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

Morston scaffold bridge in place

The temporary scaffold bridge structure is open and there is now access beyond beyond 'bridge 2' for the first time since the tidal surge. There are some safety considerations so please read the signs on the entrance to the bridge.

The green temporary fencing has been required to protect the saltmarsh (please stick to the path) and you may notice some bushes have been netted to prevent birds from breeding within the access and disturbance area. The on-site works to replace the wooden bridges will start on the 31st of March. The temporary bridge will be in place until the new wooden bridge is completed.

Boy, there's a lot of bees!

Today's post has been kindly written for us by Richard Rolfe of Morston

Beyond the three bridges that run alongside Morston creek, there is a stretch of higher ground known locally as the Pilot’s Path. Composed of impacted sand, shells and small shingle, it is above the range of even the highest tides.

This year, for the first time, the National Trust put up a sign - ‘Buzz on the marsh’ - to provide information about the mining bees and this seems to have attracted a lot of attention from visitors - just as the bee orchids outside Blakeney did.

There are several species of mining bee in the UK, but those at Morston are Colletes halophilus. It is a nationally scarce bee, found in fewer than 25 sites around the south and east coasts of England from the Solent around to the Humber. It flies from late August through to October, and is associated with high quality saltmarsh habitats, as it provisions its nest cells with the pollen it collects from Sea Aster. The female bees will drink nectar from a range of flowering plants to keep them fueled on their search for sea aster.

See http://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=bee/colletidae/colletes-halophilus for further information.

I was made aware of these mining bees in the summer of 2011, in an unusual way. I’d taken my then-5-year old grandson Monty to Stiffkey on the Coasthopper bus and was walking back to Morston with him. As we neared Morston, Monty said, “Granpa, can we go and see the mining bees?”

“Mining bees, what are they, Monty? I’ve never heard of them.”

“They’re on the marsh, I’ll show you.” So we went out over the bridges and found the bees where he’d said. Despite living in Morston for over 20 years, I never knew they were there - probably through being too focused on the bird life.

During the summer of 2012, I looked continually for the mining bees. In July, I emailed Victoria at the Trust, partly to compliment her on the signage for the bee orchids, but also to see if she knew where the mining bees might be.

Victoria provided a crucial piece of information - the mining bees are associated with flowering sea aster. This meant I’d started looking several weeks too soon.

But eventually, I walked out onto the Pilot’s Path, and there they were. I arranged to meet Victoria and we took photos for ID purposes, as there are several mining bee species in the UK. 

Victoria photographing the bees nests

They seem to be most prolific on calm, sunny evenings, when thousands can be seen at three main colonies. They are harmless to people and appear to be resilient to walkers and their dogs - their burrows, or ‘mines’ are all along the path - and the sites they’ve chosen are above the September high tides.

Monty (below) was delighted to be reconnected with ‘his’ mining bees and will be looking out for them again next year.

Monty pleased with the buzz on the marsh