April 24th Strumpshaw Fen and Burlingham

Bluebell

It has been a lovely day. The warm spell of weather that we've been having lately has made everything more alive today. Leaves are now returning on the trees and more spring flowers are appearing. This includes bluebells, which are beginning to cover one corner of the woodland trail again in a carpet of blue, though I think its just another week until they are at their ultimate best. On the way back from checking the bluebells out, I noticed the ground moving beside my foot. I followed a trail of bulging earth under some slightly sparse vegetation. It was a mole! I think I saw its small black head briefly emerge from the ground, but it was hard to tell. Then a metres further down the path, I saw a bank vole scurry in the undergrowth. From mole to vole in a matter of minutes!

Sedge Warbler

It was a bit of a warbler fest this morning. It always seems to be at this time of year. Most of the usual species have returned now and boy did they let you know about it! They were singing everywhere! Chiffchaffs, blackcaps, willow warblers, Cetti's warblers, sedge warblers, reed warblers and loudest of all, a grasshopper warbler (you can hear it in the video below). There was a sound of consistent reeling coming somewhere within a bush half way up the Sandy Wall path with spells that lasted several minutes at a time. The problem with grasshopper warblers is that they are incredibly hard to locate and are also a bit of a ventriloquist, so this bird could be anywhere. Also during my walk, I heard my first cuckoo of the year and saw 3 Chinese water deer, 3 more bank voles, displaying lapwings, marsh harriers, a close encounter with a jay and a black-tailed godwit that flew over the office building.

Redshank

With the Easter break over, Reception Hide was a much quieter place once again. Though we still had many people paying us a visit, it was nothing compared to the hundreds of families that almost sold us out on nearly everything from trail sheets to ice creams! Our Easter trail was a complete success. Now, with the hectic past two weeks over, I was enjoying the wildlife with a much smaller crowd in the hide. I was even had a surprise visit from my Aunt Barbara. I showed her a family of greylags with 7 goslings, swallows, 2 redshanks and a snipe. Then after lunch, I took her on a walk to Tower Hide in which we heard a booming bittern and the grasshopper warbler and saw large red damselflies and many butterflies flying all around us (including; holly blues, speckled woods, brimstones, peacocks and orange-tips).

My shift was now over, but I wasn't going home just yet. Barbara and I moved on to Burlingham to my Reception Hide colleague Tricia's house to join her for a walk at a wood near where she lives to seek out my first orchid. I've been dying to start my quest to find every species of orchid in Norfolk for months and now that it was finally time, I couldn't wait any longer. With Tricia as our guide, it wasn't long until we found the first of a possible 23 species. Early purple orchids! A small display of them!

Early Purple Orchid

Early purple orchids are one of the commonest and earliest of the British orchid species. You can find them in a variety of habitats, though mainly in woodlands and grassy places. They emerge around now (late April) and throughout May. With fewer other species to confuse with this early on in the orchid season, they are pretty easy to identify. Their green leaves are covered in purple blotches and their green stalks become more purple towards the top where several purple flowers branch out from. Their flowers take up a typical structure found throughout the orchid family the world over. At the bottom is a large petal known as a lip, 2 smaller petals at the side sticking out like ears and one at the top called sepals. Between the sepals is a gap for a hungry bee to stick its tongue in to drink the nectar. However, there is no nectar. This orchid is a liar and a trickster. All the bee will get are some pollinia (orchid pollen) stuck to its face, ready to pollinate another orchid. The bee gets fooled a second time.

Update! A Decision Has Been Made!

So after a month with no photos due to a full storage on Google Photos, I have finally made a decision. I am deleting all my photos from one album. I'm afraid that many of my posts will be blank without photos for a while (some for a second time). This will include posts dating from 2016 - 2019. I will from now on be more selective and will only show a small handful of highlights for each post. This means that I will not show common species like mallards, etc (unless its really worthy of showing) and more than one image of the same thing in order to free up more space and to make this blog less bogged down with the same old same old. It pains me to do this, because I felt like they gave extra narrative to my outings. But it is a sacrifice I'm willing to make to revive this blog, which has given me so much joy.

Also, I am not going to make highlight posts such as my end of year posts that showcase the best of my photos from that past year. This also means that I will delete these kind of posts from my blog. The only exception will be 'My Emperor Moth Caterpillars: The Story So Far', which shows the development of the caterpillars from egg to cocoon that I raised last year. However, I will delete the separate posts that documented their development throughout that summer as it is pointless keeping them if I have the full story anyway.

