Breydon Water, Great Yarmouth and Buckenham Marshes, 3 November 2020 – Honeyguide local event.

Using the long-range weather forecast to help set the next date of the weekly local Honeyguide outing – though now the last for at least a month on account of the new, imminent lockdown – was due to hit a set-back eventually, and it was raining as we assembled behind Great Yarmouth’s railway station by the sea wall in the Asda car park. The heavens opened and we retreated to cars, rain followed by hail. Happily, the downpour was sharp and short and we were soon out again, watching a flock of redshanks fly around both the flooded saltmarsh and over the car park.

A rainy start: 09:37 on 3 November 2020.

There were so many birds ahead we paused at first in the shelter of Breydon Bridge to scan the flocks of birds moving over and near the main high tide roost. These settled and we moved into the sunshine a little farther along the seawall. It was a brilliant spectacle. The largest numbers of birds in flight were wigeons, many of which settled either on the open water or in high tide pools among the saltmarsh.

Flocks of wigeon on and over Breydon Water. Look out for one redshank in flight (digiscoped).

Black-tailed godwits were the next most obvious, large groups with flashing black and white wings. Then, generally more in the distance over the estuary, tight, wheeling flocks of golden plovers, some of which came into the wader roost. In one telescope view we could see three plover species together – golden, grey and lapwings. 

There were little egrets, three around the hide area; such a routine sighting nowadays that they had little attention. With a sign on the hide saying one person only, we didn’t use it. Scanning for other birds, we looked at a curlew and, more distantly, at a shelduck and oystercatcher. Closer to us, searching through the many hundreds of wigeons, we also found lots of teals and several elegant pintails.

Male pintail (top/centre), black-tailed godwits and wigeons, digiscoped.

Groups of dunlins flew along the far edge of the saltmarsh, but disappeared from view once landed. Avocets were an obvious feature here on visits in September but they were absent today, though there was a line of black-and-white birds, this time great black-backed gulls. I focussed on one end of the gull flock where there was great black-back, lesser black-back and herring gull together.

The range of species here today may have been limited, but it was more than offset by the number and the show, enhanced by some glorious autumnal light. Some fungi in the grass on the sea wall was a little bonus: shaggy inkcaps and another species that may have been clouded funnel.

After popping into Asda to use the supermarket’s loo, we drove to Great Yarmouth seafront, parking on a side road near the model village. On the open beach north of Wellington Pier we found our target species with ease: a group of Mediterranean gulls, numbering about 30 birds. Using the not very secret trick of throwing them some bread they soon came to us, accompanied by the odd black-headed gull for comparison. Many of the Med gulls had rings; I know from what has been written that these are usually birds ringed either in the low countries or central Europe. Most were adults and a few immatures were 2^nd winter birds with just a little, variable black on the wings. We walked to the seashore in case there was a wader or two – no luck there – though there was a single common gull in the middle of a large group of Mediterranean gulls, our sixth gull species of the morning. We retired to the café by the beach for a coffee or hot chocolate.

Mediterranean gull (Rob Carr) photographed on a Honeyguide Norfolk break visit to Great Yarmouth, 30 September 2020.

With lockdown due to start the day after tomorrow, for three of us we added an additional, afternoon trip to the RSPB’s Buckenham Marshes in the Mid Yare. Here we ate our picnics, in the car park, lunches packed with this plan in mind. The land is very slightly elevated just over the level crossing and from there you could see immediately it was another place that was lively with birds. Perhaps more surprising were the mammals: five Chinese water deer from that first spot and a count of at least 14 from a little farther down the track, plus two hares.

Chinese water deer with Canada geese, digiscoped. 

Buckenham Marshes today, looking towards Cantley Sugar Beet factory.

A distant peregrine falcon, digiscoped.

