Norfolk Nature: Spring '26

 

SPRING 2026


Winter clung on dully but the rare sunny days saw goshawks on the wing. It is instructive to think that thirty years ago, a sparrowhawk or kestrel might have been the only raptor aloft and that now buzzards, kites and goshawks are vying for airspace over Norfolk's woods with perhaps a marsh harrier or even a peregrine too. Pairs of displaying goshawks rumbling powerfully on the thermals, circle each other like wary heavyweight boxers before brief flurries of activity - tumbling and flapping - to declare their interest.




Kites were much in evidence at Holkham, spruced up in smart plumage, soaring playfully over the lake and then perching high to cast a haughty eye over the park.



The spring warmth also draws reptiles and amphibians out of cover to bask gratefully in the sun. Adders, despite the glowing red of their beady eyes, always seem slight and fragile, and far from the venomous vipers of cautionary childhood tales.



Toads and frogs have been embarking on their annual mating pilgrimages. One pool at Sculthorpe Moor had become a stew of amorous amphibians but the residents of Syderstone Common were a little more sleepily sedate.

A rarer natterjack toad, with its prominent yellow stripe was also good to see. Usually found in coastal dune habitat at Holkham or Holme, the inland population at NWT Syderstone Common is flourishing despite its preferred pools being quick to dry up.

One scarce winter visitor, a ferruginous duck, had proved difficult to pin down on Holkham Lake. Arriving with a flock of Pochard, which boosted its wild credentials, it could prove elusive and fond of the far bank. Distance and dullness are not the birder's or photographer's friends but the upwardly creeping mercury enticed this small, chestnut-headed duck to take to the dance floor, seeking to impress his pochard associates with his romantic routines.



The lighter mornings spark the birdsong from mid-March, with thrushes, robins, blackbirds and dunnocks all clearing their throats with gusto. Greenfinches and goldfinches are pairing off in stunt-plane spirals across the garden, brimstone butterflies skirt the hedgerows like whirling lemon flakes and in the woods, nuthatches are calling more insistently.


Brightly coloured, energetic and constantly calling, they are an endearing herald of spring, busily piping in the season. So too, the treecreeper, though in a more unobtrusive manner, eschewing the headlong acrobatics of the nuthatch in favour of rapid ascents of trunks and branches like a scurrying mouse. At Holkham, Bloomers and I saw four scouring one tree, more than either of us had seen in a single group other than when parent birds are with fledglings.

Mothing has been obstructed by rain and high winds of late but warmer overnight temperatures moving towards double figures brought patterning and colour to the trap. The plain and populous quakers - common, small and twin-spotted -


and the nominatively challenged clouded drab

were upstaged by the beauty pageant - the pine beauty, the oak beauty, the small brindled beauty and the pale brindled beauty -





and the rather smart shoulder stripe.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CONKERS

Image
 I wrote this poem about six years ago for a National Poetry Day assembly at Repton Prep, where my wife, Sarah, was Head of English. It was designed to show an audience of 7-13 year old pupils how they might construct a poem, or rather, how I constructed a poem, from observation, memory, comparison and diction, matching words to ideas and feelings, some of which owe a debt to Seamus Heaney's 'Blackberry Picking'. Conkers Amongst September’s litmus leaves, The long, green fuse of summer Burns out in the branches Detonating green grenades, Exploding, showering earthwards. Bobbing mines in dew-fall grass Split in varnished grins. Some we’d crack and prise Hard jewels from calfskin purses, Popped knots of chestnut grain, To cram in every pocket gape. Running home, the nugget spill, Vinegar spells and oven smells, To harden into battle balls For playground champs and scalping glee Of swings and strings and broken globes      ...
Read more

MIGRATION '25 AT TACUMSHIN, CO.WEXFORD.

Image
  September   Migration at Tacumshin, Co. Wexford with Oriole Birding Tacumshin is a remarkable place. This unique coastal wetland with its own lexicon - The Forgotten Corner, The Racetrack, The Patches - has a lonely mystique reinforced by an enviable back catalogue of birding greatest hits. It draws birds from across the Atlantic but is also a last stop for those about to jump off the Irish land mass and head south for warmer, and certainly drier, days. Walking out, through welly-sucking reedbed and flooded grasslands, it felt like the Pantanal or the Okavango Delta in European miniature - an adventurous opening to hidden rewards. We were the only people evident in its 1000 acres of lagoon, dune, marsh and reedbed, and roaming this untrammelled wilderness provided a stark contrast with the restricted access to so much UK habitat. Imagine being able to wander freely over Cley or Holkham Marshes with only the noise of sea and birds for company. The first birds we saw were a pa...
Read more
Image
  FIREWORK In memory of Jack D. Hoy, veteran of Dunkirk, El Alamein and Sicily and beloved grandfather.   Spurts of light scribble Illegible rebellions Across the November sky, And upturned faces glow In innocent rapture, Cheer at every crackling pulse, Each juddering percussion. Inside, the happy cannonade Had lit the long fuse, Lying dormant in rows Of spuds and onions, Confused by children’s children And the summer scent of roses, Now hissing history, Driving him deeper Into buried foxholes. The air drew tight And hauled him back To men and metal bursting Like soft, ripe fruit, Burning into blood oases, Cratered fear and cries Of pain and death and loss. The women found him, Curled upon the kitchen floor, Scorched by the bonfire Of his youth Gently, they brought him back, Back to us; Soothing him into his shape, That lovely man.   John Golding January 2025
Read more