tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63674163291970662802024-03-19T00:13:23.314+00:00LETTERS FROM SHEPPEYLife, Times and Natural History from the Isle Of Sheppey in Kent.Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.comBlogger672125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-10439585391660325452022-12-24T13:09:00.000+00:002022-12-24T13:09:18.922+00:00After the drought - eventually.<p> So, my last posting left us with the return of the wildfowlers, all set for another six month season shooting wildfowl alongside the reserve and a severe drought still in place.</p><p>With regards to the wildfowlers, who as I have mentioned before, only shoot over the saltings on the seaward side of the seawall, not on the main reserve - due to the reserve's dry ditches there were virtually no ducks flying around and so they had to contend themselves with just shooting at the resident feral Greylag Geese. But after a few weeks at being shot at even these geese learnt to avoid flying over that particular section of saltings and so visits from the wildfowlers also dwindled. The daily walks around the reserve during September were not the most inspiring due to it's lack of wildlife, even summer visitor birds such as Reed and Sedge Warblers and Yellow Wagtails had left earlier in August to make their way south, but there had been one addition. </p><p>On a small farm field alongside the reserve a guy from the traveler community kept six quite nice horses. They were separated from the reserve by a wide ditch that acted as a wet fence but that ditch, like all the others, had gradually dried out and eventually the horses realised that there was now a way of joining the cattle grazing the reserve. One morning when I arrived, there were those six horses, looking quite chuffed with themselves, standing tall among the cattle. I rang their owner, who said that he would come and try and catch them up but with no realistic way of keeping them in their proper field, I suggested that he might like to leave them on the reserve in the short term. They are still there now, now feeding among sheep instead of cattle, doing no harm and thoroughly enjoying the reserve's wide open spaces.</p><p>As we progressed through October rain showers slowly became more frequent but made no impact on the drought, the dampness simply dried off the next day, but last month, November, at last saw a quite rapid reduction in the drought, almost overnight. Rainfall amounts became heavier and were more regular, it quickly greened up the grazing marsh as the grass began to grow again but at first only put an inch or so in the dry ditches. But then after one heavy spell of rain a dramatic event took place. The farmland alongside the reserve slopes down towards it and arriving there one morning it was clear that the farmland was draining it's rainfall into the reserve's boundary ditch by our entry gate. Over the next few days that ditch quickly re-filled to a depth of 3-4 feet, an amazing turn around, and the water in it flowed for about a quarter of a mile along it's length, also re-filling ancillary ditches that ran off of it. Further rain falls have continued that process and currently the reserve has now recovered to full normal winter water levels, indeed almost flooding, an amazing turn round in just a few weeks. </p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-14861005913251846862022-12-21T07:21:00.000+00:002022-12-21T07:21:03.372+00:00One dark winter's morning<p>As someone who sleeps badly and as a consequence rises early, nothing frustrates me more than these dark winter's mornings that seem to take forever to get light. Sad as it may be, I find myself wandering around the house constantly looking for signs of brightness in the gloomy eastern sky. So, I also tend to sit at my laptop trawling through all manner of things that wouldn't normally interest me and ended up this morning re-reading my last blog post. </p><p>Well, it's been around ten months since that post and too be honest I'd intended it to be my last. I'd been struggling with finding both interest in it and new things to comment on and looking back at my very early postings, felt that it was clear that I was struggling to match their quality.Anyway, I've decided to give it another go and see if I can write something that might be of interest to those that find it as they wander around blogland.</p><p>With the departure for six months of the wildfowlers mentioned in my last posting I settled down to wait for Spring to arrive. As we moved through March and April, apart from the fact that it was clearly a mostly cold Spring, everything was progressing as normal, Lapwing, Redshanks and some of the waterfowl had all begun nesting, with Coots in particular doing well. In one week alone a systematic walk round the ditches and fleets of the reserve found a total of 35 nests with eggs and several broods of chicks. It wasn't until we moved through May that it became apparent that things were heading in the wrong direction, the amounts of rainfall were getting further and further apart and in my garden it was becoming increasingly difficult to plant things, with the clay soil rock hard and cracking up. On the reserve, the shallow scrapes across the grazing marsh were drying up daily, removing the insect life that would normally be found in the shallow water and mud on which Lapwing and Redshank chicks fed. Fledged Lapwing chicks became harder to find and it was apparent that it was going to be a bad year for Lapwing breeding numbers again. </p><p>As we moved into June, it became obvious that we were heading into another drought summer again, the temperatures were increasing and the rainfall very patchy. What made things worse was the fact that if it did rain at all, it was immediately followed by a day of sunshine and blustery winds that quickly negated the effects of the rain. July arrived and I was beginning give up in the garden, the lawn was turning yellow and new plants that I'd planted were either not growing or dying through lack of water, plus there were cracks I could put my hand down. On the reserve, I'd noticed for a few weeks that duck broods were few and far between, they were obviously having a bad year as well. As the July heat increased it was almost possible to visibly watch the ditch and fleet water levels dropping by the day and a new feeding frenzy. Once the water levels dropped to a foot or so, the aquatic life such as fresh water shrimps, sticklebacks, rudd, etc. all became easier for the bird life to catch and they took full advantage. For a couple of weeks my early morning walks round the reserve were enhanced by up to 80 Black-headed Gulls, 60 plus Little Egrets and a dozen Herons, all feeding on the aquatic life in the shallow water of the ditches. But as the water continued to decrease and lose it's oxygen it began to look and smell awful, the aquatic life died and the birds dispersed away again. The drought and the temperatures continued to intensify until on the 19th July the whole country saw new, all time record temperatures of up to 40 degrees recorded. Here on Sheppey it got as high as 38 degrees and many people just sat indoors with all windows shut, curtains pulled and tried to sweat it out. By 4pm I'd had enough and set a new personal record by taking a ten minute walk to the packed beach nearby and enjoying my first swim in the sea there for over 20 years - boy was it nice!</p><p>Throughout August we had more heatwave weather, I had more swims and all the ditches and fleets on the reserve dried up so much that their bottoms cracked up and I could, if I'd wanted to, walk all round the reserve in the ditch bottoms, something never heard of before! The unfortunate down-side of that however, was the fact that not only had all the water dried up and disappeared, so had the aquatic life. Even when the ditches eventually re-filled it was probably going to take several years for that aquatic life to re-establish itself and spread back around the reserve.</p><p>September 1st arrived and with it came the return of the wildfowlers that I'd last seen depart back in February. Talking to them on the seawall they were aghast at the state of the reserve, it looked like a yellow desert across it's whole length and where was the water and the wildfowl that it normally attracted - it was a sad sight. </p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-41583444244806789652022-02-20T13:01:00.001+00:002022-02-20T13:01:30.596+00:00Season Crossroads<p> Today was the last day of this winter's wildfowling season and it will not resume now until the 1st September. That now means that my favourite winter birds, the White-fronted Geese, can safely fly around the area close to the reserve until they fly back to their northern European breeding areas as Spring approaches.