WEST NORFOLK: Black Darter & new Titchwell trails.

2nd September 2012

As summer draws to a close, Dad & I went to Roydon Common in search of Black Darters. It proved to be a good all-round naturalists trip. On the bird front a couple of Buzzards circled overhead, and some Crossbills called as they flew through. A Stoat ran across our path, and a we startled a Chinese Water Deer amongst some rushes. A Small Copper and lots of Speckled Woods were flying around, whilst Roesel's Bush Crickets and Common Green Grasshoppers chirruped away. I noticed an Artichoke Gall on an oak, and whilst looking at that Dad pointed out several Buff-tip caterpillars on nearby leaves. Finally after seeing loads of Common and Ruddy Darters, we located an immature male Black Darter, a species I have wanted to see for some time (thanks to Paul W for his help with directions).

After an excellent roast lunch at the Ffolkes Arms (sic) at Hillington, we headed north to have a look at the new paths at Titchwell. We popped into the Island Mere hide, where several Black-tailed Godwits and Ruff were really close to the hide (if I had been a birder from 200 years ago I reckon I could definitely have bagged them wt ye crossbowe). A Peregrine flew east over the main path. We had a look over the new pool, named Patsy's Pool after Patsy Cline*, a female Red-crested Pochard and four Little Grebes being the pick of the birds. Continuing round we arrived at Titchwell's East Bank, and looked back over the freshmarsh. A single Spoonbill had emerged (the flock of 21 had been spooked off before we arrived apparently). It was all very nice, hopefully I shall be back here to see something rare in the near future!

* This may not be true. 

WHITLINGHAM: No seabirds here

31st August 2012

With some good Northerly winds the previous afternoon, I crossed my fingers that a seabird had been blown inland and ended up at Whitlingham. With the exception of a few seaducks I haven't heard of any Skuas etc ever being seen there (although I have read of Arctic Skua, Fulmar and Kittiwake being seen rather vaguely in "Norwich") - but is this an accurate reflection of the absence of seabirds, or of the tendency for inland birders to flood to the coast when the winds swing round?

There didn't appear to be anything unusual on the broad or across the river at Thorpe, and in fact the only bird of interest was a drake Pochard in the conservation area. I thought at the time that this was unusual in August, but having checked it doesn't appear to be so - I also saw Pochard in August 2007 and 2010. The brambles along the riverbank were teaming with insects, including a Silver Y and a photogenic Brown Hawker, whilst a Red Admiral caterpillar was munching on some nettles.

The walk back was good, seeing two of my favourite birds. Firstly a Goldcrest feeding with the tit flock along the edge of the Little Broad showed brilliantly but constantly evaded my camera, and then further down the lane at Trowse Meadows a Kingfisher flew upstream.

THORPE MARSH: Lesser Marsh Grasshopper

28th August 2012

Another hot day, the bird highlight at Thorpe was one inquisitive Sedge Warbler, with a wader total of zero. Lots of dragonflies around including a couple of ovipositing Brown Hawkers, a few butterflies, and some Lesser Marsh Grasshoppers.

NORWICH: Angle Shades & an Old Lady

26th August 2012

Still not too much happening locally on the bird front, but a bit of impromptu mothing turned up an Angle Shades at the outside light and an Old Lady in the trap. Old Ladies are so-named because they resembled a Victorian gown apparently. I wonder what the Victorians would think if they walked down Prince of Wales road at the weekend?

WHITLINGHAM: Yellow-legged Gull & some crickets

24th August 2012

Another couple of hours spent looking for non-specific bird species. I paid particular attention to a couple of tit flocks that were moving around the site on the off chance that a Pied Flycatcher or Greenish Warbler had tagged along, but found nothing more exciting than three Chiffchaffs. On the broad there were two rafts of large gulls (then one super raft as the solar boat spooked the first lot). The vast majority of the gulls were Lesser Black-backed, but I did pick out an adult Yellow-legged Gull amongst them. The nettles were loud with the stridulations of Dark Bush Crickets, and I went and had a look at the Long-winged Coneheads that I first noticed a couple of years ago. Websites often suggest that people struggle to hear them without a bat detector, but they have always been quite noticeable to me. As I walked back a Swift flew over heading southwards, as did four House Martins a little later.

Female Dark Bush Cricket

Female Long-winged Conehead (camouflaged well!)

YARE VALLEY: Willow Emerald

22nd August 2012

We went out for a drive around the Yare Valley this afternoon, taking in the new village sign at Limpenhoe, which like many of our signs has some nice bird art on.

The sun was bursting through the clouds fairly regularly, so we decided to stop off at Strumpshaw to look for the Willow Emerald damselflies. Having failed to find any in the first three open stretches of ditch I had moved on when Cathy called me back. She had managed to find a Willow Emerald, and several other damselflies also flew around below it as the sun came out. It was on the far side of the ditch, too far for me to get a decent photo, but the right distance to get good binocular views. I had dipped these last year, and this sighting means that I have now seen all 12 of Norfolk's resident damselfly species (I still haven't seen Black Darter out of the Norfolk dragons).

THORPE MARSH: Common Sandpipers

20th August 2012

Another scorchingly hot day, but as there have been a few birds on the move recently I gave Thorpe Marsh another look. The scrape had dried up, but scanning east I picked up a large raptor soaring in the distance. It had more than a little bit of a Honey Buzzard look about it, but unfortunately for me it few off north-east (with slow, effortless wingbeats!) and was added to the wastebin of unidentified raptor sightings.

