It’s not called a mire for nothing.

 Have you noticed the large numbers of bees on ivy flowers lately? They are probably Ivy Bees; I have certainly seen lots, nesting singly but in in companiable numbers in the sandy banks and lane verges in the area. According to the excellent Wildlife Trusts website, “The ivy bee was first recorded in the UK in 2001, and has now been found in much of Southern England and Wales, and in the Channel Islands. As suggested by its common name, Ivy is the main plant used by this bee for pollen. It is seen when ivy is in flower, from early September to early November. Ivy bees nest in loose, light or sandy soil on southern-facing banks and cliffs with ivy nearby for foraging. They are solitary bees, but when conditions are suitable, there may be thousands of nests in the same area.” (https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/bees-and-wasps/ivy-bee )

I can’t say I have seen any on The Common this year, but they have certainly been found here in previous years, and given that they are in Southrepps in such numbers it seems highly likely they are also on our patch. Team Leader Margaret took this picture somewhere on The Common in 2018; as can be seen, they can be mistaken for wasps, and like them they are important pollinators of ivy.

The picture is one of many on the NWT’s website of species photographed on our commons. Use the search options on https://www.norfolkwildlifetrust.org.uk/gallery/all-photos to see what else we have put up there – often carried over from our previous Southrepps Commons Trust site. More pictures will always be welcome!

I wrote the above just before The Great Storm arrived (did it have a name?), when the weather was still good enough to be classed an Indian Summer. At the weekend, that abruptly switched to winter, without stopping off at autumn on the way, dumping prodigious quantities of water on us, accompanied by three days’ worth of terribly damaging gales. The effects of the tempest have been all too clear to see, with many trees down, roads blocked and power cuts. The torrential driving rain may have flooded some of the tiny burrows the Ivy Bees had dug for themselves and no doubt their young, so it’s possible the population took a bad knock: we’ll have to see if any are about when the sun returns. Dry ponds are now full; in the case of The Pit, of very brown muddy water, looking suspiciously like the same colour as the surrounding, now somewhat depleted, fields.

Team Leader Julie took a relaxing ramble round the Common today after a hectic day at work, and has sent in some photos. She found signs of flattened reeds and fallen trees and broken branches on the main common and school common.

But nature had left a love heart in the berries...or are her eyes seeing things?

On Saturday morning I noticed in my garden the most waterlogged and bedraggled Wood Pigeon I have ever seen. Bird feathers are waterproofed thanks to an oil from the gland at the base of the tail, applied during preening, but either this bird’s oil supply had dried up or it was simply overwhelmed by the vast amount of water that had been poured over it. It was capable of flight, but it was obvious that it was more of an effort than usual. I then went to the Rec. Ground to give the dog a run somewhere without the risk of a tree falling on us, and near the Village Hall was the untidy mess that passes for a Wood Pigeon’s nest, lying at the foot of a wind-battered tree. A perhaps half-grown nestling lay soggily dead beside it. These birds breed all through the year, and must therefore cope with weather-induced calamities, but presumably the benefits outweigh the risks. It was also sad to see the corpse of a badger at the side of the main road this morning, close to the Stump Cross junction, killed this time no doubt by a car rather than the weather.

The appalling weather in the few days before the working party scheduled for Sunday 27^th September had the effect of leaving the central area (Area G) scheduled for cutting incredibly boggy. This area is technically called a mire, and with good reason. As it was still very windy over the weekend, the work was postponed until Monday. Six hardy regulars turned out to slosh about in the wet, and were joined by our NWT warden George with three welcome colleagues, two of whom are volunteers at Cley, and for one of those this was his first experience of volunteering for NWT! The race is on to get this section of the Common cut and cleared by the end of September, in order to avoid the risk of incurring Natural England’s displeasure and a potential fine for non-compliance with the funding agreement.  

The first task was to set up dumping sites in the alder carr, allowing the loaded sheets to be winched in. Winches can be slippery customers; here John is about to pounce on the unsuspecting machine.

At the same time, channels were cut so that the sheets could be laid out, ready for the few pitchforkers to load them up.

As always in these Covid-secure times, good social distancing was observed; not too difficult when only a maximum of 10 people are involved.

With the ground so wet, slogging through it was hard work, and the vegetation was of course soaking and heavy, so the do-it-yourself refreshment break was a welcome, but subdued affair.

It’s happened before, and it will happen again. Grizzly is a heavy beast, and despite its big wide wheels, when it hits a particularly boggy patch it can get stuck, and dig itself ever deeper in the mire. Here George is giving Grizzly a right good talking to.

We were about to hook it up to the winch to try to haul it out backwards, but in the event the extra muscle provided by the doughty NWT folk allowed it to be dragged out manually, to breathless cheers.

By the time your correspondent took his leave (with only a tinge of regret) after a couple of hours of hard labour, the scene looked like this. A couple of our volunteers decided to stay on for a while longer, and then the NWT guys had the prospect of another few hours’ effort to console themselves with.

The typically modern bucolic hum of chainsaws combined with the clatter of the Grizzly mower combined to almost drown out the seemingly ever-present roar of warplanes somewhere up in or above the lowering clouds. Small frogs looked more than usually bewildered to be harried from puddle to puddle. They can look forward to more of the same in a couple of days’ time.

When Julie visited later, the place looked like this.

She saw a deer on Area B too - but the combination of two interested dogs and her fumbling for her phone meant it’s only a dot on the photo as it retreated to cover in the scrub!