After being well behaved on previous walked I decided to extend Jaspers normal short daily walk and do the Quiet Lanes loop again. There seemed to be lots more people walking dogs or walking alone, many frustratingly not bothering to social distance. Dispite this distraction we managed 40 species, most unexpected was a Little Gull seen off Bradfield Road with other resting gulls. My second Ring Ouzel of the week was this time closer to home in the horse paddocks near the railway bridge and a Garden Warbler was heard but not seen near Bradfield Chapel. Another 'lockdown' tick was a Kingfisher seen through the tree on Antingham Pond.
25th April - Quite Lanes (walk)
After I returned from work Laura, Agnes and myself decided we would all take Jasper for his walk, Agnes want to continue to the Llama Paddock and we eventually completed the Quiet Lanes loop, although I didn't bother to view Antingham Pond. Being mid-afternoon we didn't see as many species as my earlier walks and again it was busy with other walkers. No new 'lockdown' ticks but we did see my first Sparrowhawk, Coal Tit and Whitethroat on the 'Loop walk'. 9 Buzzard were also circling together over Bradfield Road near Mill House.
26th April - Mundesley (cycle)
Laura wanted to get out on her new bike so we decided on a family bike ride to Mundesley as our daily lockdown exercise. We took a winding route through the back roads to Trunch and across Mundesley Golf Course before pausing on the cliff top for refreshment. There were lots of Whitethoat in the roadside hedges but few birds of note, however we did see out first orchids with several spikes of Early Purple Orchid and Common Spotted Orchid seen along Brick Kiln Road Trunch. (James I'm sure your'll correct my ID if its wrong!)
During our brief cliff top stop 2 Sand Martin were new for the year as were 3 Sandwich Tern offshore. A Fulmar was a new 'lockdown' tick and a few Swallow headed West. Cycling home a 'very pale' looking Buzzard peeked my interest enough to stop for a better look but turned out just to be a pale Buzzard. Arriving home I grabbed a beer and spent a good hour in the garden reading a book by my favored local naturalist, Arthur Patterson.
087 - Lockdown Total
170 - Norfolk Year Total
170 - Britain Year Total
All three of those orchids are Early Purple Orchid, which does usually have spotted leaves. The last picture is unusual though, I've never seen one with flowers as densely packed together as that! J
ReplyDeleteI knew you would correct me :) I wasn't sure ob the amount of colour variation in Early Purple Orchids but knew Common Spotted vary a lot. The densely packed example was one of 2 or 3 tightly packed spikes this the most striking.
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