As during this morning, the light was wonderful and it became a little warmer in the afternoon sunshine. Inevitably here the sight and whistling sounds of wigeon were a strong feature, with some teals, gadwall and shovelers near the lagoon towards the river. There was a peregrine on one of the many gateposts, plus marsh harrier and buzzard. But if I was to choose one bird highlight it would be the golden plover flocks catching the light as they twisted and turned as we looked towards Cantley’s sugar beet factory. It became cooler and we called it a day: perhaps, all being well, there’ll be more opportunities for Honeyguide local trips in a few weeks’ time.

Chris Durdin

Thorpe St Andrew, 26 October 2020 – Honeyguide’s third local guided walk.

Thorpe St Andrew was, perhaps, a surprising choice for a guided walk, but it proved popular – fully booked and enjoyed. Billed as ‘hidden’ Thorpe St Andrew it was essentially a walk around the Thorpe St Andrew Conservation Area set up to protect buildings, though for our walk with more of a focus on natural elements.

We started from my home at 9:30 (just outside the Conservation Area) and, having watched a female sparrowhawk come over, we walked in the sunshine down to Yarmouth Road. It was unusual to be within sight of NWT Thorpe Marshes and not visit the nature reserve (one group member went there earlier and all have been other occasions). An early building to note was the former RSPB office at 97 Yarmouth Road, described in the conservation area’s character assessment as “a nineteenth century cottage though unpleasantly close to the busy road”.

Thorn-apple, with fruits.

On River Green we became the fifth Honeyguide group – following on from four ‘Norfolk breaks’ in September – to stop to admire the thorn-apple growing by a wall here this year. It was good to hear Mark from the adjacent Bishy Barney Boats know about the thorn-apple it and to report that council staff were not being over-tidy, so the plant had survived the season. It was now covered in spiny fruits, rather like a horse chestnut tree, some of which were bursting open giving hope that more will appear next year. A few metres away a real horse chestnut tree was being assessed, a fallen branch in early autumn of this ‘self-pruning’ tree having already been removed.

The Buck and part of St Andrew's church, in Thorpe St Andrew's conservation area.

We walked up Chapel Lane, past a higgledy-piggledy collection of cottages, soon reaching The Dell. David Armstrong was on site, who is much involved with this old pit’s management as a kind of pocket handkerchief nature reserve. David produced a pot of solidified but formerly soft chalk that had come out of the ground when his garage foundations were rebuilt, one example of a complex geology here that also includes sand, making ‘former marl pit’ perhaps an over-simplification of the steep-sided dug slopes. The sunshine was pouring into the pit, which can be somewhat shady, but it didn’t help us find the tawny owls that are often present.

The Dell, with some autumn sunshine. A self-seeded yew is an oddity in the centre of the picture.

We took a brief look at the attractive terrace of cottages and gardens towards the top of Chapel Lane, with passion fruit on one south-facing wall. Back on Yarmouth Road we popped into Horsewater by the River Yare, which I’d learnt last week was once used to rest and water herds of geese being walked to market.

We went up the hill past the old school, with another huge (marl?) pit to our left. Sue told us stories of growing up here. There were some fine shaggy parasol toadstools on the other side of the fence.

A carpet of spangle galls.

The next bit of the circuit was alongside the fenced former Pinebanks site. Many of us recalled social and sporting events here and lamented the loss of the former Norwich Union sports & social club. Progress on developing the site for housing has stalled. A notable natural history point was when we realised that the ground under an oak tree was a carpet of fallen spangle galls.

We had a few splashes of rain while we were in the former Weston Wood sand and gravel pit, which has become an excellent accidental nature reserve, a grassy central area fringed with trees. A large patch of blackthorn, spindle and aspens added interest and there were late-lingering flowers of wild carrot. The challenge to find silk button galls on oaks was accepted and met, which with an earlier oak apple and some fallen knopper galls meant we’d seen four distinctive galls on oaks this morning. 

Spangle galls again, in Weston Wood pit, with a green caterpillar later identified by Helen as green silver-lines moth.

We returned via South Avenue, watched a kestrel plunge to the ground on the rough land this side of the railway line and then back to Thunder Lane for coffee and cake.

