I began my journey south from Scotland today, once someone had been in to survey damage from the burst pipe. I had a couple of good views of buzzards whilst the daylight lasted, but that was the extent of my wildlife encounters today. I’m hoping for more tomorrow, as I’m breaking the journey at Stockton-on-Tees, and am planning to look for a two or three interesting rarities on the way to my rehearsal in Kings’ Lynn tomorrow evening.
Meanwhile Brenda was also on her way back to Norfolk, though we’ll be at Benslow again next week for a chamber music course we both coach on. I’m hoping to get a photo of one of the black squirrels, and it will be interesting to see if the injured magpie is still around.
Brenda writes: “My course finished after lunch and I headed towards home, stopping off briefly at the Green Parrot eco shop in Swaffham to fill up my laundry liquid bottles (one of the ways in which I’m trying to reduce our consumption of single use plastics).
Then I took a short detour to Flitcham to see what was around at the farmer’s hide. Like Benslow, the scene before me when I open the hide flap is very familiar because I have visited it a number of times. It’s lovely to sit for an hour and see what’s there or what passes through. There were lots of oystercatchers, around 30, and the usual suspects on the water – mallard, gadwall, tufted duck, teal, coot and moorhen – and in the field plenty of pheasants and rabbits. A pair of muntjac deer came very close to the hide and there was a dunnock pottering around in the gorse just in front of me. I didn’t see any little owls despite scanning the old oak tree many times. I know they’re in there – the log book said they were showing nicely at 9.30 this morning. Maybe next time!”
No new species for March 16th:
TOTALS TO DATE:
Birds = 143
Moths = 9
Wildflowers = 24