Titchwell Marsh — Graham Perkin Photography

During a short wildlife break to north Norfolk, I was only 20 minutes away from RSPB Titchwell Marsh, a nature reserve with varied habitats such as fresh water lagoons, saltmarshes, coastal and reedbed. A hive of insect activity in summer and an important breeding site for Avocet, Bittern and Bearded Tits…

After a morning spent at RSPB Snettisham (previous blog post) it was only a 20 minute drive to Titchwell Marsh so after a brief lunch stop we headed there for the afternoon. The wildlife encounters started right in the car park with plenty of butterflies fluttering around and landing on car tyres and I even photographed one chilling out on a Audi logo!

After passing through the visitor centre we headed out onto the nature trails, the first one the “Fen Trail” took us past lots of areas teaming with insects. Many butterflies, moths, beetles and dragonflies made tricky but cool subjects to try to photograph when they hopefully sat still for a moment!

The main trail takes you past reedbeds, to the various pools eventually leading to the beach. The pools change type as you get closer to the sea. The first being a fresh water pool, then a brackish water lagoon followed by a tidal marsh. This attracts different species to each area. The main interest here was the reedbeds themselves. We did see fleeting glimpses of elusive and shy Bearded Tits, flitting among the reeds but they didn’t stay still enough for a photo.

I did spend some time capturing some nice Reed Warblers and Sedge Warblers as they kept bringing in food for their chicks, hidden in nests among the reeds. We also saw a Marsh Harrier skim across the top of the reedbed looking for some dinner!

One of the main attractions of this reserve is its breeding population of Avocets. The “Island Hide” gives great views across the freshwater marsh and the Avocets are very close indeed! probably the closest I have seen them anywhere in the UK thus far.

Onto the beach next and what a lovely area! The sand dunes looked stunning and I had a few shots in mind however, the tide was as far as it could possibly be which ruined any chances of the shots I had planned - definitely worth a revisit at high tide!

With dark skies on the horizon we headed back to avoid being caught in the rain, Keeping an eye out for those Bearded Tits along the way - again, we did see them but not in a way conducive to photos! Thankfully the rain did not happen and we stayed dry but that was another RSPB reserve visited and done. A nice place to visit and one I wouldn’t mind another go at! Homeward bound tomorrow but not before a visit to another new RSPB reserve not far away…Lakenheath Fen!