Category: News

As spring marches on, the river is a hub of activity with birds bringing up their broods. Capturing everything on camera ourselves can be a real challenge – especially now the river is busier and we have much thicker bankside vegetation for wildlife to get a little photo in. Fortunately we have lots of guests on our boat trips armed with cameras and smartphones, who send us some cracking shots.

Here we have a couple of lovely photographs from one of our school tips on board the Discoverer for an educational outing to Hoveton Great Broad Nature Trail. Congratulations to primary school students Ellie and Poppy, who caught a young swan family on camera where the cygnets had bundled onto mum’s back for a bit of protection.

Credit Ellie

Credit Poppy

On the stretch of the River Bure covered by our one-and-a-half and two hour trips we now have three swan families with six or seven cygnets each.

It’s not just the swans that look after their young by offering them a ride on their backs, look out for the Great Crested Grebes who also give their young a piggyback. Salhouse Broad is a real hotspot for Great Crested Grebes. At least one brood of Great Crested Grebes have already hatched and we have seen them riding on their mother’s back as shown by these lovely pictures taken by Tobi and Oliver. We are also keenly awaiting a second nesting pair that has been hidden away in the undergrowth.

A water bird that builds floating nests for its young in the same way as the Great Crested Grebe – the Coot – has just hatched its young on Salhouse Broad. This is really good news as Coots, which were once extremely common on the Broads, seem to be very few and far between these days, perhaps due to the harsh winter of 2010. Hopefully we will have some pictures of the newly hatched coots soon!

Of course there are plenty of Greylag, Canada and Egyptian geese with their goslings to see too. These are mostly found in the gardens of Wroxham and Hoveton where there is plenty of grass to graze upon.

Remember, we would love to see your wildlife photos, so send them in with your name and they may feature on one of our nature blogs or on social media. Simply send them to info@broads.co.uk or via Twitter @BroadsTours or Facebook by searching Broads Tours or Instagram norfolk_broads_direct.

With snow falling on the 26th April it’s hard to believe that we are in late April. Fortunately the cold weather doesn’t seem to be discouraging our abundant wildlife, which is still busily nesting and rearing their young, even if the plant life is a little ‘behind’ for this time of year.

Nesting birds are becoming more prevalent and we are still watching the Greylag and Canada Geese with great expectation. One very cute brood of Greylags are delighting tourists and seem to be spending most of their time grazing the lawns of Wroxham gardens.

Animal behaviour is always an exciting topic, and wonderful to see. In one garden, we spied a swan going about nesting behaviour: whether the pair here are building or not is another matter, but it doesn’t stop the birds feeling broody and acting upon it!

We have had high water recently which can play havoc with some nesting birds. Although the Coots and Grebes are not usually bothered by this problem because they build floating nests, one pair of Great Crested Grebes struggled slightly when their nest became suspended. They are back on track now and continue to build up their nest with gusto.

The arrival of migratory birds signals the start of spring (even if the current weather doesn’t) and we recently reported that Swallows were flourishing on Wroxham Broad. This week House Martins have joined the Swallows, although they can be difficult to set apart: look for the white patch on the House Martin’s rump and a forked, shorter tail than on Swallows.

Overcast days seem to be best for seeing both Swallows and House Martins amazing acrobatics as they zoom low over the water, picking up insects. Another aerial acrobat taking to our skies is the Common Tern, which has recently arrived from Africa to make its summer home on Hoveton Great Broad.

Despite being as large as Wroxham Broad, Hoveton Great Broad has been cut off from boat traffic for more than a century and makes a wonderful wildlife sanctuary for Common Terns as well as many other species.

A visit to the reserve is highly recommended. You can spot the Terns nesting on a special floating platform from a bird hide along a kilometre long nature trail. Visiting Hoveton Great Broad is an adventure in its self as it can only be reached by boat, giving it a wonderfully wild feel. We would recommend hiring one of our day boats from Wroxham and mooring up at the reserve about 40 minutes downstream (check Hoveton Great Broad’s opening times with us first.)

We have also been taking school field trips to Hoveton Great Broad recently and they have been captivated by this areas abundant wildlife. Hopefully we have done our bit for a new generation of nature lovers!

With the future in mind, The Hoveton Great Broad Restoration Project has recently attracted millions of pounds of European and Heritage Lottery funding to secure this area for many years to come. The project will see the broad, which has been badly silted up, being suction dredged so that plants can take root and to improve water quality. Also to improve water quality, fish will be temporarily removed from the broad because they eat water fleas, which in turn eat algae. With no fish to eat the water fleas their numbers will boom and more algae will be eaten, which will make the water much clearer in a process called biomanipulation.

Back on the river, our plants are doggedly coming to life despite the inclement weather. The white flowers of Black Thorn and Hawthorn are now being set against the bright yellowy-gold of the marsh marigold (come on you yellows!) which is also known as ‘King cup’ due to it’s almost goblet shaped flowers.

Other trees are starting to leaf too, with the fresh pale green leaves of oak, joining the willow, sycamore and birch. Soon the banks will be more green than brown and offer valuable cover for wildlife.