Between Seasons

We are between seasons at the moment, both in respect of wildlife and the weather. Some days it wants to be Spring and others it still seems like winter and the wildlife that you see echos that same mixture. In my garden pond today, the frogs finally re-appeared heralding Spring at last. They are late this year and I thought perhaps I had lost them to the very cold winter but they're back at last, all twenty plus of them. (This photo is fun if you double click on it and enlarge it)


Going back a couple of days, on Saturday I walked round the reserve on a pleasantly warm and sunny morning and it was clear how fast the surface of the marsh was now drying out, until of course we had the wet afternoon that was yesterday.
But on Saturday there was once again that reminder of the two seasons mixture. As I sat near the Seawall Hide listening to Skylarks singing overhead, watching the rolling and tumbling courtship flights of several pairs of Lapwings and some Tufted Ducks swimming along The Delph fleet, in to land in the Flood came a total of 180 White-fronted Geese.


In recent years we have tended to retain a flock of these lovely winter visitors often into April and its often strange to see them alongside Lapwings on their nests. This small section of the flock shows how alert and wary they remain all the time.


Further along the reserve, at the seaward end of the "Gravel Road" that leads down from Harty Church, that other winter visitor the Hooded Crow, was still there with a large flock of his cousins the Carrion Crows.
Just to complete that mixed bag on Saturday, I made a point of walking across some of the grazing marsh and was able to find the first two newly created Lapwing nest scrapes, so egg laying can't be far away.

Yesterday late afternoon I took my place as one of the Harrier Roost Count team on Harty, for the last of this year's counts until October. It was to be a disappointing visit because despite standing in continuous light rain for an hour and a half as the dusk set in and getting soaked, I saw absolutely no harriers. I have too say that that is very unusual for the site that I was watching but I have no explanation for it. It will be interesting to see what the other counts achieved.

Finally, as I made my back along a sunny Harty Road earlier this morning I had two enjoyable sightings, no, not the first Wheatear unfortunately. The first was the sight of a large flock of Starlings carrying out some of that amazing formation flying that they are famous for and this morning it was for a reason. Diving through them a few times was a Peregrine Falcon and despite how densely packed the flock was, it was not successful in catching one and finally gave up and dropped down on a distant fence post on the marsh.
Secondly, on the overhead wires along the road, the regular Corn Bunting flock was assembled, numbering 48 in all. This time however, at least half of them were singing, or jangling their keys, all at the same time. That's an unusual sound, normally you only hear Corn Buntings singing as solitary birds announcing their territory on a fence post somewhere.
The downside of this was the fact that the buntings were only about 80 yds away and my camera was alongside me in the car but I didn't think about it until half way home!

I Think it Might be Spring

After a surprisingly hard frost and some mist this morning the day soon became quite warm and sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. Within an hour of arriving at the reserve at 7.30 in frost and mist the day had changed to warm and the frost had all disappeared. I spent a part of the visit this morning walking round some of the neighbouring farmland and enjoying hearing several singing Chaffinches along the hedgerows as they staked out their territories. One thing that was particually striking as I came round the edge of a field of winter corn, looking quite beautiful and green in the sunlight, was the number of harriers that were about. I seemed to have them drifting aimlessly by me as common as crows for much of the walk and was particually impressed by a lovely ringtail Hen Harrier that came past low to the ground and within a hundred yards of me. At one stage I was able to count eight Marsh Harriers in view all at the same time.
The picture below shows Harty marshes in all their frozen glory as I came over the top of Capel Hill on my way to the reserve.


Also on Capel Hill were these sheep, just three weeks away from lambing. You can see the green, un-frozen patch alongside one where it has just got up from its night's slumbers.


A scewered Golden Plover. I found this plastic decoy a few years ago in a corner of the reserve and imagine it must be a left over from by-gone shooting times. It stands outside the reserve barn.


These five Brent Geese allowed me to get within 80 yrds of them, unfortunately my little camera couldn't do them justice but I have a new one arriving today which will hopefully allow me to zoom in much closer.


A camera shy Midge who was determined not to smile for the camera.


I found this Lords and Ladies along the base of one of the farmland hedgerows.


Another disappointing photo which hopefully when enlarged will show a Little Egret and Grey Heron alongside each other along one of the marsh ditch banks.

