Buckenham Marshes

A wet morning led to marking, but the reappearance of the sun gave me the ideal excuse to toss aside the papers and get out and about.
Buckenham Marshes is just down the road from Strumpshaw, but despite living in Norwich for almost 3 years, I have never visited. The reserve information board rather nervously exclaims "The vast expanse of grass can appear rather quiet", or something similar, which basically means you are gonna have to work for your supper.
Eying up a potential walk back to Strumpshaw, I headed towards the Yare in hope rather than any great expectation. It was very quiet, an odd looking wagtail was presumably a juvenile Grey, and aside from Meadow Pipits and Goldfinch not a lot was doing. I clocked a female Marsh Harrier quartering a patch of dense grass, and seemingly out of nowhere a very dark Common Buzzard appeared. Landing gear out, the pair sparred in the sky, derelict windmill making quite a back-drop.
Walking back, a male Marsh Harrier made a lazy attempt at taking a Mipit mid air and a Water Rail was heard.
I arrived home to some fantastic news- a COLONY of Spoonbills are breeding at Holkham! How has this one slipped through unnoticed I wonder? To be honest, I have not been to Holkham for some time, and no doubt RBA did the right thing and filtered out any reports sent to them. 6 pairs, 4 have fledged young and 2 are now feeding young. Hot on the heels of breeding Purple Heron and Little Bittern this year, but this is the way to do it! Natural expansion as much as climate change I would suggest, although some experts may say otherwise......

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Everything is about edge

Hardley, where it is often confusing to define where the garden ends and the marsh begins. Tumble-down houses and rickety shacks, away from any bus route and Team Sky sorts wrapped in lycra, this is a village that by choice is cut off. The secret is out, and pre-storm Ciara as many as 10 large lenses littered the river bank firing at will. Their target- Winter ghosts. First, the classic Scooby-Doo type, as a Barn Owl responds to an ill-advised squeak in the grass and heads towards the onlookers. Another quickly joins the hunt, their formation a picture of double-edged stealth. But these year-round residents are not the key objective today, that honour is given to the Short-eared Owl. 3/4 of these can be seen from the staithe at the minute, floating like giant moths over the tussocks and edges. In a recent article in The New Yorker, Jake Fiennes states "Everything is about edge". Hedges, ditches, scrub, forgotten tracts of land that link nothing and no-one. Fiennes, now ...

Grey Phalarope- a new patch bird

The 7th of April was another bitterly cold Spring day, hats and gloves in prime position on pegs and in bags ready to be deployed. A few brave Garganey have been reported north of the river, but it was a bird from the north itself that had me rushing for the thermals and the telescope late in the day. I was thankful for the local Whatsapp group who were quick to report that a Grey Phalarope had been seen on Rockland Broad. This tiny Wader would have come in on the northerlies over the last few days, although to grace one of the broads is a real surprise, since most stick pretty close to the coast before moving on. Indeed, my experience of the birds has usually been on a sea watch in the Autumn, waves crashing and foam flying, my eyes straining to pick them out as they fly low just above the surf. They are fantastic birds, and now one was here on the patch. I had a brief panic when I realised my scope was in my car at the garage (thankfully I do have a much older spare) but once th...

Claxton-on-sea!

Although it was not quite the Christmas we wanted here in the valley, the rain has bought its own gift. A grim vision of the future, perhaps. But right now, the patch is peaking and is alive with birds, and for that I am thankful. On Christmas eve, it was a job to navigate away from the village due to standing water that had left abandoned cars and undelivered presents in its wake. The rain had been persistent and unforgiving, the ground, saturated. Over on the marsh, where there had once been a muddy puddle amongst the pasture, a city had sprung from the leak, with a plethora of new occupants noisily laying claim to a patch of sodden marsh. Wigeon and Black-headed Gulls in their thousands now wheeled and whistled over and amongst the newly formed pools, accompanied by smaller numbers of Teal and Shoveler. A flock of two hundred-strong Lapwing enjoyed feeding on the less damp spots where green grass was still exposed, and thrown in for good measure have been a couple of Ruff, the ...

Notes from the valley

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