Four Seasons At Once

 March 6th Strumpshaw Fen

It was a very chilly start of the month, a sign of things to come. I began my first pre-shift walk with a stroll around the woodland trail, seeing redwings, scarlet elfcaps, siskins and a couple of primrose flowers. Then, after passing the pumphouse and along the muddy river path, I saw eye to eye with an otter that swam so close to my side of the bank that I thought it would climb onto the path with me. Sadly, it didn't, but it remained along the river edge partially obscured by the clump of reeds beside me. And then, it started to rain...

The rain was on and off for the remainder of the morning. It led to a rather dull day with very little about. There were fewer wildfowl on the broad than last month and the marsh harriers weren't very active either. However, another otter (or perhaps the same one) swam close to Reception Hide towards midday to make the day more worthwhile. During a dry spell, I went for a short look around the woods, hearing siskins and bullfinches. And when I returned, I missed a bittern!

Redwing & Otter (March 6th),
Brambling, Siskin,
 Muntjac & Some Jelly Fungus (March 11th)  

March 8th Whitlingham Broad

I was on a 2 week break, however, the weather decided to turn rather wintery. The temperature had dropped and snow was covering much of the country, though it hadn't reached Norfolk yet. With the fear of snow approaching, my parents decided that we stick to somewhere close by to avoid the worst of it. In the end, we went to Whitlingham Broad, hoping to complete the circuit before the snow arrived.

It was an ok walk with redpolls and siskins on the alders, tufted ducks, pochards, great crested grebes, gadwall, greylags, mute swans, Egyptian geese, mallards, Canada geese, coots, moorhens, a heron and a little egret. Halfway around the broad, we didn't escape the snow after all. It arrived in mini flurries, but it didn't really cover anything.

March 11th Lackford Lakes

It was my 37th birthday! And what better way to celebrate it than a day out with my parents to somewhere I rarely visit. We travelled over the Norfolk/Suffolk border to Lackford Lakes. I was hoping to find a lesser spotted woodpecker that I heard had been seen regularly here recently. Sadly, despite reported sightings during my visit, I was unable to see one. At least it was a nice sunny day.

The visit seemed rather disappointing at first glance. Nothing out of the unusual or that special that I haven't seen many times before. However, I did see enough to satisfy me on my birthday. You could say I left with a decent list which included; siskins, tufted ducks, pochards, wigeon, a lot of teal, several snipe, lapwing, Egyptian geese, Canada geese, greylags, great crested grebes, little grebes, oystercatchers, cormorants, a little egret, a heron, redwing, a brambling, reed buntings, rabbits and many muntjac deer. I also heard my first chiffchaff of the year. It wasn't a bad birthday outing in the end and we rounded the day off with a meal out.

March 13th Strumpshaw Fen, Buckenham Marshes, Breydon Waters, Filby Broad & Ormesby Little Broad

The bus was late! This forced me to catch a later train than usual. I then got to Strumpshaw with enough time for a short walk. It was a very windy day and to my surprise the colony of Clarke's mining bees were now out and very actively mating and digging holes. Amazing that they didn't all get blown away! In the woods, I saw siskins and amongst a flock of chaffinches was a brambling or two. 

I made my way back for my shift and as I reached Reception, I noticed a sign blocking my way that wasn't there earlier. The reserve was declared closed due to the 56mph gale force winds. For some reason though, the Reception Hide was to remain open. There wasn't much to see in this weather other than a few greylags, coots, 2 Canada geese, and the odd marsh harrier. However, there was a reward for staying at the end of the shift, as we had a female hen harrier surprising us out of nowhere and was being mobbed by some crows!

Tufted Duck (March 11th), Clarke's Mining Bees (March 13th),
Great Spotted Woodpecker (March 15th), Spoonbill
& Long-billed Dowitcher (March 17th)

After my shift, I went with my former Wednesday Reception Hide partner, Tricia, who asked me out on what was to be a very blustery mystery tour. First up was a visit to Buckenham. Wigeon, starlings, Chinese water deer, lapwing, a ruff and a distant flock of golden plover being spooked by a marsh harrier were the highlights here.

Next up, we made our way to an Asda car park in Great Yarmouth to climb up an embankment to try and scan the estuary of Breydon Water while trying to keep ourselves from being bowled over by the powerful gusts. The tide was in and it was hard to stand still while trying to look at the birds that were doing their best in sheltering from the wind, unlike us. We did manage to spot a pintail, large groups of curlew, dunlin, gulls and wigeon all huddling together for protection. 

Filby Broad was our next destination as a few ferruginous ducks had been overwintering here for a couple of months and Tricia wanted to see if we could find them. Unfortunately, we couldn't find them and the broad was as rough as the sea. It wasn't a complete waste of time as we did see some goldeneye, tufted ducks and a heron.

