NORTH NORFOLK: Blickling Goosander and hoverfly

29th February 2020

We headed to Blickling Hall for a childrens' trail associated with one of Nick Butterworth's 'Percy The Park Keeper' books, which was very nice. Afterwards we headed into the grounds, where I was a bit surprised to see four redhead Goosander on the lake. These have been present for quite a while, but given the number of people walking around the area I would have expected them to have flown off. A hybrid Ruddy Shelduck x Egyptian Goose was also present in the area, and a Buzzard flew over.

In the slightly more sheltered formal bit of the gardens I saw my first hoverfly of the year, a female Eristalis tenax.

NORTH NORFOLK: Lichen walk

8th March 2015

On Sunday I went to Blickling Park to attend a NNNS walk looking at lichens on trees. The walk was led by county recorder Peter Lambley, and was well focused on beginners, allowing the participants to get an idea of how to identify some of the commoner species. We walked amongst some of the old parkland trees towards the lake, before heading across to the woods. Stopping for a short lunch break we saw flocks of Redwings and Fieldfares flying over, whilst we also heard several Nuthatches and a drumming Great-spotted Woodpecker. Whilst in the woods we visited the mausoleum, said to be Norfolk's only pyramid. We saw around 30 species of lichen, and hopefully I will now be able to identify some of them at Whitlingham too. Thanks to Peter for a very informative walk.

Cladonia fimbriata

Xanthoria parietina showing positive reaction with bleach

The Blickling pyramid