Winter Visitors

There are a few Shorelark wintering along the Norfolk coast this year. Some in a variable numbered flock others as scattered individuals.

Larking About

Stood in the last of the afternoon light last week we approached a small flock of Shorelark. They were a little flighty but as they settled down to feed we ventured a little closer. It took around 30 minutes to get close enough. However being quiet, careful of our shadows and movements seemed to no avail as a lady bowled up the beach and bellowed out ‘What are you looking at?’ Needless to say the flock immediately took flight much to the chagrin of at least one of my companions. Although all was not lost as the seeds from the horned poppies (which have the longest seedpod of any British flower) proved too much temptation as another lady collecting jetsam further up the beach flushed them back!

Larking about on the shore

Just down the road from the Siberian Accentor was this little chap. Sat at the edge of the car park this Shorelark was feeding for the main part in short grass. Having recently arrived after a long flight over the sea he was no doubt trying to recoup energy before moving on.

 

Larking around

Amid the sand and shingle and in a dying sun we photographed confiding Shore Larks the other week. These birds are so charming. Hiding in the Marram grass we waited for them to come closer along the tide line until they were but a few metres distant.

 

The Devils of the beach

Not many years ago winter was the time you could easily see Shorelark in Norfolk; regular immigrants from the north. Now they are few and far between.

We searched for three reported on the shingle beach the other week. Bob saw them first and alerted me to something flying our way. Dog Walkers had flushed them from further down the foreshore. Even in flight the yellow and black faces practically shone in the low December sunshine. Luckily they landed nearby and ran into cover among the Marram.

With a little care we approached them and as we sat low and waited they eventually started to move our way. Shorelarks are normally a shy bird easily put to the air but one in particular favoured our company.

Those tiny ‘horns’ give the bird its American name of Horned Lark. I remember seeing a Shore/Horned Lark on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly one October. I think it was October 2001. I seem to remember it was quite long billed and differed slightly in its face, head, tertial and covert patterns and was thought by many to have been a Horned Lark. It has to be said there are so many races on both side of the Atlantic, all ever so slightly different; so assigning an individual to race outside of its normal range is often less than straightforward.