NORWICH AREA: Ringland Church Hill Common

Late April 2022

With a couple of hours free I decided to visit Ringland Church Hill Common, a known site for a moth I'd not seen before called the Bluebell Conch. The common itself turned out to be an interesting place, with a centre of short grassland surrounded by a belt of deciduous woodland (albeit something of an island in a sea of agricultural land). It took a little while to find the largest area of Bluebells, by which time the weather had become rather overcast, and with the time to return to Norwich approaching it was disappointing but not a great surprise that I didn't see my target moth. I did see a new harvestmen and cranefly (Platybunus triangularis and Limonia nubecolsa respectively). Probably the most interesting theig I found was on my way back to the church. I saw a black mass on Garlic Mustard and from a distance wondered if it was a smut. It turned out to be a cluster of Grenade Aphids, Lipaphis alliariae, which based on the Influential Points account seems like a good find.

NORWICH AREA: Ringland Ruddy Shelduck hybrid

18^th February 2017

During the week I had heard that several Tundra Bean Geese had been seen at Ringland with a flock of Greylag Geese, so having been given directions to the area they had frequented I headed off for a look. I spent a pleasant morning walking footpaths in the area, but didn’t come across the Bean Geese or the large Greylag flock, so it appears that they have moved on. Whilst looking over the floodplain the most interesting bird superficially resembled a Ruddy Shelduck, but on closer inspection appears to be a Ruddy Shelduck x Egyptian Goose hybrid, a conclusion that others online had also reached having seen it earlier in the week. It was calling and displaying to an Egyptian Goose.

Also in the area were at least three Bullfinches, a Little Egret and a Red Kite.