Aug 30th Brandon Park

Red Admiral

Yesterday (Aug 30th), I was at Brandon Park with my parents and my 2 year-old niece, Ava. It was the first time I've been somewhere with Ava that is not a zoo or aquarium. She wasn't completely well and was a bit grumpy with our short walk. The walk itself wasn't very exciting wildlife wise and was mostly spent trying to cheer Ava up. So, I wasn't sure if to post about this or not. However, there were a few decent photos too good not to share, including a few of a female mandarin duck. There was also a moment in which Ava took some interest in a giant redwood and a monkey puzzle tree that was part of the park's tree walk, in which she hugged them with me and my dad. She seems to be growing into loving nature pretty fast.

White-tailed Bumblebee

Brimstone

Ava encountering some inquisitive Mallards

Female Mandarin Duck

Tree of Heaven seed pods 

Aug 29th Strumpshaw Fen

Snipe

Rain has been relentless for most of this morning. It was not been a nice day.  It was raining as I walked down to the reserve from my train, it rained while I was making my way to Fen Hide, but when I was in the hide, it stopped. It remained like that for an hour. Apart from a snipe that flew in and played peek-a-boo along the near edge of short cut reed with my camera and a family of marsh harriers begging for food noisily, there wasn't too much to get excited about. I walked out of the hide and guess what? It started raining again!! This time it remained that way until midday.

Cobber the Black Swan

Marsh Harrier

Stock Dove

Grey Heron

Moorhen

Kingfisher

Stuck inside Reception Hide as the rain continued to pour, for much of what remained of the morning, nobody came. You would have thought the continuous downpour would ground most of the birds that aren't ducks, not true. It turns out that the swallows and house martins were swarming over the broad even with the heavy showers. In fact, when the rain died down, they all disappeared. A kingfisher was also preferring this damp weather more for some reason as it made several visits, mainly hiding within the dense vegetation of the reedy islands, but it did make one appearance close enough to the hide to photograph, even if it was playing the same game as the snipe by being obscured by some reeds.

Chiffchaff (skulking amongst the reedy islands)

Gadwall

Gathering plant samples from the water

While the rain kept most people away from the reserve during the first hour or two of my shift, we did have one person pop into the hide. He wasn't here for a walk, however. He was an ecologist and was here to make a few samples of the plants growing by the edge of the broad. He wanted to know about the water quality and its effects on the plants that grew there. Using a grapple attached to string, he threw it into the water to extract some of the aquatic plants. After dragging them out from the water, he sifted through the mud growing at their roots. He came back some time later after doing the same at other parts of the reserve. It doesn't sound good. According to him, it seems that there is a lot of sewage pollution in the water. I'm no scientist, but that sounds bad. Here, what we thought was a pristine haven for wildlife, was actually full of sewage!

Aug 24th Cley

Female House Sparrow

This afternoon, my parents dropped me off at the reserve at Cley while they went for a walk to the actual town of Cley just down the road. I had a couple of hours at three of the four hides around the main set of pools. There were plenty of waders at these pools, especially black-tailed godwits which were the most abundant. I counted 9 snipe along the edge of one of the larger spits of land, 2 little ringed plovers as well as several avocets, ruffs, dunlin, lapwing, knot and a few redshanks and shelduck. There was apparently a spotted redshank out there too, but everything took to the air when I started looking for it. I expect the culprit was a marsh harrier, though there was also a kestrel around very briefly.

Male House Sparrow

Black-tailed Godwit

Godwits, Lapwing and Knot

Knot and Black-tailed Godwit

Knot

Ruff

Lapwing and Snipe

Snipe, Lapwing and Dunlin

Avocet

Shelduck

Redshank

Woodpigeon

Dunlin

Lapwing

Little Ringed Plover

Rain clouds gathering over the hides and pools

The weather was fairly good for the most part while I was at the hides, but then it suddenly turned. The clouds grew dark and you could sense that it was going to rain any minute. Without a coat and worried about getting my camera wet, I made my way back to the visitor centre as quickly as I could. By some miracle, I got there just in time as it suddenly threw it down as I entered the building. My parents, on the other hand, were caught in it on their return from Cley-next-the-sea. Then, when they joined me inside, the rain stopped and a rainbow formed.

Black-tailed Godwits

Rainbow