A look at a fascinating morning and early afternoon yesterday at Watatunga Wildlife Reserve, complete with photographs.
Yesterday four members of the West Norfolk Autism Group went to Watatunga Wildlife Reserve, four miles south of King’s Lynn, for what as supposed to be a get together of people from various charities with mental health connections and Watatunga management to discuss working together and making the Watatunga experience more accessible. As part of this we were to be shown the entire reserve by means of trailer rides.
LACK OF TAKE UP
In the event our group was the only group to show up, and the Watatunga people decided to do only one trailer ride and then we would talk over coffee. The Watatunga experience was thoroughly enjoyable, and we had a very constructive discussion afterwards.
This is an Indian bustard, an even bigger beast of a bird……than this, which is a great bustard.The brindled wildebeest closer to the water than usual for such a creature, because he has made friends with some water buffalo, and although he won’t join them in the water he will go close to the edge when they are in the water.The brindled wildebeest has a name – William – and a nickname – Willy Wonka. This close up og his head shows the wonky horns that give him his nickname.Water buffalo doing water buffalo things, with coots in the background.This is an eastern Bongo – the silvery stripes make it very distinctive.This is a Cape Eland, the largest of all antelope species.Possibly the best picture I got of the bongo.Three species in a single picture – the brindled wildebeest, the Cape Eland and the bongo are all present.A Nilgaitwo male silver pheasants.The first of two guinea fowl species we would see.
WATATUNGAWILDLIFE
The name Watatunga has two elements, the ‘Wat’ part comes from Watlington, the nearest village to the reserve, while the ‘atatunga’ derives from Sitatunga, which is one of the species of ungulates there. Apart from the water buffalo, which are of course cattle and have horns the ungulates fall in to two main types – antelopes and their kin, which have horns, and deer which have antlers. As well as antlers being in general considerably more elaborate than horns there is a second key difference – horns are for life, whereas antlers are seasonal. This latter explains why William the brindled wildebeest has wonky horns – he took a knock before he was brought to Watatunga, and because horns are for life his horns are permanently misaligned. As well as the ungulates there are some exotic birds housed at Watatunga. The first part of the gallery above included cranes. We will be seeing other species in the second part of the gallery.
This is a roan antelope.Pere Davide’s DeerVulturine guinea fowl.Javan peafowl – these differ from the Indian variety in that the male and female have the same colouring, and that they are green rather than blue.The great bustard, ar rest. Your reminder that birds are feathered dinosaurs!These were not flagged up by our guides, but I reckon they are Egyptian geese.White stork.Our transport round the reserve.
A look at the areas closest to where we were staying. Most of the pictures come from two walks to and from Portuairk, but some were taken through the car window, and some just outside out converted caravan.
This is the ninth post in my series about my recent holiday in Scotland. Achosnich, where we were staying can barely said to be a place at all – about five houses clustered immediately above a road junction where the road out from Kilchoan splits into two, one leg going up through Achosnich and on to the small seaside village of Portuairk and the other going to Ardnamurchan Lighthouse and the westernmost point of mainland Britain. The photos in this post were mainly taken during two walks on the Thursday, when the weather was too bad to permit major excursions.
A CONVERTED CARAVAN
The main body of the house in which we were staying started life as a caravan. To make a house of it a porch area/ utility room was added to one side of the centre of the building. This, which also houses a washing machine and drying frames, is reasonably spacious, as are the dining and living room areas, though the kitchen is cramped, and no more than one person should be trying to do things there at any one time. The main bedroom has a small amount of space around the bed, and has been painted an unappealing shade of purple. The second bedroom has a not terribly large bed with some space its foot, and a wardrobe and two drawers in one corner (these, and the frame of the wall mounted mirror are painted the same shade of purple is as on show in the master bedroom). There is just about space between the side of the bed and the wall of the bedroom to sideways shuffle along the side of the bed. The shower room has the shower cubicle itself, with a good strong protective curtain, and a tiny anteroom area where one towel can be hung on the rail. The lavatory and bathroom sink are in a similar sized ‘room’, with both being more like cupboards than real rooms.