Chris Durdin

Norfolk's Wonderful 150

 

This is a kind of book review … though it might be more honest to describe it as a plug for a splendid publication that dropped through my letterbox very recently.

‘Norfolk's Wonderful 150’ is a slim volume described as ‘A collection of special species from Norfolk to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of the Norfolk & Norwich Naturalists’ Society’. The anniversary was actually 2019; various practical things delayed the project and it’s well worth the wait.

Here’s the plug: it’s available by post – follow this link -  for just £10 including postage. As I'm a member of NNNS mine arrived free of charge, which is even better.

Norfolk's Wonderful 150.

I should declare an interest. I was asked (and I agreed) to write the account for common crane, then later for little tern as well. Honeyguide leader Tim Strudwick did rather more, namely five accounts for solitary bees and wasps, for which he is the county recorder.

The outcome is accounts of 150 species that all have some special connection to Norfolk. Ten are mammals, including three extinct species: coypu, steppe mammoth (the West Runton elephant fossil) and pioneer man Homo antecessor, stone tools and footprints of which were recorded at Happisburgh. There are sixteen birds, including several where there are important populations in the county, such as spoonbill and stone-curlew, plus others where Norfolk has a story to tell, such as collared dove, which first bred in the UK at Overstrand in the 1950s, and Egyptian goose, which have spread fairly widely from where they started at Norfolk stately homes.

Invertebrates range from the familiar and ‘no-brainer’ choices for Norfolk, such as swallowtail butterfly, fen raft spider and Norfolk hawker dragonfly, to wonderfully obscure species, including Breckland leatherbug, three leafhoppers, three aphids and six beetles. The range of ‘experts’ that NNNS has been able to call on to study and write about these groups is seriously impressive – exactly what you’d hope a natural history society can do, but should never be taken for granted.

The scope of the book extends into the underwater world, both freshwater (such as intermediate stonewort, shining ram’s-horn snail and holly-leaved naiad) and sea water. The latter reflects the huge growth in knowledge thanks especially to the underwater exploration of Dawn Watson and Rob Spray. Their photo of lightbulb sea-squirt is one of the standout images among an excellent selection of pictures in the book. Cromer crab is also there, in case you’re wondering.

For interest I counted up how many of the 150 were recorded on Honeyguide’s recent ‘Norfolk breaks’ in September 2020. The answer is 14, which excludes Cromer crab and lobster seen solely on plates, and are as follows: Chinese water deer, grey seal, pink-footed goose, Egyptian goose, crane, collared dove, bittern, marsh harrier, rook, bearded tit, grey hair-grass, hoary mullein, milk parsley and samphire. Less then 10% doesn’t sound a lot, but it’s not bad given many are very seasonal (e.g. dark green fritillary), local (e.g. Breck robberfly), tiny (e.g. the false-scorpion Dacytylochelifer latreillei), underwater (e.g. depressed river mussel, crucian carp) or mythical (Black Shuck).

Hoary mullein Verbascum pulverulentum; strongholds in west Norfolk and around the southern edge of Norwich are on the extreme north of its European range.

As the team behind the book recognises, what to include or exclude is always a matter of debate. Being an enthusiast for willow emerald damselflies I might have chosen that over scarce emerald damselfly … but then county recorder Pam Taylor’s opinion trumps mine.

Birdwatchers could point to several other species with important populations or typical of Norfolk, such as avocet, brent goose or grey partridge. From my perspective, if more birds were included I would have learnt less. 

I wouldn’t want to miss Jo Parmenter’s accounts of arable plants like smooth rupturewort and weasel’s-snout, nor Peter Lambley’s five species of lichen. I hadn’t previously come across Norfolk comfrey (a recently discovered hybrid) or Iceni bramble (one of more than 100 micro-species of bramble in Norfolk). Here are two fascinating facts: reindeer lichen was found at Horsey in 2012 and shrubby sea-blight has its own species of lichen. Wow!

