Spare a thought for the ground-nesting birds. All this rain and cold can't be good news for eggs and tiny chicks, nor indeed for butterflies, who cannot fly in this mess and therefore cannot feed = death. Well into May now and no change. Somehow the summer migrants are struggling in - swifts over Oxborough today, the nightingale still singing at Boughton Fen (plus cuckoo there daily), sedge, reed and grasshopper warbs all busy at Lakenheath Fen yesterday evening, where also a female garganey and pair of cranes flying into the reedbed - two two-week-old chicks tucked away in there, apparently - and a very fine hobby low over the reeds... Made a very wet trip to Sculthorpe Moor last Thurs, looked Irish and emerald-like in the rain, lovely marsh harrier male sailing about and my best ever views of bullfinches, with two pairs feeding on the seed table near one of the hides. Foulden Common also looking wonderful right now, with rafts of cowslips, cuckoo, willow warbs and a garden warb in fine voice - no turtle doves yet tho :-(. And this evening a great discovery on the edge of the very wet centre: butterworts! I've never found them there before and am hopeful that the rain will at least give us a good show of orchids there next month.
Not the best pic ever taken of bullfinches, but you get the point...
Foulden Common - can't remember the cowslips ever being this good there.
Butterworts! Just coming out, so must go back in a day or two and
hopefully when not so gusty. Might just get it in focus...
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