Honeyguide Wildlife Blog

Who doesn’t love spring? May can be one of the loveliest months and it’s been a busy one for guided walks at NWT Thorpe Marshes and elsewhere. Spindle ermine moth caterpillars, NWT Thorpe Marshes, 19 May. The blog is a slightly lazy way to share sightings and photos with Honeyguiders, mostly from NWT Thorpe Marshes in May, where I led several guided walks. Elsewhere, the Honeyguide blog has two other reports of walks, namely from NWT Hickling , a Honeyguide event on 20 May, and a ‘guest blog’ after a nature ramble at Eaton Park , Norwich, on 23 May. Lady's smock (also called milk maid or cuckoo flower), with orange tip egg, 4 May. 14-spot ladybird, 4 May. The ‘official’ guided walk for May at Thorpe Marshes was on 4 May (Star Wars day – you can do the quote). Water voles are always present though rarely seen, so a good view for a group was a delight, and one group member was still raving about it a few days later, I hear. Identifying singing warblers is always a feature of walks th

Eaton Park Nature Ramble - Monday 23 May 2022 6-8pm Guest blog by Sarah Scott, Friends of Eaton Park Thank you to Chris for leading another enjoyable walk in Eaton Park.   We very nearly cancelled ... it was raining heavily at 4pm but, after detailed scrutiny of every possible weather app and rain radar option, we decided to go ahead.   It was the right decision (phew!) and we ended up with a dry and pleasant evening. By the lily pond, looking for a damselflies: without sunshine, they were sitting tight. A dozen of us met in the rose garden and took a circular route around the park, taking in the lily pond, meadow area and Bluebell Woods. We were listening out for birdsong (a bit of a challenge as there was also a drum group practising in the park!) and we heard (or saw) swifts, woodpigeons, collared dove, blackbirds, dunnocks, goldfinches, greenfinches, blue tits, great tits, coal tit, starlings, wrens, chiffchaffs, robins, herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls.   Some new bir

The first local Honeyguide trip since overseas holidays resumed was planned with an eye on a sunny weather forecast, though as today approached that changed. It was cool at first then rain arrived for the four of us who met at NWT Hickling. On a recent visit to Hickling, Helen and Malcolm had encountered cranes and that persuaded us to return here, and to go in their direction when we arrived. That took us along the path by Brendan’s Marsh, where the mix of waders was very impressive. Avocets, redshank and lapwings were to be expected. Half a dozen dunlins were nice as was a single greenshank; a grey plover in full summer plumage showed why in North America they are known as black-bellied plover. A little ringer plover repeatedly flew around and there were three male ruffs with white, black and rufous breeding plumage. Two cranes beyond the gate; greylag & Canada geese, cormorants and gadwalls nearer. Looking down the open area just beyond the end of Brendan’s Marsh we struck luc

This Honeyguide blog is a copy of a short paper that was published in The Norfolk Natterjack, quarterly bulletin of the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists' Society. It seems apt to include it here as two of the new findings were on local (Norfolk) Honeyguide events, and previously reported on the Honeyguide blog (see links in the blog). The paper as published is here:  Natterjack 156, February 2022, pp3-5 ; it followed up   this article   about the third record of this species in England and second in Norfolk. The paper and this blog follows NNNS house style, with capital letters for species. Three more records of Hoof Fungus gnats Inspired by the account of Hoof Fungus Fomes fomentarius in Norfolk’s Wonderful 150 and knowing that the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists’ Society is studying the new Broadland Country Park, when I found Hoof Fungus in the country park I emailed Tony Leech to check that it was known from there. I also mentioned that Sarah Burston, the park’s manager, h

Honeyguide’s first group in the Brecks followed last week’s recce visit and last night’s Storm Dudley. There were fallen branches in places, and twice very brief showers, but generally it was dry and bright, if a little windy sometimes.   We met at the Forestry Commission’s car park at Santon Downham – from which there were brief sightings of siskin and sparrowhawk – and we walked to and then by the river Little Ouse. It’s probably worth saying at the outset that were unsuccessful in finding lesser spotted woodpecker today; perhaps it was just a little too blustery. We started with a good view of a little grebe near some mallards on the river. Robins and great tits were singing and some in the group found a marsh tit. Galls on reed. An oddly shaped gall on the left (JM), which Tim Strudwick advises is made by the 'corkscrew gall mite' Steneotarsonemus phragmitidis . On the right is a more typical cigar gall (CD). Violet ground beetle wing case. Being a group of Honeyguiders,