Notes from the valley

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...

Casting my mind back to February 14th, survival rather than love was in the air for the birds of the Yare Valley. Tramping across the Surlingham corner of the patch, I recorded 8 Woodcock within 2 hours. These Cryptic Waders had been forced out of hiding, and even amongst the woodland floor they were easier than usual to spot against a backdrop of snow. The small pine wood opposite the church and adjacent to the parking area held at least 2 birds, creeping around and huddled up low to the ground. A further investigation of likely habitat around Church Marsh and I was presented with 6 more, a record count for me in a single day. I hope they made it through the trial sent from the north in the form of ice and snow. A Great Egret exploring a dyke at Postwick must've been thinking twice about the whole range expansion thing. However, a small Squadron of Bewick's Swan and a single Goosander over Claxton fitted the mise en scene nicely during this period.  That image and that day fee...

 I've had Moles on the mind of late. As a child, I eagerly read books about anthropomorphic animals, as many as I could get my hands on. The Redwall books by Brian Jacques were a nice compliment to the embryonic stages of tabletop wargaming with my father, pitting Badger against Weasel (and many more besides) in a medieval-type high fantasy setting.  Watership Down followed, as did of course Wind in the Willows. When Moles did feature, invariably they were worriers, loners, reverent, led by 'better' animals.  Earlier this week, I finally finished reading Duncton Wood by William Horwood, a feat I was unable to accomplish as a child. Perhaps I was put off by the intimidating size of the book and the adult themes inside. It is a stone-cold classic (pun intended for those who have read the novel), that follows the lives of a group of Moles living in the Duncton Wood system. Their stories of love and loss soon stretch to other systems, culminating in an unforgettable trek to S...

 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 ...

In a year that has delivered more than its fair share of loss, grief and uncertainty, it is perhaps ironic that the period of national lockdown provided myself and closest family with both happiness and security. Like everyone, it was hard not to hold loved ones away from home, but the enforced measures meant we had more time together as a 3. We are lucky to live in the South Yare Valley, complete with garden, home to some chickens and as it turns out, 3 Hedgehogs and a lot of Moths. Many a happy day has been spent teaching my daughter how to tend to the chickens, explaining what makes a tomato happy and of course walks down the marsh. Only the other day we stumbled across an Otter, a piece of magic from a box of tricks that keeps on giving. With no choice but to stay at home, every day became an intimate look at parish life for the flora and fauna. Water Voles, dyke dipping, the garden Mole and passing Cranes- experiences I would have missed had we not all been at home. Historical rea...

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 ...

I just need a kick up the arse sometimes, and what with November in the broads coming across a little turgid (water rather than Duck), it was the report of a local Long-eared Owl that got said backside out amongst the fields and the furrows once more. I relish the WeBs counts, but the lack of any notable Wildfowl has found me heading away from the river, seeking out the edgelands of the local parish. The Owl itself had been seen at roost in a thick hedge of Hawthorn, but the scrub and briar held nothing as I pushed on to the Hellington and Rockland community reserve. I recall passing through here in the summer, hot and tired, too thirsty and out of water to give the place the time it deserved. Now, I looked on anew. OS map in hand, I traced with my finger the broken lines that encircled the small reserve before splitting up and heading back home to Claxton, or onward to Rockland village. For me, there is nothing quite like the slide of mud and crunch of rotting reed under my feet whe...

With the days shortening and signs of Autumn feasting on Summer's entrails, we made good use of the last week of the holidays with visits to old and new. The latter, Orford Ness, a place quite unlike any other. Where else can you see Peregrines bombing over a landscape pock-marked with forgotten piles of rust, preening Avocets and former weapon testing facilities? Had the Peregrines have been present here during the Cold War, I wonder would the scientists have considered their ability to seemingly defy physics in the sky, much as they wished their payloads to do. Much mystery and intrigue surrounds what went on here in the era of the Iron Curtain, it being said that the men in one building had no idea what was being developed in the next cabin 100 metres away. Such was the need for hush in trying times. Great minds, silent heroes have left their mark here.  St. Benet's Abbey has embraced folk horror, the wicker monks now maintaining an eerie vigil around the rui...

The marshes of Suffolk and Norfolk are steeped in heritage and history, where folk come and go, leaving behind stories and markers on the landscape. The smock mill at Herringfleet is one such example, its name derived from its likeness to smocks worn by farmers in days gone by. Today the mills are not in use but instead provide a way-marker for visitors and walkers. As was so on a breezy Wednesday, the mill being the target for a there-and-back walk that took in the small natural scrapes that had opened up on the marshes thanks to sympathetic land management.  A pair of Greenshank, piping and barrel-rolling, alighted one scrape and fed on a secluded muddy bank out of our gaze. At least 2 scaly-looking juvenile Wood Sandpiper were less bothered by our presence on the bank and represent a drop in the ocean regarding the recent invasion of this species on migration. Not to be cast into the margins, Green Sandpiper were omnipresent throughout the amble and without these visitors, ...