</p><p>As a result I was along the sea wall of the reserve not long after first light, to see how many wildfowlers were present on this last morning, enduring the gusty strong winds and grey, poor light. The answer was five and as they begun to regretfully pack up and set off for home, I walked along with a couple of them for a while, chatting about their shooting season and what will happen on the reserve during the Spring and Summer months. I realise it's only natural for many birdwatchers to abhor the fact that the wildfowlers get enjoyment from shooting the wildfowl but their actual bags throughout the season are surprisingly low and achieved from many hours of sitting in intense cold weather in muddy conditions. To talk to these guys, as I do on a regular basis, is to realise that they get a perverse pleasure from enduring the harsh weather conditions in order to kill their next dinner and that many have long experience of wildlife and the countryside in general. So, apart from odd birdwatchers and walkers, my dog and I now have the reserve to ourselves for six months, Spring beckons and with it, the excitement of the first returning Wheatear.</p><p>In a few weeks time the sheep will leave the reserve and be replaced soon after by cattle with their recently born calves, Lapwings will begin their courtship displays, the grass in the grazing meadows will begin to green up, the catkins on the willows will burst forth and a whole new season will begin - I can't wait.</p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-84266410563275873172022-01-31T14:37:00.009+00:002022-01-31T14:39:22.518+00:00Coming up to date<p> After the recent couple of postings that have seen me looking backwards to very earlier times, it is now the last day of January and time perhaps, to come back up to date with the nature reserve that I look after as it's Voluntary Warden.</p><p>The last couple of months have been very quiet weather-wise. December saw us suffer endless days of grey, very damp and gloomy weather that, despite little actual rain, rarely saw anything outside actually dry up. January started off in a similar vein but we did at least get some frosty and sunny interludes but it has changed today, with a combination of strong N.W. winds and sunshine, something we haven't experienced for a couple of months. As a result the ground is drying out and there is some relief from roaming round the nature reserve each day in large areas of soft, clinging mud, left behind by the heaviness of the cattle before they were taken off before Christmas. In their place came the flock of 200 ewe lambs and they haven't churned up the soft ground anywhere near as like as the cattle did. They were brought in to graze the grass over several of the reserve's fields, down to the tight, short sward that will give ideal breeding conditions for the Lapwings in a couple of months time. They will probably be taken off the reserve at the beginning of march.</p><p>My little Jack Russell terrier was a puppy when she last saw sheep on the reserve and so I was initially worried at how she might react to encountering them now at ten years old. Many dogs are notorious for chasing them and it might of meant that all walks would have to be done with her on a lead. But no, the very first morning that we walked into the field where they were, she looked up and then carried on sniffing along the ditch bank that she was following and completely ignored them all and that's how it has continued. </p><p>To go back to the weather, while the reserve for the last couple of months has been soft underfoot and always wet and muddy, rainfall has been pretty much absent, apart from the odd bout of drizzle. That means that as we start February tomorrow the water levels in the ditches and fleets on the reserve are at best, average. At this time of the year they should be brimming or overflowing and their should be large areas of floodwater across the grazing meadows, making it ideal for wading birds and wildfowl. March is normally a drying month, with regular dry easterly winds combining with sunshine to dry up wet winter conditions. Should that be the case this year then it's looking very likely that we will be heading into another drought summer as far as the reserve goes.</p><p>So, that's enough of meteorological matters, what else is happening on the reserve apart from enduring the cold and the damp and telling myself that Spring will eventually happen, and knowing that some summer birds have already begun their long journeys back to here from Africa. Those winter favourites of mine, the White-fronted Geese that I reported on before Christmas, disappeared for a few weeks but then came back to eventually total their current counts of around 360 birds. The calls of those beautiful birds on a frosty and sunny winter's morning as they fly around the reserve are just so magical and equal easily that first Swallow sighting of the Spring. To date, as far as I know, very few have succumbed to the guns of the wildfowlers that await them on the seaward side of the reserve's sea wall, and hopefully the majority will return to their northern European breeding sites before returning again next winter.</p><p>Other than that, little else is happening and I walk the reserve most early mornings, through damp and murky conditions. But there are some dawns when the sky is blue and when from behind the hills over on the mainland, the very first edge of the sun begins to climb above those hills and in literally minutes becomes a great orange ball of fire in a dawn sky - magical. This morning as I left the reserve, in the small farmland copse that I have to drive through, the buds on the crack willows are just starting to burst and the a glimpse of the catkins to come are evident. February can be a particularly harsh month but those bursting buds and the Snowdrops in my garden tells me we haven't got long to wait for Spring now. </p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-86576808024632798732022-01-22T15:43:00.001+00:002022-01-22T15:43:09.527+00:00The Library<p> From a very early age a place of both refuge and information for me was the local library. From either of the two places that I lived in in Sheerness up until my early twenties, it was never more than fifteen minutes away.</p><p>Books did not exist in our household when I first became aware of them when I was around six or seven, we were a poor household with numerous tensions and unhappiness and so once I discovered the library I spent quite a lot of time there in it's sheltering warmth. It began a literary thirst for knowledge that has never diminished to this, my 75th year, despite all the other internet options. The only thing that has changed in recent years is the source of those books, these days I always buy them. As my age increased into nine, ten, eleven, twelve, so the amount of time that I could be found there also increased. I discovered and devoured Enid Blyton's the Famous Five and my all time favourite book, the "Wind in the Willows". By accident I discovered the early books of David Attenborough, where as a young man, he described his early excursions abroad to foreign countries to catch and cage and bring back to England many unseen birds and animals. By the time that I was around twelve years old I was already exploring the marshes near to my house and regularly looked to the library for natural history books that identified and described the kind of wildlife that I was seeing. As a result, in 1959, I came across information in their well thumbed Natural History section, about the Kent Ornithological Society and joined it as an under-18 member and remain a member to this day. Around that time I also came across "The Eye of the Wind" Peter Scott's early autobiography and I was hooked, I wanted so much to be able to emulate the kind of naturalist that he was at that time, and subsequently continued to be, he was easily my first hero.</p><p>As I progressed into my early teens, my association with the library never diminished, it always remained a comforting place where I could hide for several hours each week. My books to lend might of expanded to include detective and mystery ones but they also rarely deviated from my two constant hobbies, natural history and gardening. Then, as I approached and entered my early twenties, I discovered the library's upstairs Reading Room, until then the place that I associated as the place where only senior members sat around, talking in whispers and looking very knowing. There I first tried to emulate them by reading "posh" papers like The Times and The Guardian, papers that reported things in depth that I never saw in my Daily Mirror, oh yes, I was smugly moving ahead of my peers, or so I thought. Finally, that led me to explore the contents of the locked glass cabinets, where a great treasure trove of local history literature was stored, I was enthralled, places that I passed by every day now took on new meanings. </p><p>Today, I buy all the books that I read, I haven't lent a book from the library for probably thirty odd years but I still visit it for my family and historical research, it still has that special place in my heart.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-84255218717846864442022-01-13T14:02:00.000+00:002022-01-13T14:02:44.011+00:00Retrospective times<p> Since my last post we have now entered into another new year, one that will be my 75th and I guess that, as I have lived here on Sheppey all of my life, it makes me someone with a quite full memory bank of how things have changed over the years.