A sunny start to the week with dark rain clouds building as I write, this has produced a week of butterflies, dragonflies as well as some bird species featuring on this weeks round up.
Swallowtail caterpillars can be seen in all stages of their development from the small black and white stage right through to the big juicy green and orange striped stage. These can be found on the milk parsley plants around the boardwalk, pond dipping platform and even on the plant in front of reception.
White admirals are still flying when the weather is warm and sunny, the woodland is particularly good around the bramble thickets.
Small red eyed damselflies have been seen on a few occasions over the past two weeks, particularly on the small pool by reception. Brown hawkers have been increasing in number while the Norfolk hawkers have slowly been reducing in number. Most evident are the newly emerged ruddy and common darters, which appear to have spread across the fen and meadows.
Bitterns have been seen regularly from fen hide over the week, marsh harriers have been evident throughout the reedbed, particularly the young birds, which are getting close to leaving their nest sites.
A garganey flew past fen hide this morning and appeared to land on Tower Hide broad, this bird was in eclipse plumage, only the small size and wing pattern gave up the identification.
Kingfisher numbers are good at the moment with at least five birds using the fen, two birds were showing well at Fen Hide this morning one of which is pictured above
The reeds in front of all three hides was cut last week and the results are beginning to show up well now. Today I saw a juvenile water rail (black fluff with white bill) in front of Fen Hide, older juvenile water rail running about in front of Tower Hide and I have just got back from watching an adult in front of Reception Hide, so water rails are on show at the moment!
Bearded tits are gathering in number now, they can be seen best from Fen Hide, although they are still feeding on invertebrates at the base of the reed stems so views are often short, they will move onto the reed seed heads over the next month or so, where they are far easier to see.
Waders are beginning to move now; Buckenham has seen greenshank, redshank, spotted redshank, dunlin, black tailed godwit and green sandpipers using the large pool in front of the hide as well as curlew, snipe, avocet and lapwing on the other pools. Hopefully the wader numbers will build over the next few weeks.