Oct 27th Holkham Hall & Oct 30th Strumpshaw Fen

Oct 27th Holkham Hall

On Sunday, I went on a family outing to Holkham Hall with my parents, my sister-in-law and my 3 year old niece, Ava. We wanted to show her the deer rut. Thankfully, they were rutting this time but it was more noise than actual fighting. I took Ava's hand and we slowly crept closer to them, using the trees as cover. I taught her to be quiet as we approached them, only communicating in whispers. After a couple of minutes, she had had enough and wanted to get back to her mum, so I was left surrounded by fallow deer alone. During her short interaction with the deer, she seemed pretty fixated on them in short bursts. At least she seemed like she was interested. I reckon we'll make a naturalist out of her yet!

Oct 30th  Strumpshaw Fen

Kingfisher

The clocks have now changed back an hour and the Reception Hide's opening time has also changed from 9:30am to 10am. This meant I had plenty more free time to birdwatch before my shift at the hide began. Not that there was much about, however, as the reserve felt rather quiet this morning. I saw glimpses of pink-footed geese and a great spotted woodpecker, and at Fen Hide, bearded tits, a kingfisher, a Chinese water deer and many pheasants. While at Reception Hide, I sat and watched mallards and a pair of gadwall go about their day lazily sleeping or feeding while marsh harriers and buzzards soar above them with a little grebe making a late appearance during my final hour. It was not the most exciting of days, but at least we had plenty of people visiting (but no where near as busy as last week) and we made quite a sale with the RSPB pin badges. People really go crazy sometimes over these things as they attempt to collect them all. This morning, we managed to sell a total sum of around £45 worth of pin badges!

Blue Tit

Jay

Oct 23rd Strumpshaw Fen

Foggy scenes at Strumpshaw

Thick fog blanketed over Strumpshaw this morning. With the days being a lot shorter now, the sun was still rising when I arrived at the reserve. There was a spooky sense of feeling about the place, a feeling quite relevant with Halloween just a week away. There were even spider webs bejewelled in dew decorating everything. It wasn't to last, though, as from inside Fen Hide I was watching 4-6 Chinese water deer chase one another in the dense grey before the sun began to make an impact and forced the fog to disperse. From its demise, I was able to see more things including stonechats and water pipits. There was even a surprising appearance of two green sandpipers making a short circling flight around the front of the hide.

Chinese Water Deer 

After a peaceful start to the morning at Fen Hide, I returned to Reception Hide to utter chaos. It is half term and schools are closed, that is except for one. You see, Strumpshaw has turned into a makeshift school for wizards as there were activities for children to do such as wand making set throughout the woodland trail. What ensued was a hide full of excited children dressed in various costumes and the reserve became a busy, noisy place. The car park and overflow car park were quickly full. There was even a bit of drama when someone managed to get their car stuck in the mud and our wardens formed a rescue team to get it out!

Bearded Tit

On the bird front, it was fairly quiet at Reception Hide. However, there was one highlight when a couple of bearded tits showed themselves on the reeds to my left close to the hide. I also saw a sparrowhawk, marsh harriers and buzzards as well as the usual duck species.

Oct 16th Strumpshaw Fen

Pink-footed Geese

Autumn has fully taken hold now. The trees have changed their colour and their leaves and seeds are dropping to the ground, fungi are sprouting their fruiting bodies all over the place and the winter visiting birds are arriving in great numbers. Redwings, in particular, are pouring into the UK in their thousands. I could hear their high-pitched, single-noted 'tseeep' calls throughout the morning, even while it was still dark as I waited for my bus into Norwich to get to the station for my train. When I arrived to Strumpshaw, these calls were joined by the 'pink-wink-wink' of pink-footed geese that were flying over the reserve skein after skein. There was a moment when these calls became a loud cacophony like an eruption of noise as hundreds of these geese flew over at once from the direction of Cantley.

Buzzard

It seemed like it was going to be a nice day as I was making my way from Brundall station. However, there was a hint of pink in the early morning sky. Shepard's warning. And so, it was another Wet Wednesday to add to the list. The rain was drizzly but swept over the reserve like a blanket and made everything seem dull and gloomy. I was definitely not going to have the same luck as last week today, that's for sure. Though, saying that, I still managed to see a very brief otter popping out of the broad outside Reception Hide like some porpoise before losing track of it completely as it submerged itself again. I also saw a snipe, stonechat and 5-6 Chinese water deer from Fen Hide as well as marsh harriers, buzzards, wigeon, greylags and other common wildfowl. It was no where near as exciting as it was as that crazy Wednesday last week.