</p><p>My first New Year was that of 1950, a new decade and I was just two and half years old and not celebrating my third birthday until the July of that year. That year and indeed for much of the decade, we were to struggle to rise up from the austerity and poverty of the previous decade and it's World War, I believe that we still had food rationing until around 1953.</p><p>I'm always fascinated when old black and white photos from those times appear on on our local Sheppey History Facebook Page, and people comment jealously at how clean and tidy the town's roads were. An easy answer to that is the fact that councils employed teams of local road sweepers in those days, people who conscientiously walked the streets with a barrow, broom and shovel and were aided by the fact that there was none of the throw-away packing and litter that we have nowadays. But it wasn't all the Shangri-La, that those photos made it look, yes life was much simpler but in the side streets and roads behind the High Streets, there was a lot of poverty. In my childhood in the 1950's food there was only enough food each day because of the invention of mothers who never wasted a scrap. They would shop in local shops each day, buying food that was fresh, in small quantities because there were no fridges and often in ounces rather than pounds. In the butchers the cheapest cuts were always bought and often included ox-tails, hearts, brawn, belly linings, pig's trotters. Chicken was a luxury that we sometimes had at Christmas and often came from the few scraggy birds that we kept in the back yard for our eggs. The carcass of those birds was used the following day to boil in a large pan with vegetables and turn into a broth. Likewise, a rabbit in a small hutch was also kept each year for the purpose of a Sunday or Christmas dinner and I recall that my grandparents wasted nothing from those animals, even the head was cooked and the brains eaten afterwards!</p><p>To continue the non-waste of food, there was bubble and squeak. In my house it was usually left over food items from the Sunday roast such as vegetables and scraps of meat, all fried in a pan the next day to create another belly filling meal.</p><p>And what of puddings, or "sweet" as we knew it because it was normally just that, sweet. A common one was suet pudding. Those puddings were a staple of the Sunday Roast, created on the day by mother cooking the ingredients in the well used pudding cloth and then sliced and added to the roast as a typical stodgy belly filler. Any that was not used in the roast was served afterwards for "sweet," coated in sugar, jam or treacle. Other stodgy belly fillers were rice or macaroni, or in the summer months, home-made fruit pie and custard.</p><p>And so it went on, nothing was wasted, nothing came ready packaged with use by dates and vegetables and fruit were seasonal, sprouts and parsnips for instance only appeared in winter and when they did were seized on for the seasonal treat that they were.</p><p>So, younger generations might look at those old black and white photographs and wish themselves back in those times but in reality they wouldn't know where to start. </p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-27884390659568487542021-12-24T16:00:00.002+00:002021-12-24T16:01:59.118+00:00In the Beginning<p> We're now in that fag end time of the year when if like me, you get no enjoyment out of all this Christmas stuff, life can get a tad tedious.. What's more, the weather tends to be cold and miry making most activities outside quite unattractive. I spent some of the time this last few days improving a 40-odd page document that I wrote a few years ago that detailed the daily life of myself and my friends during 1965 to 1968.</p><p>It is entitled "In the beginning - out of the shadows," because having experienced an unhappy childhood and a boring early teenage spell, it documents my discovery of a group of people of similar age and interests. I've always felt that my real life only begun it's life long trail from then on and many of the friendships still endue to this current day. To give you a flavour let's start at the start of that document:-</p><p>In the beginning, early 1965, there were two thirteen year old schoolgirls walking along Rose Street on their way home from school and as my workmates and I drove by there was something about one of them that made me take a longer look. It was her hair that stood out - <i>later, it was always her hair</i> - it was long and it tumbled in waves and curls down on to her young shoulders in the most wonderful deep, gingery red colour that flashed fire in the sun. Other than that she was just a skinny young schoolgirl and it was only a moment and then, still chattering to each other the two girls were gone.<i> I guess that in that moment, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, my dice were thrown but the gamble still had to be made.</i></p><p>Shortly after that I stumbled on the group of people that I've mentioned, we all worked conventionly five days a week but we were folk music fans and so in the evenings, the weekends and holidays, we drifted around out town as it's resident hippies, long-haired and scruffy. It continued in that way for the next year, we drank too much, smoked pot, played guitars, we slept rough, had a few girlfriends and we hitch-hiked to London for long weekends. Fast forward to June 2nd 1966, I'd packed in my job because three of us were due to spend some time hitch-hiking between London and the south coast. That day was hot and sunny and a gang of us, including some old girlfriends, were sitting in a local park alongside the sea front sea wall. Because of the weather the sea front was very busy with people in swimming and suchlike and as we chatted, I casually looked along the people sheltering out of a slight breeze behind the sea wall. I was suddenly struck by the fact that of two young girls busy drying themselves, one was the gingery-haired girl that had caught my eye the previous year. Intrigued and attracted to her, I left my friends and walked over to the girls, who of course had no idea who I was but long-haired and dressed in denim I had some romantic notion that she might be awed by my appearance. What could I say by way of introduction and so I mumbled something about "I'd like a swim, could I borrow your towel to dry off after," to which she agreed and so in my jeans I had a quick dip and sat alongside them drying myself off. We chatted for some time, I told her about my plans to go hitch-hiking in a couple of days, my music interests, my friends and she told me that her name was Christine and she's had her fourteenth birthday just a few days previously. There was me, a month short of my nineteenth birthday becoming infatuated by the minute in this rather young looking girl with the ginger hair and we agreed to meet again the following day. <i>Those moments by that sea wall saw our lives change directions from wherever they were naturally going, I went hitch-king, I came back, we re-connected, she grew up, we fell in love and four years later we got married.</i></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-55744528093299575312021-12-22T13:56:00.006+00:002021-12-22T13:59:08.246+00:00Year End<p> At last we have now seen the passing of the Shortest Day of the year. Technically the length of each day will now increase, although in reality, little of that will be noticed much before the end of January, but if nothing else it encourages daily optimism. For me the most significant day of the winter is January 1st, when we cast off the shackles of the old year and can look forward with hope and inspiration at what a new year will bring.</p><p>After several days of continuous gloomy, damp and cold days when it rarely seemed to get fully light, we ended yesterday with an hour or two of sunshine. That led to a hard overnight frost and a beautiful morning today of white frost, blue skies and frozen ground that was a relief after trudging round in ankle deep mud at times. It might also help to nudge flower and fauna into accepting that we are actually in mid-winter, some flowers have been acting as though we are in either autumn or spring. </p><p>Coinciding with this mini cold spell, this week has begun to see the arrival of the first White-fronted Geese of this winter - 64 on Monday had risen to 150 this morning. Unlike the large flock of feral Greylag Geese that are resident on the marshes here, these White-fronted Geese are truly wild birds that fly in to winter here, from their normal homes in the more remote areas of Northern Europe. A lot of their number are family groups, i.e. two adults with this year's bred juveniles. They are lovely geese and a great favourite of mine but unfortunately, because of their wildness, they are also a favourite quarry of the wildfowlers that shoot along the front of the reserve. Hopefully the geese will stay out of danger for much of their stay. </p><p>Another bird that always puts in an appearance in the winter is the Stonechat. They are a resident breeding bird in the British Isles but for a couple of months in the winter they leave their favoured heathlands and wander around the hedgerows and reed beds of the coastal marshes. We have 2-3 pairs of these dapper little birds on the reserve at the moment and I love to watch them rise up above the tops of the reed beds and briefly hover there like a puppet on a string.