Aug 22nd Strumpshaw Fen

I had a panic this morning. My alarm clock didn't go off at 5:45am like usual on a Wednesday and I found myself waking up at least 20 - 25 minutes later. I had to rush to clean my teeth, get my gear together, put my boots on and get to the bus stop outside before the bus arrived to take me into the city so that I could walk down to the train station to catch my train. Somehow, I managed to do all this in 5 minutes, just a few minutes before the bus showed up. I was now back on schedule. Phew!

Grey Heron

Arriving at Strumpshaw at my usual time of 7:30am, I unpacked my bag of my camera and binoculars at the blind beside Reception Hide. I then realised something. Bertie the friendly pigeon from last week was nowhere to be seen. Where did he go? Perhaps he moved on? Or did his owner come back to take him away? Or has the worst thing imaginable happened? I do not know. On the plus side, there was no need to worry about picking him off someone's head inside the Reception Hide this time. However, his good omen powers have also seemed to have disappeared from me. From Fen Hide, it was a pretty disappointing hour as there wasn't too much to see. A pair of herons hidden behind a cover of reeds, a few shabby-looking ducks (including a dead one), a family of wrens and distant and fleeting glimpses of great white egrets, marsh harriers, a flock of 20 feral barnacle geese and a green woodpecker. Not a lot to really get a photo of annoyingly.

Moorhen

Coot

Barnacle Geese

Goldfinches

Some kind of Ichneumon Wasp 

Hop

Wasp on Tansey flowers

Speckled Wood

Hooded x Carrion Crow hybrid

Reception Hide was a little better. It started well with this curious looking hooded x carrion crow hybrid that perched closed to the hide for some time. This crow is definitely a hybrid and not a pure hooded crow as the black hood and bib seem rather scruffy and large. I also had a couple of quick flybys from a kingfisher, but it never stopped once to pose for me. A swarm of house martins and swallows occasionally appeared to swoop over the broad and there were at least 6 buzzards circling high above the reserve at the end of my shift.

Mute Swan chasing a Grey Heron

Grey Heron

The real highlight, if you can call it that, was seeing ducks being flushed out of the reeds beside the hide to my right, in which I noticed something furry slip into the water but vanishing as soon as I spotted it. This very fleeting glimpse was of an otter, I was certain of it. I waited for it to show up again, but nature was calling me. I needed the toilet! While I was away to relieve myself, guess what showed up? Yep, the otter. Only one visitor managed to watch it spooking the ducks before swimming down the far left channel not to be seen again! Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Aug 21st Catton Park

Field Scabious

This afternoon, I went out for a walk around Catton Park. I was there in search of plants. As you may know, plants are perhaps one of my weakest subjects of expertise. I know some flowers, but I'm no expert. If anyone wants to chip in to correct me on any of these, please do. I'm still learning. On top of that, I wanted to practice in photographing them as for some reason my bridge camera is very temperamental with plants and insects. It doesn't matter what distance I take the shot from, near or far, the image is usually blurred. Occasionally, a rare clear shot worth keeping does happen, but not after some faffing around with the camera's focus. Thankfully, plants don't move very much, except when its windy, so I can take as much time as I like until I get it right.

Ox-eye Daisy



Bird's-foot Trefoil

Strawberry Clover?

You don't have to be a botanist to enjoy wild plants, but it makes it more enjoyable to know what the names of them are Walking through the rough grass of the open field of the park, I was familiarising myself with many of the brighter coloured ones, such as field scabious, ragwort, buttercup, knapweed and clover. I was getting the hang of the basics and my camera was behaving well for the most part, producing many clear shots, as well as several duds. What I was really after, however, was a plant I would consider special or unusual, something like a broomrape or some other exciting plant hiding somewhere in the grass. Unfortunately, I was unable to find anything of that description. I did manage to see a good selection of common field plants as well as a few common blue and meadow brown butterflies and a great spotted woodpecker calling from the highest bough of an ancient oak tree.






Yarrow



Common Knapweed



White Clover

Ribwort Plantain?

