Everything but the knots
Landscapes of Norfolk
First the mud flats of Snettisham
Yellow Horned-poppy (Glaucium flavum) and the old jetty
From Cley Marsh
St Nicholas’ Church, Salthouse
Cley windmill and St Nicholas’ Church, Blakeney
Walking on the North Norfolk Coastal Path, with distant “jack-up barge” used to install pipes to shield the cables bringing power from the Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm.[source]. It’s called Haven SeaChallenger
Dead tree in Titchwell Marsh
Dersingham Bog board walk
Late showing of heather and gorse at Kelling Heath SSSI
Some birds
Nick’s pride and joy. Curlew JA. She began life in a clutch of eggs on an RAF airbase, which was removed (under licence) for reasons of aircraft safety. The clutch was brought to Pensthorpe Conservation Trust. She hatched on 20/5/24 and was released at Wild Ken Hill on 12/8/24.
Greylag Geese (Anser Anser)
Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia)
Northern Lapwing (Vanellus vanellus)
Ruff (Philomachus pugnax)
Dunlin (Calidris alpina) and sleeping teal (or gadwall, or shoveller??)
Dunlin (Calidris alpina) – now too busy for the teal
Black-tailed Godwit (Limosa limosa)
Nesting Wood Pigeon (Columba Palumbus)
More exciting stuff
Common Darter (Sympetrum Striolatum) on Penny’s hat
Migrant Hawker (Aeshna mixta)
Long-winged conehead (Conocephalus discolor)
Bloody-nosed Beetle (Timarcha tenebricosa). Just look at those legs.
This, for the name of the trip: Silk Button Gall Wasp (Neuroterus numismalis). The Galls are abundant on the underside of the Oak leaves and can reach 3 mm across. This gall holds the agamic generation and looks like a thick, rolled edge disk with a deep central pit and gold hairs, there is no mark on the top of the leaf. It is a single cell gall holding one wasp and can be seen from August to October, until the leaves fall in autumn. The wasp larva will mature in August but remain in the gall on the ground throughout the winter, emerging the following year from February to April.
ID’s as Spanish Slug (Arion vulgaris) but could also be Large Black Slug (Arion ater). eating a wasp, or even a hoverfly mimicking a wasp.
Fox Moth (Macrothylacia rubi) mature caterpillar
More photos in the gallery
Select any thumbnail below for a full screen slideshow
Please see
Norfolk in Late Summer – Knots for more photos from this trip – the knot spectacular.
More holidays with Wildlife Worldwide
and
Norfolk – September 2018 for more photos of Cley and the north Norfolk coast.
2 replies on “Norfolk in Late Summer – Not Knots”
Thanks David. Great photos.
Guardian Country Diary 9 Oct 2024: An autumnal netherworld of galls, blisters and lesions.
“Silk button galls are by far the most plentiful. They’ve erupted in clusters, thousands of mini-Cheerios produced by the trees in response to tiny parasitic gall wasps laying their eggs in the leaf tissue. Though only intended as homes for one, some of these gingery hoops are likely to contain uninvited housemates known as “inquilines”, laid in the galls by another species of wasp. Even more mind-blowing, several chalcid wasps prey on the gall wasps. These hyperparasites (parasites that live in or on other parasites) insert their long ovipositors through the gall wall to lay their eggs. Once their young hatch, they devour the host larvae inside like some demonic lodger.”
Nic Wilson