Swallowtail Success.

 With the weather looking a bit tough for butterfly hunting, it came down to a bit of a gamble for the final butterfly needed for Lisa to complete the British list. However, it was a case of having to go now if she was going to complete it this year, as her holiday from work was coming to an end, as well as myself having a few commitments in the following few weeks.

To give us our best chance, we decided to book extra days away, and by leaving early on day one, we would actually have nearly 4 days of possible Swallowtail hunting, with the final day possible if needed, although a trip to Minsmere on the way home was what we really wanted.

Leaving Seaford on the Sunday morning, we were soon well ahead and we decided to call into Weeting Heath on the way up, to hopefully see Stone Curlew. This site is one of the easiest to see these secretive birds, although we really did struggle to see one together!! The first one eventually showed when Lisa had decided to head back to the car to collect something. By the time she was back the bird had vanished. I then went back to the car to get the lunch, only to find when I got back that the bird had showed again. Eventually we both managed to see it together, although it was extremely distant.

Totally different to my first ever visit to this reserve way back in 2005, when Matt and Pen was with me. On that occasion we all saw our first ever Stone Curlews. The photo below was taken on an old compact digital through the spotting scope.

Stone Curlew from 2005.

Following this. well, sort of success, we continued on our journey, arriving in a small village called Freethorpe, which was only 15 minutes or so from Strumpshaw Fen. This was to be our base until the Thursday morning. As the sun was actually shining, we decided to nip over to Strumpshaw, just to get our bearings. It had been a few years since I had last been to the reserve. After a short walk up the lane, past the famous doctor's garden, where sightings of the Swallowtail are quite frequent, we eventually went back to the visitor centre. Although by now it was closed, at least we could check out the sightings board. As we went to the viewpoint by the centre, we had passed a young lady that was busy photographing something in the garden. As she was obviously concentrating, we ignored her, well, that was until a couple more people showed interest in what she was up to. It then became evident that she was busy with a Swallowtail that was nectaring in the small garden plot. Lisa soon started taking many photos of the butterfly that had completed her target. However, after the butterfly eventually flew into the reedbed to roost, I asked her if she was excited about seeing the Swallowtail, and she agreed with me, that it wasn't quite how she was hoping to see it, with someone else having found it, and the fact it was in the garden with heavily scented flowers, it all felt a little artificial. 

However, at least the pressure was off, as she had seen one, so if the rain fell for the rest of the week we could still head home successful.

The following day, we headed back to Strumpshaw. Walking past the garden plot, we expected to see the butterfly back there, but it was nowhere to be seen. After checking into the visitor centre we casually checked it out again, and started chatting to a delightful couple, who were on the same quest. After chatting for some time we started to go our separate ways, with Lisa mentioning how odd it would be if a Swallowtail was feeding on other more natural plants near the water, when a Swallowtail flew up in front of her. This was a bit more like what we had hoped for. We spent some time with this individual, and then another that joined it. How lovely to get 2 Swallowtails performing for us.

Swallowtail on Foxglove.

Swallowtail.

We then retraced our steps from the previous evening, seeing many insects of all kinds, lots of Sedge Warblers that were busy feeding chicks. We also stopped to check on some Garlic Mustard seed-heads, finding a few Orange-tip larvae. We also then had a Swallowtail fly over us way out in the reed-beds.

I was particularly pleased to find some Golden-bloomed Grey Longhorn beetles, a species I had only seen in books before.

Golden-bloomed Grey Longhorn.

The rest of the day was spent at Strumpshaw. The butterfly that was the most surprising, was the Small Tortoiseshell, a species that has become quite scarce over much of Britain in recent years, but here, especially along the River Yare, they were very numerous. It was like the good old days when the Small Tortoiseshell was a very common species. There must be something about this area, as the last time I saw these sort of numbers of them, it was in the same area back in 2013. Fortunately, the RSPB that own the reserve let the nettles grow in profusion along the riverbank, and it obviously pays off.

Small Tortoiseshell.

We also had views of Bittern and Hobby, masses of hirundines and Swift and many dragonflies. The diversity was much greater than back in Sussex. Obviously insects are doing much better in the less crowded areas of Norfolk.

This was a much more satisfying day, with the Swallowtail sighting being more pleasing. However, we still hoped to see many more before we headed home. 

The following day, we changed the scenery for some heathland, and the possibility of Silver-studded Blue. We headed to Buxton Heath, which was around 50 minutes away. It wasn't long before we were watching large numbers of these lovely blues. The first one was immediately followed by a new emergence, with a male Silver-studded Blue, complete with attendant ants. I have only seen this a few times, and it's always fascinating watching the ants working around the butterfly, totally unaware they are looking after a butterfly. How wonderful and strange nature can be!!

Male Silver-studded Blue with attendant ants.

For the rest of the morning, we enjoyed walking around the heathland watching the butterflies. They were mostly very active, but every now and then we found a fresh individual that would pose for us. We also saw one mating pair, although these were on the track.

Male Silver-studded Blue.

Silver-studded Blue.

Female Silver-studded Blue.

Female Silver-studded Blue.

A rare sight of a male Silver-studded Blue with wings open very wide.

On the way back to Freethorpe, we called into Wheatfen, a lovely reserve virtually opposite Strumpshaw. Just the river between them. Here we saw good numbers of Norfolk Hawker and Scarce Chasers. We also had a back view of an Otter that vanished extremely quickly!!

Norfolk Hawker.

Male Scarce Chaser.

With the Scarce Chaser above, you can see it has clearly mated, as the dark smudges halfway down the abdomen has been made by the female hanging onto him during mating, rubbing off the blue.

The following photo shows this in action, as you can see the legs of the female hanging onto him and rubbing the blue away.

Mating Scarce Chasers.

On our final full day in Norfolk, we headed over to Hickling Broad. This was by far our favourite reserve of the trip. During the day, we saw well into double figure numbers of Swallowtail. We basically saw them all over the reserve, mainly nectaring on Bramble. We even had a pair flying above us presumably fighting over territory at one point.

Battling Swallowtails.

The best moment came right at the end of the day, when we returned to an area we had seen a few Swallowtails earlier. We were walking down an avenue of Bramble, when we lucked out with a very fresh individual. It was feeding well on the Bramble, and as it was only the 2 of us photographing it, there was nobody else to flush it away.  It was a very fitting end to a fabulous day, that had also given us Common Crane, Bittern and so much more.

Swallowtail at Hickling Broad.

It had been a great 4 days in Norfolk and even the weather was much better than had been forecast!!

Now we had a visit to Minsmere on the way back home the following day to look forward to. However, now it was time to celebrate our Swallowtail success with a meal and drink by the Norfolk Broads!!