</p><p>There's not much else to say really, both the reserve and the surrounding farmland are looking quite bleak at the moment but I shall be out on the reserve with little Ellie, early every morning over Christmas and the New Year, hoping for that something different to occur.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-313065126386634542021-12-13T16:18:00.001+00:002021-12-13T16:18:20.132+00:00Been a Long Time<p> Gawd, August since I last posted, how far away that now seems. Then I was hoping for a decent spell of possibly hot and sunny weather, well we did get some but overall, this summer has been pretty average. Now, it's December 13th and one of those gloomy, never getting fully light sort of days and as I start this it's 3.30 pm, the afternoon is closing down and passing cars already have the headlights on. In another hour it'll be fully dark and another fourteen hour, long night of darkness will begin. Dear me, how do some people love winters?</p><p>The nature reserve approaches the New Year with continuing low water levels and as a consequence the wildfowl numbers are also very low, in fact bird numbers there generally are very low. Few winter thrushes have arrived, only immigrant Blackbirds and Chaffinches are about in noticeable numbers. That's not to say that the reserve is totally dry, the heifer flock has seen to that. We've had enough rain to soften the ground and their obsession with pressing against any gateway that is holding them in, in whole flock loads, has seen those gateways turn into areas of a combination of liquid mud and cow poo. All the heifers are pregnant and due to calve in two/three months time and so this week, I'm assured, they're due to be taken off the reserve to calving sheds and pens - can't wait, they make access round the reserve so difficult. In their place we already have 200 of this year's ewe lambs. Lovely looking, sturdy animals and happily supplied by a local farmer in order that we can keep the sward levels of the grass at a low enough level throughout the winter, and therefore benefit the Lapwings next Spring as they begin to breed.</p><p>The farmland alongside the reserve now sits pretty much cultivated for the rest of the year. Next year's rape is now over a foot high and the winter corn a few inches high. Any fields now lying fallow will do so until next Spring and then almost certainly be sown with maize to feed the local bio-digester plant with. The only thing that disturbs the farmland tranquility now is the odd crop sprayer and the weekly game shoots. </p><p>The weather patterns these days are all quite crazy really, a few mild days next month will already see the catkin buds on the willows starting to swell and even burst and currently in my garden some daffodil tips are just beginning to push through the soil. But Covid permitting, we'll carry on carrying on and soon the dark days of winter will be behind us.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-59696817879285547962021-08-10T16:51:00.000+01:002021-08-10T16:51:10.828+01:00Here Comes The Sun<p>Well - the end of May since I last posted a blog account and to be honest, over the time that has elapsed I've struggled to find both the enthusiasm, or indeed the need, to write another. I've daily read a few other blogs but to be honest they mainly seem to concentrate on what they eat, bake, dust and wash each day, I haven't been able to do much better and so I've stayed quiet.</p><p>April was a bone dry, frosty and cold month, May seemed to just rain everyday, resolving April's dryness, and so my last posting hoped for summer in June. Well, for the first half of June that's exactly what we got, we had a couple of separate mini heatwaves of a week or so long, each. People came alive again after the crap Spring. Shorts and T shirts were donned, beaches and the countryside were remembered, re-visited and enjoyed., life began to be enjoyed again, the dark days of Covid receded. Sadly, some people couldn't enjoy that few weeks out of a long and fifty-two week year - oh no, it was too hot, please let it cool down - well unfortunately they got their bloody wish. Much of July and the beginning of August has, here on Sheppey at least, been constantly wet and windy. That weather, combined with the nights drawing in, has made it feel like Autumn has come early.</p><p>But joy of joys, after several days of heavy rain and strong winds, today has been very warm and sunny, the raincoats and umbrellas have been discarded, the shorts and T shirts are back on, the beach is busy again. Even better, several days of this weather are forecast, the clock is now ticking, counting down to the first miserable git who complains about summer happening.</p><p>Suppose I <span>ought to mention the reserve, not that much is happening, it's very overgrown, worst I've seen it, the cattle are making little impression on the long grass, trampling it more than eating it. The tractor driven mowers have begun to mow the grazing meadows but they are struggling to get under the flattened grass. Bird life is minimal with just a few autumn waders coming through and wildfowl numbers very low, which will disappoint the wildfowlers when they start their shooting season in a few weeks time on the 1st September.</span></p><p><span>The arable fields surrounding the reserve have all been harvested, with straw baled and taken away and the stubble manured and tilled to leave it ready for the autumn seed sowing. The next event in a week or so will be the arrival of several thousand game bird poults for the winter shooting season - the circle turns really fast at times.</span></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-24170711298508304502021-05-21T07:58:00.001+01:002021-05-21T07:58:32.387+01:00Looking Forward To Summer<p> Looking at my previous post this morning I was gob-smacked to see that it was posted two months ago!</p><p>Since then we have had a Spring, if you could call it that, like none that I can recall in recent memory. </p><p>Pretty much the whole of April was dominated by sunshine, cold and strong N.E. winds and a long spell of morning frosts. The combined effect of the cold, drying winds and the sunshine saw the reserve dry out at a remarkable rate and by the end of the month it was hard to imagine that it had been so flooded over the winter. Ditch water levels dropped to near summer levels, the water-logged meadows dried out and the ground was cracking up. One of the down sides of all this dryness was the effect it had on the thousands of cattle hoof prints that they had left behind before being taken off the reserve by Christmas. Every hoof pushing down into the soft, muddy ground, squashed the mud upwards round the print and when these all dried out during April we were left to walk over hard ground that resembled cobbles. It was tiring and painful on arthritic feet and ankles!</p><p>So, April ended up as being one of the coldest April's on record and we began May hoping to see a change in the weather and hoping for some rain, amazingly after the wetness of February and March, and some warm Springlike weather. Well, they say, watch what you wish for and boy have we had it. In the three weeks of this month so far it is looking like May could be one of the wettest on record and we still haven't had at least one proper hot and sunny day that has exceeded 20 degrees. It seems like it has rained every day, or part of day, since we began the month. Ditches have recovered to normal water levels for the time of year and with the meadows becoming damp again the grass has been growing like mad, which will please the cattle as they begin returning today.</p><p>Another feature of May has been a couple of spells of unseasonable gales. Two days of severe gales a couple of weeks ago had a probable disastrous effect on the local rookeries. With all the rooks nests being placed at the tops of the trees you can imagine how many eggs or chicks that must have been thrown out as the upper-most branches swayed violently in the gusts of wind. This morning as I write this we have endured a night of gale force winds and today, severe gales are forecast. Trees, shrubs and flowers in the garden are being smashed about violently and it's cold. Perhaps if I wish for a calmer and hotter June we'll get a mini heatwave, it's needed.