Wild Cabbage?

White Wild Cabbage?

Meadow Buttercup

Ragwort







Some kind of Dock? There were clusters of them everywhere!

Horse Chestnut

Robberfly

Meadow Brown

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Aug 15th Strumpshaw Fen

A friendly pigeon

After nearly a week of rain, everything seems a lot fresher than it has been. The grass is much greener and the great outdoors has never felt so alive. It is amazing to think that just a week before everything seemed pretty dead and dried to shades of brown. I sat at the bench by the blind beside the Reception Hide to rest from the walk from the train station at Brundall and to retrieve my binoculars and camera from within my backpack. As I was finding these items, the sound of wings flapping towards me startled me. I looked up and there was this white pigeon with grey patches perched right next to me. It appeared very used to people, but would back away whenever I tried to near my hand towards it. Did it belong to someone? I couldn't see any leg rings or anything.

Transfixed on the pigeon, it wasn't only until a large orange-brown shape moving across the back of the broad in the corner of my eye broke my focus. This fast moving shape turned into a bittern, flying from left to right low behind the reedy islands and vanishing down the right channel. Was this pigeon a lucky omen? I began my walk towards the Fen Hide. I was only a few metres away from the Reception Hide when the familiar sound of flapping wings caught my attention from behind me. I looked back and there was the pigeon again! It landed on top of a picnic bench adjacent to me. A few metres more and it happened again. Was this pigeon following me?

Great White Egret

I made it to Fen Hide without any further sign of stalking pigeons. However, it felt like this bird's luck powers after seeing that bittern has remained with me as there were two great white egrets waiting outside for me. They didn't hang around for long, though, as they both took off towards the river. Shortly after, I had completed the set in the heron species I'm likely to see at Strumpshaw today with the arrival of a little egret and then a grey heron. If that wasn't enough, I then noticed a fox prowling the short stands of green reed growth at the closest edge of the pool. It may sound odd, but during that brief moment I had managed to take my first ever photograph of a red fox! It may not be the greatest shot in the world, but I didn't care. Foxes have always been camera shy when I'm around, so I am over the moon to finally have gotten a photo of one. I waited for some time to see if it came back. It did, popping its head out of the side of a small yet tallish clump of reeds for an either briefer glimpse. No surprising then that there was no photo this time round.

Little Egret

Red Fox

Cobber the Black Swan

Frogbit

Common Lizard

My colleagues with Bertie the Pigeon

I returned back to Reception Hide and the pigeon was there again! I made a quick stopover at the office before starting my shift and I told site manager Tim about it. He filled me in with the pigeon's backstory. Apparently, this bird is called Bertie and was hand-reared by someone who for some reason decided to release it on the reserve along the river trail on Monday. As this bird has imprinted human beings as its kind, it followed visitors back and eventually made it to the Reception Hide, where it now prefers to hang around. Bertie is so used to people that he has been known to perch on them. As my colleague opened the hide up to the public this morning, he foolishly left the door open. As a result, Bertie came in and landed on a visitor's head, who happens to be my colleague's wife, who also happens to be afraid of birds when in close proximities of them. It took some strategy, but I eventually managed to grab the bird before panic levels risen to anything more than it was and I took Bertie outside, shutting the door behind me. It remained out there, providing some amusement amongst the families visiting the reserve.

Kingfisher

With the drama inside the hide over, I was able to enjoy myself by watching the birds outside and answering questions about wildlife that was fired at me a lot today. A kingfisher delighted my colleague's wife and grandson for a good few minutes, hovering in mid-air and darting across the reedy islands, occasionally perching down on the posts at the centre of these isles. Two green sandpipers also made a short stop at these islands of reed for them to see. After my shift was over, my colleague and his family kindly gave me a lift to Brundall in time for the train home. Along the way, we had some great views of a buzzard feeding on the ground with a red kite swooping gracefully above it. Maybe Bertie was lucky after all?

Green Sandpipers

Cobber chasing a Mute Swan