Adventures in England: Norfolk

Last Saturday we drove out to Blakeney Point, a greyish area of tidal salt marsh by the sea filled with all kinds of birds. There was a black headed gull at the car park and many others elsewhere, a house marten next in the information centre, Brent Geese (usually winter migrants leaving in early Spring but Spring came late this year), oyster catchers (black and white birds of the seashore that eat molluscs, a Temmink's stint (I think), common terns, little terns, sandwich terns and artic terns, other types of gull and pied wagtails. In short it was full of fascinating birds I had never seen before!

But the main reason we had driven in the car for 2 1/2 hours was for the seals.

Blakeney Point houses a seal colony and is one of the best places in the world to see grey seals. But to see them you had to go on a boat trip to the point itself, a small peninsula of land, jutting out into the North Sea.

So, we got our tickets and while we waited for the tide to come in we had a very quick peek at a book sale then went on a walk along the marsh. Like I said it was a saltwater marsh and the vegetation there was quite grey, giving everything a primeval look, especially in the cloudy weather. You could imagine cave people stalking the geese in the marsh, armed with longspears.

Soon it was time to go on the boat. Lydia couldn't go out into the boat so dad had to look after her in land. As it turned out Lydia had a great time singing, watching sheeo, crabs and ducklings!

Anyway, when the boat left I was very excited! First we sawn the Tern colonies. Flying around them were heaps of terns and even more terns were flying out above the water, diving down under the water and flying out again with sand eels in their beaks.

Then we saw the seals. They were AMAZING!!! There were angry seals and common seals (or perhaps one or the other), peeking out of the water, swimming around and laying on the sand in huge quantities! There were juveniles and bulls and cows and all of them were amazing.

Next we left that incredible place and drove to Oxburgh Hall - and amazing moated house originating from Tudor times. On the way there Elsie saw her first deer and I saw two hares boxing.