</p><p>The breeding season on Sheppey's three main nature reserves has also seen a mixed bag as well. Lapwings, the most important ground nesting bird on the marshes here, got off to a very successful start with large numbers of breeding pairs and very good numbers of chicks hatched. However, throughout April, the increasingly dry ground made sourcing food difficult for the chicks, plus and more importantly, the predation was intense. Gulls, harriers, crows, hawks, all queued up to take a heavy toll of the Lapwing chicks. It has to be hoped that second broods from these birds during May will go some way to restoring the balance.</p><p>So, that's it - will it be a hot June, I hope so. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-67043191802949930882021-03-19T17:13:00.004+00:002021-03-19T17:13:54.685+00:00Nearly There<p> My last two blogs have made mention of hints of Spring and yet this long cold, very wet and windy winter has continued to win the day.</p><p>But, it may only be the one day but Spring has been around again today. Cloudless blue skies and unbroken sunshine have dominated the day and an almost warm, gentleness has taken over the garden. Bumblebees have been visiting the helleborus, daffodil and heather flowers to feed up. A Robin sang for much of the day from a naked Elderflower bush and the pond sparkled in the sunshine.</p><p>The newts have returned from winter hibernation and looked thinner as a result and so I spent an hour digging up earthworms to feed them with. I'd drop the worm segments in front of each of the newts and watched events. Surprisingly, despite having eyes, the newts seemed very short-sighted and it would take several attempts to pounce on the worm but then mass shaking would take place, just like a dog does with a rat. Amazing how many newts that there are in the pond and I so love to see and watch them.</p><p>As I said at the beginning, this winter has been loathe to relinquish it's hold on the countryside this year but today has been a pleasant taste of what's soon to come. Out on the reserve the marsh still has large areas of surface water across the grazing meadows and what isn't covered, is water-logged. Lapwings have begun their happy courtship displays and nesting on any dry parts of the marsh can't be far away. Likewise, the Marsh Harriers high above the reed beds, are courting, high in the sky and their plaintive calls cascade down as they tumble up and down in their "dancing" displays. Skylarks are the avian chorus line, endlessly singing in the background and a constant reminder of how the countryside used to sound for so many people - we are lucky to still have them here.</p><p>But it's not all move over winter, Spring is here, the last few weeks have been very cold and grey with icy winds. It's been difficult at times just lately, to find the enthusiasm to plod round the reserve each day. The saving grace has been the winter wildfowl numbers, many still reluctant to spread their wings and fly north, heading home to breed. The reserve this winter has seen wildfowl numbers not seen for many years, the result of the flooding and the cold. Chief among these have been the White-fronted Geese, spreading out across much of Kent but concentrated mostly here on the reserve to peak at 850 last month but still this week, totaling 590, and a joyous sight to seen and hear. Lately they seem to be spending all day on the reserve's grassland bur roosting somewhere well west of the reserve. This means that each morning around 08.30 they suddenly appear, high in the sky in their V formations and calling with their beautiful "winkling" notes to suddenly break formation and tumble down onto the reserve. There they feed, they wash and pairs split away to court and renew their bond-ships - life can suddenly seem a wonderful place!</p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-82651251294662084972021-02-23T11:40:00.012+00:002021-02-23T12:18:55.521+00:00Spring is now about<p> It has been three quite different weeks. First we had the snow and ice, then the rain and the floodwaters and now this week, a feeling of Spring in the sunshine. With dryer, sunnier weather, the floodwaters have already started to subside but the "Flood Field" in front of the Sea Wall Hide is still looking great.</p><p>The photo below, taken from the Sea Wall Hide, shows only half of the Flood and this last week most days, it been full of around 1200 mixed duck species and several hundred Lapwings, quite an impressive sight. The water-logged surrounding fields of the reserve have also had their share of birds - Curlews, Redshank, Brent Geese, Greylag Geese, to name just a few and yesterday in the sun a few Lapwing were also doing their courtship displays over the marsh. Lastly, the White-fronted Goose flock that last week totaled 850 birds, has this week shrunk to c.140 birds and so many of them have possibly departed for their northern breeding grounds already.</p><p>Obviously, we will probably still have some colder, wetter days to come but at the moment, all is looking and feeling good.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdMAsC_fOpeIhV-DCLMYP3YXpNCZDDfER9Xt9KiYiFS67XvH06Pk7VG97iBdBTM9cWw1PFiDwuc7f0z2B3k3jxrCfR1_wjBMOGtvBsFrn5JJ317zd3aUtpwLX884AcE5Pc5CEIjWTsSvA/s2048/DSCF8823.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdMAsC_fOpeIhV-DCLMYP3YXpNCZDDfER9Xt9KiYiFS67XvH06Pk7VG97iBdBTM9cWw1PFiDwuc7f0z2B3k3jxrCfR1_wjBMOGtvBsFrn5JJ317zd3aUtpwLX884AcE5Pc5CEIjWTsSvA/w400-h300/DSCF8823.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-8348928355840008712021-02-15T08:52:00.012+00:002021-02-15T12:16:56.956+00:00A Milder Feel<p> Today it is Monday, a week since the second "Beast from the East" buried our countryside and gardens here in snow and ice.</p><p>But overnight the temperature has risen dramatically and that, combined with light rain, has seen the daylight expose a much more familiar landscape to our eyes. Large areas of grass in the gardens and meadows across the road, are already exposed and the pavements, so long dangerously cobbled with footprints frozen into ice, have already softened and are melting into the gutters. Birds, so long deprived of soft ground and waterways from which to source their food supplies, can hopefully begin to find some food again. Although this will probably not be the case for birds such as Herons and Egrets, they could still end up partially starving as waterways, flooded to twice or three times their width and depth, do not allow access to the fish within.</p><p>Yesterday, I risked driving along the narrow road across the marsh. It was indeed risky, covered along much of it's length in hard-packed ice and with a very deep ditch alongside it's whole length, not a lot of room for error there! I managed to get on to parts of the reserve and endured an arduous walk through snow drifts and across frozen areas of water. Because of the frozen conditions there were no waterfowl present, just small flocks of Skylarks, struggling to find any sustenance from grassland buried under snow, and an odd Snipe flying up from the inner parts of reed beds. It was a pretty bleak scenario but if nothing else, it gave me and little Ellie some much needed exercise.</p><p>Something that did fascinate me as I made my down the track that led to the reserve's barn, was dozens and dozens of empty snail shells. The grass alongside this track was quite thick and springy and the snow hadn't completely covered it, presumably allowing a member of the thrush family to gain access to the small, yellow snails hidden within, bring them out to the frozen ground and hammer them open.</p><p>This morning, now that the early rain has finished, I'm about to depart for the reserve again and with a mild and rainy week ahead forecast, guess it'll soon be a return to the more familiar territory of too much water and too much mud and hopefully, the return of many hundreds of wildfowl and waders.</p><p><span><b>Just returned and the good news was the sight of 850 White-fronted Geese and 520 Wigeon on the reserve, among other birds.</b></span></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-23538095209705091902021-02-11T14:53:00.001+00:002021-02-11T14:53:38.381+00:00Snow<p> After the rain came the snow. "Beast from the East 2" turned up during Sunday. It snowed quite heavily for a lot of the day and covered the garden and drive to a depth of several inches. By Monday morning we were not only in Lockdown but also Housebound due to the snow. During Monday we cleared drives and paths and watched it snow and cover them again. The road outside, on the bottom of a hill was entertaining, as cars convinced that they could drive up it on compacted ice and snow, slid back down sideways and often got stuck in awkward places.</p><p>On Tuesday the sun came out, the roads thawed and dried out and I was able to drive the 50 miles to have my first Covid vaccination at a mass vaccination centre. But a thaw was not on the cards, it snowed lightly overnight and also froze and during Weds we had some very heavy snow showers that covered all my diligent drive clearing again.