Oct 4th Holkham Hall & Oct 9th Strumpshaw Fen & Buckenham Marshes

Oct 4th  Holkham Hall

Fallow Deer

My parents took me out to Holkham Hall on Friday to see the red and fallow deer rut. Sadly, it felt like a wasted visit because the fallow weren't doing much in terms of adrenaline fuelled action and the reds were nowhere to be found.

It may have been an unrememberable trip, but the day turned out to be memorable in a different way. It was my first shift at my new job. Later that afternoon, my phone rang and I accepted the shift for 4 hours that evening. It was as expected; tiring, repetitive and physically draining. You don't need a gym if you have this job of mine, that's for sure.

Oct 9th  Strumpshaw Fen and Buckenham Marshes

Great White Egret

No rain on a Wednesday? Amazing! It was actually a nice day and I was lucky with not just the weather, but with the wildlife too. Name it and I've probably seen it today. From Fen Hide, I saw bearded tits, marsh harriers, two great white egrets, a little grebe, a sparrowhawk and a brief glimpse of a bittern. Then, at Reception Hide, an otter with two cubs, a kingfisher, another great white egret, more sparrowhawks and bearded tits, a peregrine falcon, a water rail and, right at the very end of my shift, a very distant osprey! You just could not make it up! It was clearly the best morning I've had at Strumpshaw by far this year.

Cattle Egret

After my shift, I went to Buckenham Marshes with my Reception Hide colleague, Tricia, to check out the cattle egret that was reported to us by one of our regulars. We've never seen one here in the Yare Valley before and of course we were more than willing see it. Finding the egret proved pretty easy. This small white heron was sitting beside a flooded pool partially hidden in some slightly tall grass not too far away from the only hide at this reserve. It didn't really move very much, just sitting there preening itself. It provided us all the time in the world to admire it and get a few photos. As well as the egret, we also saw a snipe, 2 Chinese water deer with fawns, a kestrel and hundreds of pink-footed geese.

Oct 2nd Strumpshaw Fen

Back at the start of this year, I set myself on two challenges. One was to find as many of the 23 species of orchid found in Norfolk. I did pretty well, finding 19 of the 23. The other challenge was to find a job. I can finally tell you that I have now achieved this goal. I am now a postal sorter for the Royal Mail (sort of). So, if you want to know why I haven't been posting as much as I used to, this is why. I've only recently completed my induction and waiting for my first shift to occur. At least I had another shift at Strumpshaw to enjoy whilst I wait.

Ivy Bee

It had been raining heavily all day yesterday and it spilt over to this morning as I made my way to Strumpshaw. However, it was more of a light drizzle than a heavy deluge as it was throughout last night, and before I could label today as another Wet Wednesday, it didn't amount to too much and the rest of the morning was largely pleasant though a bit cold and blustery. All the work that was being done along the Sandy Wall was now completed and the path was fully open once again. I made my way to Fen Hide without needing to detour through the boggy meadow trail and I was spotting four snipe trying to hide in the short reed stubble in front of the hide while stonechats were making it hard to not notice them flit and call in the taller reeds behind them. Rainbows were appearing quite frequently during my time inside the hide and I was trying my best to capture that perfect shot of geese and other birds flying through them, only for me to fail in each attempt. I was just not quick enough!


Over at Reception Hide, it was a relatively quiet shift and the chill in the wind blowing into the hide made it a rather cold one, too. There were no otters this week, but the kingfisher turned up and there was a quick flash of a couple of bearded tits and the marsh harriers were showing well, soaring close to the hide and there was a bit of talon grappling between two females at one point. Outside, the ivy covering the trees were buzzing with insect activity as ivy bees were pollenating with their flowers.

Osprey

Then, while I was eating my lunch, my colleague shouted one word to get everyone on full alert. "Osprey!" I had thought that they had now all left for Africa by now, but here, flying right above the broad, was an osprey! This turned out to become the best encounter with an osprey I have ever had. And even when it had us all believe that it was leaving us after several minutes hovering and soaring around the reserve with the closest of views I've had from Reception Hide since 2012, it came back for a second hunting session and this time, it caught something! After making its successful catch, it flew to a dead tree behind the row of trees on my right to eat it. The osprey made short work of the fish and after a couple of minutes, it was gone!