A Few Surprises

 Feb 5th Strumpshaw Fen

I was on the hunt for plants. My mission for the year is to find as many plants at Strumpshaw and draw them, while also plotting out where about they are and how abundant they are. My plant ID knowledge is still not very good, but I wanted to try anyway. Cherry plum blossom and hazel catkins were out, giving us a hint that spring was around the corner. Snowdrops were now covering the woods as well as clumps of soft rush and I discovered probable male ferns. Walking along the river, I failed to see the barn owl in its box this week and the red-throated diver that had been spotted on the river in recent weeks. I did however, see buzzards, marsh harriers, a heron and 2 Chinese water deer.

At Reception Hide, a snipe was the real highlight of the day as I had to constantly find it for visitors as it moved about amongst the open area of cut reed stubble to the right of the hide. It was sometimes easier to spot when it was bobbing, but other times it made itself difficult to spot while it was sleeping. Other than the snipe, there were greylags, mute swans, a coot and marsh harriers.

Snipe (Feb 5th), Red-breasted Goose (Feb 10th),
Weasel (Feb 12th), Cranes,
Otter prints & Witch's Butter 

Feb 10th Cley

It was feeling warm at the coast today. I felt kind of overdressed in my coat as Mum and I visited Cley.

We started our visit at the hides where hundreds of unsettled lapwings took to the air, swirling around like a shaken snow globe accompanied by an almost deafening chorus of "pee-wit". There were also smaller numbers of avocets, godwits, ruff, redshank, teal, shoveler and shelducks.

After spending some time in the hides, I then split up with Mum and made my way to West Bank to look for some twite and a red-breasted goose. When I got there, the twite had gone and the goose had moved to North Scrape. So, I had to make my way there across the beach and to the blind that's overlooking the scrape in question. Before I got there, a kind man gave me an early peek at the goose through his scope from the beach. It stood out amongst the large gathering of brent geese on the scrape. I managed to get a few photos from the blind before it took off with the brent. I was so lucky! Also seen were several pintails, the odd curlew and a little egret.

Feb 12th Strumpshaw Fen

A chilly start, but warmed up to be a nice sunny, spring like day. I arrived around 7:45am and was greeted by the sight of an otter out the front of Reception Hide swimming away from me. I had to get round a flooded section of road to get to Strumpshaw this morning. So I was really worried that the reserve was also flooded. Though Fen Trail to Tower Hide was closed, the Fen Hide wasn't. The only flood issue here were a few puddles leading to the hide.

My morning pre-shift walk wasn't that interesting. Not even any new plants to draw. However, when I got back to Reception, I noticed a couple of men looking at something by the pond behind the feeder area. It turned out to be a weasel!! It poked its head out of a hole a few times before making a dash to a log pile nearby. In 2016, I tried to get a photo as part of a Strumpshaw challenge but failed. It wasn't until a year later when I managed to get a slightly blurry photograph of one. This time, I was much happier with the results. Weasels are tricky animals to get a photo of.

Also today was a snipe, 8 coot, 28 greylags, a Canada goose, 4 mute swans, a few marsh harriers and buzzards at Reception, a heron at Fen Hide and a great white egret on the way to the reserve.

Feb 19th Strumpshaw Fen

I managed to get a lift in to Strumpshaw this morning and once I got out of the car around 7:30am, I was greeted with the sound of bugling cranes! I could hear them as I went for a walk in the woods. I also found one clump of primroses in flower for me to draw up later. As I made my way to the pumphouse, I was able to see a barn owl in its box. When I reached the pumphouse itself, I noticed two large birds flying over the river heading towards Buckenham. Cranes!!! I wonder if they will nest at Strumpshaw again?

At Reception Hide, I got back after a sudden rain shower and didn't see much out of the ordinary other than swans, greylags, a pair of Canada geese, some coots, mallards, marsh harriers and buzzards. I went back into the woods to show two visitors the witch's butter and scarlet elfcap fungi and heard treecreepers, siskins and song thrushes. I also saw a great spotted woodpecker and reed buntings.

Feb 26th Strumpshaw Fen

Floods were on the road for a 3rd week in a row and two of the three hides were closed off due to the paths being underwater. After getting another lift in, there weren't many places to walk around this morning. All I could do was walk down Sandy Wall, along the river to pumphouse and into the woods.

I started my way down the Sandy Wall when a woman showed up behind me from nowhere, pointed out a barn owl flying over the meadow and then she left the same way she came from. So random. The owl, though, hung around a lot longer. It even perched on a post very close by to me beside the path. The bushes were obscuring my camera's view for a perfect shot and it seemed to be obscuring the owl's view of me also  as I managed to creep to within a few metres from it! I still failed to get a photo by the time it saw me and took off, sadly.

Heading up to the pumphouse, I couldn't believe my luck again as I saw two large birds flying over the woods. Cranes! Again! They were more distant this time, but were heading towards Buckenham just like the week before.

The rest of the morning wasn't quite as interesting. Staff were working outside the Reception Hide in the reedbeds and in the far channels at the other end of the broad was a strange machine that's like a floating digger, called a Truxor, which was digging up the reed edges. So it was rather empty on the broad besides a few coots and marsh harriers. I went to look for plants, but couldn't really find much.

March 4th Strumpshaw Fen

Misty start, but at least everything is back open again, so I decided to go to Tower Hide while the mud was still hardened up by the cold. It was still bad and it really wasn't worth it. However, I did get to hear two bitterns booming (well, one booming, the other grunting). This was possibly the earliest I've heard them do so in all the years I've volunteered here. I also heard the drumming of woodpeckers and saw great crested grebes on the river and one at Reception Hide.

