About this time last year I went to pick up Daughter Number Two from Swansea University and had decided to stop off en route at Kenfig Nature Reserve to see if I could see any Fen Orchids. This rare and diminutive orchid only grows in two places: in Norfolk and in the dune slacks of south Wales at places like Kenfig. That time I'd not seen any and had presumed that I'd been a bit too late but there had also been the nagging possibility that I'd been looking in the wrong place. This year my daughter wanted to be picked up a bit earlier, in fact right in the middle of the peak season for Fen Orchids so my thoughts naturally turned to having another go. This time, to be on the safe side I got in touch with someone in the wonderful Native Orchids of the UK Facebook group to ask for directions and he kindly said that he would meet me there to show me himself. So it was that a couple of weeks ago I found myself heading west on a gloriously sunny Sunday morning towards the Severn bridge and over the River Severn into Wales. Given the hour and the day of the week there was little traffic and I made good time, indeed arriving a little early for my rendezvous with AP, my guide for the day. He turned out to be a wonderfully amiable and extremely knowledgeable orchid enthusiast. Together with another friend of his who was doing some reconnaissance for a field trip that he was running that afternoon, we wandered along the sandy tracks towards the main dune slack enjoying the sights and scenery on a beautifully sunny day. I was pleased to note that the slack was the same one that I'd been to the previous year so at least I'd been in the right general area last time. The slack itself was awash with orchids, mostly Southern Marsh though with several Early Marsh in amongst them, including the beautiful red coccinea subspecies.
Early Marsh Orchid - past their best now
The coccinea sub species of Early Marsh Orchid
Southern Marsh Orchid - by far the commonest orchid there
We started off not looking for Fens but instead Northern Marsh Orchid. There'd been a bit of debate in the FB group about whether NMO actually occurs at Kenfig. AP was sure that it did as he'd seen some a couple of weeks ago on his last visit but he wanted to show his friend to make sure. Eventually we found several specimens as well as some Common Twayblades. We even managed to find a hyperchromic subspecies with extremely rich colouring.
Northern Marsh Orchid
Hyperchromic NMO, with the very rich colouring
Common Twayblades
Having satisfied themselves about the NMO, the companion had to leave for his field trip so AP and I went in search of the elusive Fen Orchids. I'd been keeping half an eye out for FO as we'd tramped about the slack but hadn't spotted any. AP told me that the wardens had been getting worried about the decreasing numbers of FO over the last few years so had intervened to create some new habitat. Apparently there is a natural cycle with the dunes: a fresh sand scrape is gradually colonised and as it starts to get stabilised by grasses etc the vegetation gets thicker and there's more competition so it's harded for the more diminutive plants such as Fens to survive. So they'd dug a few fresh scrapes to create a sparsely vegetated area and this was where we were headed. As soon as we got there we could see loads of Fen Orchids. Over the relatively narrow area of the scrape there must have been at least fifty. I thanked my stars (and also of course AP) that I'd thought to ask for guidance as otherwise I'd probably never have found them in this small strip.
Fen Orchids at last!
Orchid Hunters paying homage to the Fens
Dark Green Fritillary on a Meadow Thistle
Time was marching on and I had one eye on the clock, thinking that I
still had to get to Swansea, load up the car and then get all the way
back home again. However, AP had mentioned in passing that right by the
shoreline one could find Sea Stock, a rare coastal plant that is only to
be found along the southern coast of Wales so I waited patiently until
he'd finished his photography and then he took me over to see them.
There were loads of dragonflies buzzing around in the pools as we went
(mostly Broad-bodied Chasers) and as we neared the beach suddenly there
were Pyramidal Orchids everywhere. AP soon found some Sea Stock though
it was far too early for it to be in flower.
Pyramidal Orchid
The elusive Sea Stock - nowhere near in flower yet
Kenfig was a wonderful place and truly one could spend all day there but as time was marching on we then turned around and headed back to the car park. I thanks my companion profusely for all the help that he'd given and we went our separate ways. I headed back onto the motorway and within half an hour I was pulling up at my daughter's student accommodation. She'd got everything already packed and ready to load in the car so it was a relatively quick turnaround and we were soon on our way back home. The return journey was uneventful and the time passed quickly enough as we caught up on each other's news. It had been a good day out and I'd finally got to see some Fen Orchids.
Readers may well have noticed the distinct lack of posts here over the last few months. The reason for this has largely been that I've been tied up on the work front and haven't been able to go out on many trips at all. That's not to say that I've not done any, just they've mostly been relatively minor ones or alternatively unsuccessful ones (which one always feels less inclined to blog about). So I thought that I'd do a round-up of what I've done over the intervening period, partly just as a personal reminder though of course I hope that readers also enjoy them.