</p><p>Weds night saw it snow for a lot of the time and we awoke to another 2-3 inches on top of what was already there in the gardens but luckily the salt on the roads kept them clear - I cleared the drive and the pavement outside again. Through today (Thurs), the sun has shone from blue skies and despite the temperature outside side only being around one degree, a slight thaw seems to have set in. It encouraged me to try and reach the reserve, it must of been heaving in un-counted wildfowl and other birds - birds that I've missed seeing since Saturday. Unfortunately, the one narrow road across the marsh was still covered in compacted ice and snow and with a deep ditch to one side of it, the risks were too great - perhaps tomorrow.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-47869746655834996272021-01-20T11:31:00.002+00:002021-01-20T11:31:17.643+00:00Flooding and Ticks<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jAEdJVdK486q2TsfFgAqvkLQBxRqvP3gdMBa3CRmQm8kPPv6qZ0GBFcCG51ovOCRgyywlBBzhEJ8abCZE-dXE0uYK6b5cQHVk42fBKAeuBSbi7I-RwS6OeorEHKvzNHFCJbKQMcszUY/s1772/heron.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="1772" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jAEdJVdK486q2TsfFgAqvkLQBxRqvP3gdMBa3CRmQm8kPPv6qZ0GBFcCG51ovOCRgyywlBBzhEJ8abCZE-dXE0uYK6b5cQHVk42fBKAeuBSbi7I-RwS6OeorEHKvzNHFCJbKQMcszUY/w400-h266/heron.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> As readers will have read in my last couple of postings, it has been getting progressively wetter by the week here on Sheppey this week is the third consecutive week with rain almost daily and often heavy. As a result the reserve that I spend most of my year wandering about on and carrying out my Voluntary Warden duties, has now reached the point where it is not really enjoyable to try and get round it. The photo above was taken a few years ago and currently we're beginning to approach those kind of water levels again. As you can imagine, wading through large areas of such water and soft, clinging mud that almost sucks one's wellies off, is none to enjoyable. Twenty years ago, when these scenes were almost annual, I was in my fifties and it wasn't too much of a problem, almost a challenge, but not now. Plus, when you're a little, short-legged Jack Russell, like the one that always accompanies me, it becomes quite aquatic and grim. So at the moment my daily visits are limited to walking the farmland perimeter as best as I can. <p></p><div>The other problem that the reserve faces in such times of flooding is the fact that the reserve not only receives all the water that drains off the higher arable farmland alongside but that the whole reserve itself has to drain across it's whole length to just one 12in. pipe at one end, so it's a slow process. One winner in this situation though is the attraction that it is presenting to the wildfowl in the area, especially now that the wildfowlers that would normally be alongside the reserve trying to harvest some of these ducks and geese, have been stopped by the Kent Wildfowlers Association in order to comply with Covid regulations. </div><div><br /></div><div>Moving to an entirely different subject, I was reading an account the other day of a person's experience with ticks on dogs and it got me thinking of my experiences. In the years running up until the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak, ticks used to be real problem on my dogs, mainly because the marshes that I frequented here on Sheppey, were always holding large numbers of grazing sheep, something that Sheppey (Sheepey) has been noted for over many centuries. Sheep ticks were the constant reason why many forms of wildlife on the Sheppey marshes were often covered in the awful blood-sucking pests, my dogs included, although curiously, rabbits never seemed to carry them. Many were the time that my dogs would catch a stoat or ferret gone wild and I'd find that the animal's head was covered in many large ticks, all sucking the life out of them. Adult ticks would drop off the sheep and literally sit on the grass or any other vegetation and then simply wait for a warm blooded animal to brush past and then crawl on, lay it's eggs and look for a top up from the animal's blood. Fortunately, apart from one Beagle, all the dogs that I've had over the last fifty years, have been smooth haired, mostly white, Jack Russells and so it was relatively easy to find the ticks in their coats. It was necessary though, to regularly sit down and search through the dog's fur and seek out any ticks that might be using the dog as a meal. Mostly it was the odd one or two but there were occasions when it was possible to find many dozens of newly hatched ticks, all no bigger than a pin head and all in need of picking off before they grew any bigger, luckily, I got a perverse pleasure from squashing each one.</div><div>However, after the mass culling of livestock during the F&M outbreak, the livestock farmers on Sheppey re-stocked with mostly cattle and so the tick problem has mostly gone away.</div>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-81854382302732021162021-01-12T14:41:00.002+00:002021-01-12T14:41:30.950+00:00Where Have all the Birdies Gone<p> After last week's 48 hour deluge of rain, we had several days of dryer weather, including a couple of severe frosts. Last night saw it rain throughout, although not heavily, and tomorrow and Thursday are forecast to see it rain for much of both days again, so back to square one with some possible flooding.</p><p>On the Swale NNR here in Sheppey, where I'm now entering my 34th year as a Voluntary Warden, the water levels look as good as they've been for several years. The ditches, fleets and shallow rills are full, and the grazing marsh is either waterlogged or covered in largish areas of surface water. It looks how it used to look most winters up until several years ago - a good example of a typical winter on the North Kent marshes. Sadly, that seems to be where the comparisons currently end, despite the perfect conditions, recent walks across the reserve have been noticeable for the lack of birds. </p><p>In those "normal" years that I reflect back on, such conditions would of seen bird numbers, at times difficult to count, there were so many. Golden Plover would of been spread out as far as the eye could see across the waterlogged fields, several thousands at times and they would be joined by similar numbers of Lapwings and other wading birds.The large areas of surface water would of been inhabited by all manner of ducks - several hundred Wigeon, Mallard, Shoveler and Pintail. The sounds when a passing Peregrine Falcon or Harrier went by, scaring the huge flocks up, was both deafening and visually spectacular.</p><p>Today, as it has been for some time, it was the sheer absence of birds that was so marked. There doesn't seem any reason for walking across deserted, waterlogged fields that once would of been swarming with birds, as I've described. In all honesty, apart from a few hundred Brent and Greylag Geese that feed daily on a neighbouring field of winter corn, alongside one end of the reserve and a couple of dozen Mallard, where are the birds. Where have all Golden Plover gone, everything's right for them. Even the wintering White-fronted Geese, that had been with us since well before Christmas and totaled 230 at the beginning of the month, haven't been seen or heard for the last week or so.</p><p>It's a worrying trend and it doesn't seem to end there, gardens around here seem to be suffering the same dearth of birds, unless you count House Sparrows, I had 72 on or around my bird table a couple of days ago and that's fairly normal. But no, I live in a very rural part of Sheppey, both mine and the gardens all round me are full of shrubs, trees and flowers and yet finches coming to bird feeders are a rarity and even Blue and Great Tits are mostly absent - the count for my RSPB Garden Birdwatch will be sadly depleted this year!</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-10618869470444555452021-01-05T15:23:00.002+00:002021-01-05T15:23:48.410+00:00It's raining<p> she's got everything she needs</p><p>she's an artist, she don't look back,</p><p>she's got everything she needs</p><p>she's an artist she don't look back,</p><p>she can take the dark out of the nighttime</p><p>and paint the daytime black... Bob Dylan</p><p><br /></p><p>apart from that, well, here we are just a few days in to 2021 and already it feels like 2020 Part Two. Today sees us here in North Kent enduring our second day of non-stop rain and cold Northerly winds. Weather forecasts promise yet another 24 hours of this weather, in the meantime fields are starting to flood and gardens round here are leaking from every orifice. Dark skies, the sun a forgotten spectacle, the buzzing of summer meadows, bees, butterflies and swallows like a distant planet and yet, in a long few months, I'll be talking of hard dry ground, praying for those precious few drops of rain to wet the dust. I guess, like birthdays, these things go round and round, they get better, they get worse.</p><p>In the mean-time the rain and the wind continue to batter the conservatory windows, I fall asleep, I wake up, I fall asleep, and the 70 odd sparrows around my bird table jostle for every last seed of budgie mix. </p><p>15.30 and the light is fading fast, cars have their lights on, winter at it's extreme, two months to go until Spring peeks over the hill.