During the last two weeks I have boldly gone to the outer edges of the reserve in my quest for new civilisations! Lurking in one of the dark recesses of the men's toilet I found a large house spider, and on the ceiling a daddy-long-legs spider. There are hundreds of fungi in the wooded area, the only new one that I've identified is common inkcap. I thought I'd found a second type of tar spot fungus, this one growing on ivy leaves, but it turned out to be a bacteria, xanthomonas campestris. (This is getting really sad!)
The roosting harriers and large numbers of wildfowl and golden plover have made the reedbeds and freshmarsh pretty spectacular but have added nothing to the Ray's Rambles list. It took a walk to Thornham Point to find some long strands of kelp on the beach, and on the way back I saw an old friend of mine who was just coming out of the sea with nets full of brown shrimps.
My species total has now reached 929 thanks to the splendid winter plumaged male desert wheatear that I watched feeding along the strandline, near Titchwell Creek. It was a rare pleasure to add a new bird to my personal Titchwell list, since the reserve started in 1973 I've seen 308 species (this total includes exotics).
Ray Kimber.
Images: Desert wheatear copyright Sue Bryan; common inkcap and unidentified fungi copyright Ray Kimber