David, Roger, Ken and I had
decided to go to Frampton Marsh today as there were reports of Pectoral
Sandpiper, Temminck’s Stint and Curlew Sandpiper for yesterday.
When we arrived in the car
park it was quite blustery, although the sun was shining. There were twenty-eight Black-tailed Godwits
flying overhead but other than a selection of wildfowl and numerous Black-headed
Gulls there was little else on the first lagoon. We walked to 360° hide
were we found the Black-tailed Godwits feeding and also found an Oystercatcher,
Avocets, two Little Ringed Plovers, two Ringed Plovers and a Redshank but there
were no other waders. We continued to
the east hide seeing more Oystercatcher and Avocet on route and a single Little
Ringed Plover from the hide. We then
walked back to the centre around the reedbed pool but added nothing new of note
although we did hear a Corn Bunting but couldn’t locate it. Back at the centre we established that the
Pectoral Sandpiper and Temminck’s Stint were erroneous and was most likely a
repeat of a message sent out last week.
Black-tailed Godwits
Male Yellowhammer
Avocet
Swift
Having had no luck with any of
the target birds we walked along the footpath to the south hoping for Turtle
Dove, as two had present for some time, but achieved the same result and drew a
blank.
Before we had our lunch we
went to the sea wall but other than distant Buzzard we saw nothing else. I think this is perhaps my least productive
visit to this reserve as we have always had something of note on previous
visits.
After lunch we moved off to
Barnack Hills and Holes NNR in Cambridgeshire where we hoped to see some
orchids.
When we arrived the weather
looked a little threatening but we didn’t really have any rain and we spent
nearly an hour-and-half at this rather nice reserve. There had been an unprecedented bloom of
Pasqueflowers, which must have been superb considering the number of seeds
heads. We were fortunate enough to find
a nice group still in flower that were not fully open but none the less very
nice.
Common Blue
Fragrant Orchid
Rock Rose
Horseshoe Vetch
Hound's-tongue
Man Orchid
Mouse-ear Hawkweed
Pasqueflower seeds
Pasqueflower
Pasqueflowers
Pasqueflower
We continued to work the area and found a couple of Man Orchids and several Fragrant Orchids but finally decided to leave when there appeared to be a rather heavy shower approaching.
We called at Ketton Quarry on
route home and found at least four spikes of rather nice Southern Marsh Orchid
and then several spikes of Bee Orchid that were not yet flowering but will
probably do so in the next week. There
was also signs of Yellow-birds nest shooting in the area I had seen hem last
year.
Southern Marsh Orchid
Whilst Frampton had not lived
up to its previous visits we had still had a good day out with several species
of nice plants found.
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