Bee Orchid
Just a quick blog this evening, thinking of those long hot days of Summer, when we had Bee orchids in bloom.
Tree Bumble Bees
And bees buzzing in the East Anglian fields.
Images from Summer
Month: November 2014
Wetlands of the East Anglian Landscape
Lakenheath Fen, RSPB reserve, from mere hide.
Most of the East Anglian countryside was once dominated by wetlands from the fens in the West to the Broads in the East, today the are still some real gems of this wetland habitat surviving, important for lots of Wildlife, with rare species that were on the brink of extinction this country like the Bittern to the one of the two largest of our spiders in the United Kingdom, the raft spider with a leg span of 70mm, they prefer to live around acidic bogland or wet acidic grassland.
The Bittern can be hard to see as it walks through the reeds, but I was lucky to see one land at the edge of reeds at RSPB Lakenheath in June, I had my camera to hand and just managed to get a photo before it disappeared into the reedbed, people are often surprised at how large the bittern is and it looks like a large moth as it flies over the reedbeds, more it is heard ‘booming’ like a sound like someone blowing down a drain pipe.
Bittern disappearing into reedbed at RSPB Lakenheath.
On that same day in June I saw another bird of the water, a Kingfisher, brightly coloured but somehow missed by lots of people as it sits perched on a reed or branch waiting to catch a passing fish, as it flies low over the water and the light catches the electric blue plumage is the only time you may know it is there.
Kingfisher on reeds, RSPB Lakenheath.
This is a habitat of the East Anglian Landscape that is worth protecting for all kinds of wildlife and ourselves.
Living with Wildlife
Once every few weeks I give all the bird feeders and bird table a good clean with water and weak bleach solution to make sure there is no possible spread of disease amongst the feeding birds, after the news today regarding the case of avian flu in Yorkshire I may do this more often.
Yesterday after I had cleaned the feeders and allowed then to dry I filled them and hung them up again I heard a rustle in the ivy expecting to see one of the many house sparrows I was surprised to see a very damp looking woodmouse which had climbed the ivy and was now eye level to me, I was not surprised to see the mouse as it and three others had been regular visitors to the bird feeders, I was surprised to see it as I had managed to catch three and release them in the fields and had not seen any for a while, now whilst I could quite happily live with woodmice in the garden, my wife said she could live with one maybe two and as we had seen four on the peanuts in one session of feeding themselves we decide to reduce our garden population.
Woodmouse feeding on the peanuts
I was fascinated by how bold they were climbing up the ivy, then the honeysuckle to go from branch to feeder.
When I cut the honeysuckle back they started climbing the centre pole of the feeder to get to the feeders which hung from arms at the top, some would get about 4 feet from the ground fall off and climb back up, I even found one had got into the feeder via the very small opening for the birds to get the seed.
Woodmouse in seed feeder
A larger mammal we had seen in September at RSPB Titchwell in North Norfolk was a Chinese water deer, it’s size is between a Muntjac and Roe deer, and 10% of the World’s population is in the UK, mainly in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, after escaping from Whipsnade Zoo in 1929 the quickly adapted to living in the British countryside.
Chinese Water deer on Salt Marsh, RSPB Titchwell, Norfolk
So really it was a surprise to see one as bold as brass walking across the salt marsh feeding on the plants, they seem to love the wet habitat of the Cambridgeshire Fens and Norfolk Broads and like the woodmice in our garden I am happy to live with them in our countryside, although others may not.
Chinese Water deer feeding on grasses, RSPB Titchwell, Norfolk
Once rare now common and the confusing
As a child to see the Common Buzzard in the East Anglian countryside was despite its name quite rare, confined mainly to the west and South West of England, Wales and Scotland I did not see my first Buzzard until I was in my late teens and then it was only on trips to the Lake District.
Now happily they are becoming quite a common sight in the East Anglian Landscape, I am beginning to see one and sometimes a pair in a field not far from me, in fact only this afternoon as drove past this field one flew over the road to a small group of trees at the edge of the field, despite the rain when I got home I grabbed my camera and walked back to the trees only to see the Buzzard flying away from me being hounded by a group of Rooks.
Common Buzzard
Whilst Buzzards are fairly easy to identify, we now get variations on what I once used to think was an easily identified bird, the Pied Wagtail, small, black and white, with a long tail constantly wagged up and down, it’s latin name is Motacilla yarrellii, but we now have the white wagtail Motacilla alba, so this morning when I saw two wagtails on the road I took some quick photos and came home to consult my bird books and everything seemed to point to that I had seen the white wagtail as it had the light grey back and slight yellow tinged throat or could it have been a Juvenile Pied Wagtail? sometimes it can get just too confusing.