I'd like to thank you all for your support, suggestions and patience. I'm hoping that the choice that I've chosen will improve this blog, though it is going to be very time consuming. If you are flicking through the old posts, please be patient a little longer (though some post will possibly will remain photo-less if the post happens to be really short). They will return, don't worry. In the meantime, I will continue the blog with new posts with new photos. The Autistic Naturalist will live on!

April 17th Strumpshaw Fen

A warm, sunny, yet hectic day at Strumpshaw today. It is the second week of the Easter break and the families are pouring into the reserve to take part in the Easter activities. I left them in the capable hands of my colleagues. For me, it was the wildlife that kept me busy.

Kingfisher

I arrived early for my pre-shift walk like normal and you couldn't ask for a better way to start it. A kingfisher flew over and perched on one of the perching posts right in front of the Reception Hide as I was getting my camera and binoculars from my bag, ready for another wildlife watching session. It was a female and I had a few seconds to admire her before she was gone. At Fen Hide, there was another smile on my face as I saw my first green sandpiper of the year fly over the reed beds that made up the centre of the reserve. I was pleased to also hear the return of the sedge warblers announcing their arrival with their energetic, scratchy warbling songs.






With just enough time to spare, I made a quick visit to Tower Hide. Sadly, the garganey from last week has moved on. At least the bitterns were booming around this part of the reserve. As I was walking back from the hide, I managed to spot one make a short flyby before plunging down into the reeds. The sound is truly amazing to experience. Each low note of each boom reverberates right through you. They sound pretty close but could actually be some several metres away. We think that there are possibly at least two booming males at Strumpshaw. Let's hope that there are more females out there to make up the numbers and have a successful breeding year so we can have more bitterns.

Mediterranean Gull

Back at Reception Hide, the day was getting warmer and lizards were basking out on the ivy covered stump in front of the hide. I was showing visitors them while also keeping one eye out for ospreys. There have been sightings of these birds passing through the Yare Valley, flying between Rockland Broad and Strumpshaw throughout this week. Unfortunately, not today. However, I still wasn't disappointed as I was lucky enough to see my first Mediterranean gull at Strumpshaw. That's right, I've never seen one here before. It was blending in with the flock of black-headed gulls around the reedy islands. Its head was more jet black than its slightly smaller cousin, whose heads are more chocolate brown than black. Its red bill was also more prominent and its wingtips were pure white, which meant, once you got your eye in, it actually stood out from the crowd.

Mallard with ducklings

I also saw two more green sandpipers, plenty of butterflies (peacocks, orange-tips  and brimstones) 9 mallard ducklings, the odd swallow, shelduck, marsh harriers and buzzards. By the way, that buzzard nest from last week was just a crow's nest that caught the buzzard's curiosity. There was no buzzard activity on that nest the morning sadly.

April 10th Strumpshaw Fen

Garganey

Spring migratory birds are starting to flood into the UK in great number. A hoopoe was seen at Winterton for much of this week. Though I would love to go see it, my back would probably disagree with me. However, there is also a steady influx of garganey arriving into Norfolk and there happens to be one or two at Strumpshaw. So this morning, I made my way over to Tower Hide to see if I could find it. I had no idea if this summer visiting duck was or had been seen at this hide or not, it was a complete guess. And what a lucky guess it was! As soon as I opened the hide's window flap, it wasn't long until I found it snoozing on the water.

With its bright white stripe (or supercilium) above its eyes was a big give away and indicated that this was a handsome male. Along with this obvious white marking, the rest of his plumage is made up of an intricate patchwork of chocolate brown and grey patches full of black and white streaks and spots. His plumage could easily be put onto a canvas and placed on display in an art gallery. This individual was extremely sleepy as he spent most of his time with his head tucked under his wing. Thankfully, a passing marsh harrier woke him up as it soared over where he was sleeping, startling the other wildfowl in the process, giving the opportunity to him awake and appreciate him even more before he went drifted off to dreamland once again.


Swallows were swooping over my head as I made my way back from the Tower Hide. It was nice to see them again as they refuel themselves with some tasty flies after their long journey from Africa. At Reception Hide, I saw my first set of chicks of the year. The coots that were nesting in the reeds close to the hide were now showing their 5 tiny, bald-headed chicks where to find food. On the far side of the broad, I noticed that a pair of buzzards were taking some interest in a nest along the treeline. Maybe we will see plenty of buzzard activity in the near future as well as some buzzard chicks?