A reviewer’s lot is to find fault. I scraped the bottom of my pedant’s barrel and found a few things that might be done differently, but they were all so trivial I deleted the lot. This slim volume is a cracking publication, and a snip at £10.00 including postage and packing. Every naturalist who lives in or knows Norfolk should have it.

Chris Durdin

Holt County Park, 19 October 2020 – Honeyguide’s second local guided walk.

I chose Holt County Park as the second location for Honeyguide’s local guided walks as it had proved popular with those on our ‘Norfolk breaks’ in September, and to come here today as the weather forecast looked good and there was a good chance for autumn colours and late flowers.

Holt Lowes SSSI in the sunshine.

And so it proved, despite the uncertainties of a long-range weather forecast. Moving on from the attractions of the car park, loos and coffee as a meeting point, we walked steadily through the plantation woodland and onto the heath of Holt Lowes, taking an anti-clockwise circuit with the boggy bits by the Glaven River to our right. Heather and bell heather were still in flower plus the paler pink blooms of cross-leaved heath in wetter areas. Other lingering flowers included marsh lousewort, ragged robin and lesser spearwort. Leaves on sundews proved harder to find than in September: there were a few, but mostly the plants were limited to tiny stalks.

Marsh lousewort.

Western gorse was a mass of yellow, with its lower growing form and late flowering season its most obvious features. Being virtually without scent is another clue, and that was highlighted by finding a few coconut-scented blooms of common gorse when going through the tunnels of this taller species over parts of the path.

Western gorse.

There were plenty of birds, though many of these were in flight. Winter thrushes came over but didn’t show well, meadow pipits and skylark calls were fleeting. Robins and wrens sang; jays, woodpigeons and woodpeckers (green and great spotted) called or flew past. Much of the time there were finches calling: flight calls of redpolls and siskins were regular and a couple of times there was the subtle whistle of a bullfinch, though it didn’t show.

Then six chunky finches perched on a treetop: a party of crossbills, three of which were red males. It’s a good year for these in north Norfolk, with hundreds arriving across the North Sea during the summer, but you still need a bit of luck to see them. They were new birds for two of our necessarily small group under the ‘rule of six’.

Silk button galls.

Honeyguider Mervin Nethercoat has inspired several of us to enjoy looking at galls, and we found four that live on oak, namely oak apple, knopper galls (in large numbers on the ground at one point), spangle galls and silk button galls.

Fly agaric.

Much of the time was taken up with looking at and photographing fungi. We are all low on the learning curve when it comes to identifications, though noting fly agarics, birch polypores, tar-spot on sycamore leaves and sulphur tuft at least covers some of the more numerous and obvious species. I expect some photos will go unlabelled for some time, but here are two more IDs: purple jellydisc and amethyst deceiver. I’m very happy to be corrected – or have these confirmed – if any reader knows better.

Amethyst deceiver.

Amethyst deceiver.

Purple jellydisc on a birch stump.

A recently cleared area of heath had climbing corydalis and heath groundsel in flower, though no sign of the adders that a passing dog walker mentioned. Back in the woodland we admired a chainsaw sculpture of a buzzard and grey squirrel before returning for a coffee from Hetty’s café which we shared, along with a packed lunch for some, on one of the park’s picnic benches.

Chris Durdin

Potter Heigham marshes, 12 October 2020 – Honeyguide’s first local guided walk.

The switch from overseas holidays to UK activities continues, dictated by the constraints of coronavirus, and with four successful ‘Norfolk breaks’ in September to look back on it felt like a good time to offer some of the Norfolk break venues as a morning walk for local Honeyguiders.

That was behind the gathering at 9:30 of five Honeyguiders, Julie Durdin and me in the big car park at Potter Heigham. The early arrivals had seen skeins of pink-footed geese fly over. We could all see the high water levels in the River Thurne after recent rainy days that had led to yesterday’s story on the Eastern Daily Press website about a hire boat trapped under the low bridge. Better news was that the long-range weather forecast checked when setting the date proved correct: there was sunshine, and it was dry.

Honeyguiders at Potter Heigham Marshes.

