7th September 2014
Today was the monthly wildfowl count day, so I headed down to Whitlingham. The day was overcast to begin with, and there was a rather eerie silence, broken only by the monotonous droning of Roesel's Bush Crickets. Given the recent arrival of Whinchats along the coast I double checked all of the fenceposts, without success (later I found out that there had been a Whinchat at Thorpe marsh on Saturday - a shame I didn't know at the time).
The highlight of the counts was a 1st-winter Yellow-legged Gull on the Great Broad with the Lesser Black-backs. A flock of 22 Tufted Ducks had joined the existing four, and a pair of Gadwall had either returned or re-emerged. A Kingfisher was visible on the end of the island, whilst I also heard one zip downriver. Whilst scanning I noticed that a number of Migrant Hawkers were flying around clumps of Flag Iris, and I managed to photograph one as it stalled in mid-air. Walking along the north shore I noticed several unusual Shieldbug. At home I was able to identify them as Brassica Shieldbugs, a new species for me and one that seems to have only recently spread as far north as Norfolk.
Migrant Hawker
Brassica Shieldbug
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