July 1st Whitlingham Broad

I was back at Whitlingham Broad today. I was dropped off at the far end of the road. My aim was to walk back to the top to where the barn café and car park is and to look for plants along the way. There was a hint of rain in the air, but it didn't lead to anything but a minor drizzle. A few hoary mullein stood tall like miniature trees with branches full of yellow flowers by the far car park at the start of my walk. As I continued, these were replaced by the even taller purple flowered stands of rosebay willowherbs and, later still, purple loosestrifes.

 

Crab Spider with hoverfly on a Pyramidal Orchid

The landscape of my walk changed from river and roadside to meadows and woodland to the broad itself. Behind one fenced off area during my journey was a small meadow. Within it, I could see the bright colours of purple and pink dotted within the long grass. They were so bright that you'd have to be blind not to miss them. These were the unmistakable flowers of pyramidal orchids, my 4th orchid species I've found in Norwich so far during lockdown (bee, southern marsh and common spotted were the others). These colourful orchids filled this mini patch of meadow like stars in the sky. Amazingly, despite being a little bit of a distance from the fence, I noticed that one of these pyramidal orchids had a bright white spot on it. Using my binoculars (and my camera), I could see that it was a crab spider. And what's more remarkable and despite standing out like a sore thumb was that this ambush predator had managed to catch a hoverfly!

 

It wasn't all orchids to be found in this small patch of meadow. Growing by the fence were a few new species for my list such as lady's bedstraw, agrimony and Perforate St John's-wort. I also found quite a few burdocks, but they were just a possible few days away from flowering.

 

Amphibious Bistort

Exploring the edge of the broad, there were a few great spots where I kept discovering some flower or another that were only just in bloom. Hemp agrimony (not even related to the agrimony earlier, which was yellow and not fluffy and pink like this species), lesser water parsnip (according to my app), celery-leaved buttercups, musk thistles, purple loosestrifes, meadowsweet and redshank (which I recognised from the black splodged leaves, but was seeing the small pink rods of flowers for the first time) were just some of the things that were displaying well by or near the water's edge. I also found a 'raft' of amphibious bistort floating above the surface of the broad and a few distinctive arrow-shaped leaves of arrowhead that weren't even close to blooming yet.