The starlings in my garden are wolf-whistling at each other
and the blackthorn in the hedgerows is coming into flower – spring is springing
everywhere, including Blakeney. We’re
starting to see birds pairing off for the breeding season on the reserve,
including stonechats on Friary Hills, reed buntings on the marsh and
oystercatchers along the shingle ridge of the Point. Our largest count of grey partridge pairs on
Blakeney Point was an estimated 15 pairs on 24th of February, growing
from six on Valentine’s Day and smashing all previous records. We have also regularly seen a gang of six
shore larks still hanging around the Point, which always brighten our day.
In February we said goodbye to the last grey seal pup born quite
late on the Point this year, pictured below (exactly three weeks after it was
first found) fully moulted and in good condition for independence.
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| The last seal pup on Valentine's Day (photo: Mary Goddard) |
Our trail camera on a gate post on Blakeney Freshes is a
fantastic tool for seeing what birds of prey are about and we have been getting
some lovely footage recently. Below is a
selection from the last month including a kestrel having a stretch, a barn owl
on a calm and misty morning and two buzzards that can be differentiated as
individuals by the varying amounts of pale plumage on their chests. My favourite, though, is the sparrowhawk
being startled by masses of pink footed geese coming in to feed on the field
behind.
A kestrel stretching
Barn owl in the mist
Buzzard number 1
Buzzard number 2
Sparrowhawk and pink footed geese
With
ditching works on the Freshes completed in January, next has been the annual reed
cutting. This is done in blocks on a five
year rotation, which helps to prevent the humus layer from building up and
allowing succession of scrub, whilst also maintain the heterogeneous mosaic of
different age structures that benefits reed bed wildlife. During this work we came across an
interesting fungus growing out of the base of a reed stem, which I took some
(bad) photos of to send to local fungi expert Tony Leech for help
identifying. Unfortunately my terrible
photography made this difficult, but I was able to re-locate the specimen and
collect it to pass on to Tony for inspection.
He identified it as Mycena
belliarum (or reed bonnet), a
rare fungus for which East Anglia is a strong hold. Since the 1950s the species has been recorded
at three other sites in Norfolk, one in Suffolk and one in Huntingdon.
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| Mycena belliarum found at Blakeney (photo: Tony Leech) |
Finally is
to report a little gem found at Morston while we were installing some new
signage and dog bins – harvest mouse nests.
We found a couple in some long grass just off the track, beautifully
camouflaged. The female harvest mouse (Mycromys minutus) builds this spherical
grass nest solely for the purpose of raising her young, creating a new nest for
each litter she has. The fact that we
found two in such close proximity possibly indicates multiple litters by the
same mouse.
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| A harvest mouse (Mycromys minutus) nest (photo: Mary Goddard) |
Post by Mary Goddard, Assistant Ranger
