Fine
weather and quite a lot of sunshine: big positives to start with compared with
the previous group visit on 30
April that was cut short by a fierce hailstorm.
We
followed the same route, the quiet road alongside the Bure Marshes National
Nature Reserve, this time with puddles showing the volume of the rain that,
happily, had fallen during the night. We took a careful look at a pair of pied
wagtails on a pasture on the high land to our right, taking in the blacker back
and bigger bib on the male, realising how often we see them as little more than
a silhouette on a roof. |
View over Bure Marshes NNR. |
Over
the low-lying marshes, four lapwings were displaying, calling, twisting, turning
and diving in flight. They then injected additional pace and urgency as they
dive-bombed a crow on the ground,
then went up to mob a marsh harrier. This was
one of two male marsh harriers in the sky and a scan revealed at least two more
harriers over the far reedbed, plus lots of swifts. Inevitably there were many
herons and Sue was alert to a little egret that flew in. A pair of gadwalls was
close by on the nearest open water and others were in flight; other wildfowl were
mostly greylags. Swallows and house martins were on the wing at various times
during the morning.
On
the paths by the meadows and the wood that backs onto South Walsham Broad we put
names –sometimes multiple names, like Queen Anne’s lace and cow parsley – to many
flowers and plants. Ann was on the look-out for bees, as ever; a particularly
large red-tailed bumblebee comes to mind. Julie then joined the group, having
cycled from Norwich.
Back
at the staithe we had a relaxed cup of coffee, some with cake, from the Granary.
I then picked up my telescope before we walked to the boardwalk that goes out
through wet carr woodland and fen to Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s floating visitor centre
on the edge of Ranworth Broad. Warblers were singing, a good range that included
sedge, reed and Cetti’s warblers, chiffchaffs and a willow warbler in view on
an open tree. A male reed bunting showed well, too. |
Boardwalk to Ranworth Broad. |
We
failed to find orange tip eggs on lady’s smock flowers; the other flowers very
much in evidence, in the cut fen near the visitor centre, were marsh marigolds.
Lots of marsh fern was in its early stages and discussion turned to the royal
fern that is known to be here, though it wasn’t until we were walking back that
Ann found it. |
Royal fern, early growth. |
At
Ranworth Broad, the most obvious birds were black-headed gulls settled on the
platform. Common terns were in good numbers, one or two on posts, but none had
yet settled to nest. Great crested grebes were there in good numbers, including
a pair nest-building on the floating barrier in the water put in as part of the Tipping
the Balance project to restore clear water and the aquatic plants once common
in the Broads.
|
An odd place for grebes to nest. |
Helen
suggested a nice detour on the return, so we turned right then across a field
to the back of Ranworth Church. In the churchyard there were clumps of meadow saxifrage
growing among bulbous buttercups. The path down the hill took us past alpacas to
Ranworth Staithe. Some in the group went home for a late lunch and the rest of
us enjoyed our picnics on benches overlooking Malthouse Broad.
|
Meadow saxifrage and bulbous buttercups, on which you can see reflexed (turned back) sepals. |
Ann
and I returned to Ranworth Church, partly to take a photograph of the meadow
saxifrage but also to search for the recently discovered Dusted Wall Yellow Lichen Calaplaca ruderum described
in the book Norfolk’s
Wonderful 150. Peter Lambley, lichen recorder and author of the account of the five lichens in
the book, says the “photo
looks like it”, viewed on a smartphone, to be confirmed later.
|
Dusted Wall Yellow Lichen Calaplaca ruderum (to be confirmed). |
Chris
Durdin