Progress was slow alongside the river and Julie left the birdwatchers to set off for a brisk walk. On the grazing marshes beyond the river were large numbers of geese, mostly greylags and a fair few Canada and Egyptian geese. From the small strip of reed in front of us was the ‘ping’ of a bearded tit: to be expected in the big new reedbeds farther on, but a surprise in such a tiny piece of habitat. It was difficult to know whether to look for that or to watch the stonechat.

We moved on past the windmill converted to a holiday let, then paused by the more modern electric pump that switched on as we passed, creating yet more foam. We were briefly entertained by a mechanical grab that clears reed and weed from the pump’s water inlet.

It's easy to be dismissive of resident/feral geese, but when several hundred greylags came over it was quite a sight.

Greylag geese over Potter Heigham Marshes.

Then we heard the distinctive ‘groo groo’ of bugling cranes. There was the briefest of sightings and they dropped out of sight. Backtracking a little, there they were on the grazing marshes on the other side of the river. It took a little peering through gaps in reeds to see them all but eventually we agreed on a count of 13 cranes. Later we saw them all in flight.

Two swallows were in the sky over the reedbed in the middle distance. A little later a ‘chak chak’ sound alerted us to a flock of about 30 fieldfares flying over. There are only a few autumn days when lingering summer migrants and winter birds arriving can be seen on the same day, and today was one of those. On the return leg another flock of fieldfares came over, silent this time and with the odd redwing mixed in.

The most abundant birds by far on the lagoons among the reeds were teals, with a good group of shovelers in one place, mallards, an occasional gadwall and one pintail in flight. There was a lack of waders, just the odd snipe and a nice flock of lapwings: perhaps a combination of the season and high water levels. Cheryl was alert to a kingfisher on a distant fence above a yellow sheet of buttonweed. Kestrels were numerous today, hovering and perched; other birds of prey were a marsh harrier and a distant buzzard.

Dropping down off the river wall, we had to negotiate a partly flooded track before taking the long straight back to Potter Heigham, passing two more stonechats, a flock of starlings and quite a selection of livestock.

Chris Durdin

 

Perfoliate alexanders

Early on in lockdown a lady phoned to ask if I could help to identify a plant from some photos. I recognised the odd-looking yellow-green umbellifers as perfoliate alexanders (spelled here with a low case A despite the name coming from the Egyptian port of Alexandria).

Perfoliate alexanders, Norwich, 25 April 2020 (Roger Jones)

Perfoliate alexanders is a flower I hadn’t seen in the form shown here, though it is similar to a flower I know from Crete. More of that later.

The photos had been taken by Roger Jones, and I know Roger & Jenny well. They live not far away and often come on the guided walks at NWT Thorpe Marshes, contributing their knowledge and enthusiasm there and, like me, on the NWT’s blog and elsewhere.

Roger had photographed the perfoliate alexanders near the River Wensum in central Norwich, not far from picturesque Pull’s Ferry. Armed with a name, he quickly tracked some other records by experience botanists in a national database. One of those noted that the plants had been removed. I expect that is because this species is classed as a potentially invasive alien. Perfoliate alexanders (Smyrnium perfoliatum) is on Schedule 9 part 2 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981: plants that should not be allowed to be released into the wild. It’s there alongside better-known ‘baddies’ such as Himalayan balsam, Hottentot fig, giant hogweed and several water-weeds.

Rosa rugosa, NWT Thorpe Marshes, 17 June 2020.

Is there a risk? The best answer is ‘don’t know’. There are many escaped plants that are ‘occasional’ or fairly established that don’t really seem to matter, in terms of their ecological impact, and arguably add interest to life. However, in general, if it’s on Schedule 9, that’s for a reason and caution is called for. I saw a well-informed botanist mention that perfoliate alexanders is said to be a concern on some wildlife sites in London, and that it would be a pity to risk the same in the Broads.

