Weeting Warden's diary: April snow showers

Sophie Harrison and Abi Nell

After our last blog post the weather and the fortunes of the stone curlews at Weeting Heath took a dramatic turn for the worse. April came with bitter winds and showers of hail, sleet and snow mixed with tantalising glimpses of a warm spring sun. The butterflies and moths of the warm days of March have been most confused, as have the migrant birds arriving expecting to find food a plenty after their long and difficult journey.

Screenshot from the camera

After a few weeks for feeding, preening and staking out territories, all 6 of our stone curlews settled into 3 nesting pairs. Our most experienced pair (Pair 2) were first to lay, but also unfortunately, first to abandon their eggs to the cold after a particularly sharp frost. Pairs 1 and 3 had also settled onto nests a few days after Cynthia and Hew, but pair 3 likewise decided that this English weather was not the best start for their offspring, so also abandoned. These four birds left the heathland in search of shelter and food, and we are waiting to see if they will return to attempt to nest again.

Brave pair 1 have stuck it out, and have made it through the foul weather to enjoy the relief of warm sun in early May. Due to pair ones’ dedication to their brood and some clever camera instillation, we are able to bring you views of the nest live into the visitor’s centre. Sock cam has returned with an upgrade and facelift to capture the important milestones in pair ones nesting attempt. So far we have seen regular nest change overs, the parents defending their eggs against jackdaws and rooks, wheatears scampering around in the background as well as preening and feeding behaviour.
 

Volunteer Phil Hasell planting pines

As part of the Breaking New Ground project in the Brecks, we were given 25 pine trees to help develop the pine line. The pine lines of the Brecks are an iconic feature and provide several benefits to the local environment. They work as a wind break to protect the heathland, and also provide food and shelter for several species of bird (goldcrest, chiffchaff, and crossbills). Their other key role is to act as wildlife corridors to link habitats together, thus supporting rare Breckland specialist moths and beetles. Both staff and volunteers got stuck in to plant the young trees! Over the upcoming months the team at Weeting will be giving them some TLC and lots of watering to help them establish and grow to the size of their ancestors.
 
On Saturday the 23 April, the Breckland Flora group paid us a visit. They were running a workshop on Breckland Speedwell Identification. This allowed members to get their ‘eye in’ on the species, and to aid them in monitoring their own local patch. This monitoring programme has been set up to enable consistent and accurate recording of specialist Breckland Flora. If you are interested in becoming part of this programme and for more information please email Sophie.

The migrant birds have trickled into the Brecks but a few nice days in April gave us several species being sighted for the first time this season on the same day. Firecrest and willow warbler picked the 10 April to make their presence known. We also had two visitors which managed to spot two ring ouzel passing through on the 10th. The first swallows were seen over Weeting on 4 April, closely followed by blackcap on the 5th. Woodlarks and wheatears have been seen fairly regularly on the heath and from the forest walk on the finer days of the month. The first tree pipits and turtle doves have been reported on the 24 and 30 April, a nice finish to a rather quiet month.

We had a little flurry of birds of prey at the beginning of the month with a male and female peregrine spotted on the forest walk on 1 April. A goshawk sighting was also reported on that day. Sparrowhawks, kestrels and buzzards are seen regularly hunting in the pines and on the heathland around the visitors centre. 

We have been unable to run the moth trap during April as night time temperatures were nowhere near the ideal 10 degrees needed for most night flying moths. We hope to return to regular weekly trapping into May so look out for that in next month's blog. 

The Ovington Ramblers: Wayland Wood

Maureen Simmons

Our walk this week took us just a short distance away to Wayland Wood- always a lovely site to visit but particularly at this time of the year. We chose a lovely sunny morning and emerging from the car park we saw quite a large clump of bluebells. Soon afterwards we saw the first of many early purple orchids. They really are increasing in number and grow in profusion where they never used to be. We also noted yellow archangel, pink campion and white star of Bethlehem (sadly we didn't see the yellow version and made a note to look earlier next year). The birds were very vocal particularly the chiffchaffs. The bird cherry trees were in full bloom. Many white flowers smell gorgeous but this can't be said of the blossom of the bird cherry!

Before long we came to the main bluebell area of the wood. What a wonderful sight with dappled sun shining through the tree canopy on to what looked like a sea of blue! The scent of the bluebells was quite strong too-so different from the Spanish bluebells of garden cultivation. In the same area we saw many wood anemones plus a few tiny wood sorrel and ferns uncurling to take over as summer begins.

