Chris Lansdell's Birding & Nature Diary

Southwold and Reydon Wood, 10 April 2021

Just an afternoon out but it was nice to get to the coast. Parking at the south edge of town the path along the seward edge of Town Marsh was just around the corner. An on a flash in the NE corner of the marsh the Grey Phalarope of the last couple of days was seen straight away. Into the bargain, despite there only being 3 large gulls on the pool one of them was a beast of a 3rd year Caspian Gull. 2 White Wagtails were also together on the mud but as you can see below everything was a bit distant for photography!

A walk down to the river and back via the golf course didn't complete enough steps for us so we opted for another walk a lap of Reydon Wood. This is somewhere we'd never been before and it was an absolute delight. I have never seen so many Early Dog Violets and as well as those I found a small patch of Moschatel, some Early Purple Orchid rosettes, Wood Anenomes and one clump of Summer Snowflake. The first few Bluebells were just flowering but this wood will be a sea of blue in a couple of weeks. Birch Woodwart was the only fungus seen.

Grey Phalarope

White Wagtail

Caspian Gull

Wood Anenome

Summer Snowflake

Moschatel

Early Dog Violet

Birch Woodwart

Breckland Micro Botany! 9 April 2021

A carefully-engineered Friday off work for us both so we headed for a full day out down in the Brecks. We are lucky to have this botanical hotspot close to home. I'd arranged to meet John Geeson at Icklingham Triangle so we rendezvoued there and began our hands and knees examination of a particular spot that I had directions to and that John had visited many years ago. And bingo - it didn't take us long to find our quarry - the tiny, and rare Spring Speedwell. These plants are literally no bigger than your finger nail! I was over the moon to get the last of the Brecks speciality speedwells and once we 'got our eyes in' we found at least 20. Early Forget-me-not was almost as small and another tick. We also had Field Mouse-ear, the beginnings of Lucerne near the gate, a flock of c17 Crossbills a handful of Lesser Redpolls and a single Swallow over.

After a catch up we said goodbye to John and ventured out to Deadman's Grave nearby. A long walk here had it's highlights too as I found loads of Mossy Stonecrop, Field Woodrush, Thale Cress and Shepherds Cress. The last 3 were new to be with the latter being nationally scarce (but plentiful at Icklingham). The White Horehound is also putting up plenty of new leaves but will be in flower later in the summer.

Next up was another decent walk at Cavenham Heath (from Icklingham village) - a Cattle Egret and 2 Little Egrets were in the area around the flash, Stone Curlew and Curlew on the heath and by the river Willow Warbler, Grey Wagtail and Blackcap.

We finished at East Wretham where it was very quiet - just Little Grebes on Langmere and single fly-over Fieldfare of note.

Spring Speedwell

Field Mouse-ear

Thale Cress

Shepherd's Cress

Mossy Stonecrop

Common Storksbill

Early Forget-me-not

Field Woodrush

Common Mouse-ear

North Cove NR and Carlton Marshes, 4 April 2021

An afternoon to myself so after a little research I headed off to North Cove NR for my first visit there. A certain plant was my target and despite finding out their location around the 'Decoy Pond' I was very pleasantly surprised to find patches on both sides of the path only 5 yards in from the reserve entrance. I am talking about the snappily-named Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage. Doesn't that just trip off the tongue! I did a whole circuit of the paths in this delightful little reserve enjoying singing Blackcap, Brimstone and finding loads more OLGS plus Fool's Water-cress and Common Duckweed in ditches. A nice patch of Scarlet Elf-cups was, as always, lovely to see.

With plenty of time in hand I spent the rest of the afternoon on a mega long walk around the new and extended Carlton Marshes. Easter Sunday and sun meant the carpark was rammed but when out on the marsh I quickly lost most people. Until I reached Peto's Marsh all I had to show for my efforts were a squealing Water Rail, Comma, Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshell and Small White. Reaching the furthest hide - North Hide I was greeted with a singing Sedge Warbler and after ages scanning the pools and scrapes eventually located a flying Garganey and then a pair swam into view. Also there was a Greenshank, several Redshank, 2 Great White Egrets still good numbers of Pintail and Wigeon plus Bearded Tits and 6 Chinese Water Deer.

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage

Scarlet Elf-cup

North Cove NR

Fool's Water-cress

Breckland Speedwell and a long walk, 3 April 2021

Despite the rather frigid temperatures we ventured out to the Brecks yesterday.

