Farnboro John
Well-known member
Happy New Year everybody!
Clare and I started the year with a tour of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire for birds but of course we encountered some mammals in the course of our travels.
In fact I did before that, the New Year was only twenty minutes old and the Somme-like barrage of fireworks was just dying down when Hoppity the senior vixen rocked up for her first chicken drumsticks of the year. Red Fox first on the list.
Then to bed for three hours before leaping up and off (I had pre-loaded a few hours sleep late afternoon and early evening. Safety first.)
Our first stop was at Welney, just North of the WWT, where keen ears found the evocative sounds of Whooper Swans, Wigeon and a few other distinctive birds and a good torch illuminated Rabbits, a Brown Hare and two Chinese Water Deer grazing their way across the massive open flat fields.
On the way from there to Stiffkey we saw several Muntjac feeding on verges.
The next new mammal for the year, after several more Muntjac along the A149 and at Holkham, was a Grey Squirrel attending the feeders at Titchwell RSPB. Star mammal at Titchwell however was yet another Muntjac, browsing on leaves by the main path bank not far from the visitor centre, completely careless of the hordes of humans - many of them grockle families with noisy feral kids and dogs, though at least all the latter were leashed - about ten feet from us! We watched and photographed the little deer (pun intended) for ten minutes or more before it casually turned round and ambled off into the bushes.
Our final mammal list addition of the day was Roe Deer: first of all a couple in a field near King's Lynn then the big herd at March and finally three on a bund out on the Nene Washes at Eldernell. Seven species in a day without making any effort: not bad. Only two of them native to Britain, which says something about the state of our mammal fauna.
John
Clare and I started the year with a tour of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire for birds but of course we encountered some mammals in the course of our travels.
In fact I did before that, the New Year was only twenty minutes old and the Somme-like barrage of fireworks was just dying down when Hoppity the senior vixen rocked up for her first chicken drumsticks of the year. Red Fox first on the list.
Then to bed for three hours before leaping up and off (I had pre-loaded a few hours sleep late afternoon and early evening. Safety first.)
Our first stop was at Welney, just North of the WWT, where keen ears found the evocative sounds of Whooper Swans, Wigeon and a few other distinctive birds and a good torch illuminated Rabbits, a Brown Hare and two Chinese Water Deer grazing their way across the massive open flat fields.
On the way from there to Stiffkey we saw several Muntjac feeding on verges.
The next new mammal for the year, after several more Muntjac along the A149 and at Holkham, was a Grey Squirrel attending the feeders at Titchwell RSPB. Star mammal at Titchwell however was yet another Muntjac, browsing on leaves by the main path bank not far from the visitor centre, completely careless of the hordes of humans - many of them grockle families with noisy feral kids and dogs, though at least all the latter were leashed - about ten feet from us! We watched and photographed the little deer (pun intended) for ten minutes or more before it casually turned round and ambled off into the bushes.
Our final mammal list addition of the day was Roe Deer: first of all a couple in a field near King's Lynn then the big herd at March and finally three on a bund out on the Nene Washes at Eldernell. Seven species in a day without making any effort: not bad. Only two of them native to Britain, which says something about the state of our mammal fauna.
John
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