12 May 2026 Weeting Heath, Lakenheath Fen and Nunnery Lakes

I was up early for our first morning at the Woodcutter’s Lodge in Lynford Arboretum, so sat outside on the patio drinking tea and listening to the assorted bird song – Blackbird, Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Cuckoo, Goldfinch, Robin, Song Thrush, Swallow, Wood Pigeon and Wren.

When Anne got up we headed out for Weeting Heath to have a second look for Stone Curlews. As we got out of the car in the car park, a chap told us that he was just looking at one in the field immediately opposite the entry to the reserve car park. We got on the bird within a minute or two and it showed well for quite a while, walking up and down along the crest of a ridge. We even managed to pass it on to some other birders that arrived after us. We decided that we may as well go down to the hide to see if we could get anything there. Again, within a couple of minutes we located one of the Stone Curlews but it decided to hunker down after about ten minutes and then was very hard to see. We decided to go on to RSPB Lakenheath Fen. We got there about 11:20am

When Anne spoke to the reserve staff woman, she mentioned that I struggled a bit with the longer walks on the reserve and the staff person very kindly offered to let us use the disabled parking area down by the New Fen viewpoint which is a good mile up a fairly boring track. this meant that we were able to easily Hobbies quite quickly. Anne also saw flying Bittern and Cuckoo but didn’t point them out to me in time for me to see them as well !!!

We walked further down to the Mere Hide, seeing Hobby and hearing Cuckoo regularly. The hide wasn’t that interesting but on the walk  back to the car I did get a good – if brief – view of a Bittern flying quite close. Shortly after that we saw a pair of Marsh Harriers and had clear and close views of the male bird dropping food for the female. She missed on the first go but quickly swooped down to recover it. I ma y have seen this in the flesh before but never as clearly as this.

From Lakenheath we decided to go to Nunnery Lakes in Thetford. We tried to find somewhere to eat but without much joy. By the time we found a pub that didn’t do food anyway, I was tired out and the day had turned from sun to cloud and from warm to cold, so I suggested we just went home. Just as we got to the car we saw a pair of Egyptian Geese on the river.

Year Ticks for the day
Bittern
Egyptian Goose

Bird Sightings : 12 May 2026 Lynford Arboretum

Species	No
Blackbird	1
Blue Tit	1
Chaffinch	1
Cuckoo	1
Goldfinch	1
Robin	1
Song Thrush	1
Swallow	2
Woodpigeon	2
Wren	1

Bird Sightings : 12 May 2026 Weeting Heath NWT

Species	No
Lapwing	1
Stone Curlew	2

Bird Sightings : 12 May 2026 Lakenheath Fen RSPB

Species	No
Bittern	1
Blackcap	1
Canada Goose	8
Carrion Crow	4
Chiffchaff	2
Coot	4
Cormorant	3
Cuckoo
Greylag Goose	50
Hobby	4
Little Grebe	3
Mallard	22
Marsh Harrier	2
Reed Warbler	2
Willow Warbler	2
Wren	2

Bird Sightings : 12 May 2026 Nunnery Lakes BTO, Thetford

Species	No
Egyptian Goose	2