Could This be Spring?

Our three man team carried out this month's WEBS counts on the reserve yesterday afternoon in bitter cold temperatures, under grey skies and in a ENE wind. For a change I had the section below Harty Church where a wader roost tradionally builds up on the saltings at high tide. There are three salt water pools on the saltings there, either side of an old salt workings mound, which as well as serving as the roost area are also used in the winter by the Swale Wader Group as their bird catching and ringing site.
My third of the WEBS counts amounted to the following:- 1 Little Egret - 40 Brent Geese - 70 Shelduck - 140 Wigeon - 8 Teal - 8 Oystercatcher - 60 Avocet - 320 Grey Plover - 200 Knot - 400 Dunlin - 340 Barwits - 60 Curlew - 12 Redshank.
Also 5 Red Breasted Merganser on The Swale and 1 S.E. Owl hunting along the grass banks I was counting from.

I went back there again earlier this morning and was in another world - Spring had appeared overnight, actual blue skies and sunshine, and so I took some photos to record the event. Double click on them to enlarge them.
Although this doesn't show the slope of the banks very well, it looks down to the three ponds on the saltings with the salt workings mound just before the last pond to the extreme the right.


Behind me as I took the above photo is the rear of the tiny Harty Church, which has superb views across The Swale to the mainland.


Further along the banks you can make out the Ferry House Inn in the distance. The reserve ends about a quarter of a mile before that.


At the end of the "Gravel Road", where the banks begin, this view looks east and shows all the flat marsh of most of the reserve.

Emmet Casts

A visit to the reserve earlier today was not a pleasant experience due to the weather. It failed to get fully light and there was an icy cold N. wind blowing across the marsh pushing in bouts of near sleety drizzle and rain. It was if we had taken three steps back into mid-winter again. As a result I didn't stay there too long but did note a couple of long stay species as usual.
The flock of White-fronted Geese, currently numbering around 290 birds, were grazing on the water-logged grazing marsh in front of me as I made my way across to the seawall. As seems to be the case in recent years, once the shooting season finishes the birds become surprisngly trusting and allow you to get quite close before they take off, and even then they only move a short distance away.
The Hooded Crow is also still there, socialising with an increasing flock of around 150 Carrion Crows, obviously shooting these seems to be having the opposite effect.

Yesterday, while it was actually sunny and pleasant, I took the two photos below which detail some of the many ant hills on the reserve. I don't know about nationally, but certainly locally, these ant hills were/still are known as Emmet casts, using the old name of emmet for an ant.
These emmet casts are concentrated into only a few of the grazing meadows on the reserve but where they are they are very numerous and give an almost lunar appearance to a field. They are the work of the Yellow Meadow Ant - Lasius Flavus and tend to be a prominent feature of old pasture land.
There was an interesting article by a Tim King in Britsh Wildlife a few years ago that describes the history and life-style of these ants really well and which I am indebted to for much of this information. Apparently this particular ant is not the first one to invade abandoned arable fields, only appearing after about ten years. However, once thay have become established their casts, or hills, create regeneration sites for plants, oviposition sites for insects, a food source in winter for some birds such as woodpeckers and corvids and north and south facing slopes which act as micro-habitats for plants and insects.

These casts or hills, or mounds, contain numerous galleries where the ants raise their broods and increased temperatures at the soli surface may speed up the brood's development. On a warm summer's day the workers move the pupae around beneath the surface, following the movements of the sun. Apparently most of the energy to support the 8,000-40,000 ants per mound comes from farming underground aphids that live on the roots of nearby plants. The ants spread out and away from their mound beneath the soil in order to locate these aphids which are then "milked" for their honeydew and this is then taken back to the mound and regurgitated to their sister workers. It has also been suggested that in late autumn the ants collect aphid eggs and store them in their mounds before replacing them on suitable plant roots in the following spring, thus farming and maintaining their food supply.

The numbers of queens and drones that a colony can produce depends on the number of workers and the size of their territory but the most vigorous colonies frequently produce 400 queens and 1,000 drones, which as we have all seen, all leave the nest at the same time in August. Many new colonies start with more than one breeding queen and amazingly Yellow Meadow Ant queens have been kept alive in captivity for up to 22 years!