Wayland Wood has so much to recommend it with it being a circular walk AND it never seems to be crowded. Even though it provides the annual bluebell 'fix' for walkers it is also a wonderful walk at any time of the year. The downside is that although the wood is designated as a dog free area it is frequented by owners and their dogs usually not on leads. On this occasion we saw a lady in full running kit plus 2 dogs using the paths as a training ground and on a previous occasion we saw a large dog breakfasting on the eggs belonging to a ground nesting bird. How can this be changed?

The Ovington Ramblers are a small group of friends who have decided in their 20^th year of walking together that we will try to visit all the Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserves in their 90th Anniversary year. 

Ranworth in May

Barry Madden, NWT Volunteer

There are few better places to spend a sunny May morning than at NWT Ranworth Broad. A week ago the skies were grey, the water turbulent and the air chill with the tendrils of winter still holding sway. Today it was fresh and bright, the water reflectively calm and the endless possibilities of summer hanging in the air.
 

At this season the difference a mere seven days makes can be quite profound. Whereas on the penultimate day of April only a few common terns were hawking over the broad now they are everywhere; chasing each other in courtship, vying with the black headed gulls for nest sites, squabbling over favoured perches and generally gracing the scene with their buoyant passage through air. A week ago the television screens in the visitor centre were trained on empty, forlorn and deserted swallow’s nests; today these so welcome harbingers of summer were fastidiously attending to their fragile cups of dried mud, tossing aside the accumulated detritus of winter ready to rebuild, reline and reproduce. On my last volunteering visit it was hard to believe any bird of the open fen could possibly incubate a clutch to hatching, but today the dedication and resilience of these hardy creatures was evident with broods of mallard, coot and moorhen being attended to by proud and protective parents. A lively scene then and surely one to celebrate.

But there was more to Ranworth today than just the regular resident and seasonal cast. Today was a special day, a day when some rather beautiful and irregular visitors stopped to say hello. The weather is to thank; low pressure bubbling up from the Continent sending spiralling anticlockwise airflows into the English Channel. Birds trying to migrate into the North Sea with the intention of reaching the Low Countries are met with strong breezes which sweep them along our south coast and displace them on our western shores. Black terns, gorgeous, dainty and lost. With the breeding imperative upon them they waste little time reorienting and head swiftly eastwards directly across country. It is at these times, occurring every few years, that we get a chance to see these lovely creatures refuelling over our waterways. The window is slight, perhaps only a day or two, and today was such a day.

Sensing some chance of an encounter, my first action on arriving at the visitor centre was to scan the open water hoping to see smaller, darker birds amongst the milling common terns. And sure enough there they were, three at least, hawking insects from the water surface at the back of the broad. Hoping to get better views, I hitched a lift on ‘Damselfly’ the boat we use for ferrying people to and from the staithe and for running our very popular Water Trail trips. Once aboard this spacious boat, the true tranquillity of the environment can be appreciated. On a day such as this one it was a pleasure to float close to dancing grebes, drift past unconcerned waterfowl and just take in the soporific atmosphere of this wonderful broadland retreat. 

We saw herons diving into the broad for fish, witnessed a kingfisher skimming the dead calm surface a couple of metres from where we sat, watched marsh harriers and buzzards lazily drifting on the warm air and spooked a party of loafing cormorants from their roost site. But we could not get close to the black terns; at least not close enough for me. They were there, tantalisingly present, but too full of life and too far away for satisfying views. Wherever the boat drifted, they would appear on the opposite side of the broad. There we could see them dancing together over the skyline before plunging towards the watery expanse to pick some tiny morsel from the surface. Time and again all morning they would perform in this way, but never close to.  Does it matter that I couldn’t get a close up photograph? Not one jot. What really matters is that they were there, these monochrome sprites that for a few hours on a sunny May morning brightened the lives of all who saw them.

Read Barry's blog at http://easternbushchat.blogspot.co.uk   

The Ovington Ramblers: Foxley Wood

Maureen Simmons

It was another beautiful sunny day when we visited Foxley Wood, which is well signposted off the A1067 Fakenham to Norwich Road. This is Norfolk's largest remaining ancient woodland and was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. 

These ancient woods have been unchanged for hundreds and hundreds of years and provide the perfect natural habitat for so many diverse species.  In fact there are over 350 plant species recorded in Foxley Wood, many of which were in bloom when we paid our visit. The most spectacular, of course, are the bluebells making a deep blue carpet through the trees, interspersed with white wood anemones and pale lemon primroses – an absolute dream! We were lucky to see lots of other wild flowers including water avens, wood sorrell, red campion and sweet violets, to name just a few.  Wild strawberries were beginning to stir and some were even in flower. We had never seen so many huge bumble bees at one time, visiting the early spring flowers and catkins.

