Following the cattle

In Salthouse today it was a matter of looking at the various groups of cows grazing the fields near the saltmarsh: This was because there were cattle egrets around. These are another of the heron-like birds that are gradually colonising the UK. Small egrets with bright orange bills, they are regular now over here but …

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The end of summer?

With the rather stormy weather today it was clear that our “Indian summer” has probably come to an end. We both headed out to Cley in the late afternoon, although torrential downpours were on the cards, as they had been earlier in the day. We were lucky enough to arrive between showers and walked along …

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A black rustic

Brenda writes: “Numbers in the trap recovered a little today although still with a reduced number if species – 9 in all. However there were still a of large yellow underwings, 58, and one new species, the extremely smart black rustic.” New species for September 17th:Moths: black rustic TOTALS TO DATE:Birds = 217Moths = 228Wildflowers …

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A wedding and a wainscot

Brenda writes: “Steve was playing at a music festival today and I had a wedding – so there wasn’t much time for nature-watching. The couple were married and then their son was baptised. He thought the water was great and we all got rather wet. Their two dogs also attended the service! And in minimal …

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Darting to Titchwell

Today I had a rehearsal in King’s Lynn in the evening and so decided to pop into Titchwell RSPB on the way. My last visit, as few days ago, had seen it relatively quiet in terms of birds, but there was a lot more about today. However the first photos I took weren’t of birds: …

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Angleshades

Brenda writes: “Although the weather has continued to be hot during the day it’s still cool at night and so, apart from large yellow underwings (53), numbers of other moths were lower again – although it was a real pleasure to see three angleshades in the trap today.” No new species for September 14th: TOTALS …

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Over the river

Today I once again got Brenda to drop me off at Burnham Overy Staithe so that I could walk back to Holkham. Writing this I decided to look up what Overy meant, and it turns out that it’s “over the river” – literally the village that’s on the other side of the river from the …

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Gorse and a thorn

Brenda writes: “Everything is looking very end of season now with so many species of flower gone to seed, and my challenge from now on is picking up the odd flower that still remains here and there. With the continuing warm weather there are also oddities. I saw a few gorse flowers today at the …

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Plumes and shields

Brenda writes: “Today’s large yellow underwing count broke the record at 147 and it was nice to have several burnished brass. Looking back through my photographs I realised I hadn’t mentioned the triangle plume (platyptilia gonodactyla) that was in the kitchen a couple of days ago and we had a red-legged shield bug (also known …

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