This little sortie into Suffolk...or is it Norfolk...or is it both? I get dizzy travelling that road from the M11 to Brandon, just a stone-curlew’s throw from Thetford Forest. The signs say welcome to Suffolk, then Cambridgeshire then Suffolk again or Norfolk or somewhere then the screeching of tyres and your passengers fly across the car interior as you nearly miss the entrance to Weeting Heath.
Attention!
Myself and my accomplice on this particular mission, Brenda, are greeted by a gentleman who reminds me of the bull elephant in the Jungle Book. The khaki shorts, handlebar moustache and general air of a time not out of place in the time of the Raj. I’m being unfair as the 'major' is a calm and caring man who has always been stationed at Weeting since I can ever remember. He talks about a time when he lived in central Africa and I can see it. I could listen to his banter all day but we had come to see the Stone-curlews and hopefully the regular Spotted Flycatcher that frequents the thin band of pines that shield the heath from the racetrack of a road.
'Want to see the Spotted Fly?" he bellows as we pay our entrance. "Yes please sir" we respond in regulation military fashion. "Follow me". We march tower the West Hide.
Sure enough and like a soldier resounding to a command, the flycatcher showed itself and showed itself long enough for me to shoot it.
We went into the West hide from where we could easily see (through the heat haze and deceiving rabbits) a family of Stone-curlews, the adult birds with two chicks. There were at least two other adult birds all of which were just far enough away to make a photograph quite pathetic. But we took some all the same.
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| A pencil sketch might have been better. |
From the woodland hide, things were a little closer. Marsh Tit and Yellowhammer were good to see and I have never seen a Yellowhammer on a nut feeder before and in my amazement, I forgot to take a photograph of it. I did get the Marsh Tit though.
We retreated back to the car and the 'major' showed up an Orchid which I fail to remember but it seemed important but I couldn’t get that excited as the blooming thing hadn’t, well, bloomed yet.
We set off to Lakenheath Fen which is only another stone’s throw from Weeting Heath. We had a Cuckoo at the start of our long trek in the blazing sun as it flew past and alighted in a nearby tree but too distant to capture. In the reeds, sedge and reed warblers sang with harmonies (if you can call them that) coming from invisible Whitethroats. To be honest, birds were lacking a little so our focus turned to Damsels and Dragons not that my camera likes to focus that much.
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| 4 Spotted Chaser |
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| Black-tailed Skimmer |
Birds were a bit thin on the ground. the occasional Sedge Warbler or Reed Bunting. A couple of Marsh Harriers put in an appearance albeit distantly. It was really all about butterflies and other bugs that took the focus (not in my camera’s sense anyway)
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| Comma |
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| Green-veined White |
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| Large Skipper and Ringlet |
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| Ringlet |
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| Small Skipper |
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| Tortoiseshell |
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| More tortoiseshell!! |
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