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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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