Its a fascinating subject but I'll leave it there.

Bits and Bobs

Well, on Wednesday when I wrote up my last blog posting it was raining hard and as I write up this one its raining hard again. OK, we've had a couple of half decent days in between but in reality this February must go down as a pretty rubbish month.
Talking of the last posting, which took me some considerable time to write up, I received one comment on that, which if comments are the measure of how well received or interesting a blog is, must mean that I'm posting the wrong stuff.
Perhaps I should only be making sugary nature postings with pretty wildlife pictures that get people ooh-arring all the time, but I can't be that consistently false as some blogs are - guess if I'm to be true to myself I'll have to carry on as I am, even if I'm only writing to myself.

"I've heard you say many times
that you're better 'n no one
and no one is better 'n you
if you really believe that
you know you got
nothing to win and nothing to lose"...........To Ramona - Bob Dylan

Driving back along the Harty Road yesterday I came across a guy in a van from Kent Highways who was marking each pothole with a paint can, for future filling in by his team - he would need hundreds of spray cans to mark every pothole along there, the road is so bad. He also advised that as well as pothole repairing, long stretches of the road will be properly re-surfaced this summer. A much welcomed event but a total waste of time, as he agreed, given the size of the farm vehicles that use the road and affectively damage it so badly. It is after all, only a soft-based cart track totally unsuitable for the vehicles that now use it - perhaps if the farmers were made to help pay for the repairs we might get somewhere.

Whilst on the reserve yesterday I managed to have a chat with one of the guys who is leasing the new duck shooting ponds on the farm side of the reserve boundary. I have reported on these ponds in previous postings and was not at all happy at their being sited there last summer. We had a lengthy and amiable chat about all things shooting and I have to say that I was both impressed with his attitude and future intentions. Let's face it, the ponds are there now and will be shot, regardless what we on the reserve think, so much better that we stay friendly and obtain the best options for both sides. Apparently his syndicate will shoot the ponds in a limited and controlled manner with low bird bags per shoot and shooting will not take place in adverse weather. All in all, a far better outcome than causing aggravation that will see excess birds being shot out of revenge.

Also whilst out there yesterday I noticed that one of the neighbouring farms has commenced pest control measures, i.e. they were shooting Wood Pigeons and Carrion Crows. Both will be shot for the next month in order to reduce their numbers to a less damaging level, certainly a flock of 130+ crows wandering the reserve at the start of the breeding season is something that is not desirable.

I hear on the grape-line that Bob Gomes at Dungeness RSPB reserve is set to retire. I got to know Bob while he was managing Elmley RSPB and always found him to be an excellent and friendly person and if the rumours are true then I wish him a successful retirement.

GORDON BENNETT

Well here we are, another wet and cold day on sunless Sheppey and yet probably only a couple of months or so away from hearing the first person complain about it being too hot - hard to believe but it will happen!
So, another dose of Sheppey's history from my aviation files - I'm afraid the photos aren't too brilliant as they are scanned copies of copies.


In early 1911 Sheppey's aviation history had been in existence for less than two years, having begun in 1909 at Leysdown with the Aero Club's new grounds and a Shorts Bros. aeroplane factory, to a move by both in 1910 to a new site at Stonepitts Farm below Eastchurch. This site, which is now Eastchurch Prison, expanded quickly, as had the potential of the aircraft, from flying a few yards in 1909 to several miles in 1911. As a result it had been chosen in June 1911 as the site for that year's Gordon-Bennett Aviation Cup, a really huge jump in prestige for Sheppey as a whole.

The Cup had been awarded by James Gordon-Bennett, the American editor of the "Paris Herald", for the fastest time over a pre-set distance by an aircraft. In 1909 an American had won the first race in France and then in 1910 the Englishman, Claude Graham White, had done likewise in New York. Thus in 1911, with England as the holders, it was held at the Royal Aero Club's flying grounds at Eastchurch, Sheppey.

For a week before the event, preparations were being made, with contestants putting their machines through various trials. The course itself had been made triangular, with red-topped pylons marking the three turning points. One length ran east to west past the Stands at one and a half miles long, another to a point between Great and Little Bells farms being one and three quarter miles long, and the stretch between the two making up almost half a mile. All in all the aircraft would have to cover 25 laps of this course to make a total of 93.477 miles flown. On the day the race was scheduled to begin at just before noon.

