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.