Cley Marshes Nature Reserve

Surely this site is worthy of an A category?

It's always subjective. North Norfolk is brilliant and Cley is good. The times I've been there have delivered good sitings but not as good as, say, Frampton and needed much more time-consuming effort. I would make a journey just to Frampton, and visit Cley if were in the area. Can't give out "A" to everywhere

In the case of Cley I don't thing it's subjective. It's one of the top birding places in the UK and if you extend the nature reserve to include the rest of the "Cley Square" it only gets better. A species list of 401 (give or take) makes it a Red Star - no brainer.

In response to the last comment, birdingplaces.eu is, IMO, a site for those who are interested in birding but not necessarily consumed by it. The very interested are likely to have their own favourite places and already will have preferences between sites, or are going to twitch for specific birds. This is why I include effort needed as part of my rating. As I've said, getting to Cley mitigates its attractiveness and the distance around the place reduces the effectiveness of the time on site. On the other hand, Frampton Marsh is more readily accessible to most of the country and Titchwell is more compact, with greater variety of terrain.

The quote of 401 species is impressive (is there a source?), but an impossible count for anyone but a frequent visitor. Looking at eBird, "Cley & Salthouse Marshes NWT NR--Cley Marshes" records 320 species, but these include seasonal visitors and species which would have been rarities or one-offs - in other words, most visitors will see a much smaller number. Indeed, the most successful birders listed have seen less than 230 over all visits and few individual visits have yielded more than 50; most visits see less than 40. By the way, given the size of the site and the wider "Cley square" (whatever the boundaries may be), I doubt that most visiting birders will do much more than the basic exploration.

In short, from where I live, I might take a day out to Frampton but visit Cley only if I were already in North Norfolk. Hence the rating.

The 'Other birds you can see here' list includes a number of daft rarities. For example, Caspian Tern, which I haven't seen here despite birding here most days for well over 50 years!

I'm very disappointed that Cley has rerated from B to A without any agreement or consensus. Indeed, the discussion here doesn't support it, inasmuch as two views have been stated and not taken further.

Another point, am I right in thinking that only the originator (me) or someone with oversight privileges could make the change? If I'm right then I'm not certain that it's worth contributing to this site when high-handed editing is done.

You are completely right Axel. A mistake here made by one of our editors. Sorry for this, we changed it back to B.