Wednesday 7 April 2021

Green year list additions and fish on the path!

This year I am trying a green year list for the first time. I'm not much of a yearlister, but given the lockdowns and staying local I thought I'd see how many species i can see without using fuel/burning carbon. Seeing as I rarely go too far away from the local area it makes sense to keep a green list. Being able to cycle to Buckenham and Cantley has certainly been very much appreciated in the recent lockdowns, adding a lot of species I dont see at home or Strumpshaw Fen. Yesterday while opening the sluices at the fen (large flood!) I managed to catch up with a number of migrants for my greenlist- Garganey (at least 6), Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler, house and Sand Martins too. This brings me up to 110 species, which is not bad considering I still have a few easy ones to add. The fen has suffered after the strong Northerly winds have produced classic conditions for a North Sea surge tide. This is not great timing for all the marhs harriers who have been busy nest building or for the bitterns that have been booming well recently. Bitterns like a nice stable water level at this time of the year so that they can be happy that their nests wont flood out, so hopefully I can get the water levels down and bittern bums can go down. It is quite a shame that we flooded so badly as the path was just about getting into a decent condition after the worst winter for flooding in recent years made it pretty much impassable for Jan-Mar. While opening the sluices I managed to see Pike, Rudd, Roach and Gudgeon all happily swimming along the path as well as several pairs of mallard riding the path torrent!

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