9th of March: Spring is in the air

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 24^th 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.

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.

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.

A harvest mouse (Mycromys minutus) nest
(photo: Mary Goddard)

Post by Mary Goddard, Assistant Ranger