Been meaning to get to Foulden Common for what feels like years, and it probably is that in terms of timescale! I recall being poorly last Spring, and my days put aside for a Butterfly hunt there were postponed. Before long, the mid-summer doldrums had set in and all thought of Norfolk's scarce Skipper species were put on hold until 2019.  And so despite the overcast conditions and lack of some Bird Therapy, I headed out this morning. Arriving from the direction of Mundford, travelling through Foulden village and approaching an S bend, I noticed a small bowl-shaped pull in. Doubling back I parked up, walked through two gates and began searching the common land. The first 45 minutes had me cursing the lack of sun and planning my next free morning before returning to work. A pair of Common Blue and Small Copper gave some hope, and a hoarse Cuckoo and 2+ Garden Warbler were clearly harbingers of warmer fronts moving in.  As the sun threatened to bust through the clouds, ...

Bumping into neighbour Mark Cocker in the Findhorn Valley proved not only how small our world is, but also how valuable the home patch is to us both. We compared notes around our Highland experiences, but attention quickly turned to where we had both come from. "Have you seen the Short-eared Owls?" We both had, and it was this pleasantly nagging thought that kept infiltrating my mind throughout the highland stay. Put simply, inside my head, it went like this: it is great up here, but when I get home I must get down the marsh. Despite Spring being a leap ahead back home compared to the north, reminders of the season past were hunting  Claxton Marsh as we had discussed. The Short-eared Owls had not been present all Winter, and sightings of two birds in April were oddly my first of the year. A background orchestra of Grasshopper and Sedge Warbler was a contradiction, but here were the early birds and a couple simply not in a rush.  I have been taking part in the Common B...

Wilderness is relative, and a visitor to our shores from the near continent may sneer at the lack of carnivores in our ancient forests, and join us in universal deflation when confronted with the over-intensification of our countryside in favour of farming. Having said this, one cannot sit by the shores of Loch Morlich looking up at the snow-capped peaks of the Cairngorm Massif and not feel utterly in awe and that little bit smaller in the world. Only the brightly coloured water-proofs betray the reality that civilization is close by, but just a few mindful moments and the call of a Diver are enough here. Being a regular visitor to the Scottish Highlands, the likes of Morlich, Garten, Findhorn and Rothiemurchus all feel familiar and generally are the places where my Highland experiences begun. I will always go back to them. But what struck me on this trip, albeit a family holiday, was the wealth of habitat as yet unexplored. The Badenoch Way and Insh Marshes, off the beaten track in ...

With the onset of an early Spring, naturally The Brecks have been receiving plenty of attention from visiting birders, and I was fortunate enough to spend some time at well known sites and some off the beaten track with mum, last week. We enjoyed wonderful views of Hawfinch feeding on the ground at Lynford, frustrating glimpses of an agile Firecrest in the carpark and singing Woodlark amongst tens of Brambling and Siskin. This was all in a couple of hours, a delayed start due to mum parking at Lynford Hall. Both of us sat in our cars half a mile apart wondering where the other was. Cue missed calls from mum and dad (the big gun rolled out) when I retreated to Mundford to gather reception and find the missing parent. Whilst waiting, I even managed to squeeze in listening to Jupiter from the Planet Suite, which provided a great backdrop in Lynford carpark as I watched Lee Evans and co return to their cars victorious. That sighting allows a neat segue-way into my key point. The Brecks i...

I was reminded of the brilliance of Richard Adams's Watership Down over Christmas, the BBC adaptation collided with mixed reviews but we at The Warren loved it. Rabbits themselves are not so common in the wider countryside today, disease the main culprit. One particular arch enemy of the rabbit, the Fox or Homba, can be heard barking and generally making an otherworldly racket at this time of year, as the dog seeks out the vixen in the hope of mating and settling down into an earth. Although widespread, the country fox is rarely seen, and my encounter last Sunday the 20th was one to remember. I had checked the water levels at Rockland Broad around 7.30am, and was in the process of retreating through the frozen scrub back to the main path when a bark stopped me in my tracks. Leaf litter and twigs snapped, a path was being ploughed in my direction. I took a step back, and a fox shot out in front of me. Panicked, he sprinted deeper into the brush and the last I heard for now was ...

