles =
1
Amphibians
= 0
💚🦆
🦉 🌼 🌳💚
Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature
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