We heard so many different bird calls throughout the woods and it would have been lovely to have an expert with us, but we did recognise the robins, wrens, chiff chaffs, chaffinches and woodpeckers.

Some of the pathways are extremely boggy at this time of year and because of this we did make a big diversion to drier ground.  However, this led us to some remarkably large early purple orchids we would otherwise have missed. How lucky was that! The photograph shows one of them just about to come into flower and looking rather like a fat asparagus shoot.

This is a wonderful place to visit, but remember to take your wellies if you are going soon.  Next week – weather permitting – we are taking a boat trip on Ranworth Broad.

Weeting wakes up for spring

By Sophie Harrison and Abi Nell

Welcome back to a new season at Weeting Heath! Our stone curlews made the perilous journey from North West Africa back to Weeting on 17 March. We currently have three active breeding pairs that are spending most of the time displaying, flapping their wings and marking their territories. Pair 2, Cynthia and Hue that were the stars of the Wings Over the Brecks last season, have safely returned to hopefully breed again this year. 

As part of the Breaking New Ground project, we now have a new camera with a high quality zoom lens, which will enable us to get up close and personal to our famous heath chickens! The camera will be powered by a solar panel that is mounted on wheels looking like something off robot wars! To minimise stress for our birds we had our solar panel warrior wheeled out onto the heath prior to the birds’ arrival. When the birds start to nest, we will be able to run a camera from the power source to be within 10m of the nest. So watch this space for more Stonie updates! 

To get Weeting up and running ready for the new season, our Breckland Reserves Manager Matt Blissett, our Breckland Reserves field officer Paul Waterhouse, and our visitor centre coordinator Abi Nell were assisted by our surperb team of volunteers to give the visitor centre a much needed lick of paint. Abi and I have have been busy updating signs and waymarkers through the forest. Visitors should now be able to navigate their way around the forest trail with ease.

The dense forest is great for green woodpeckers and Roe Deer. The more open areas that look out over the heath are good for spotting stonechat, wheatear, woodlark and if you are very lucky, goshawk. As the season progresses, more species will be visible in these areas such as hobby, tree pipit, grasshopper warbler and hopefully turtle doves.

 

Bird sighting highlights in addition to our stonies on the heath so far have been lapwing, wheatear, buzzard, kestrel, skylark, common curlew and mistle thrush. The pines have been buzzing with activity from yellowhammer and nuthatch to lesser redpoll and brambling. In the forest, crossbills, goshawk and peregrines have been seen flying over, whilst stone chat hide in the gorse and woodlarks pose on fence posts.

March has had a mixture of weather conditions, but we have seen several species of butterfly on the wing on the finer, drier days. This has included peacock; comma; speckled wood; small tortoiseshell; brimstone and red admirals!  As the season progresses (and if the weather picks up), we will be monitoring the butterfly species in weekly transects across the reserve.

Pine Beauty

For the first time this season the weather conditions have been good enough to get our moth trap up and running! Species caught include Pine Beauty; Common Quaker; Dotted Chestnut; Clouded Drab; Hebrew Character;  and Twin Spotted Quaker.

You will find all staff and volunteers at NWT Weeting Heath friendly and flexible. We are always looking to recruit new volunteers to join our friendly group. Our volunteers range in age, ability and interests. We have some that help us run the visitors centre, others that are happy to get involved with hard work on the reserve and some volunteers help us with their specialist knowledge of natural history to contribute to our regular wildlife monitoring. If you have a special interest, a love of working outdoors and as part of a team or even if you are just looking for some company, we would love to meet you. Pop in and see us at any time or email us at weeting@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk.

·    If you have been to visit and taken some pictures that you are particularly proud of and would like to share them with the team then please send then to weeting@norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk.

·   The Brecks Local group is now up and running again for local wildlife enthusiasts. A full list of activities will be available soon but in the mean time you can contact John Davies at safarijohn47@gmail.com to find out more. 

On Monday 2 May we are holding the ‘Wild at Weeting’ Fun Day. The event is open to families, members and non-members alike. There will be kids activities, special membership offers, a guided walk, a second-hand book stall, a cake stall, a plant stall, a moth demonstration and interesting facts about Breckland wildlife. Read more here

The Ovington Ramblers: Hoe Rough

Maureen Simmons

Hoe Rough is found a few miles north of Dereham on the B1146 close to Gressenhall museum. It  provides a pleasant circular walk passing by the meandering river Whitewater across heathland and wet fenland.  It was a typical April day when we paid our visit but we managed to avoid the showers, although we did need our wellies as part is very wet.

