Highlights Part 3 Strumpshaw Fen

09 Mon Jan 2017

Posted by Clare Pooley in Days out, plants, Rural Diary, wild flowers

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!

June Flowers and Insects

27 Sat Jun 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees, weather

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

azure damselfly, Bittersweet, Black-tailed Skimmer, blue-tailed damselfly, common knapweed, Common Marsh-bedstraw, Common Sorrel, Creeping Cinquefoil, Cyperus Sedge, damselflies, dogwood, dragonflies, Elder, Four-spotted Chaser, garden, greenbottle, Hoverfly, insects, Meadow Buttercup, Oxeye Daisy, pond, Pyracantha, Suffolk, White Water Lily, wild flowers, yellow iris, Yorkshire Fog

Until this week we have had a very cool summer indeed which has meant that there have been very few insects about. The common garden pests, greenfly and blackfly for example, seem to cope with chilly weather but the insects that eat them don’t! Some of the flowers are continuing to flower a little late but a few are flowering at about their usual time which has made for unusual combinations.

Meadow Buttercups (Ranunculus acris) on All Saints’ Common

We have a number of ‘commons’ here in East Anglia. A common is an area of land either owned by a group of people or one person but it can be used by the general public in certain ways such as walking your dog or playing sport. Some commons and village greens have ‘rights of common’ where it is possible to graze livestock on the land. If you want to use the common for anything other than walking on it or having a picnic, (for instance, if you wanted to camp there), you’d have to ask permission of the land owner.

This is another view of the common showing one of the unusual flower combinations. This didn’t come out as well as I’d have liked.

The Common Sorrel is flowering at the same time as the buttercups and for a while it looked as though the field was alight with red flames above the yellow.

Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)

Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) is also in flower on the common.

IMG_4810Possibly Yorkshire Fog (2) (510x640)

As is Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus)

The Elder (Sambucus nigra) is in flower.

The Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) is in flower too.

Many people dislike the scent of the Elderflower; they describe it as smelling of ‘cats’. It isn’t a pleasant smell but it is preferable to the smell of Dogwood flowers!

Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara), also known as Woody Nightshade, is flowering in the hedgerows.

The Pyracantha in our garden is covered in blossom. This is another plant with a strange scent but the bees love it!

I discovered a new plant at the edge of our big pond the other day – a Cyperus Sedge (Carex pseudocyperus), also known as Hop Sedge.

The plant is quite large and must, I suppose, have been there last year without me seeing it. Its leaves are strap-like, similar to Iris leaves, so I might have thought it was an Iris. The flowers are unmistakable though.

The flowers are pendulous, like catkins.

Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus)

Another new plant to our garden is this Common Marsh-bedstraw (Galium palustre) growing by our corner pond.

One of my favourite flowers is this little one – Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans). Its petals are heart-shaped and such a pretty shade of yellow. The creeping refers to its trailing stems that root at the nodes as it grows.

I love Oxeye Daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) too.

A White Water-lily (Nymphaea alba) on our big pond.

Elinor saw the Kingfisher at the pond a couple of days ago and since yesterday we have all heard the purring of a Turtle-dove in the trees round the pond. The temperature has risen to 25 degrees Centigrade and I think it has been too cold up til now for the Turtle-dove.