 

I was interested to see that there are two plants from Schedule 9 part 2 that can be found on my local patch of the NWT Thorpe Marshes. Neither, yet anyway, are a problem. One is few-flowered leek Allium paradoxum, isolated plants on a bank. The second is Japanese rose Rosa rugosa, a single shrub on the riverbank. This rose can be invasive on coastal dunes.

Perfoliate alexanders, Norwich, 30 May 2020, well past its best.

As the name suggests, perfoliate alexanders is very closed related, the same genus, as (common) alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum). Opinions vary on this plant: it is a distinctive feature of Norfolk roadside verges especially near the coast and it was a candidate for Norfolk’s county flower. Others might regard it as an invasive non-native, though as it is said to have been introduced from the Mediterranean by the Romans, it’s generally accepted as part of our flora now.

It took me far too long – where does the time go in lockdown? – to see my first perfoliate alexanders for myself, by which time it was past its best and the riverside park was uncomfortably busy on my weekend visit by bike.

The form of perfoliate alexanders from Crete is Smyrnium (perfoliatum) rotundifolium, meaning round-leaved. The brackets indicate that some consider it a subspecies of the flower I saw in Norwich. It’s more often treated as a different species, albeit the same English name. It makes a distinctive show along some roadsides north of Plakias and at the wonderful orchid-rich Kedros foothills, better known as ‘Spili Bumps’.

Perfoliate alexanders (rotundifolium) Crete, April 2017.

Bee orchids bonus in lockdown

I admit to being less optimistic than usual when I looked for bee orchids by Big Yellow Self Storage on Canary Way in central Norwich. This year is the 12th season that I’ve kept tabs on this at first sight rather unpromising piece of rough grassland opposite Norwich City FC’s football ground.

Pessimism soon turned to delight. There they were, and after several attempts to count them I can confirm 19 flowering spikes of bee orchids showing on 11th June 2020. That’s not as many as last year but more than the year before.

Bee orchid by Big Yellow Self Storage in Norwich

My initial doubts were for two reasons. One is that I’d noticed that the grass and flowers had been cut around the end of April and again more recently. It turns out this was an oversight during lockdown. The second thing was this year’s unusual weather – the sunniest and driest May on record for England. Bee orchids can often be a bit hit and miss, and in dry conditions far fewer blooms are likely.

The original group of bee orchids were on the south side of Big Yellow’s warehouse, opposite the football ground. This year, there were none there at all. Instead, all were growing from a much greener patch of vegetation on the west side, towards the railway station. Recent rain must have helped, and it was damp enough here for moss and a single spike of ragged robin, a marshland plant.

Bee orchid, close up: Norwich City FC is in the distance.

In general, the supporting cast of flowers this year is less than usual – no sheet of ox-eye daisies, for example. Nonetheless there was a good sprinkling of common catsear, a yellow flower like a long-stalked dandelion. Composites – the daisy and dandelion family – are valuable for insects needing pollen and nectar, and I photographed a hoverfly and a red-tailed bumblebee making good use of the flowers. These are both common species, but they were plainly there having been attracted by the flowers. It’s an idea – not to mow – that can be applied to any roadside verge or lawn, benefiting flowers and insects.

I called in to see Big Yellow’s staff, coping well in lockdown, and had a chat with manager Rob Harley. A later rummage in the archives found a picture of Rob with a bee orchid in the Eastern Daily Press in 2012. Rob told me that his managers ask after the bee orchids, which is encouraging and bodes well for this little patch of nature in the city.

The bee orchids are in flower now and some have buds. If you know where to look, they should be on show for another week or 10 days. Lockdown has brought pressure for all of us and many people have discovered the value of nature close to home. Seeing at first hand is ideal, but if that’s not possible it can still be comforting to know that nature is there.

Hoverfly, probably Eupeodes luniger, on common catsear.

Red-tailed bumblebee on a 'Big Yellow' catsear.

Previous blogs on Big Yellow’s bee orchids:

Bee orchids bounce back (2019)

Bee Orchids get my vote (2017)

Big Yellow bee orchids are back (2016)

The Meadow in the City (2015)