Welcome to my blog. My name is Sean Locke from Norwich and I am autistic. But this does not stop my passion for nature and wildlife. I am a volunteer for RSPB Strumpshaw Fen and I also help out at Mousehold Heath with surveys and I birdwatch whenever I can. Since 2011, i have been writing a wildlife diary filled with my adventures, drawings and photos. Now i have decided to go online to share with you all.
Sunday, 26 May 2019
May 26th Mildenhall and Lackford Lakes
My orchid hunt has taken me across the Norfolk border into Suffolk for a chance to add a bit of a bonus species to my list. My friend David joined me to visit a small reserve near Mildenhall for an open day event to see the very rare military orchid. This my only day to see it as it lies behind a fenced off area in a couple of chalk pits. I couldn't resist the opportunity.
Military Orchid
The military orchid is so called because the flowers are suppose to resemble soldiers in regalia uniform ready for parade. You may need a bit of an active imagination to see it but the sepals form the 'helmet', the lip forms the 'body' complete with 'arms' and 'legs', while the spots are the 'buttons' or 'medals'. If you don't see the resemblance, don't worry, you can still agree with me that this is a very beautiful orchid. I took over an hour and a half to admire the 30+ on display in these two small pits.
It is amazing to think that they were believed to be extinct in the UK in 1929. Military orchids became a bit of a British botanical Holy Grail until a small colony of them were discovered in Buckinghamshire in 1947. That site was kept a guarded secret and was not made accessible to the public until the 1980's. Meanwhile, in 1954, this Suffolk colony were discovered. In both sites, the numbers have been reasonably steady to this day. So I am extremely privileged to have the opportunity to see them today. I also saw plenty of common twayblades in the pits, too, but I will not tick them off just yet. I want to find them in Norfolk before I can do that.
Damselflies
Once we were done admiring the military orchids, David took me for a walk at Lackford Lakes. I've only visited this place once back in February 2016, when I saw a female long-tailed duck. Today, there wasn't exactly anything that was THAT surprising. However, I did see a couple of cuckoos (including a female producing a bubbling call as it flew by as we walked out of the visitor centre), some hobbies, a green woodpecker, tufted ducks and little grebes both with a large brood of chicks/ducklings, common terns, four-spotted chasers, red-eyed damselflies, a few sticks protruding from the water covered in freshly emerged damselflies of various species and we heard short bursts of a nightingale. Not a bad visit to Suffolk!
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