An
Afternoon In North Norfolk – Thursday 25th September
First let me begin with an omission from the last blog entry. Just
before we left The Arms for home we saw a group of Pheasants, nothing unusual
about that except that the 4 males varied so much in colour from an almost
silver one (not unusual in these parts) to a very dark one, not black (melanistic) but a very dark brown devoid of any other colours.
Jan decided that we would go to North Norfolk today, the weather
forecast wasn’t particularly good but as it turned out the weather was almost
perfect, sunny spells and not too hot.
Our first port of call was Salthouse Heath and as we drove onto the
Heath a Muntjac stag nonchalantly ambled across the path in front of us before
disappearing into the Gorse. We sat there for a while but there was a complete
absence of small birds in our area but that wasn’t too surprising as there was
some major work going on nearby. The I think the real reason, sprung from the
ground behind some bushes in front of us about 15-20 metres, a
Buzzard. We don’t know whether or not it had been on a kill but it soon
disappeared. Then Jan pointed out a bird high in the sky in front of us, it was
a Peregrine Falcon gaining height.
The Gorse bushes were covered in Spider Webs mainly of the Orb
Spider, Jan got out of the car and tried to get some pictures of a particularly
big specimen.
Orb Spider
We also came across some dense silk webs in the Gorse. There are
several Moth Caterpillars which do this for protection (Gorse Knot-Horn, Small
Ermine, Small Eggar, Lackey, Brown Tail (which can cause a bad irritation if
touched) and the Oak Processionary Moths amongst them) but we didn’t see any
Caterpillars in them so they were probably spun by Mites; they can build in
numbers very quickly. When conditions are right, mainly in the summer when it
is hot and dry, a female mite can lay up to 20 eggs a day, which hatch and
mature very quickly – giving rise to up to a million mites within a month or
less. The young mites surround themselves with webbing for protection and also
to help them disperse which they do by congregating on the top of the web and
letting the wind take them.
The most obvious web-building mite is the Gorse Spider-mite
(Tetranychus lintearius). Its webs can be seen at almost any time of year, and
are often plentiful, if small, in the middle of the winter. As the mites suck
the juice out of the Gorse the plant turns from dark green to a sickly yellow,
and the infested part of the bush may die back.
As we left the Heath to go down into Salthouse we came across a small covey
of Partridges crossing the road and then another Muntjac, this time a hind,
popped up out of the hedges on our right and looked tentatively to cross the road
but it saw us and decided to go back the way it had come. We carried on down to
the Duck Pond in Salthouse and had an ice-cream while we watched the Ducks,
Coots, Swans and Geese before moving onto Cley Beach Road. There were a lot of
people about so it was very busy and we couldn’t really see very much so we
moved onto Blakeney Harbour where again it was very busy but we stayed there
and had our coffee before moving on to Stiffkey Saltmarsh.
There were about half a dozen birders with scopes already set up in
the car park and that grew during the time we were there. Apparently they were
all looking for a Hen Harrier that was roosting in a distant tree. We didn’t
see a Hen Harrier but we did see a couple of Marsh Harriers and a Heron making
their way along the coast. We saw some Little Egrets and a Robin. I was
disappointed this morning when I read the daily report from Birdguides because
it reported a Great White Egret which was seen all along this section of coast
and the reported time was about the time we were there; hey-ho the Great White
Egret still eludes us.
We moved further along the coast to Burnham Overy Staithe and the
tide was now rushing in. Plenty of Black Headed Gulls, Little Egrets, Curlew,
Pied Wagtails and a few Turnstones. The weather had now changed to match the
forecast, the sunny spells were replaced by heavy cloud cover and the light had
become quite murky. It was then that we saw what we thought was a strange bird; a very pretty bird and we had a good sighting of it and recorded some video and
got some pictures of it but because of the light they weren’t particularly
good. When Jan looked the bird up in the book it was a Grey Plover but in its
Summer Breeding plumage. Although we’ve seen Grey Plovers before they’ve always
been in their Winter plumage. The Grey Plover breeds in the High Arctic and the
birds we see in this country come predominantly from Siberia and begin their
Winter migration in late August so this bird may well have been a new arrival.
Grey Plover (Winter Plumage)
Grey Plover (Summer Plumage)
We had seen a few small skeins of Geese (20-30) but it is incredible
to think that in a few months time, some of these skeins will contain several
thousands of birds which is always a magical and breathtaking sight.
Our last stop was at Brancaster Staithe but by now the tide was
fully in and there really weren’t many birds here at all so we began our
journey home hoping that we might see a Barn Owl at some point. We didn’t but
we did see another Deer (the hind legs, that is) as it crossed over the road
and a little bird which flew across the road in the dark.
It had been a lovely day out but we had a surprise female visitor waiting
for us when we got home. It was the largest House Spider either of us have seen. I may
need an armed guard to go into the computer room from now on, as she has probably made her home in my slippers!
Keep your eyes peeled and good spotting.
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