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-27472309300977025612020-12-31T14:57:00.002+00:002020-12-31T15:48:57.427+00:00New Years Eve<p> </p><h3 style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; font-family: "sailec w00 bold"; font-size: 27px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 40px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; vertical-align: baseline;">The Year</h3><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ella Wheeler Wilcox</strong></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What can be said in New Year rhymes, </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">That’s not been said a thousand times? </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new years come, the old years go, </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We know we dream, we dream we know. </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We rise up laughing with the light, </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We lie down weeping with the night. </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We hug the world until it stings, </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We curse it then and sigh for wings. </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We live, we love, we woo, we wed, </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead. </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, </p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And that’s the burden of a year.</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Esteban; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Good New Year to you all, my blog has not been that prolific this year, but it's been a difficult year and I've struggled to find both enthusiasm and inspiration for a lot of it. I think it's gonna take till Spring to come out from this Covid shadow, but anyway, carry on doing the best that you can.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-36797694437698954242020-12-04T13:38:00.001+00:002020-12-04T13:38:27.947+00:00Way Down the Road<p>Last night was a very wet night, it rained so hard and for so long and early this morning , it was pouring out of people's drives, part flooding the roads and water-logging the farm land. With some degree of trepidation I drove out to the reserve this morning along a Harty Road that was full of large puddles of water.</p><p>The reserve was as I expected it would be, the grazing meadows were water-logged and muddy, the ditches had at last got more than a few inches of water in them and the wind was icily cold. Looking across The Swale to the mainland, the top fields of the North Downs were covered in snow, yes, it was indeed a cold and wet morning. Gun shots briefly rung out, followed immediately by the sound of the "barking" calls of over a thousand Brent Geese rising up from the neighbouring farmland's winter corn - clearly the farmer was attempting to scare the geese away from their daily breakfast of his next year's crop.</p><p>It was bitterly cold, wet and muddy and I really wasn't enjoying it and so I left for home after a rare short visit. I hate giving in to the weather but as basically a warm weather person, there are some days when the weather wins the battle. I plonked myself down in the conservatory, put on the heating, put on some Joni Mitchell and gradually became lost in idle thoughts of, once upon a time. </p><p> Way back in my teenage and early twenties years, Bob Dylan sang about how "tomorrow is a long time" and throughout those years that was the kind of mantra that I lived by. I was young, the life ahead of me was an endless highway, and old age was a lifetime away - tomorrow is a long time and always to be enjoyed, what did I care. Buoyed by those thought I set out into my adult life - loves and disappointments, marriages and divorces, wealth and poverty - too many crossroads. And now, at 73, the highway that I've already traveled is the longest one, and the one still ahead gets shorter every day, the tomorrows slip by too fast, the bend in the road is the final one.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-75140340653525413622020-11-20T14:52:00.001+00:002020-11-20T14:55:25.914+00:00A Short November day<p> We had a hard frost this morning and the early few hours of the morning saw blue skies and sunshine that made a walk around the reserve very pleasant, especially now that the White-fronted Goose numbers have increased to sixty birds - they really are such delightful birds and it's so hard to think of them being shot.</p><p>This afternoon has been a typical November afternoon, the blue skies were soon covered by grey cloud that drifted in, it became colder and here on Sheppey, we have the second highest Covid-19 figures in the country - it's like simply waiting for that inevitable bony hand to tap you on the shoulder and say you're next!</p><p>Darkness will come early this afternoon, the sparrows on the bird table are snatching their last mouthfuls of food before they settle down in the bushes alongside for the night, twittering to each other until darkness descends. Just think, if this was 3.00 on a July afternoon, the sun and the heat would just be reaching their peak and there would be seven more hours to go before darkness was complete - oh how I wish!</p><p>The garden outside, that spent all summer bursting with colour and wildlife, now looks so drab and green, some leaves still cling on to the crab apple tree - soon frosts will freeze the ground - blackbirds feed on the pyracantha berries - life will soon get tough. The pond, where this summer, I fed newts with earthworms I'd dug up, is just a cold expanse of empty water, untouched by the sun that sits low in the sky.</p><p>Too many afternoon hours now get spent musing over the summer that has been and gone - the Covid virus that restricted life and bought premature death to so many people - the brief couple of hot and sunny months when life almost seemed normal - the week long holiday spent in a farm cottage in Devon - the bees, the butterflies, the birds in the garden.</p><p>A short November day.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-46561798373969081772020-10-27T10:21:00.000+00:002020-10-27T10:21:06.702+00:00A slow descent into dampness<p> Since my last post, some four weeks ago, we have continued to experience regular rainy days, with sometimes heavy rain and yet the reserve and it's neighbouring Harty marshes are still far from showing any sign of water-logging or flood. There is still a considerable way to go before the reserve will be showing the large areas of flood water that will attract the great numbers of wildfowl and waders that we would like to see and became used to up until recent years. It really does illustrate how dry the summer has been and to a degree, how much the reserve has changed in respect of water levels in recent years. The reserve was opened in c.1976, the infamous year of an incredible summer drought, and has suffered several dry summers since, but it has been the winters that have seen the most dramatic change. Until several years ago, the winter water levels on the reserve could be relied on to be at least average and very often, excessively wet. I have experienced many winters there where the grazing marsh was 50 - 70% waterlogged or flooded. Indeed, I can recall one October in the late 1980's when the field in front of the Sea Wall Hide was one large lake from bund to bund. Because of that and because it's the one field that we always try to pump water on to each winter, we know it as "The Flood Field". </p><p>Those waterlogged winter conditions lasting into the Spring, created ideal habitat for a large variety of birds and it was normal for Lapwing, Golden Plover and Wigeon numbers, for example, to be in the plus thousands. Sadly, for several years now, those numbers have plummeted to just a few hundred and in the case of Wigeon, to just several dozens if we're lucky. Unfortunately, before you ask, there is no satisfactory way of trapping any substantial amounts of as a form of reservoir. We have a large diesel pump in a brick housing at the end of The Flood Field and that can pump substantial amounts of water onto three different fields, pumping from the ditch system alongside it. That however, is dependent on regular rainfall re-filling the ditches and so in a dry winter, spring and summer that method is quickly lost. We also have a wind pump that draws up fresh water from the underground aquifer but that can only keep the ditch alongside it topped up.</p><p>So to go back to the present day, we may not have any floods but at least the current rainy conditions have seen the grass in the grazing meadows re-grow at some speed and green up, something the cattle are now appreciating. Likewise, the arable fields across Harty are now green with the young growth of rape and winter corn and so quickly, the dusty yellow of the summer drought is now but a memory. </p><p>As far as bird life goes, little has changed since my last posting, apart from the one exception. While taking part in last week's monthly Wetland Bird Survey (WEBS) on the reserve, I recorded the first visiting White-fronted Geese of this autumn. There was a group of 10 adults and 8 juveniles feeding alongside the resident Greylag Geese. This is a few weeks earlier than normal for these regular wintering visitors from northern Europe and during the week the flock increased to 25 birds and they still remain there today.