Jan 29th Strumpshaw, Wroxham Broad & More!

There weren't many places I could go at Strumpshaw today. The paths were either too muddy or closed off because of the annual pheasant shoot on the reserve that's part of an agreement with the landowners to keep the reserve in the RSPB's hands. I felt kind of worried for Percy, my pheasant friend. Though he has been showing some aggressive signs towards me while I was walking through the woods (walking in front of me, flaunting his plumage as if to a rival male and producing the odd short hiss), once I learnt that the guns were coming, I just hoped he stayed away from the area they were shooting. However, after finishing filling up the feeders, he made a sudden disappearance when I returned from putting away the containers I used to bring the seed in. Where did he go? I went for a quick walk to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. Is he alive? I'll have to find out next week.

It was another slightly uneventful shift with only seeing the same ducks and marsh harriers, though there were a couple of buzzards and, at the very end of the shift, a peregrine made an appearance while being mobbed by a crow. My colleague, Tricia, was actually more happy in seeing the peregrine than I was because it meant that she was just two away from completing her goal of finding 100 species of bird within January.

Slavonian Grebe

After our shift, I suggested that I could help her complete her goal and at the same help me tick one target bird from my bird photo challenge. I haven't really gotten many species that I haven't gotten a photo of before since announcing the challenge. So, my suggestion was to go to Wroxham Broad to look for the Slavonian grebe that I've heard reports of in the last few days. Usually, these rare grebes are found on the sea around the coast at this time of year, but occasionally one shows up inland, such as this individual. Once we arrived to the broad, it wasn't long until Tricia's scope picked it up. The bird was very distant, on the far side of the broad, and kept disappearing from time to time.


In winter, Slavonian grebes are black and white with a red eye and look extremely similar to the black-necked grebe that I saw last month. There's some subtle differences that a trained eye can pick up easily, such as the slightly longer neck of the Slav as well as it having more white to its cheek. In summer, both these birds are more attractive adorning golden head plumes/crests and chestnut body with black heads, though the Slav is more attractive in my opinion. Slavonian grebes only breed in Scotland here in the UK, and back in 2012, I actually went to see them in all their beauty displaying to one another on Loch Ruthven, though it was raining and my encounter was cut short when Mum accidentally set off the alarm of our rental car at the time. This winter bird on the broad today was not only my second Slav grebe encounter, it was also my first sighting of one in Norfolk. Meanwhile, Tricia only had one more bird to tick off for her 100th.

Whooper and Bewick's Swans

Next was an unrewarding visit to Hickling Broad, we saw absolutely nothing. So we moved on to Ludham Airfield for a quick look at the swans wintering there before I had to go catch a train home. On the way, Tricia spotted a flock of fieldfare on a field. She had yet found them throughout this month until now, so here was her 100th bird. She had completed her goal, but we still went to see the swans at Ludham. When Tricia was last here, she had only ticked this large lounging group as Bewick's swans, but my expertise, I was able to point out that there were whooper swans here too. The size difference, neck length and bill colour differences stood out to me more than to her. With the light fading, I gave her a quick crash course in winter swans.

I thought I was done with wildlife watching when I finally returned to Norwich. But it turned out that wasn't the case. This was because I encountered a pied wagtail roost in action on the new built up road island along Prince of Wales Street. Daylight was on the verge of vanishing for good for the night as streetlights were replacing it. People were busy making their way home or where ever they were heading to. Oblivious to them, on the rooves of the building above were the pied wagtails making one last perching stop before pouring down into two of the three trees on the island. They seemed to prefer the smaller tree of the two with a full cover of green leaves, while using the larger, bare-branched one next door as another optional stop off point. I'm not sure how many were here, but I expect there's more than 50 or so, perhaps even 100. Eventually, I decided to leave for home and left them to it in the green tree, making a loud chorus of 'chessik' calls that could be heard a few shops down the road.

Jan 25th & 26th RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch Weekend 2020

It is that time of year again. The final weekend of January marks the RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. For the 41st time, the nation gets to help out with a survey to monitor the population of Britain's garden birds. The survey is pretty straight forward, sit and watch your garden for an hour and count the birds that enter it. Though to stop you from counting the same bird twice, you need to count how many of each species that visit at a single time. For example, if you see one robin, you can't add another until you see two robins at the same time. Anyone can take part and you don't have to be an expert.