No matter how many times I walk the well-trodden paths that criss-cross my local patch, nature can still throw up something new. At Surlingham Church Marsh early this morning, the temperature beginning to climb above freezing, I witnessed a pair of Jays mobbing a perched Common Buzzard. I have never seen this behaviour before, although from a Corvid of any kind not exactly unexpected. My presence appeared to be the final straw, the raptor taking flight and disappearing further into the small pine wood. Elsewhere on the reserve, a hunting female Marsh Harrier was hopefully a sign of things to come prior to Spring, and Siskins aplenty called overhead and amongst the Alders. Walking the holloway from the church down to the river, the first Snowdrops were braving the frozen ground and providing a welcome splash of purity and colour. This afternoon as the sky took on a golden tinge above the copse opposite, I took this as my signal to walk the marsh path down to the river. I was rewarded ...

In the time it took me to drive down the long uneven track to the enigma that is The Beauchamp Arms, the satellite Corvid roost had grown from zero to around 300 birds. A roughly even mix of Rooks and Jackdaws assemble on Claxton Marshes every evening during the Winter (currently around 15.30) and 50 minutes later a mass of circa 5000 birds have left for the giant roost at Buckenham Carrs north of the river. This was the first time I had made a clear note of timings, and was surprised by how quickly the meeting point goes from raucous to silent. In fact, an eerie quiet falls upon the avenue of trees around 16.00, and a lone cock Pheasant outcried the 1000s of Corvids perched on trees or loafing on the marshy ground beneath. What follows are a number of reshufflings as the restless birds take flight in small waves, taking a new branch to perch upon. Around 16.15, a false dawn as a splinter group takes a more purposeful flight only to loop round and return to the main group. Only at twe...

Elephant in the room- I felt the blog needed a rebrand, fresh coat of paint. Now that you can detect and indeed explain the smell of freshly washed clothes, I can get back to business and at least aim to post more than once per quarter in 2019. Birds, beasts, books, Black Shuck: expect all, and then some. I do enjoy Betwixtmas. Drams of Glen Keith, smashing through a new Shardlake novel and almost aimless wanderings about the patch. Family outing to Wheatfen today, pleased to note two feeding stations are attracting the attention of the gregarious Tit families including Marsh and Coal. A Nuthatch's machine gun-like call broke through the grey and a pair of Great-spotted Woodpecker engaged in a bit of will they, won't they courtship. On a run through the village yesterday I heard drumming, early maybe but indicative of the mild weather. After successfully test-driving some Christmas clothes, we retired to Coldham Hall where I can announce with surprise I enjoyed a pint of s...

A great summer of wildlife to reflect upon. Looking back at my diary notes, a number of items jump off the page and I will embellish upon a few here. Early August I caught up with a tiny percentage of the Pied Flycatcher influx. I left the girls for half an hour on Caister beach on the 3rd of August (thankfully they were there when I returned) and stumbled across a single bird feeding on flying ants perhaps amongst the gorse. The following day I met up with Tim at Waxham, had a good yarn about all things education, and whilst most birds had cleared out I still picked up one bird calling loudly overhead. The 10th was an odd day for me. I saw a new bird for the UK in Spotted Crake, but views were particuarly underwhelming and did make me question the whole twitching thing once again. On reflection, the day was more about spending quality time with my uncle and I will probably remember it more for that and getting soaked on route back to the car. On the 18th of August, with the M40 ...

I led a cosy (ie few people attended) walk on Norfolk Day weekend, from The New Inn at Rockland out to the broad, river and back. It was advertised as a Bat walk but as with any dusk walk there was plenty of other wildlife to enjoy. By the staithe, a Lesser Stag Beetle scuttled along the path. Although the broad was quiet save Ducks in eclipse plumage, at the back a Bittern flew over the reedbed in the direction of Wheatfen. This was actually my first record of the year on the patch, having not made an early starts in April (this side of the river at least) where I would usually at least hear booming. As dusk entered darkness and a slightly blood-red moon rose, 2 Hobby hunted close to us, one eating a large Hawker on the wing as they tend to do. It was on the return leg that we connected with Bats, and initially plenty of them. At least 6 Noctule hawked over the river and scrub by Short Dyke, lots of feeding buzzes heard over the detector for the party to enjoy. These are Britain's...

The kind folk over at Vine House Farm  https://www.vinehousefarm.co.uk/   recently sent me a new feeder to try out, which you can see in the photo below. The feeder sits perfectly on a ring designed to hold a seed or water bowl. It has a 'handle' at the back which can be secured to a (probably wider) pole if required. Initially, the birds were wary, no doubt as this looks a little different to anything else around. I filled it with suet pellets provided by Vine House, and it after a few days this was the hot feeder in the garden, plagued by juvenile Starlings, to the extent that the fat balls next to it are oft forgotten! Handily, I can change the inner part of the feeder to suit fat balls rather than pellets. This will be a useful test, as I will find out whether it is the nature of the new feeder design or indeed the food available that has meant the immature Starlings come back again and again. A further test will be the winter months, but in the meantime nice to enjoy t...