</p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-49200236672746559192020-10-02T13:50:00.005+01:002020-10-02T13:51:49.926+01:00Raining weather<p>As I sit here writing this today we're experiencing our umpteenth hour of continuous rain and a cold NE wind. Apparently, we still have a round fifteen hours more of this same weather to come - all given the name of "Storm Alex" - although it's hardly a storm, but I guess it looks more dramatic in the media.</p><p>Two days into October and it suddenly feels like winter, outside it is wet, windy and cold and the central heating had a brief start up to take the chill off the bungalow. The endless dry weather of the recent summer - the dust, the heat, the dry and cracked ground, the dry and yellow grass, are no more - the drought is over. Perhaps soon I'll be writing about the endless wet and muddy conditions, such are the cycles and complaints of an outdoors person's life. The thing is, here, when we get a spell of a particular type of weather, it seems to get stuck, hence the long, dry and rain-less summer.</p><p>My garden, after a couple of spells of rain this week and today's continuing deluge, is now suitably re-watered and the lawns are beginning to re-green again, no more a dead yellow and dry grass stalks. The bird table drips water from it's waterlogged surface and the sparrows look bedraggled in the hawthorn hedge, crane flies pepper my windows with their long-legged, prehistoric looks. The bird feeders swing violently from their hooks in the wind, scattering sunflower hearts across the lawn, food for the pigeons and doves later.</p><p>I doubt that much difference will be apparent on the reserve tomorrow, perhaps a film of water over the mud that was showing in the ditches. Until the marshland alongside has sponged up enough water to soak down to a sufficient depth, little will escape into the ditches, ditches that are three feet or more below average depth. Odd Chiffchaffs still call from the boundary bushes before departing south but the reed beds are now empty of their warbler cousins, only Bearded Tits now call there, swaying to the rhythm of the windy reed stems, calling to the passing season.</p><p>The bottle of red wine on the work surface holds my attention, it speaks of memories and warmth on this cold and watery day. Perhaps just a glass, perhaps two, and to take the time to recall summer's best memories - yes, that's what I'll do. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-47714810212345299712020-09-19T15:29:00.005+01:002020-09-19T15:50:57.308+01:00One for The Weaver<p> Walking the reserve each morning at the moment is the same as the morning before. It's dry, it's yellow, it's like walking round some foreign savanna.</p><p>The weather is stuck in a rut that has lasted months - seems like a lifetime. I wake up, I get up I look out the window, the eastern sky is just dawning. Yes, it's gonna be another day like yesterday and the day before - dry, sunny, warm or hot, we've had almost five months of such days. Life is parched - the gardens, the horse paddocks, the grazing meadows, the soil in the arable fields. Everybody is waiting, waiting for the rain, for it to rain properly and not just shower and be gone. Proper soaking in rain, rain that keeps you indoors rain, rain that will need to last for several days and still not be enough.</p><p>On the reserve the visits have become boring, so few birds in the arid conditions - a wet land reserve needs wet areas to entice the wildlife and be interesting! The poor old cattle spend every day looking for real and fulfilling grazing and good fresh water but they find little of either. They have taken to eating the sedge along the ditch edges and the tall phragmites reeds from the sea wall fleet, neither is terribly palatable or nourishing but they are at least green. The wildfowlers still turn up, sit out on the saltings and go home a while later empty handed, no wildfowl to see or shoot at. </p><p>Ducks, geese and waders look for wet areas in which to feed, wash and drink - none are available. Starlings and plovers look for soft ground to probe for fat insects that sustain them - none is available.</p><p>Just a Barn Owl quartering the meadows in the early morning half-light, fortunately little changes for them, except heavy snow and every morning the swallows flitting south across the meadows in fond farewells, decrease.</p><p>The arable fields on the neighbouring farmland have been harvested, the soil lightly turned over and broken down ready for seed sowing but sit dry and dusty. Some rape was sown a month ago, as it normally is for next year, we had a heavy shower of rain, it germinated but hot dry weather saw it shrivel up, an expensive loss that will have to repeated when the rain eventually comes. </p><p>In my garden, the half of the front lawn that I turned into a wild flower meadow this year, was only a 50% success. I begun it last October by mowing the grass down as low as I could and then raking and scarifying the surface soil into a rough tilth. Unfortunately the wild seed mix that I spread over it also contained meadow grass seed and so the combination of the lawn grass re-growing and the wild grss, tended to swamp the wild flowers. This week I have worked hard at preparing the meadow's surface and reducing the grass ready for a new sowing of wild meadow flowers. As soon as it rains the seed will be sown and my wild meadow will begin it's life ahead of next year.</p><p>And for The Weaver, well I'll always be in your footprints, you'll always be leading the way.</p><p><br /></p>Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367416329197066280.post-28912329908964966062020-08-26T12:21:00.001+01:002020-08-26T12:21:29.843+01:00Early AutumnSince I wrote my last "It's a Scorcher" posting, the weather has taken a dramatic turn and seemed to have rushed head-long into autumn, despite it still being August. Over the last seven days we have had two Atlantic storms come rushing in, both the subject of now giving them silly names, in this case Storm Ellen and now, Storm Francis. In the old days we were simply told to expect some stormy weather, which in autumn was normally par for the course, but now they have to be hyped up with name calling, presumably to make them sound more dramatic.<br />
At the onset of Storm Francis yesterday morning, we had 4-5 hours of decent and much needed rain for the parched countryside round here. However, as seems to happen every time at the moment, immediately the rain stopped the afternoon became one of warm sunshine and severe gales - the result being much evaporation of that rain again.<br />
Anyway, enough of that, what else has been occurring, well not a lot to be honest, thanks to the parched conditions, bird-life on the marshes and the reserve here, has been somewhat at a premium. Until that is, last Friday. I was walking across the reserve early in the morning, a tad bored because parched grass and almost dry ditches create very little interest to look at, when a different coloured heron, fast disappearing into a ditch, caught my eye. I slowly walked along the ditch until up sprung the heron in front of me. Yes, certainly a heron species and certainly different. It had a long and heavy, bright yellow bill and was basically a combination of light and brown colours with an almost gingery effect. It was also slightly slimmer and smaller than the normal Grey Heron. Although I'd never seen one before I had a fairly good idea what it was and went home to consult my bird books.<br />
The next morning I walked along the same ditch and up it popped again to confirm what I suspected, it was a juvenile Purple Heron, an uncommon to almost rare bird in this country. Since then it has remained on the reserve.<br />
In anticipation of the rain that was due yesterday and did briefly appear, the farmer next door to the reserve was out a couple of days ago, sowing the wheat stubble with rape seed for next years crop. Driving across the marsh this morning it was clear that germination of the seed would take a while yet, the fields were dust dry and unless you live round here, it's hard to explain to people just how much rain we need to bring things back to normal.<br />
The next main event in the reserve calendar occurs early morning next Tuesday 1st September, when the new wildfowling season begins. Before dawn on Tuesday wildfowlers will be in position the other side of the reserve sea wall, eagerly hoping for the chance to shoot any goose or duck that might fly over the sea wall towards them. I will be there at first light to watch events and to have a chat with them afterwards.Derek Faulknerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05140363868104172311noreply@blogger.com22