A short walk to Ormesby Little Broad on the opposite side of the road was a much calmer, sheltered  place to be compared to what Filby was like. No ferruginous ducks here either, but the place was full of great crested grebes, tufted ducks, a pair of gadwall and a great white egret that dropped into the reeds on the far side of the broad. Not the best of days, but it was still a nice adventure in the wind.

March 14th Catton Park

While I was out with Tricia, she introduced me to an app called Merlin. You make recordings with your phone and the app identifies bird songs and calls as it goes with a name and a picture of the bird popping up. It seemed interesting, so I installed it on my phone and, as it was a much nicer day, I went to test it out at my local park. You do need to rely on the phone's microphone range and noises such as traffic could prevent the app from picking up the bird sounds you want identified. But, with some patience, it actually works very well. It was able to capture the songs and calls of nuthatches, robins, blue and great tits, etc. Though at one point it, did pick up a short high pitched 'seep' of what it identified as a reed bunting. Kind of strange when I've never seen a reed bunting here before.

March 15th Sculthorpe Moor

It was a nice day and Mum was taking me out to Sculthorpe. On the way though, she accidentally knocked over a pheasant, traumatising me in the process. Poor thing! Not a sight I needed to start this outing with.

Once we got to the reserve, I was keen on showing Mum my latest app. It did well again, even though there was a sound of chainsaws that made the place a bit noisy as some work going on at the reserve. They were going to close off the reserve because of this work at 2pm, so we were now against the clock.

As well as the expected robins, chaffinches, wrens, blue and great tits, the app managed to record the sounds of bullfinches, siskins, redwings, coal tits, the drumming of a great spotted woodpecker, treecreepers, goldcrests and even an outburst of a blackcap that I didn't hear myself. As for actual sightings, we had; 2 red kites, bullfinches, a brambling, buzzards, a great white egret, muntjac deer, collard doves, a nuthatch, long-tailed tits, reed buntings and greenfinches.

March 17th Cley

My Aunt Barbara offered to take me out to Cley on her birthday and there were plenty of surprises to make her happy. The stars of the day had to be the spoonbills. We saw 7 in total. 4 flying on the way to the central hides, 1 at Pat's Pool (which gave us the best and closest of views) and 2 along East Bank.

Another highlight was the long-billed dowitcher, which was in front of two of the central hides, the first time I've seen it from these central pools. Also seen were avocets, snipe, lapwing, pintail, wigeon, teal, shovelers, shelducks, marsh harriers, a kestrel, curlews, dunlin heard chiffchaffs and bearded tits and my app identified a water pipit for me flying into an open area beside the East Bank, in which at that point it started to rain and rain hard. A very good day despite getting soaked at the end.

March 20th Strumpshaw Fen

No strong winds this time around to close Strumpshaw, but it was still a rubbish day as it was raining. But the rain did not stop me from walking to Fen Hide and in the woods to play around with my app a bit more. Through several recordings I made that day, it identified; chiffchaffs, nuthatches, greylags, Canada geese, marsh harriers, Cetti's warblers, treecreepers, goldcrests, marsh tits, redwings, a blackcap, a brambling and many other species. However, when I tried to record a large flock of several hundred siskins making a cacophony of twittering noise in the woods, the app struggled to single out the species, they were that noisy!

The rest of the morning was a bit of a washout with very little out of the ordinary. But then out of nowhere, the sun came out and was warm enough for the mining bees to emerge by the bench at the start of Sandy Wall and at the sand cliff area.

March 26th Honing

I decided to make a new addition to my displays and spectacles challenge as I realised that none of my selections were around in March. So, I decided to add a daffodil display to the list. I discovered that there was going to be a daffodil day at Honing, a place I never even heard of until I did my research. 

I went to see the mile long display down a road leading out of the small village with Barbara. If you wanted to, there was an option for the day to see them via tractor, but the best way was on foot. On either side of the road was daffodil after daffodil. Though these weren't wild or anything, it was still an enjoyable walk. The daffodils weren't exactly the ones I expected with the traditional long trumpets, but they were tall and there was a variety of yellows and whites forming two lines that led you down the mile. One side had more daffodils than the other, but it made me feel what Wordsworth wrote in his famous daffodil poem with the sound of skylarks and other birds in the background.

Daffodils (March 26th)
Redpoll
& Nomad Bee (March 27th) & Kestrel (March 17th)

March 27th Strumpshaw Fen

There was a chill in the air again. A few hail showers disrupted what was actually a nice day with the sun trying to warm things up. A late bus made me catch the later train again, which gave me very little time around the reserve as the opening hours to Reception Hide changed to 9:30am. I walked to the sluice gate, but it was very muddy and that was about it.

Siskins and redpolls were by Gnarly Oak and I heard chiffchaffs and a blackcap. The mining bees were still active and I found a nomad bee (which lays their eggs in the mining bee's nests) amongst them. Marsh harriers were putting on quite a show, performing their aerial displays. At least 7-10 males were stooping and rising back again and rolling around in the air together. I also spotted buzzards and a sparrowhawk up there with them as well as a red kite.