“Leaning close, but comfortable, against an old Oak; watching the sun come up over mist covered fields and being ignored by a Red deer passing so lose I can hear the sound of it taking in breath … nothing compares”
Carl Chapman runs Wildlife Tours and Education a small wildlife enterprise in Norfolk, England. (www.wildlifetoursandeducation.co.uk) He is also the chairman of the Liaison Committee of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, Norfolk’s Cetacean recorder and Regional Coordinator for Sea Watch Foundation. He is also a Marine Mammal Medic with British Divers Marine Life Rescue and an active participant in mentoring young people via AFON (A focus on Nature).
Letter From Norfolk 
Hi Carl, Happy New Year.
Enjoyed our unplanned meetings during last year. Continued success and hope we coincide at many goodies this year.
Geof and Pat
Saw these two storks on Wednesday 20th November near large barns and silos west of Thrigby & Mautby.
fredabrian@yahoo.com Brian & Freda
Hi Brian and Freda – thanks for letting me know. The Storks do seem to crop up from time to time in various areas as the meander about East Anglia!.
Carl, maybe you can help us answering a question: we recently visited Scotland and saw Bass Rock, a gannetry with 150.000 gannets. Why on earth do the birds cling together like this (as we have see on the Farne Islands as well) when they obviously have to compete with each other?
Good question Dina. Importantly the nests are inaccessible to predators; either on steep sea cliffs, like at Bempton in Yorkshire, or on isolated islands like Bass Rock. Given the scarcity of this habitat the birds are initially ‘pushed together’ as it were. The other thing is ‘safety in numbers’. The thousands of pairs of eyes looking for danger and the big numbers to confuse predators must be ample compensation for the competition for nest sites (and nest material) Competition for food is not such an important factor as Gannets have been proven (sometimes) to fly many miles from gannetries to fish; indeed it can also be an advantage for Gannets to stick together when feeding too as if one Gannet finds a bait ball of say Herring it will soon be joined by others to take advantage of the food source.
Also, as an aside, one of the best ways of finding cetaceans is to look for Gannets feeding on the same food source. That’s how a friend of mine, Ryan Irvine, found last years first Humpback for Norfolk … by noticing a flock of Gannet feeding offshore (which would probably have been coming down from our nearest nesting site in Yorkshire to feed) Please take a look at another site I run http://norfolkcetaceans.wordpress.com/ if this interests you.
Thank you very much indeed for this great response, Carl. I hope you don’t mind, I have copied your reply and placed it as a comment on Bass Rock as this topic came up yesterday. Now I’ll move over to your other site. 🙂
No problem at all Dina.
I saw your posts regarding identification of Skuas. I have no expertise in bird ID, but have been photographing a pair of orphaned siblings that washed in on an August tide. They were quite helpless, but survived through the care of a gull who fostered them. I believe they are skuas and wonder if I can send a couple pictures for you to look at. I would be grateful for your time and opinion. I am located at the north end of Greys Harbor in Washington state. I await your response.
Millie Hopkins
Hi Millie – I’d be delighted to take a look. Please send the photos to carl@wildlifetoursandeducation.co.uk
Carl