Yesterday, to promote the survey, I went to volunteer at an event at Waterloo Park (my local patch). Last year, the event was extremely popular and even had a celeb to promote it. This year, however, there were quite a lot of cut backs and it wasn't as well advertised as it was a year ago, in other words, fewer families showed up. But for the ones that did show, they enjoyed making feeders, etc. I was at my own tent showing families the birds that were visiting the feeders we set up to attract them.

Long-tailed Tit

While at my little birding station, we were recording the bird species found in and above the park. The results after 4 hours standing in the cold (mostly from one spot) were; 2 robins, 3 dunnocks, 5 blackbirds, 8 blue tits, 6 great tits, 7 greenfinches, 2 collard doves, 15 woodpigeons, 7 black-headed gulls, 3 chaffinches, 2 herring gulls, 7 goldfinches, 2 magpies, 8 feral pigeons, 1common gull, 2 jays, 1 song thrush, 6 house sparrows, 2 carrion crows, 1 wren, 3 long-tailed tits, 1 coal tit and 5 starlings.

Today, I did my usual annual rounds at my parent's and my aunt's gardens. First up was my parent's garden. It was a pretty productive hour up until half way through when one of the neighbour's cats appeared briefly and it got really quiet after it saw us and ran back the way it came. If it didn't appear, I'd expect it would have been more successful. Our results in the end were; 1 wren, 4 long-tailed tits, 2 blue tits, 1 blackbird and 2 dunnocks. Then, at my Aunt Barbara's garden, we had; 2 woodpigeons, 2 collard doves, 1 robin, 1 dunnock and one chaffinch. Not too bad from my two urban gardens this year.

Jan 22nd Strumpshaw Fen

Not going to lie to you, it has been quite a bad week for me and my family. On Friday, while heading to Titchwell, we had news that my granddad was taken to hospital. He's been suffering with a racing heart, but since Friday, a manner of other symptoms elsewhere in his body have occurred as well which has made him rather out of it for the most part. Everyone in the entire family is of course worried about him and has been taking it in turns to give him some company. I went to visit him yesterday and he looked extremely frail, but had at least made some improvements to how he was over the weekend. We all hope he recovers soon, though from what I've heard, he might be in hospital for quite some time.

Mallard on ice!

Going to Strumpshaw this morning has been a welcome distraction. For a few hours, I could take my mind of what has been happening by walking mist-covered reserve to look for wildlife (not that there were many that I could visibly see within the mist). Percy the persistent pheasant gave me a lot of attention throughout my time at Strumpshaw today, following me around before and after I filled up the feeders. He seemed more interested in where I was going than the actual food.

Out in front of the Reception Hide, the broad was largely frozen over. The ducks kept to the more ice-free far side of the broad cloaked in a light cover of what remained of the mist. Some of them were deceived by the ice and made crash landings as they mistook it for clear water. It made the scene rather comical as they slipped and slide across the ice. I also saw marsh harriers, Chinese water deer, greylags song thrushes and goldcrests.

Back home, I spent the afternoon with Mum round mine as she sought through some things with me. But while we were up in my flat, outside, someone managed to swipe my mum's car, wrecking the driver's side door with glass everywhere! Talk about the worst timing for it to happen with Granddad in hospital and all!

Jan 15th & 17th Strumpshaw Fen & Titchwell

Jan 15th  Strumpshaw Fen

Scarlet Elfcup

The first wet Wednesday of the year. It was pouring with rain and I had to ask for a lift into Strumpshaw this morning, meaning I didn't really had time for a walk before my shift. I had only enough time to fill up the bird feeders, though, on this occasion it was missing a certain persistent feathered character waiting for me there. The Reception Hide was fairly quiet with just the usual suspects of marsh harriers, mallards, gadwall, teal and greylags (but no coot, which is very unusual), so I decided to make a short walk in the woods while the rain eased off a bit. During this walk, I found very little except a few scarlet elfcup fungi and my pheasant friend, who was still waiting for me as if I was doing my usual Wednesday routine, despite it being a few hours late than normal. He was pleased to see me as I walked by and started to follow me as I led him to the bird feeder area so he could get his share of the bird seed. Other than that, it was a rather uneventful day.

