26 FEBRUARY 2026 – WAXHAM, NORFOLK

John’s Landrover Discovery was away at the dealers awaiting spare parts, so it was a Volvo SUV courtesy car that was providing the transport on this trip, though Mike was unable to join us on this occasion.

We’d decided that a trip to the Norfolk Brecks would be the most suitable venue, but it wasn’t until we were about an hour or so into the journey that John brought up the prospect of revising our course in favour of trying for a Glaucous Gull and an Iceland Gull, which had been seen at Waxham on the east Norfolk coast, the previous day. It was some distance away from the Brecks, but since neither of us hadn’t seen either species for quite some time (19 years for the Glaucous Gull and 21 years for the Iceland in my case) it wasn’t really such a hard decision to make, although of course, neither gull was guaranteed.

Finding an actual road to Waxham beach was quite an achievement, but eventually we took a narrow road near Waxham Barn, which led to a sandy lane where several cars were parked, and where a couple had just returned from taking their terrier for a walk along the beach, and provided us with the relevant info of how to get where we wanted to go. A sandy track through some trees, eventually led to the beach and a substantial sea wall, but there was no sign of any birdwatchers, so we just made our way right along the sea wall, following the coastline on a long line of enormous rock groynes, where John picked up what appeared to be birdwatchers in the far, far distance, where gulls could be seen whirling around the beach. It looked promising, so we continued below the sea wall, but it took an absolute age to reach the birdwatchers - indeed it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that we’d walked a couple of miles; it certainly felt like it.

There weren’t many birds around, mostly Black-headed; Herring; Lesser and Great Black-backed gulls; with a lone Great Crested Grebe out on the sea; but arguably more interesting were the huge herds of Grey Seals - several hundred strong at least, virtually the entire length of the beach, lined up above the tide line amongst the groynes - which we were certainly not expecting.

The seals comprised both bulls (some of which were huge beasts) and cows, although the smaller ones could well have been pups; but the varying colours of their mottled coats in all hues of black, brown, grey, ginger, and off-white was surprising. And something else came to the fore too……………the stench from the seals was simply acrid in the extreme, though luckily the breeze took the effect away to some extent. Most of the seals happily accepted close encounters with us humans, but some were not so, and slowly galumphed away to the safety of the sea as we passed.

By the time I reached John - who was a considerable distance in front of me most of the time (as I was struggling with an ailing hip and my Nordic stick as support) he gave me the news that neither Gull had been seen (the other birdwatchers had already been at the site most of the morning with nothing positive to report). We waited around for a while before we turned back, but at least we’d learned that one of our intended venues - Lynford Arboretum in the Brecks - was apparently extremely quiet bird wise, so that made us feel a tad happier at choosing to come to Waxham instead; but not by much!

In the meantime, whilst scoping the sea for birdlife, John found a flotilla of twenty or so Common Scoters, though they were very distant and were continually disappearing under the swell, though hardly compensation for missing our gulls I admit.

On the way back - the prospect of another torrid two-mile walk back along the sea wall wasn’t in the least inspiring - I was looking out to sea, when I heard a shout from John, and turned around to see him pointing desperately to the skies, so I knew in my heart that he’d seen the Glaucous Gull, but of course, by the time I reached him, the bird had disappeared! John tried to re-locate the gull, taking a steep flight of steps to the top of the sea wall, to scan the surrounding fields, with nothing positive to report other than seeing five Red Kites. But he remained somehow convinced that the gull would likely return to the original site on the beach, and was eventually proved correct, when by chance he scoped the bird perched on a signpost off in the distance. Luckily for me it stayed in situ long enough for me to get a good enough view through John’s scope, before suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. Elation was the order of the day for a while - though more so for John who had the best view initially as it flew in from the sea over his head!

We decided in vain to try looking for Common Cranes on fields around Hickling Broad, although we did see a couple of Cattle Egrets and a lone Little Egret in fields aligning the winding road.  We also tried for Purple Sandpipers on the rocks at Sea Palling further north along the coast, without success due to the high tide.

It was getting late in the afternoon by then, so we decided to head for home, taking in a welcome cappuccino on the way. It hadn’t been an especially remarkable days birding, but there was no argument that getting at least one of our target species was some achievement given the circumstances. But I confess, the Grey Seals made the day for me, despite their odour!