There was more work going on outside reception as the Broads Authority were using the Truxor to dredge out the edges of reedbeds much closer to the hide. The broad was almost quiet of birds due to it. However, above them, the sky was full of birds of prey (about 20+ of them) including 2 red kites and many marsh harriers and buzzards. It was quite a spectacle.

As I wanted to check on a few things, I went for a short walk along Sandy Wall. First, I found one Clark's mining bee by the start of the path. Then I noticed a kestrel hovering above the path and dived down and perched on the path's wooden border, clearly catching something. And then I found what I wanted to find, coltsfoot in flower. They were in bud earlier due to the mist and as they react to the sun and that it was now sunny, a few of them had opened their yellow flowers in response.

Returning from my walk, I went to check on the content of the trays of what a school group had caught during their pond dipping session. The children were very excited when I picked up a newt from a tray and held it in my hand. They wanted to hold it too. I obliged and they were more than happy.

Truxor (March 4th), Waxwing,
Sanderlings, Bar-tailed Godwit
& Brambling (March 13th) & Great Crested Grebes (March 18th)

March 6th - 7th

I was preparing for work when a sudden pain emerged in the left side of my abdomen. It was a kidney stone! My second ever and my first in 6 years. It wasn't quite as bad as my first one, but still painful as hell. I managed to keep myself fully medicated with pain killers that I was able to keep myself away from the hospital until the next morning. After nine hours in hospital, waiting around for a scan and taking my first ever suppository to numb the pain (a weird experience, that), the small stone came out naturally on its own I was able to go to work on the 8th, though feeling rather bruised and in pain down there afterwards. 

March 11th Strumpshaw Fen

It was my 38th birthday and it was a dull, gloomy day for it. The best thing I could muster as a birthday highlight was hearing the boom of a bittern near Fen Hide and woodpeckers drumming in the woods. There was a large flock of siskins feeding on the cones of alder trees and daffodils were in flower. From Reception Hide, it was rather quiet, though I did see a great crested grebe, coots making nests, a sparrowhawk, marsh harriers, greylags, Canada geese, a shelduck, 2 gadwall, a few mute swans and mallards.

March 13th Titchwell

I had a week off from work to celebrate my birthday and as both my parents were both off on this particular Wednesday, we decided to visit Titchwell. When we got to the entrance, we discovered that there was a crowd along the drive into the reserve. We had to dodge the photographers to get in. But what were they snapping photos of? WAXWINGS!!

We parked the car and walked back to join them for a better look. There were 6 of them and sat in the trees right above our heads! They were beautiful and didn't seem that bothered by us, despite what an RSPB volunteer says as we got told to stand back from them, even though it was these birds that decided to perch above us. So, whatever. I got my photos and left.

Leaving the waxwings, the rest of the reserve had nothing else that could really top them. There were plenty of black-headed gulls, a few Mediterranean gulls, avocets, black-tailed godwits, redshanks, dunlin, brent geese (a large gaggle of them), teal, curlew, grey plovers, 3 pintails (2 males, one female), oystercatchers and pied wagtails on the pools and saltmarshes. Marsh harriers and a red kite in the air. And on the beach, the tide was really far out and Dad and I walked on this old peat bed full of un-rotted bits of trees covered in mussels. By the shore, bar-tailed godwits, sanderlings and turnstones.

We had a late picnic by the feeders when we got back, where a brambling showed up. Then I ended the visit by checking on the tawny owl that was still asleep beneath the same ivy covered tree as last time I visited in January.

March 18th Strumpshaw Fen

The bitterns were booming, the woodpeckers were drumming and the birds were singing. That included chiffchaffs and blackcaps, which I heard for the first time this year. It was a nice day and it felt like spring was here to stay. A lizard was sunning itself along Sandy Wall to prove how nice it was.

During my walk, there was a lot of bird and insect activity. Bearded tits were pinging, a green woodpecker perched on a tree in front of me along Sandy Wall, around 40+ fieldfares flew over my head and then over the river and meadow pipits were doing their parachute song flight displays in the meadows. There were many marsh harriers sky dancing also and nomad bees were investigating mining bee nest holes to lay their own eggs inside. Lesser celandines were in bloom in surprising numbers across the reserve (I thought they were buttercups) and I found a few sedges with tufts poking out.

At Reception, a pair of great crested grebes were displaying to each other. They'd face each other and mimic one another's movements from head flicks to back preening and eventually, they would press up breast to breast, standing upright on the water to give me a real show. Sometimes bits of weed was used. Coots were also building their nests and I saw brimstone butterflies flying around. 

It was a good day until I left for home when a pain in my left kidney started hurting. Another stone! This time, it was much smaller and not quite as painful as the one a couple of weeks earlier and I still went to work the next day. Thankfully, I still had plenty of meds from last time to help numb the pain and the stone disappeared by the end of my shift at work.

Chinese Water Deer, Muntjac,
Barn Owl, Tufted Sedge,
Snipe & Great Crested Grebes (March 25th)

 March 25th Strumpshaw Fen

Another good day. Bitterns were still booming, a barn owl was hunting by its nest box near the pumphouse, a red kite flew over my head, bearded tits were peeking out of the reeds at Fen Hide and I had two very close encounters with deer, one a muntjac and the other a Chinese water deer. These deer didn't seem to know I was there and came near me to within a few metres until they eventually saw me and ran. I also noticed that there were lesser pond sedges (at least I think they are) everywhere and I found some very pretty tufted sedge beside the toe dipping platform.

The grebes were displaying outside Reception Hide again as were marsh harriers and buzzards. There was also a little grebe, a snipe, 4 gadwall and I found my first forget-me-not of the year.