Jan 17th Titchwell

Just to remind you, this year I have challenged myself to photograph birds that I haven't gotten a decent photo of yet. This includes nocturnal birds such as the tawny owl and the woodcock, two of the most difficult birds to look for in broad daylight. I've asked around for any reliable roosting sites for either of them. For the owl, I was told to visit the church yard at North Elmham and find the tallest tree one apparently roosts at during the day. I went to try my luck on Sunday and came back seeing nothing. I even checked the trees of a site across the road of a chapel ruin and still found nothing.

Today, I went to Titchwell for my other nocturnal target. I have known for years that to see a woodcock, I need to scan the woodland surrounding the visitor centre, but they have always eluded me. I have been hearing rumours that there has been one individual snoozing in the same spot somewhere along the boardwalk for the past two weeks. In fact, it was seen in the same spot just yesterday. However, as expected, when I went to look for it during my visit, it had to not be there when I was around. Typical! Same result as with every visit. Everyone sees it but me!

Red-breasted Merganser

For other birds that I have yet gotten a photo of, I had to search the sea. I have plenty of seabirds on my list, especially things like divers and skuas, but I'm also missing red-breasted mergansers to my bird photo collection. There were a few of these saw-billed ducks bobbing about on the waves, but as you'd expect, they were a bit of a distance away. My best attempt of a photo was a distant shot of them, a bit blurry, but I think you can just about make them out enough to tell what they are.




Other birds seen today were; marsh harrier, brent geese, teal, wigeon, shovelers, mute swans, greylags, knot, lapwing, avocets, spotted redshank, common redshanks, oystercatchers, little grebe, little egrets, curlews, shelducks, great crested grebe, cormorants, turnstone and hundreds of pink-footed geese in a field on the way home.

Jan 8th Strumpshaw Fen, Ranworth Broad and Acle

Happy new year, everyone! I know that we are now eight days into the new decade, but today I finally had the chance to do my first shift of 2020 at Strumpshaw. It has felt like a long time since I had been here. But now that the festive period is over, it is time to get back to what I love.

It was still dark when I arrived to the reserve this morning. From Reception Hide, I could hear the chattering of starlings that were still in their overnight roosting spot in the reed bed to the left of the hide. I decided to sit and wait for their departure. I had initially thought it would only be a matter of minutes before they rushed out from the reeds. I was wrong. It took a good chunk of time, perhaps just under an hour, before they finally dispersed. Sparrowhawks were attracted to their hubbub, with one perching in a nearby tree until flying circle in the general area like an aerial shark waiting for the perfect moment to strike. By 8:20 am, there was movement from the starlings. Unlike previous times, they did not leave all at once in one go. Instead, they went up in three smaller groups that swirled for a few brief seconds before joining up and made their exit.

Moments after turning off the record button for the starlings exit video, I turned my head to face the broad. It was at that moment I noticed something. An otter! I was so absorbed in the starlings, that I had not seen it arrive. By the time I saw it, it was already in front of the reedy islands at the centre of the broad.

Thanks to the starlings and then the otter, it was half eight and I really only had time for a quick walk to the river and back before needing to return to do the feeders and to start my shift. This short walk ended up being not very exciting as I didn't really see anything, not even Percy the persistent pheasant. After two weeks away, I thought he had forgotten about me and what I looked like, but once I brought the food over, he rushed over to me like a hungry pet.

During my shift, it was a bit of a duck fest with a few marsh harriers, buzzards, sparrowhawks and a kestrel added into the mix. The otter even made a second appearance, though this time it was much shorter as it hugged the edge of the reed bed between the left side channel and far left channel of the broad before disappearing again.



