The Marsh harriers are begining to look like they have changed their behaviour and are now setting up territories and the returning males are statring to display on calm clear mornings. The skylarks at Buckenham are belting out their song whatever the weather and the number of plants in flower is quite amazing for the beging of Feb, so spring cant be too far round the corner can it?
I have not done a round up of 2015.... yet, I may do a brief write up soon.
2016 for me will be year of the moth. I intend to do more trapping on (and off, but mostly on) the reserve this year and will be trying to go mobile with actininc more frequently too. Other resolutions for this year are to get to grips with caterpillars (if thats possible?) and to start looking at leaf mines and trying to identify those, probably not an easy task, but there is a good website for helping. A final resolution is to confirm the micros I think I'm seeing. Last year I got some goodies, however they needed to be confirmed by dissection so they have been left off of the Norfolk records database, a slightly frustrating occurance, but understandable in todays age of true science and recording.
So that should keep me busy May-October and of course there will be birding in the daytime as per usual. As yet no autumn trips planned but a week on the edge of Arne in July should be nice!
I managed a photo of a water pipit on Friday, these have been seen very frequently all winter from the riverbank, but it was nice to finally get one on the deck for long enough to photograph (at distance and cropped hard!). Water pipits are fairly common winter birds at the fen, in some years we have as many as 8+ on site, this year it appears that the peak has been 4, but more recently just 2 birds have been seen regularly.
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