I was thinking of all the happy memories I have from my time at Titchwell and wondered if any body would like to share their memories?
Keep on birding!
Unknown said: I was thinking of all the happy memories I have from my time at Titchwell and wondered if any body would like to share their memories?
One of my fondest memories was working at the reserve as a volunteer in 1987. One of the jobs we were given was to clear the vegetation from the islands in the fresh marsh. Late one afternoon as we were out there in the marsh, the family of black-winged stilts (relatives of Sammy's maybe?) that nested at Holme that year flew in and fed around our feet.
One of my less fond memories was the volunteer accommodation at the time. Four of us sharing one tiny room (imagine the smell!) and a dodgy gas oven that nearly removed my eyebrows every time I lit it!
Too many to pick from really..............Arriving at 4:00 AM to listen to the dawn chorus, watching huge flocks of waders and wildfowl taking off, hearing a distant bittern, the pinging of bearded tits before they take flight, walking along the beach, a flask of homemade soup for lunch on a cold January day, or just sitting in fen hide until late in the evening in mid summer when everything is quiet watching the marsh harriers as they exchange food.
"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag" Mary Poppins
hi Dave
Simply to visit Titchwell one afternoon, and spend time watching two lovely Tree sparrows. They decided to feed on the bird feeders close to the visitors Centre. That had caused a stir at Titchwell, with all people who where there at the time and they drew in the crowds for miles {smile}
I also loved seeing the many residing Avocets at Titchwell while visiting the first hide you come to from the visitors centre. I could never bore of them as they are part of the RSPB symbol after all {smile}
My Norfolk ambition would be to see the Cranes in the same area anyway {smile}
Regards
Kathy and Dave
Finally seeing a bearded tit this summer (a brief glimpse of a female after standing for about half an hour listening to them pinging in the reeds), and getting a definite sighting of a male last weekend.
Walking along the beach a few years ago, glancing up to see a seagull with some red string caught in its legs, then realising that it wasn't a seagull and the "red string" WAS the legs. I thought it was an incredible rarity, then I found out about Sammy.
One of my best memories isn't of the reserve as such - I spent a long time early this year on the shoreline at low tide among the peat beds in light rain, watching turnstones, oystercatchers and sanderlings running around.
Lots of good memories of the NNT reserve at Cley too - I live in Leicester so that stretch of the coast is a little too far for a day trip (unless I'm feeling really restless) and I tend to go over for the weekend and take in Cley, Titchwell and maybe Snettisham too. I saw snow buntings at Snettisham once, just after I had really started to get into birding - in their brown winter plumage, I had no idea what they were and it took me months to find out (working from memory, and illustrations don't capture the subtleties of the colours).
Where do I begin? I've was lucky enough to have volunteered at Titchwell for a few weeks most years through the 90's and I still visit a couple of times a year. Here are just five memories from my volunteering days that stuck:
Watching for bearded tits visiting nests from inside one of those tiny one-man monitoring hides on the sea wall, in the early morning, while a female marsh harrier swept up and down the reed edge only a few feet outside.
Having to rescue a moorhen that had wrapped itself around a barbed wire fence on the marsh - and transporting it back to the VC in a cardboard box held over my head, while I waded straight across the ditch with boots, trousers and all. Got some very odd looks from visitors as I dripped my way back to the VC!
Watching a drake long-tailed duck diving in a small hole in the ice on the fresh marsh one freezing new year. The entire marsh was frozen, it was virtually the only bird anywhere in sight.
The same winter, seeing a juvie peregrine kill and eat a knot along Gypsy Lane, and then (later) retrieving the skull, which I cleaned up and added to my natural history collection!
Standing on the sea wall during the highest spring tide of the year, at a time when a force 7 storm had been blowing south for 2 days. The sea rose right over the visitor path alongside the tidal marsh, and the boardwalk on the beach got badly broken up. Half the dunes disappeared overnight. I have thought ever since that we should stand our politicians on that same sea wall during such an event, and ask them "NOW do you feel threatened enough by climate change to DO something about it?!"