Ferruginous Duck

After my shift, my colleague, Tricia, fancied an outing with me to see some more birds to add to our new year lists. We were hoping that the desert wheatear at Eccles-on-Sea that had been seen throughout this week was around, but unfortunately there were no reports of it yesterday and there was no news of it today either. So, we decided to go to the next best thing; a female ferruginous duck at Ranworth Broad. Though I've seen this species a couple of times before, I've never gotten a decent photo of one, which I wanted as part of my latest challenge. When we got to Ranworth, a small crowd of familiar faces crowded at the narrowest part of the jetty near the now closed visitor centre. It took some time until the small, slightly reddish duck showed itself from its hiding place and again until it showed itself for even longer for better yet slightly distant views of it.

A boat passed through and disturbed the wildfowl in the area, but only enough to move either to the side of the river that channels the broad or towards us. Everyone was hoping the ferruginous duck would pick the latter choice for better photos, but it did the former choice instead, to our disappointment. This was still a decent bird, nowhere near as red as the male of its species, but good enough to satisfy me. Though, if I had a much closer shot of it, I'd be even happier.

Cranes

Finally, as daylight was beginning to fade, we had one last place to visit before Tricia took me back to Brundall station. She took me to a few fields outside Acle to see cranes that were feeding on them. I never even knew that these large birds were even here, but apparently this has been their feeding ground throughout this winter and possibly other winters before it. It wasn't hard to spot the two that were in the ploughed field close to us, but it took some scanning to spot the others in the other surrounding fields. In total, we counted at least 14 of these brilliant but rare birds. Not a bad first outing for 2020!

My 10 Memories of the Decade

With the 2010's drawing to a close, I thought it would be a great time to look back at the past ten years. There are just so many to choose from and it was near impossible to decide just one for each year. But here is what I've decided. As I only started this blog at the end of December 2014, the only place some of these moments have been written are in my wildlife diaries. So it may be the first time you may have heard of these moments. I hope you enjoy!

2010:  I had just left college during 2010 and to celebrate, I decided to stay for a month with my Aunt Barbara, who at the time was living in Texas. I had never been to the USA before or since, so it was going to be one hell of an adventure. In October of 2010, Barbara took me on a tour around Texas. We went high, climbing Enchanted Rock (which was one of the tallest natural structure in Texas and was an extremely hot and tiring climb) and we went low, visiting the remarkable underground rock formations of the Inner Space Caverns. I encountered many great Texan wildlife from monarch butterflies to scissor- tailed flycatchers. I even spent one morning at a sewage works where I recorded 37 species of bird in a few short hours with a local group.

However, what really topped my Texan adventure was seeing over a million Mexican free-tailed bats leave their roost site, which was a busy motorway bridge. My aunt's neighbour, at the time, was a lovely lady who happened to be one of the main people who studies these bats at various roosts around the state. On my final week, she kindly took me and Barbara to this bridge not too many miles away from the state capital of Austin. With so much traffic going over and under the bridge, its incredible to imagine that anything would want to call this man-made structure home, let alone a million bats. But the signs of their existence were everywhere splatted and smeared along the road beneath it. Bat guano! There was certainly a distinctive smell lingering in the air from it. Then, as night fell, the bats left their roost in a seemingly endless stream heading out into the countryside. It was quite a sight and it was pretty hairy at times when they were dodging the traffic and an incoming freight train, but it kind of added to the magic in a strange and unforgettable way.

2011: This was the year I started volunteering at Strumpshaw Fen. Before I took on my usual Reception Hide shifts, I was here monitoring that year's marsh harrier breeding season. After one such survey session in June, I was walking back from Tower Hide, when I noticed a group of people with two standing atop of a bench, all looking at something in the water behind a cover of reeds. "What can you see?" I asked. "Otters!" came the reply. In seconds, I was up on that bench with them and I saw my very first otter accompanied with a cub! Since that day, I have had many encounters with these magical animals, but I will never forget how I saw my first. I also like to mention two other encounters, one with a stoat at Cley rolling bird eggs with its nose, and the other being a female hen harrier sitting on a pile of cut reeds right in front of Reception Hide at Strumpshaw one foggy December morning, staring right at me with its beautiful yellow eyes.

