Thursday 2nd March 2023 - Skylarks & Linnets and Out at Sea

Large furrows of tyre tracks leading up the field, towards the aircraft hangar on Madams Lane, made us wonder if the top area, where we have seen so many skylarks, had been ploughed. Yes, it has. When we walked up the field the other afternoon, there were very few to be seen or heard. There are still uncultivated areas on this field but the ploughing looks to have scared away most of the skylarks, who in previous years have made their ground nests on this field. Maybe they will return. There were however, a good-sized flock of around forty to fifty small brownish coloured birds which lifted from the earth, swirled in the air before descending back to the ground. Returning via the allotments we met with one of our villages birdwatchers who told us, these were most likely linnets. According to the internet, linnets are on the red list which in short means, they are globally threatened and their populations are in decline. Linnets nest in gorse bushes which there are plenty of near this field, so hopefully they will stay in the area.

We spotted two fishing boats out at sea this morning. I didn’t envy the fishermen as the sea was quite choppy, causing their boats to roll. These boats were not launched from Overstrand as the Cara Marie and Jayne Marie are both still up on the fishermen’s green, where they will probably remain until the weather improves. The boats we saw were probably out for an early haul, bringing in crabs to boil and sell. We won’t be going into Cromer in search of early crabs, we are quite happy to wait until the Overstrand boats start bringing in their catch.

We were lucky, the other morning, to be in the right place at the right time to see a rainbow; one end curving up out of the sea and across inland. I managed to get a couple of photos which I am including in today’s blog.