White Wagtail maybe Juvenile
Pied Wagtail
As an update I can confirm from this second photograph I took it is a Male 1st Winter White Wagtail
1st Winter Male White Wagtail
very helpful website figure 3 confirmed http://www.the-soc.org.uk/docs/white-wagtail-id.pdf
Swans, Owls and Otters
Whooper swan resting
Today was festival of swans at WWT Welney, so I make no excuses for showing images of the whooper swans.
It has been misty nearly all day which in a way made it better as most of the swans remained on the Wash at Welney, only during breaks in the mist when it looked like it was lifting did some of the swans decide to fly out to feed in the surrounding fields.
Being the first day of the festival of swans despite the mist there was still plenty about, it seemed the Barn Owls were out early hunting as there were good sightings of one feeding along the bank of the drains, there had also been a sighting of a Long-eared Owl sitting on a post on the road that leads to Welney WWT centre, add to that Marsh Harrier, Rough Legged Buzzard and Merlin anyone visiting today would not have been disappointed.
Not seen, but leaving plenty of evidence in the form of tracks there had been Otters in the Bedford New Cut easily overlooked by people crossing the footbridge they were there for all to see.
Otter prints in the mud of the Bedford New Cut
Along with the swans, were Pochard, the male far outnumbers the female at Welney with only 10% of the females coming here whilst most of the females will spend the Winter in the warmer climate of Spain.
Male Pochard
There were also Snipe, Golden Plover, Black-tailed godwit, Redshank and lapwing in good numbers, so all in all despite the weather it was a good day, I will finish off this post with more images of the Whooper Swans, after all it is Festival of Swans weekend.
Whooper swan
Whooper swans
The Dark Landscape
Leaving for work at this time of year is always in complete darkness for me which does have its for and against, on the plus side I do get to hear the odd Tawny owl calling, usually the female calls a ‘Toowit’ sound followed by a male calling a ‘Toowhoo’, hence the old saying ‘to woo someone’, so I was once told. I also nearly walked into Muntjac deer as it wandered along the deserted footpath in the town, also hedgehogs not yet in hibernation trotting along the side of the footpath looking for slugs in the wet grass.
Another plus on clear cold mornings it is the stars and if you are lucky the odd satellite moving from horizon to horizon, I did get a bonus on Thursday morning when the international space station went from West to East in front of me at 5:50am I could see it for a nearly 4 minutes, NASA provide a handy website ‘Spot the Station’ so you know if and when you can see it from where you live.
On the down side I can not see the usual wildlife from the train as I travel to Cambridge as it is too dark, usually I can count, fox, deer, Marsh Harrier, Buzzard and in Summer the odd Hobby.
Hobby
But for now I have to make do with reading a book until the mornings get lighter.
This Weekend is the Festival of Swans at WWT Welney, So I will be helping there tomorrow, 9 common cranes were sighted there yesterday, so hopefully they will still be about, in the Winter there have been up to 13 cranes flying together, known as the ‘Fenland Flock’ this would be sight to see, I have been lucky enough to see 6 fly in together and managed to get a photograph even with them being quite a way off I think you can see they are cranes.
Common Cranes
The Humble Bee
About three years ago I decided to start looking at bumblebees, thinking it would not be hard, but I then found in the UK alone we have 24 species, (We used to have 26 but two are now extinct), 8 are quite common, one, the Great yellow Bumblebee can only be found on the north coast of Scotland.
I joined the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, which was established because of serious concerns that Bee populations had crashed, given the fact that bumblebees pollinate our crops and wildflowers this should be a concern to all of us.
I quickly learnt via the BBCT, how to identify Bumblebees,
White-tailed Bumblebee
also about the life cycle of the Bumblebee, in a nutshell from as early as February, the queen will emerge from hibernation on a warm day from an old hole in the ground where she will search for a nest site, she will then search for pollen and take to nest she will lay her first eggs and This first brood of offspring are all ‘worker’ females, then later the her brood of offspring be females and males and some of these females will be queens which will survive the winter unlike the worker females and males which will die in the first year as well as the old Queen, it is only Queens that live more than a year.
More information about identification and life-cycle can be found on the Bumblebee Conservation Trust website.
But one easy Bumblebee to identify ie a newcomer to the UK from Europe, the Tree Bumblebee it is the only one that is Ginger, black with a white bottom.