Hunting Yellow Stars
Back at the end of March I went on a relatively local trip to look for the elusive Yellow Star of Bethlehem (Gagea lutea) which I'd recently learnt from the very informative Hooky Natural History blog could be found locally at Whitehall Woods along the backs of the River Evenlode . It had been a very wet early spring and I arrived at the location to find that the river had burst its banks and at first it looked completely hopeless. Fortunately however, the bank on the footpath side of the river was very steep so it was still possible to work my way along it and to look out for this plant though according to the aforementioned blog source there weren't any actually in flower this spring so it was a matter of looking out for the subtle pointers that marked this species out from the similar Bluebell leaves. Fortunately I managed to find a few specimens as well as some emerging Toothwort. It would be nice actually to see some in flower so I'll try again next year.
The flooded River Evenlode
Toothwort just coming out
Yellow Star of Bethlehem, munched by deer (presumably)
That Chiffchaff and Bittern Dipping
Much has already been said about the "Iberian" Chiffchaff that turned out to be something else. The morning the news broke I was just about to leave to spend a day over in Suffolk to have a crack at the American Bittern that had appeared at Carlton Marshes and a quick detour around the ring road to get a cracking county tick was going to be a great bonus. Suffice it to say that the song (which you could hear from the car park) seemed good enough to me as well as quite a few other county birders. To his credit it was the Notorious LGRE who first cast aspersions on it's identity and gradually over the coming days as we all learnt more about what constitutes a bona fide Iberian the horrible truth dawned on us all. For me the most interesting part was the three parts to a true Iberian's song which Ian Lewington describes as ‘jip jip jip jip jip weep weep weep chitachitachita’; this bird on the other hand was going ‘jit jit jit jit jit juda juda juda
juda’ without any middle "weep"-ing. I'll know what to listen out for in future. An educational bird as they say (grrrrr).
Superb video of the Chiffy from video genius Badger
Anyway, I didn't even get to see the American Bittern. Despite spending five long hours staring at the reedbed with a number of other birders (including master lensman JH) there was no sign of it that day. Lots of Marsh Harriers, a pair of Whimbrel, a heard-only Eurasion Bittern and a close Yellow Wagtail were quite frankly poor compensation for a long and ultimately fruitless day and even my consolation county tick was later snatched away from me. Gah!
Farmoor Bonxies & Terns
After the excitement of the Green-winged Teal back in January and apart from the bitter disappointment of that Chiffchaff, it has been a rather quiet spring in the county. I've been working away diligently on the patch (see Port Meadow Birding for those who don't know about it) but when a pair of Bonxies turned up at Farmoor I thought that I'd have a change from the daily patch routine and decided to go and pay a visit. They were immediately on view when I arrived albeit a long distance away and I couldn't be bothered to slog all the way up the causeway so contented myself with very distant views from the bank by the car park.
Distant misty Bonxies
For me the highlight of the visit was the presence of both Arctic and Common Terns flying really close in just in front of me. It was a wonderful opportunity to compare and contrast the two species. Despite being able to rattle off by heart the list of the field guide differences there's nothing quite like seeing them side by side in the field for getting a feel for the two species and I came away much more confident in being able to tell them apart from flight views.
A fabulous set of photos taken by camera legend Roger Wyatt who was there watching the Terns with me.
Top two Arctic and bottom two Common
Patch Mega
I mentioned my patch birding earlier, well it's been a reasonably good year there so far with decent amounts of flood water (always a critical factor) lasting all the way into June. We've had a good selection of species though it's been a quiet spring for waders. So, after having had a very busy day with work, when I decided to pay an evening visit to the floods I was pleasantly surprised to find 20 or more Ringed Plover right at the start of the floods - a record count for the year so far. Conditions were very gloomy and overcast as I worked my way northwards up the floods but I kept finding more birds with a pair of Redshank, some Oystercatchers, a couple of Greenshank and a few Sanderling to add to the total - it had been a real fall! The highlight however was to be found right at the end. I spotted someone on the north shore with a pair of bins looking at something very intently. "What could he be looking at?" I wondered as I scanned over the northern section of flood water. I soon found the answer when an adult summer plumage Red-necked Phalarope came into view! I recognised it instantly from the one at Bicester Wetlands that I'd seen a few years previously so I busied myself with taking some video footage and then putting the word out. Most of the Port Meadow locals came to see it as well as a few county birders from further afield though with this being the third record in the last four years it wasn't the draw that it used to be.
The best I could manage on the video front given the distance and the gloomy conditions
I watched it until dusk in the company of various fellow admirers and as I was leaving four out-of-county people arrived to see it so in the end more than a dozen people came to pay their respects. As to be expected for a migrating spring bird, there was no sign of it the next day.
As a matter of interest (thanks to JU for the info), past records of this species are:
Shotover (found exhausted) Winter 1884
Sandford Sewage Farm Sep 1944
Marsh Baldon June 1960
Stanton Harcourt June 1969
Farmoor May 1974
Farmoor June 1974
Dix Pit Sep 1995
A "probable" at Balscote Quarry June 2014 Bicester Wetlands: May 2015
Farmoor: Sep 2017
It was nice finally to find something good on the patch again - it's been a while personally though thankfully we now have a good team of dedicated birders who are collectively finding stuff to keep the patch rare list ticking over.
