When the sun shines the fen comes to life! Thursday was a very nice sunny day and rewarded visitors with good views of many swallowtails, Norfolk hawkers, scarce chasers as well as marsh harriers and bitterns!
The adult marsh harriers are still busy feeding their young, with many food passes occurring over the fen. The bittern nest is still going strong, regular feeding flights can be seen from Tower Hide, it looks like there could be a second nest from Fen Hide but this is yet to be confirmed, please let reception know if you suspect anything, and let me know too. Otters have been seen more frequently over the past week, with sightings from Reception and Fen hides. Other species of note are two singing garden warblers, cuckoo, hobby, barn owls in the meadow and all the usual reedbed and scrub warblers as well as regular woodland species.
Dragonflies have been emerging well in the sunny periods with Norfolk hawker looking like it will have a good year with a large number of the ditches being patrolled. The new dragonflies on the wing this week were emperor and a southern hawker, both singles only reported once, it wont be long before they pick up in number too. Hairy dragonflies are still very much evident alongside scarce, four-spotted and broad-bodied chasers, black tailed skimmer, banded demoiselle, azure, variable, blue tailed, large red and red eyed damselflies are all still on the wing too.
Plants which have been catching peoples attention include the bee orchids just by the nectar garden as well as the common twayblade orchids near the map of the reserve, the southern marsh orchids are out in the meadow along with many other meadow species such as ragged robin, marsh valerian, marsh lousewort and bogbean.
Butterfly numbers are holding strong when the sun is shining with 14 swallowtails seen on Thursday around the trail, a couple of wall butterflies seen along pumphouse track and large skippers emerging too.
I would imagine that given the weather conditions so far, swallowtails should be on the wing for a little longer than in previous years. I would be surprised if there were not more first generation butterflies to emerge in the next week, we usually say they will be over by 20th June, but this year they may even just push into July.
All trails are open and in good condition, the meadow trail can be wet underfoot if it has rained in the past 24hours.