2012: During May of 2012, I travelled to the Cairngorms in Scotland with my parents. The mountains were snowy peaked still, providing some great scenery throughout our time here. Within a span of a week, we saw bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth, Slavonian grebes at Loch Ruthven, but no Nessie at Loch Ness. However, my moment of the year had to be seeing a couple of male capercaillies sticking their heads out of two different bushes with a group at Loch Garten and then travelling up to the top of the snow-covered Cairngorm mountain via a funicular railway, seeing ptarmigan through someone's scope, all in the span of one morning!

2013: This a tricky one. 2013 was a great year for butterflies. Before I even had a blog, I set myself a challenge to see as many species I could find in one year. I've since lost track how many I've exactly seen, but I can remember quite a few including highlights such as clouded yellow, marbled white, silver-studded blue, swallowtail, grayling, chalkhill blue, silver-washed fritillary and white-letter, purple and green hairstreak as well as many more common species.

2013 was also a great year for birds. There was a male red-footed falcon at Lakenheath in May and a wryneck at Strumpshaw in August. But it all kicked off in September when I set myself on another challenge, to see as many species within in one month. In the end, I managed to get a total of 93 species which included; osprey, curlew sandpiper, bittern, kingfisher, garganey and, best of all, a Wilson's phalarope (at Cley), which is an extremely rare American visiting wader.

2014: I had two big, memorable holidays in 2014. First, was a trip to Northumberland, which included a boat trip to the Farne Islands to see colonies of puffins and other seabirds (there was also an incident when someone slipped and broke their leg at one of the islands, in which we somehow got him aboard the boat before taking him back to the mainland). The other was a trip to southern Spain and Gibraltar with a Naturetrek group. It was September yet again and just like the previous year, I was doing another bird species count challenge, only this time, with the aid of this particular holiday, I was able to destroy 2013's record with 159 species. The holiday itself was pretty good, seeing the barbary apes at Gibraltar, large numbers of migrating vultures, eagles and other birds, flamingos, two-tailed pasha butterflies and a pod of long-finned pilot whales!

2015: This was the year my blog really kicked off and when I took you guys along for the ride as I shared my wildlife encounters with you. From badgers to fen orchids, long-eared bats to short-eared owls and bird's-nest fungi to water shrews, 2015 was quite an eventful year. I even appeared on set of Springwatch Unsprung at Minsmere as an audience member with my dad. So how do you single out a single memory from such a great year of wildlife watching? Well, with a boat trip down along the Cornish coastline seeing seals, gannets, Manx shearwaters and Risso's and common dolphins of course! We had two pods of common dolphins follow our catamaran as we sailed across the clear blue Cornish sea!

2016: On the year I turned 30, I celebrated by going on another Naturetrek holiday, this time to the Vercors (an alpine region of south-east France). I had an amazing time here. We saw so many species of butterfly and orchid (including ghost orchids and Apollo butterflies), as well as Alpine ibex, Alpine marmot and chamois. Besting them all, however, was an unforgettable night at a small fishing lake seeing beavers. We waited at this lake until dusk and a full moon rose over the mountains. Marsh frogs hopped around my feet, while nightjars and bats swooped above my head. Songs of golden orioles, nightingales and turtle doves could be heard. And then, out of nowhere, I spotted this floating shape right in front of me a few metres from the shore. It was a beaver! Me and this woman from the group had the best views of anyone that night. It was one of the best nights of my life!

2017: I had a lot of personal issues regarding money and my photo storage problem sprouting their heads in this year, it was kind of difficult to enjoy my wildlife watching outings. Thankfully, I did have some great encounters, especially with insects and spiders as I was doing a year-long invertebrate challenge, which included emperor moths, fen raft spiders, minotaur beetles and grizzled and dingy skippers. My highlight for 2017, though, has to be seeing my first ever golden and white-tailed eagles in Scotland. The latter was more memorable as I was about to go on a boat trip around the islands of the Firth of Larne (which included Mull) to see them. I had gotten the life jacket and waterproof gear I was provided on, when out of nowhere, a chorus of excited shouting was directed to me. "Eagle!" And low and behold, there was a white-tailed eagle flying like a barn door soaring in front of a nearby mountain behind the small fishing village we were in! That boat trip wasn't really needed now, but I went anyway, in which I experienced the force of a tidal whirlpool.