The Easter school holidays are now underway and the reserve was attracting a lot of families that were arriving to do the activities that Strumpshaw's staff has set up for them to do. The Reception Hide was an extremely busy place and full of very excited young children. I was equally busy showing them and other visitors the wildlife that they could see from the hide, especially a snipe that was continuously playing hide and seek in the vegetation close to the front of the hide. However, the main highlight of the day happened when the children weren't around.

Otters

I was scanning the broad before the crowds started to show up when I suddenly saw some splashing in the far left corner. I then saw a tail poke out of the water like some freshwater dolphin, but much thinner, covered in brown fur and lacked the flukes that a dolphin has. It was an otter! Two otters! I presumed it was a mother with a cub from last year. They were patrolling the far edge of the broad and even came onto land amongst the reeds for a brief moment before I eventually lost sight of them heading down the far right channel. What an exciting few minutes that was! A shame that I wasn't able to share it with the children in time.

April 3rd Strumpshaw Fen

Winter was attempting to cling on. It was cold and frosty as I made my way to Strumpshaw from Brundall train station on foot. A chilly mist was rising from the frosty ground like a blanket. It felt more like December than early April. I was almost at the reserve when I noticed something moving in front of me. It appeared to be a bird struggling to escape some brambles by the side of the road. As I approached nearer, however, I soon realised that it was a male sparrowhawk trying to carry his latest kill, a blackbird, away. The blackbird was truly stuck in the thorns of the brambles and the sparrowhawk was determined to make off with it.

The sparrowhawk then noticed my approach and abandoned his would be breakfast and flew up into the tree above. He perched on a branch and for a moment, he starred down at me with those bright fiery orange eyes of his. He was a beautiful looking bird in great condition. I had time to admire every part of his plumage, especially his streaky orange breast feathers, before he left. I presumed he was waiting for me to leave so that he could return to his kill, but as I was busy gawking at him in awe, he had given up.

Reed Bunting

Then it rained. For most of the morning, it was miserable. I made a quick count of the cattle in the meadows, the latest of my assignments at Strumpshaw. All present and correct. I then took refuge in the Fen Hide for a while as the rain began to really tip it down. Two marsh harriers were looking a bit wet and wishing that the rain would pass as they sat it out on a couple of bushes. Their soggy expression pretty much summed up this morning. It was pretty rubbish. At Reception Hide, a water rail and a snipe did make this wet Wednesday morning more memorable. I also saw plenty of reed buntings that were pretty showy than usual as well as more marsh harriers, a few pochard, greylags, some fighting coot, a pair of gadwall and I even heard my first willow warbler of the year.

Water Rail

Snipe

Blog Update

As you may know, as I was uploading photos to my March 30th post at Cley, my storage on Google Photos ran out again. I'm in a dilemma at the moment. Google Photos is where Blogger stores my photos online. I could buy new storage, but I'm not exactly made of money right now. What I was thinking of doing is to delete each photo individually from Google Photos and replace them with photos that have reduced pixels and to be more selective of what I put on my blog from now on. However, Google Photos is making me want to slam my head against a wall! It is not allowing me to do what I want to do and now I'm not sure what to do.

Last year, when this situation happened before, I accidentally lost every photo on my blog dating from July 2016 - March 2018. I spent months bringing them back from my PC. It was a long and boring method and I sure don't want to repeat it again. So, here's my predicament. Do I delete every photo in one album at a time on Google Photos (which has over a thousand photos in each, dating from 2016 - 2019), and start again while being more selective than before, a task that I am dreading in doing or do I quit this blog for good? I could continue this blog with just text and maybe the occasional video, but I'm not sure if it will make the same impact as it did with photos.

So what do I do now? I'll be waiting for your feedback.

In other news, my emperor moths are now emerging from their cocoons. The first one, a male, emerged on Monday. Yesterday, I had 3 more males plus a female that sadly failed to develop properly and died this morning. The males are released into the wild at Mousehold, though one did get attacked by a robin as it made its first flight from my finger. I don't think the robin ate it though. This afternoon, more success as currently I have 4 females successfully emerged and ready for release. In total, as it stands, I've had 4 males and 4 females with only one death before release. It has been a very busy week, though it is a shame that I can't show you pictures of them.