Sep 4th Strumpshaw Fen

Chinese Water Deer

It's Wednesday. Its raining. What else is new? The worst of it was while I was making my way to Strumpshaw, but it was a bit on and off throughout the morning. However, it wasn't a bad day for birds. I was hoping to see the osprey that had been travelling between Strumpshaw and Rockland Broad this week, but it sadly never made the appearance for me. But, it was still a decent morning for kingfishers. One showed itself while I was at Fen Hide and another made brief flybys at Reception Hide. There were also green sandpipers, Chinese water deer, swallows, house martins, kestrels, sparrowhawks and marsh harriers.

There were two birds, though, that were real contenders for bird of the day. One was a bittern. I had a brief glimpse of it walking along the edge of the reed bed by the left channel in which it vanished before I could pick up my camera. It then reappeared around lunchtime when it made a quick flight from the left channel reed bed to the far left channel at the back of the broad. Maybe this was the female that apparently had a nest in that area earlier in the summer?

The other bird that caught my interest was a pigeon. It was a feral pigeon, but it may have been a racing pigeon. It made a few laps around the broad and even had a moment where it thought it was a duck by landing in the water before it too disappeared from the scene. We believe it had rings on one of its legs, which made us think it must have belonged to someone. A homing pigeon that has no sense of direction? Weird!

Water Boatman Sculpture

After my shift, I was dropped off all the way back to Norwich. But instead of taking the bus home, I decided to visit Chapelfield (a mall) to buy something for Mum's birthday. However, I got side tracked and forgot what I was intending of doing when I noticed a giant sculpture of a water boatman. This was part of a set of 12 giant insect sculptures scattered around the mall until the end of this month. Apart from a few missing their antennae, they were fairly impressive. If you are in Norwich this September, I highly recommend you go take a look yourself.