Shortly afterwards Dan arrived and we scanned for a bit, but didn't see any other raptors. Swallows and House Martins were hawking insects past Bungalow Lane, but the local Swifts have cleared out.  Walking round to the broad we found three Common Sandpipers on the shingle, two of which went for  a fly across the broad and river before returning and landing out of sight. Several butterflies included Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Red Admiral, whilst a dead and rather smelly Common Shrew was delighting a host of Greenbottle flies.

NORWICH: Rosary Cemetery

17th August 2012

In a change of tack I decided to look for an inland Pied Flycatcher, and decided that the most likely place for one to turn up around my side of the city was Rosary Cemetery. I therefore went and walked up and down each of the paths, looking for flycatchers. I was rewarded with a large flock of Long-tailed Tits, and several Migrant Hawkers. There were quite a few Speckled Woods, Holly Blues, Gatekeepers and Commas around, but no birds of interest.

THORPE MARSH: More quiet times

16th August 2012

My exciting new feature "where aren't there any birds" continued this evening at Thorpe, where there weren't any waders. This was probably due in part to the scrape drying out, making it even less enticing to overflying birds. I did spend some time just watching waves of gulls flying eastwards to roost, whilst something munching reeds in a nearby ditch was probably a Water Vole. Looking along the dykes I could see dozens of white China Mark moths fluttering low over the Frogbit.  Nothing of note on the spit either, but 40 ducks were on the broad (there hasn't been more than three in recent times) - 2 Gadwall and 38 Mallard. A Cetti's Warbler gave a brief burst of song, and seven recently fledged Mallard ducklings squeaked from the river.

WHITLINGHAM: No terns today

15th August 2012

I try to keep an eye on birds being seen at other inland reservoirs and country parks to act as an indication of what birds might turn up locally. There has been a number of Black Terns around recently, but today there was also a flock of Little Terns and several Sandwich Terns around, so I thought Whitlingham was definitely worth a look. As it turned out there were no Terns at all, 170+ Mallard and a couple of Herring Gulls were the pick of the bunch.  Still, I reckon its worth keeping an eye out in the next few days just in case things get moving.

Thinking further ahead, there is a group of 3000+ Black-necked Grebes in Germany, hopefully some of those will move across into Norfolk at some point.

NORTH NORFOLK: East Runton moths

14th August 2012

Whilst camping at East Runton we did a bit of moth-trapping with Peter. We caught around twenty species, several of which I hadn't seen before (Rosy Minor, Cloaked Minor and Chinese Character).  A Poplar Hawk Moth proved popular with the campers, word of mouth bringing several groups of people over to come and take photos.

YARE VALLEY: Strumpshaw Fen moths

12th August 2012

We attended a moth morning at Strumpshaw Fen, presided over by Ben. Two traps were put out, one in the woods and one at the edge of the reedbed, and between them they caught around 70 species.  There were the usual crowd-pleasers (Elephant Hawk, Poplar Hawk, Garden Tiger, Large Emerald) but also some scarcer species. The best one was probably Double Kidney, a Yare valley speciality, but several Wainscot species were new for me (Brown-veined, Bulrush, Webb's), and Clouded Magpie, Gold Spot and Alder Kitten were good to see too. Whilst going through the traps, two Crossbills flew into nearby pines, a Whimbrel flew over and a Nuthatch called nearby.

Double Kidney and half a Poplar Hawk Moth

THORPE MARSH: More Green Sandpipers

11th August 2012

A quick visit to Thorpe Marsh before the football saw three Green Sandpipers on the scrape, and a Green Woodpecker flew over the marsh and across to Whitlingham.

Incidentally the Norfolk Wildlife Trust have produced a leaflet for Thorpe Marshes, including a map and a checklist of the commoner species that can be found.  You can download a copy via Chris Durdin's Honeyguide website here.

NORTH NORFOLK: Chalkhill Blues

9th August 2012

With another sunny afternoon it seemed like a good time to make our annual visit to Warham Camp. Butterflies were very much in evidence all along the road and track to the old fort, and hundreds of Chalkhill Blue butterflies were scattered around the mound (mostly males). Having taken loads of photographs last year I mainly concentrated on the chalk flora, but also took a few more shots of the blues.  We stopped for a picnic and I found a Brown Argus, whilst the flowers on Cathy's handbag attracted a Chalkhill Blue, whilst several less intellectually-challenged butterflies flew towards it before realising their mistake. Before we left two Common Buzzards rose up over nearby woods, and a young Chiffchaff was fly-catching from an oak tree.

Autumn Gentian (Felwort)

Male Chalkhill Blue

WHITLINGHAM: Year tick hat-trick

9th August 2012

It turns out that instead of looking for waders at Thorpe, I should have been looking for ducks at Whitlingham.  Luckily Daniel was, and he found a drake Common Scoter on the Great Broad.  I walked down in the morning to check if it was still around, however I was delayed somewhat on Whitlingham Lane as I found a group of five Mistle Thrushes on the recently cut meadows, a long overdue year tick, equalling last years total of 106.

Once I got up to the island, the Common Scoter was obvious, floating serenely in the middle of the broad.  I watched it preen and stretch its wings, and eventually it drifted closer to the north shore and began diving.  It was excellent to get prolonged views in the sunshine, my only previous views of Common Scoter here was an evening bird at Thorpe three years ago.  Bird 107 for the year!

As I began to walk home down Whitlingham Lane I stopped to get a drink out of my bag, looked up and saw a Red Kite soaring over the meadows!  A rather tatty one, but nonetheless a patch tick, and bird 108.  I now have the rest of the year to see three new birds and break my year list record of 110 from the 2010.