Race day began dull and threatening with a gusty wind but it didn't prevent the competitors from getting up early and carrying out time-trials and trying to out-psyche each other. In the end, the result of these early morning trials saw C. Weymann awarded the fastest time. This American competitor, born in Haiti, was just five seconds faster than Gustav Hamel's Bleriot, prompting Bleriot himself to make adjustments to Hamel's aircraft. He clipped the end of each wing square, bringing the full span to within 17 feet and though this had the effect of increasing the speed it also meant that cornering at the pylons would have to be carried out wider.

Surprisingly, despite being the current holder of the Cup, Graham White had been unable to secure a suitable aircraft and so the final line-up of competitors was as follows, including their engine size:-

THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF GREAT BRITAIN
Mr. A. Ogilvie - Baby Wright 50hp Gnome
Mr. G. Hamel - Bleriot Monoplane 100hp Gnome
Mr. G. Gilmour - Bristol Monoplane (never started)

FRANCE
M.A LeBlanc - Bleriot Monoplane 100hp Gnome
M.Chevalier - Nieuport Monoplane N/A
M.de Nieuport - Nieuport Monoplane 70hp Gnome

USA
Mr.C.T. Weymann - Nieuport Monoplane 100hp Gnome

A small point of interest, which describes the times, occurred at 8.00 that morning with the arrival at the grounds of a Mr. Gordon England in a Bristol biplane. Flying over Sheppey he had got lost and so had to eventually swoop down over the Halfway Houses village in the centre of the Island and read the directions for Eastchurch on a road sign. (Not something you can do in a Harrier jump-jet these days)

The police force of the day was a hundred men of the Kent Constabulary and they guarded the approaches to the airfield and were to keep the crowds in order. A line of Royal Engineers from Chatham were stationed at intervals in a line along the front of The Members Enclosure, and at the same time, all along the road from London, the Dunlop Tyre Company indicated the route to Eastchurch by stationing men with "signposts" surmounted with miniature flying machines. There were also men from the Queenborough and District Ambulance Corps in the Public Enclosure and Boy Scouts were used around the course for signalling duties.
This left only the Press to accommodate and they were given the special privilege of using the hangar of the late Cecil Grace, who had been killed just six months previously, and whose hangar still contained his flying machines.

All was set then for an expected huge crowd to pay their money at the gates and enjoy a fine piece of aviation history. Here though, things went quite badly wrong because most of the estimated 10,000 crowd that day were to come by train and Sheppey's little Light Railway couldn't cope. This train line with its small engine and carriages had only been in existence ten years and ran from the main line at Queenborough, across the Island to Leysdown, with stops at a few tiny stations on the way to pick up small numbers of villagers and farm workers. Despite running fifteen "specials" from Queenborough to Easstchurch that day it just couldn't cope with people thousands of people pouring off the main line trains at Queenborough and expecting to then be transported to Eastchurch. This problem was magnified at the next stop along the line from Queenborough, Sheerness East, a short distance outside the town of Sheerness, where people arrived in their hundreds to find the train already packed to overflowing once it left Queenborough. The wait at Sheerness East was two hours and one gets the picture of the little train chugging towards them across the marshes with people hanging out from everywhere like one of those trains in India.
Many people at Queenborough, having bought a ticket but unable to get on a train, decided to walk along the lines all the way to Eastchurch. This prompted the Traffic Superintendant to order the gateman at Sheerness East to take the names and addresses of the people as they arrived, for trespassing - not easily done with a few hundred angry people striding towards you!
After lunch the situation worsened, with up to a thousand people waiting at Sheerness East and the railway authorities became very nervous of what might happen to both the train and its driver. It didn't help when tickets also ran out and although some people drifted back home, many others walked along the lines or jumped onto and overloaded the trains without paying - forget the Indian railways, more like Keystone Cops now!

As many as a thousand people also arrived at the airfield in two hundred odd cars that they parked to the rear of the Members Enclosure and these also became an attraction themselves. Aero Club members were admitted free to their special enclosure on production of their membership cards but their guests were expected to pay an admission fee of five shillings and the charge for cars, plus driver, was ten shillings - quite a sum in those days.