Nowadays we take much longer on our walks as we take the time to “stop and stare”.  It is amazing to see so many tiny different plants growing in profusion that we once would have walked across without noticing.  Sometimes we look up the rare plants of interest on the walk and take pictures downloaded from the internet so we know what to look out for.  It is a way of learning as we go.  Today we were armed with pictures of yellow rattle, bogbean and cuckoo flower.  Unfortunately, as it is still early in the year, we only managed to find the cuckoo flower, a delicate soft lilac little flower growing in the wet ground.

Also thriving here along the river are huge poplar trees. These trees are dioecious, meaning they produce male and female flowers, or catkins, on different plants and there were many chunky red male catkins which had fallen from the trees. (The female catkins are greenish-yellow).




 
The Ovington Ramblers are a small group of friends who have decided in their 20^th year of walking together that we will try to visit all the Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserves in their 90th Anniversary year.

Ranworth at Easter

Barry Madden, NWT Volunteer

Easter has struck early and with it a new season has started at NWT Ranworth Broad. The welcome onslaught of visitors has been at times akin to a tornado touching earth; the visitor centre awhirl with holidaying families, keen birders and local people who, having spent a long winter imprisoned by winter's chill, have at last been released to savour the singular sense of light and space this slice of Broadland can offer.
 
Spring is bursting all around. The wet woodland surrounding the boardwalk from Ranworth village is resounding to the thrill of vibrant birdsong; wrens, robins, woodpeckers and chiffchaffs boldly staking out territories whilst hidden Cetti's warblers explode their loud clatter of notes from deep cover. Songthrushes pouring forth their sweet, varied repertoire from the mature trees on the higher borders of the reserve whilst marsh harriers and buzzards float lazily over the more stunted trees and reed beds of this special water world. An otter entertained some lucky visitors early on, briefly poking its broad, flat head above the surface of the broad before submerging with a flick of its thickly furred tail; thereafter a trail of bubbles and the harsh squawking of enraged black-headed gulls provided the only clue to its whereabouts. The sighting over in an instant but for a few the memory will linger.
 
At the eastern end of the trail, the wardens of the Bure Valley Living Landscape have completed their annual reed cutting. The reeds on either side of the boardwalk are cut and burned in alternate years to allow light and space for the multitude of special plants that flower here during the summer. This intensive management work is vital to ensure the reed bed remains in good health and is a small scale example of the work that is undertaken all over the Broads and along the North Norfolk Coast. By June the new reed growth will be chest high, buzzing with the vibrancy of insects and migrant warblers.
 

During these Easter holidays, the weather has, predictably, been unpredictable. A brilliant opening day gave way to showers and strong winds over the Easter weekend before a return to spring sunshine. But even during inclement spells beauty could be found with dramatic sunlit vistas of vivid spring foliage highlighted against an evil looking dark cloudscape. Rainbows as a backdrop to sun kissed bows of motor cruisers; surely the season in a nutshell. The latter, milder conditions with south-easterly winds brought delight in the form of three swallows that briefly flirted around the Visitor Centre on the last day of a changeable March. They were nowhere to be seen the following day, an April Fool's joke to all that thought they were 'our' swallows come back to reclaim their summer home. Patience! They will soon be here.

Of all the birds that epitomise Ranworth though, it is surely the great crested grebes that steal the show. At this time of year they are in peak condition, displaying to one another in full view of admiring onlookers. On a lunch break sitting quietly by the less watched portion of the broad, I was lucky enough to witness a courtship display by a pair that seem intent on setting up home in a sheltered bay. With no aquatic weeds available to them with which to perform their dramatic dances in this sadly polluted environment, the birds made do with a clump of debris plucked from a low growing bough. How wonderful to witness this intimate moment at such close quarters and be able to admire the birds in all their seasonal finery.

Although the grebes will soon build their flimsy floating platform and lay a clutch of real eggs, it was smaller more fat enriched fare that our younger human visitors craved. Chocolate Easter eggs: a prize for completing the regular Easter Eggsplorer quiz entailing an educational journey around the reserve answering questions on the varied wildlife that can be encountered during the year. This is always a popular activity and helps entertain the children whilst allowing mum and dad to take a breather. I didn't do the quiz, and to my shame didn't know the answer to some of the questions, but those eggs were delicious.

 

It is good to be here again and to feel part of something important. Spreading the message of conservation to the general public whose support for the work of NWT is crucial. The smiles on the faces of the visitors told of an enjoyable experience and that gives satisfaction enough for the first few days of what will, I’m sure, be a season full of wonderful wildlife and people. 

Read Barry's blog at http://easternbushchat.blogspot.co.uk