THE WALK TO PORTUAIRK
The walk to Portuairk features some excellent views, and Portuairk itself is a very scenic village. The road continues at sea level until the start of a footpath the leads to MacNeil Bay. On these occasions I did not spend much time in the environs of Portuairk, though there will be another post later in this series from an occasion when I spent longer there.
Preparations for the Positive Autism Awareness Conference and a post-lunch walk, therefore lots of photos.
INTRODUCTION
Although the Positive Autism Awareness Conference that we at NAS West Norfolk are holding on April 16th at the Duke’s Head Hotel, King’s Lynn on April 15th is at the heart of this piece there are also lots of new photographs for me to share.
AN ORGANIZING MEETING
Today there was a meeting at the home of NAS West Norfolk branch chair Karan McKerrow to assemble ‘goodie bags’ for the event. As she lives out in the country and not on a regular bus route, this meant arranging a pick up for me, so my first task was to get to Churchill Park School to meet the person who would be giving me a lift. Thus before anything else I have to say a…
MEA CULPA
I was almost twenty minutes late at the meeting place because I walked and made the mistake of not sticking to a route that I knew, and lost my way at one point. I had left myself an hour in which to make the journey, which should have been ample but for the mishap. Also, although I can supposedly connect to facebook and my phone I tried twice and was unable to do so, so could not communicate my whereabouts (I had no contact numbers with me either). The confession out of the way I can now attend to the rest of…
GETTING THERE
I set off exactly when I had intended to, headed for the parkland, following roughly the line of St John’s Walk, taking these photos in the early stages…
At this point I was close to the Tennyson Road level crossing, which was in the process of closing, so I walked to the barrier and waited. The train was goods train, and worth a few more pics…
Immediately after this, at the point at which I made my first wrong move (the path forks, and one direction leads through to KES and the main road, which would have been safe but dull, the other heads in the direction of the hospital – closer to my goal, and a more interesting route) I saw something very unexpected given the proximity of a main road and the even closer proximity of the railway tracks – a brace of deer.
Both deer in one shot
The incipipent antlers possessed by this one combined the face confirm that it is a species of deer.
I have shown these as individual images rather than a tiled mosaic in the hope that someone can identify the species of deer (anyone there at whyevolutionistrue?).
Now we come to the point at which things went pear-shaped, near this sign…
I decided not to venture in to the woodland (ironically I would probably have saved time by doing so), but chose the wrong path, and it was in this section of the walk that I ran irretrievably late. By the time I located Gayton Road (by way of Gaywood Hall Drive) I was already ten minutes late, and as previously mentioned, could not log on to facebook. It was another ten minutes rapid walking before I arrived at the head of Winston Churchill Drive, and was spotted by the people picking me up.
THE MEETING
We had 100 Autism Awareness event packs from NAS HQ, which was not sufficient as we had sold 120 tickets for the event (and had a significant waiting list) an also wanted the people who would be running stalls to have packs. In addition to these the bags (thick brown paper with comfortable but robust handles) were to contain a balloon, a pen, various stand alone leaflets and an NAS flag (placed flag end up so a wide flag rather than a narrow stick pointed out of the bag).
In addition to this activity various timings were confirmed (some setup will be done the night before the event, and everyone who has a stand and/or will be involved in running the event will be expected to arrive for doors opening at 8AM, so that there is no overlap between us setting up for the day and people arriving for the event from about 8:45AM onwards (starts at 9AM).
Before we got started on assembling the ‘goodie bags’ I spotted a couple of interesting cushions…
THE JOURNEY HOME
Very uneventful fortunately. One of the group planned to visit her mother-in-law who lives not that far from my place, so I got a lift as far as Loke Road and had a walk of under 15 minutes to get home. After lunch, the weather remaining bright and sunny I decided it would be foolish to remain in the flat and took myself out for…
AN AFTERNOON WALK
Since the river was one place I had not been in the morning I started by heading to the point at which the Purfleet meets the river.
From South Quay I headed past old Boal Quay to the Nar Outfall, and the structure I have dubbed Cormorant platform. Today there was only one cormorant about.
I made my way home by way of the parkland, enhancing my stock of moorhen pictures along the way.
aspiblog 