RXwildlife Sightings

Another spring time orchid that grows in our area, the green winged orchid is in my experience harder to find than the early purple orchid, unless one goes to a protected grassland such as the meadows at Great Dixter, in Northiam, where they grow in large numbers.

Although superficially similar to the early purple orchid, the sepals that form the helmet of the flower bear several purple lines, and the leaves of the green winged orchid lack purple spots.  This plant is strongly associated with unimproved grasslands, whereas the early purple orchid can be found in grasslands and woodland.

The problem with spring is that as each wild flower opens it is tempting to think I’ll go looking for them later this week.  If you have a busy period you suddenly realise it is too late.  Now is the time to admire the patches of early purple orchids such as these by the side of the road heading towards Staplecross from Northiam.

With the loss of Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been low-profile on RX for the last month since I’ve been away…more than I expected.
However I’m now back and will put links here to RX-related posts on RXbirdwalks.

As for the Brede Valley, cold & grey but quite a variety of birds including singing Chiffchaff, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Reed & Sedge Warbler. Migrant parties of Swallow, House Martin & Swift were passing through, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t invent any Red-rumped Swallows. Pity.

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The roadside pools were very quiet mid morning. The two probable reasons were that that it was cold and also the local farmer had just driven around them disturbing most of the wildfowl. There was a trickle of Swift and Swallow moving eastwards and a single male White Wagtail at the water’s edge. The only other birds of note were five Whimbrel that flew in from the sea and settled on the grassland and four Little Tern that flew past over the sea heading eastwards.