Grab a grebe

Already this year when sea watching some of the scarcer grebes have cropped up. Usually, they are just a fly-past. If we’re having a lucky day they’ll be sat on the water and if we are even luckier it’ll be windless with a nice flat sea and they’ll not be ducking in and out of the troughs and waves like a fairground target. Invariably though they are distant and difficult to see. So, when one of these grebes ends up dropping in on an inland body of water, they are worth going to see.

At the beginning of the year a Red Necked Grebe was reported on Ormsby Broad so Tania and I thought we’d pay it a visit.

On arrival it had a number of admirers and was pretty distant and it never did come much closer … but at least it wasn’t constantly disappearing in a swell.

Breeding Ospreys in Norfolk?

As Bob and I entered the empty hide and sat down I immediately saw a large raptor perched in a tall dead tree on the opposite bank.

“It’s here” I announced.

No sooner had I said the words the Osprey left the branch and dived feet first into the broad. It missed the fish. Pulling itself back into the air, it shook itself free of water and headed directly for us. The ducks, that to that point had been quietly dabbling away, scattered to all corners of the reserve. The magnificent raptor banked, attempted to land in a tree far too thin to hold its weight and then flew off over the river. We didn’t see it again.

To my knowledge Osprey has surprisingly never bred in the broads. With at least two to three birds in the county this summer, including the female we saw, Norfolk can’t be far off having its first breeding pair. Next year perhaps?