2018: Last year wasn't exactly a vintage year for me. I really didn't have too many outstanding memories that could match the previous years in this decade. I had great sightings such as king eider, purple heron, wryneck and lesser yellowlegs, but nothing that would live long in the memory. But, if there was one thing that I won't forget in a hurry is raising several emperor moth caterpillars into adult moths. It was a frantic summer of gathering bramble branches with fresh leaves and removing their poop and the branches that they've completely demolished of leaves as they got bigger and bigger in a short span of time. It was all worth it though, as most of them emerged as adults in the spring of 2019.

2019: It is very hard to pick a single impactful memory for 2019. If there was anything to remember this year by, it has to be orchids. My latest challenge has seen me find 19 out of the 23 species found in Norfolk. But which one is the pick of the bunch? Which was the one that will really made it hard not to forget? Well, I have three contenders. First was travelling to Suffolk to see the extremely rare military orchid on an open day. Second, was travelling north to the north Norfolk coast the next day to see the equally rare man orchid. And lastly, possibly the one I nearly missed completely if it wasn't for you guys, the extremely tiny creeping-ladies tresses! It was third time lucky when I went to see that one!

And there you have it. Ten very eventful years. Here's to the 2020's and to another new year! I hope it will be another decade of great wildlife encounters. With the effect of global warming becoming an even greater threat, who knows what the future will hold.

Dec 28th Cley & Dec 30th Wells and Holkham Hall

Dec 28th  Cley

On Saturday, before heading to Carrow Road for the game against Tottenham that evening, I had a morning out to Cley with Mum. Wasn't exactly the most exciting of visits, but after all the food guzzling fest that was Christmas, it was nice to be out for at least a couple of hours. Out on the reserve I saw several curlew, lapwings, pink-footed geese, marsh harriers, wigeon, teal, gadwall, shelducks, common gulls, black-headed gulls, herring gulls, little egrets, a redshank and a brief glimpse of a kingfisher.

Dec 30th  Wells and Holkham Hall

Rough-legged Buzzard (for real this time!)

A few weeks ago, I went with my friend David to see the rough-legged buzzard that had been hanging around this field outside Wells for quite a while. I thought I had taken a photo of it, but it had turned out to be just a common buzzard the whole time. Amazingly, it has remained in the same place since that visit. So I decided to go and try again. This time, I managed to convince my mum to take me. It was also a lot warmer than last time and there were more people looking for it, too. My chances in seeing it seemed promising. I actually arrived moments after it disappeared, but after a short wait, it was soon spotted again. It was on the other side of the field sitting on a bush covered in berries and it sat there for quite a while. In fact it stayed put for me to make my way round to a nearby car park and to a closer spot and was still there long after I had enough photos and left for the car.

Now that I have the bird's photo, I can confidently say that I've got the right buzzard this time. Rough-legged buzzards are much paler from head to breast, like someone spilt bleach onto a common buzzard's head and all the brown has faded to a pale shade of creamy-white. The differences is like night and day (at least until you add a pale morph of a common buzzard to the mix). How did my birding friends and I get it so wrong last time completely beats me. But I'm happy now that I've fixed this mistake with the photos I got today. That's one bird ticked off my list before 2020 and my bird challenge even started.

Black-necked Grebe

With success with the rough-legged buzzard, we moved on to Holkham Hall for lunch. I also had another bird I wanted to see here. A black-necked grebe had been reported a few times on the lake this month, including yesterday. Armed with my scope, binoculars and bridge camera and studied the furthest side of the lake thoroughly. Hundreds of gulls, tufted ducks, pochards, shovelers, teal, coot and moorhens, while on the far shore, a huge gaggle of greylag geese and a herd of fallow deer, plus a great white egret and a grey heron. No grebe in sight. Then people got a bit too close to the geese on the far side and everything erupted into the air (except the deer of course, they just stayed put), even the birds on the water. Thinking that the interruption had brought the grebe out from hiding, I was about to walk further along the lake, when Mum spotted it diving underwater near the right side of the lake's island. It has to be the closest view of a black-necked grebe I've ever had!