June 12th Strumpshaw Fen

Bee Orchid

The weather this week has been miserable. Rain, rain and more rain! A typical British summer. Thankfully, though, I managed to walk to Strumpshaw this morning without getting wet. The rain had held off for me, at least until my shift began that is. For the mean time, I got myself wet in a different way. By walking a water-logged meadow trail to look for orchids. I only had myself to blame, of course, but I did at least find orchids this time around, though very few of them. There was nothing new to add to my list, but I did come across a few southern marsh orchids, a couple of common spotted orchids, a twayblade (that I've seen for the last couple of weeks before hand) and a single bee orchid that had finally bloomed near the reserve's entrance.

Cuckoo

While trudging through the wet meadow, I disturbed a Chinese water deer and some meadow brown butterflies (which have now emerged despite the bad weather this week). A cuckoo was constantly calling nearby, though it sounded like it was moving around a lot. One minute it was calling from the river and the next from the woods. And then as I was making my way out of the water and grass, it had positioned itself on a bare tree by the Sandy Wall. I could see it clearly, though it still seemed far away to get a really decent photo of it. Walking back towards the Reception Hide, I felt as if the cuckoo was following me as I could hear it repeating its species' name getting closer and closer and heading in same direction, moving onwards with every step I made until I had reached the hide.

Sparrowhawk

And then the weather returned to how it had been doing all this week. More rain! Before the heavens opened, there were some promising reports coming back from visitors that had made their way around the reserve earlier in the morning of butterflies, otters and even a tawny owl at Fen Hide. For a moment, it was looking as if we were going to be lucky with the weather and with a slim chance that a swallowtail making an appearance. But once the rain did start to pour, the opportunism of any swallowtails ended just like that. I had one visitor that had made a long journey from another county of England as part of a birthday holiday in the hope of seeing one. If he had his holiday a week earlier, he would had a smile on his face, but that wasn't going to happen now on a day like this. I felt sorry for him, so I took him to see the foodplant, milk parsley, and somehow found him a tiny, white swallowtail egg as a constellation prize.

Sitting inside Reception Hide, at least there were marsh harriers, a sparrowhawk, common terns, reed warblers and a brief bittern (which I missed!) providing me with at least something that wasn't just rain to stare at. Let's hope this spell of soggy weather disperses soon. I want to see more orchids!!