Now that the cutting season is over for another year you will be hearing less from us about work done on the Commons. This of course is largely because very little work is possible through spring and summer without disturbing the inhabitants of the place, who need to concentrate on growing and breeding.
Instead, so you don’t forget about us, we thought it might
be a good idea to do some occasional postings about the plants and animals that
can be found here as the seasons progress. Wherever possible, images will
either be freshly taken, or re-used from the now defunct Southrepps Commons
Trust website, which only used pictures taken on the Commons. (If you have
any images of plants or animals on the Commons that you would like to be
included on this blog (and of course acknowledged), please email them to
scommonsvolunteers@gmail.com
including the word “blog” in the subject line.)
To kick off, this little video taken on 14th March this year at the bridge over Fox’s Beck, mid-way along the boardwalk, is a reminder of how soul-soothing a few quiet minutes spent here can be. The birds are now becoming much more vocal – particularly the robin which dominates this particular recording, although it is briefly joined by the inevitable woodpigeon.
While we’re on the subject of birdsong, the first of the warblers to start singing is the chiffchaff. Many of these little gems actually manage to stay here through the winter, and so have the advantage of being already up and running at the start of the breeding season. Others don’t go far for their winter holidays (southern Europe and north Africa), so are bound to be quicker off the mark than the long-haul sub-Saharan migrants.
This bird has the decency to have a distinctive, if very
simple, song that actually tells you its name as it sings! The RSPB website is
a font of valuable information about, well, birds: this is a link to their page
about the chiffchaff and its easy to recognise song: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/chiffchaff
This image was taken from the now almost inaccessible Scouts’ Pond near the Jubilee Boardwalk in April 2011. I think it’s the best picture of a bird I have ever managed to take.
At this time of year, while trees are yet to come into leaf but the resident birds are becoming more vocal and active, bullfinches are a particular delight to find. I always approve of species that make their identification easy (like the chiffchaff with its song), so the white bum shown by flying bullfinches is something to celebrate. They have a very quiet, gentle call, which once noticed is a tell-tale giveaway that they are in the vicinity.
If anything, the male bullfinch is perhaps a little too gaudy; it looks as though a young girl has got at her mother’s make-up box and overdone it somewhat. The female on the other hand is rather plain – apart from her aforementioned diagnostic white bum. This photo of a male bird was taken by volunteer and winch master Dave Goode in his garden adjoining the common in January 2016.
See the excellent BTO website at https://www.bto.org/understanding-birds/birdfacts/bullfinch for all the information you might want about bullfinches, and recordings of their calls and song.
Thanks to heroic volunteering efforts, almost 500 plant species have been recorded on the Commons. Plants likely to be seen in flower here during the next couple of months are:
Lady's Smock (also known as cuckoo flower)
Bog Bean (was the emblem of the Southrepps Commons Trust)
Click on the plant names for further information and pictures on
various websites. (All links open in new windows.)
Some butterflies which have over-wintered as hibernating
adults make an early appearance if the weather has a warm spell. Last week it
was very pleasantly warm, and some gorgeous male brimstones were seen, as well
as a few fast-moving commas, and I have seen at least one small tortoiseshell. (Brimstones
are incidentally considered to be the reason we call these insects butterflies,
as the males of this species is the colour of butter.)
Follow this link for more about the brimstone: https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/butterflies/brimstone
And finally for now, two gardens close to The Common have camera traps mounted in them by their nature-loving owners. Both have Fox’s Beck running through them, and those camera traps often pick up visits from creatures that must also appear on the part of the Beck running across the Common. This wonderful footage from 6th March this year shows a fabulous little egret in glorious sunshine, using its distinctive yellow feet to shuffle up the stream bed in order to flush out some prey.