Tags
common meadow-rue, common twayblade, common valerian, Dame's-violet, dogwood, great crested grebe, green alkanet, grey heron, guelder rose, hemlock, hop, marsh thistle, milk-parsley, Mute Swan, Norfolk, Ragged Robin, River Yare, RSPB reserve, southern marsh-orchid, Strumpshaw Fen, the Broads, wild flowers, yellow water-lily, Yorkshire Fog
It was our 22nd wedding anniversary in June and instead of buying each other gifts we usually plan a day out that we will both enjoy. We chose to visit Strumpshaw Fen which is situated in the Broads.
Pond at Strumpshaw Fen
We had hoped to see all sorts of birds here and I had set my heart on finding a Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon), as the Broads is the only place in the British Isles where they can be found.
Fenland
As was the case with many of our ventures last year, we didn’t have as successful a visit as we had hoped because the weather was miserable. It was cold, wet and windy – not a day for viewing rare butterflies or the Norfolk Hawker dragonfly or any of the birds we had hoped to see. However, we persevered with our walk round the reserve and saw a few things of interest.
A broad
Small fry – baby fish in the broad
Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) in flower
A waterway in the fen
Yellow Water-lily (Nuphar lutea)
The flowers are much smaller than White Waterlily flowers being only 6 cm/2.5 ins across and are alcohol-scented apparently!
Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) with cygnets
Common Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) You can just see the pink flower-heads!
The River Yare
This might be Milk-parsley (Peucedanum palustre) the food plant of the Swallowtail caterpillar.
It might also be Hemlock! (Conium maculatum) They are both described as hairless biennials with purple-blotched stems. Hemlock’s stems are hollow and purple-blotched and Milk-parsley has ridged stems that are often blotched purple!
Ridged purple-blotched stems? I can’t decide!
More purple-blotched stems.
Hop (Humulus lupulus)
Dame’s-violet (Hesperis matronalis)
Guelder-rose (Viburnum opulus)
Common Meadow-rue (Thalictrum flavum)
Southern Marsh-orchid (Dactylorhiza praetermissa)
Ragged-robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi)
Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre)
A meadow full of Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus)
The flower-heads of this grass are red-tipped and gave the meadow a pink glow!
Part of our walk was along Tinker’s Lane
Tinker’s Lane – looking back the way we’d come
Tinker’s Lane – looking ahead. Elinor is the figure in the far distance
Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens)
Not a good photo of Common Twayblade (Neottia ovata) Though ‘common’ I had never seen this orchid before and was very pleased.
Common Twayblade
a Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) that refused to look my way!
Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus)
We enjoyed our walk round the fen and were pleased with the amount of interesting plants we had seen. I would like to return there this summer if possible to see the butterflies, dragonflies and birds we had intended seeing last year!
Thanks for visiting!
