NORFOLK: Visits to three Norfolk commons

August 2021 

During August I visited three of Norfolk's commons, so I have grouped them together here.

First up was Billingford Common, a place in south Norfolk that I had not visited before. The star attraction here is Large-flowered Hemp Nettle. We parked up in a layby along a busy road and walked through some long vegetation onto the common, and quickly saw a large patch of hemp nettles. Unfortunately it turned out they were Common Hemp Nettle, a nice but widespread species. We decided that exploring the area wasn't really practical with a young child, so we worked our way through to an open area where we could at least admire the windmill.

Next up was Alderford Common, where I spent a couple of hours after dropping my wife off in Taverham. This was a very productive visit, with numerous insects on Hogweed flowers including Banded General and Gasteruption jaculator. On the open part of the common I searched as much Wild Basil as I could and found my target, leaf mines of the micro moth Stephensia brunnichella at its only modern Norfolk site. A couple of micro fungi and four leafhopper species were all new for me.

Finally for my common excursions, following a meeting of the Norfolk Fungus Study Group at Bawdeswell Village Hall some of the group called in at Whitwell Common. It was very poor in terms of fungi, although we did see the grass fungus combination of Choke and Ergot. The leafhopper Evacanthus interruptus was nice to see, as were several Tenthredo sawflies.