The public didn't have such special enclosures but in some ways probably had better all round views, they were shown to the slopes of Stanford Hill, lent to the Club for the day by its owner, Lt.Col. Sir George Holford. From there they had a view of both the whole course and The River Swale and the mainland behind. Admission to these slopes was just a shilling and refreshments were provided by the Army and Navy Stores. Quite idyllic until just before lunch, with the race soon to begin, the wind increased and a sudden rain storm dropped across everybody. However, soon after, the wind dropped and there was unbroken sunshine for the rest of the day.


Below, you can see two of the magnificent machines that took place in the race. The first is the Baby Wright with its little 50hp engine, but it wasn't necessarily all about speed, it was also about actually finishing with a speed!
The second is one of the Nieuports, with men acting as its anchors.





And the race itself, well Mr. Hamel was first off and with roars of applause, left the ground at 2.45, followed at fifteen minute intervals by the other competitors. Unfortunately his newly clipped wings were to be his undoing and at just the first pylon, the tight turn caught him out and a wing touched the ground. The aircraft, with its engine still revving, bounced for twenty yards and broke up as it went. Hamel was luckily thrown clear and eventually stood up with just slight concussion and bruises.
Second up was Chevalier but on his 12th lap he too had problems when his Nieuport's engine failed but he crash-landed unhurt. He later made a second attempt in a reserve machine but suffered the same fate on only his first lap. All the other contestants successfully completed the course, although Mr. Ogilvie in the Baby Wright did have one small hiccup. The little biplane, attracting much sympathy from the crowd as it plodded round the course with its little 50hp engine and being lapped at regular intervals by the others, ran out of petrol after 20 laps. But it landed, re-fuled and was able to finish the race.

Once all the aircraft had completed their 25 laps and their times had been worked out the results were as follows:-

1st C.T. Weymann USA 25 laps in 71 mins (ave speed 78.75 mph)
2nd LeBlanc France 25 laps in 73 mins (ave speed 75.83 mph)
3rd Nieuport France 25 laps in 74 mins (ave speed 75.07 mph)
4th A. Ogilvie G.B. 25 laps in 109 mins (ave speed 51.31 mph)


With the race over an informal dinner took place in a marquee on the grounds and the Cup and £1,000 were awarded to Mr. Weymann, with a second prize of £1,000 going to LeBlanc. Later, those members returning home by train had the luxury of a special train laid on to leave Eastchurch after the dinner.
Outside, Mr. Gilmour entertained the dispersing crowds with an excellent display of flying in the very same Bristol aircraft that had failed to start at the beginning of the race.

And that, as they say was that and doubtful wether Sheppey has ever held something of such magnitude ever since.

Brighter Grey Days

DOUBLE CLICK EACH PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT

Surprisingly during the couple of hours that I spent on the reserve this morning, the sky brightened quite a bit in patches and the sun almost broke through. The cloud was also thin enough to be able to feel the warmth of the sun beaming down. The photo below shows such a bright patch, almost a cause of celebration at the moment in these SAD days.


The tide in The Swale was at one of its very low points, exposing areas of mud that are not normally exposed. Although you can't see or hear them, the mudflats were covered in around 140 Carrion and 1 Hooded Crow as they noisly walked to and fro, presumably feeding on shellfish or other marine creatures.
The dark hulk to the left is all that remains of the old sailing barge "Lizard", built in 1891 to carry cement and last used by the Government in WW2.


I decided to make my back to the car via some of the adjacent farmland and the photo below shows the track that runs down to the reserve seawall from Harty Church. You can see The Swale in the background. We know it as "the gravel road" because of its gravely soil structure.


Getting to the top of the above "gravel road" you find yourself on another public footpath. See the top of the "gravel road" to the left of the next photo. You can either turn left to Harty Church, in the background,


or turn right and head towards Elliots Farm, going past Forge Cottage on the way. Ken Lodge will know this route and recognise the spinney at the end of the track.


This one was taken outside Forge Cottage, looking back towards the spinney.


Two photos that show that Spring is gradually happening. One of two Gorse bushes on the reserve boundary and some Goat Willow catkins.




And finally, two views inside The Tower Hide that show the recent handiwork of the Green Woodpecker.