Before our walk I wanted to check out the roadside nature reserve where I saw Fingered Speedwell about a week ago. After much searching of what is only a very small area (with Belinda getting more and more bored in the car!) I eventually found one Breckland Speedwell plant growing with c6 Fingered Speedwells. I must have looked past it numerous times before my eyes focussed on it! One of the problems is that the spot is overrun with Field Forget-me-nots so it's like looking for blue flowers in a mass of blue flowers! During my search I found one more Fingered Speedwell at the other end of the RNR and a patch of Mossy Stonecrop, in itself a nationally scarce species.

Our walk was from Santon Downham to Brandon along the riverbank and then back through the woods to the south of the river. A flock of c50 Common Crossbills was possibly my biggest ever group and both Lesser Redpolls and Siskins were everywhere. A lunch stop near the Brandon end was enjoyed with a Kingfisher flashing past and a pair of Marsh Tits nest building. Further on near the end of the walk the Spring Snowflakes near Santon Downham church were virtually over but I did find a couple of plants with flowers still present. Blushing Bracket and a curious unidentified bracket growing on a Willow were also seen plus Oregon Grape and both Honesty and Garden Grape Hyacinth naturalised in the woods.

A detour on the way home gave me a distant Stone Curlew on Bridgham Heath.

Breckland Speedwell

Breckland and Fingered Speedwells

Fingered Speedwell

Mossy Stonecrop

Spring Snowflake

Blushing Bracket

unidentified Bracket fungus on Willow

Early hirundines at Dickleburgh Moor, 1 April 2021

A very pleasant if bitterly cold hour down at the moor.

Initially it looked like it was going to be a very dull visit with literally nothing of note seen except a single Little Egret. Ben arrived and began walking the flooded eastern bund but still nothing much was seen. I eventually picked out a very distant single Redshank and 2 Pochard (a site tick). Thnigs then started to liven up with 2 Yellow Wagtails over the far paddock but not stopping then 2, quickly up to 4 Swallows joined by 3 Sand Martins and a single House Martin over the poplars. Ben then picked up 2 flying waders that settled on the near edge to be quickly joined by another - 3 Little Ringed Plovers.

In the end a most worthwhile visit with earliest dates for House Martin, Yellow Wagtail and my equal earliest for Swallow.

Twitching Shenanigans in the South West, 30 March 2021

We had been waiting patiently for travel restrictions to be eased and keeping our fingers crossed that a certain bird would hang on for us. Luckily it did so Jus and I hatched a plan to travel down to Exmouth on Tuesday.

Leaving mine at 04.45 we were at the site in suburban Exmouth by 10.15. And despite our fears it was a very small scale chilled out scenario. We had taken stepladders to ensure we could see over the back fence of the garden the bird favours and within a minute of looking I got onto the Northern Mockingbird high up in a palm/yukka type tree feeding on fruits. During 45 minutes of viewing the bird was in almost constant view, moving between 2 gardens and sunning itself for periods when it showed to about 5 meters. Into the bargain there were hardly any birders there - maybe c12 with most viewing through scopes from the main road meaning we had the alleyway to ourselves.

Northern Mockingbird

While down in Devon we had planned to visit Dawlish Warren for the rare and rather lovely Sand Crocus so that was our next port of call. We found 200+ plants easily near the visitor centre and while we were on our knees photographing them Jus called 2 Cirl Buntings singing a few yards away - we were on a roll!

Sand Crocus

Cirl Bunting

Now, our original plan from this point on was to start heading for home and to take in the wintering Rustic Bunting at Thursley on the way back. But having been there for months there had been negative news earlier which scuppered that. All was far from lost though - 'only' another 2 hours further on at Newlyn, near Penzance was another UK tick for us both - it would have been rude not to! Upon arrival at the small beach by the south pier mid-afternoon we got onto the 1w American Herring Gull immediately and spent some time giving it a good grilling. It was remarkably tame, allowing Jus to get within about 5 feet of it. Indeed it was difficult to chivvy it into flying so we could nail some more id features! I couple of Rock Pipits and a Rock Dove lookalike were also on the beach. Nearby we also had Three-cornered Garlic (including some verges full of it) and a patch of Common Scurvy-grass, both new plants for me.

It was then just a trawl home and a BK tea at Sedgemoor in the afterglow of a UK double-tick day!