Tree Bumblebee
So you may now have a Queeen Bumblebee hibernating in an old mousehole in your garden now, waiting for that first warm day of Spring…….like us all.
Climate Change?
Every Month in the Autumn and Winter months our Local Group of the Wildlife trust hold talks on a wildlife related themes, one of the ones that stands out was by Brian Eversham, Chief Executive of BCN Wildlife Trust on Climate Change which he gave us the following predictions and facts
• there has been a doubling in the frequency of climate-driven environmental catastrophes since 1980;
• up to 50,000 human deaths in Europe were caused by the ‘hot’ summer of 2003 (which was only 2°C warmer than the current average, and may be the norm by 2050);
• a 1°C temperature rise would threaten 10% of species with extinction;
• sea level in the Thames estuary is now rising by 3mm a year, and this will increase to 8.5 mm a year by 2055;
• global carbon emissions mean that the chances of limiting warming to 2°C is now very unlikely.
On the plus side he said 80% of British wildlife species are southern and eastern in their current distribution, so can be expected to increase and spread in response to climate warming, IF the landscape is fit for them to move through. These are the potential ‘winners’.
I did not need to look far this week as already I have seen flowers in bloom you would normally expect to see in May like cranesbill that I have seen this last few days flowering in Ely and Cambridge.
Cranesbill
Also we have seen ‘Summer’ birds like Blackcaps that breed in Britain and Ireland and migrate south in Autumn to winter in the Mediterranean and Africa, but the BTO has recorded over recent years Breeding Blackcaps from Europe heading West to spend Winter in Britain and Ireland, also last January I saw Chiffchaffs in Ely they normally arrive in Early Spring but it seems they are spending Winter in Britain and Ireland as well, could this be a sign our Winter’s are milder and they are able to find food. Best we keep our bird feeders well stocked and maybe we will see these new Winter birds in our gardens during cold snaps.
Chiffchaff, on May blossom
Winter visitors to East Anglia
After a hectic weekend, Watch group Saturday,Swan feed and talk at WWT Welney Sunday, I usually sit back and reflect on a Monday evening to what I have gained in knowledge and from meeting people.
Saturdays Watch theme was Winter visitors, I gained satisfaction the children (and parents) had learnt why birds visit this country in Winter and saw how much food there is for them in our hedgerows, why we will need to put out food for them in Winter as the natural food starts to disappear in the countryside and as the season gets colder.
At WWT Welney the theme is the same why the Whooper and Bewick Swans fly here in Winter from Iceland and Siberia, in my talk I try to cram in the History of the Fens and of course the wildlife, but best of all I get to talk to people who come there for all sorts of reasons, some just to see the Swans, some serious birders to get that one rare bird of their tick list for the year.
On Sunday I spoke to two ladies who had travelled up from the Isle of Wight to spend a week in Norfolk, two ‘Birders’ who always come to this ‘oasis’ as they put it at this time of year, and two photographers who described the area as magic, I really could not have put it better.
Looking North over the Bedford New Cut, Welney
Walking over the footbridge to the main observatory, WWT Welney
The Sun sets over the Ouse Washes, WWT Welney
Fenland Landscape
Most of the East Anglian Landscape has been shaped by man, very few untouched areas remain, most have been changed due to farming needs, some like the Norfolk Broads were formed due to peat digging.
The Fens have been changed due to drainage for reclaiming the land for agriculture, once an extensive area of wet fen that stretched from Cambridge to the South and Lincoln in the North now only a few areas of this wetland remains.
Drainage started in the mid 1600’s and actually finished in the 1800’s, there are many books that tell’s you the history of this area but the main drainage was carried out by using the existing Old Bedford river taking out the curves and bends to make one long straight ‘drain’ or cut, then parallel to this a new cut was dug the Bedford New river, dug by hand using prisoners of war from France and Scotland a wash was created 20 miles long and 1/2 mile wide separated by the two cuts.
Bedford new cut from footbridge at WWT Welney
They say most of the prisoners were buried where they died digging the drains, but what they have preserved is the way the people who lived around the fens used the land before it was drained and that is for grazing cattle in the Summer and when the cattle was moved in Winter to higher ground like Ely they used the fen for wildfowling and fishing.
Today the landscape is flat and open making it a land of Big skies, in fact it could be called the bread basket of Britain for the amount of crops now grown in the fertile peat soil, but it does have some of the most amazing dawns and sunsets.
Dawn breaks over the Fenland countryside as Lapwings take to the air
Winter crops sprout in the Autumn dawn in the rich fenland soil
East Anglia the Wildlife, Landscape and People. 