North Norfolk in the autumn.
24th October 2018
Susan and I have just returned home from a couple of weeks in North Norfolk where we enjoyed some glorious autumn weather. We have been birding in Norfolk for over thirty years but we have stayed in a little cottage in Thornham, (now a very up-market coastal village), for about twenty five years, it is owned by a dentist from Sheffield who is a very nice down to earth man and who has a group of loyal customers who have been staying in his house since the beginning. The days were warm and sunny and although rare birds were limited because of the weather patterns, (in the autumn you can’t have rare birds in Norfolk with southerly winds), we nevertheless saw some nice wildlife. We ate out several times, once in our favourite pub, The Gin Trap in the village of Ringstead, where the cuisine is a cut above the usual ‘Pub Grub’ but with fairly reasonable prices and none of the pretentious nonsense of some establishments, the service is quick and the staff friendly. Typically we enjoyed - to start, deep fried mozzarella and pistachio savoury rice balls with a spicy sauce sprinkled with parmesan cheese - for mains, fresh scallops on a bed of linguini pasta with vegetables in a delicious butter sauce - and for pudding, sloe gin crunch with a chocolate mousse, coffee ice cream and caramel sauce – delicious!!
We always drive on the ‘back - road’ from the Gin Trap pub in Ringstead to Thornham and you can stop and view Hares, Partridges and Pheasants in the fields at last light and on this occasion we saw three Barn Owls flying. Further on, as we neared Thornham, a small animal was caught in our headlights in the long grass, we thought it was either a Fox or a Hare but remarkably it was a Muntjac deer, (they are unbelievably small), and we enjoyed a very close encounter as it stared at us, frozen in the lights, then it disappeared safely into the fields. After another 100 yds’ there was something else sat in the middle of the road and as we approached it flew up into the lights - a Tawny Owl, it perched briefly in a small tree before disappearing into the night.
A very nice evening out indeed!
We always drive on the ‘back - road’ from the Gin Trap pub in Ringstead to Thornham and you can stop and view Hares, Partridges and Pheasants in the fields at last light and on this occasion we saw three Barn Owls flying. Further on, as we neared Thornham, a small animal was caught in our headlights in the long grass, we thought it was either a Fox or a Hare but remarkably it was a Muntjac deer, (they are unbelievably small), and we enjoyed a very close encounter as it stared at us, frozen in the lights, then it disappeared safely into the fields. After another 100 yds’ there was something else sat in the middle of the road and as we approached it flew up into the lights - a Tawny Owl, it perched briefly in a small tree before disappearing into the night.
A very nice evening out indeed!