Redgrave and Lopham Fen

                                     

                                     

A camera club outing to the Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve to find the Raft Spider.  It was very hot out of the shade, so I spent the afternoon quietly in a leafy ride and found all sorts of creatures, including the tree creeper, a stoat that came down from the canopy, and a muntjac that made a noise like a constipated barn owl and emerged from the nettles so close to me that this is a full frame image.  The harrier is from Lakenheath two years ago.

In The Woods

After a fruitless trip to Pinnacle Hill in Sandy looking for Bee-Wolf Wasps, we returned to Gamlingay Woods to see what was there.  We found a spider in a dark web, a Comma, a Hummingbird Hawkmoth and a Hornet Hoverfly (volucella zonaria). 

The Pits Again

A better day at the Pits, with a hunting heron, a hungry blue tit, a willow warbler and  southern hawker dragonfly.

Caldecote

Ann and I went for a walk over to Caldecote and found a glasshouse with glass (or plastic) furniture, and woven trash-art (bicycle wheels).  On the way back we found giant Shredded Wheats in a field, and the evening light was better.  

Bentwaters Cold War Museum

BCWM is a small part of the very large air base, now mostly home to industrial units.  It is housed in an above-ground concrete bunker with an operations room and decontamination chambers (anticipating chemical warfare) and has a collection of half a dozen vehicles and three aircraft - a (British) Harrier GR3, a Phantom and an A10 'Warthog'.  The A10 has a 30mm seven-barrel Gatling-type gun and carries 1174 rounds, which it can fire in about 18 seconds if the pilot keeps his finger on the trigger.  It is for use against tanks.  The 81st Tactical Fighter Wing would have supplied A10s to four forward bases in Germany to attack Soviet armour in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany.  

Rural Life

B&Ws taken at Barton this afternoon.

Lego at Welney

Lego figures made of thousands of bricks were displayed at Welney this month.  The frog used 75,000 bricks.  Meredith dissected owl pellets and found skulls and bones of mice and shrews.  Sadie photographed all the Lego creatures and recorded how many bricks each had used.  We had lunch in the Nelson-Lyle Hide.  The day finished with pond-dipping. 

The Best of the Rest

The bittern moved so slowly and hardly rippled the water.  Its plumage is rich and breaks up its outline.  Despite being no longer in breeding plumage, the ruffs still lived up to their name: pugnax.  

Sandwich terns hovered before diving.  Common terns collected the same little fish the bittern was catching.  The reeve had muddy feet, and the turnstone is well-camouflaged among the mussel and razor clam shells of Nature's waste tip.  Lastly the sandwich tern is a powerful flier.