NORWICH: Earlham Cemetery new year plant hunt

2nd January 2018

For the past few years the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) have been running the new year plant hunt, in which people go out between 30th Dec and 2nd Jan and record which plants are in flower. This provides a wealth of data about which species are in flower and where, and over time will also contribute to phenology (i.e. are some plants changing their flowering periods). I have sometimes contributed data, but this year decided to join the walk organised by the Friends of Earlham Cemetery.

The walk started off with eight people, although it was cold and by the end some participants had departed, leaving Ian, Jeremy, Vanna and I. Altogether we recorded 29 species, although one was an unidentified grass and several might have been planted rather than naturalised. Upon transferring the list onto BirdJournal when I got home I found that Thale Cress was apparently a new species for me. This was surprising on one hand as its a common species, but not that odd really as it is small and part of a sometimes confusing mass of Brassicas.

Whilst walking round we accumulated records of several leaf mines, some probably new to the cemetery, and also some fungi. Of the latter Bleeding Broadleaf Crust and Fenugreek Stalkball were of note. We also saw two Muntjac Deer. Thanks to Ian for leading the walk and for submitting our list - you can see the results here: https://nyph.bsbi.org/

WHITLINGHAM: A few more birds & BSBI plant hunt

3rd January 2014

A grey and rainy day, but with my Christmas holiday coming to a close I decided to give Whitlingham a look anyway. The Little Broad was rather low on ducks, but it turned out that many of them had simply moved on to the Great Broad. Near the bird screen a Snipe flew up out of the vegetation and across the bay. There was no sign of any Little Grebes (perhaps on the river?) but a few Teal and Shoveler were still present. At least 50 Pochard were on the Great Broad, with good numbers of Tufted Ducks and Gadwall, but nothing out of the ordinary. As I went round I paid particular attention to the tit flocks, trying to find one of the overwintering Chiffchaffs. I didn't see any, but this approach did pay off with a Goldcrest and a Treecreeper. A couple of Marsh Tits were also of note, and my Whitlingham list is now up to 40.

In addition to looking for birds I was also keeping an eye out for flowering plants as the BSBI* were conducting a survey to see what plants were in flower across Britain between 1st-4th January. I managed 12, none of which were particularly unusual. There was quite a bit of fungi about too, the most interesting of which turned out to be some circles on violet leaves. I suspect whatever it turns out to be will be under-recorded - I initially thought that the damage might be caused by a leaf miner of some sort.

Possibly Ramularia lactea on a Viola leaf

Beech Tar Crust

* The Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland