A Time of Change

"The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why. To all appearances the summer's pomp was still at fullest height, and although in the tilled acres green had given way to gold, though rowans were reddening, and the woods were dashed here and there with a tawny fierceness, yet light and warmth and colour were still present in undiminished measure, clean of any premonitions of the passing year. But the constant chorus of the orchards and hedges had shrunk to a casual evensong from a few yet un-wearied performers......" the Wind in the Willows.

Despite the fact that we have another hot, sunny and bone dry week ahead forecast, to add to the eight weeks of drought that have already occurred, there are signs that autumn is almost upon us. I feel like the Water Rat, no matter how hard I try to pretend it's not happening, the season is changing. The swallows and martins have sped though heading south for the last couple of weeks, Cuckoos and Swifts are distant memories and more than anything, the days are getting shorter.
The situation I seem to be obsessed with at the moment is the drought, almost ten weeks with just 2mm of rain has left the area looking very yellow and dust dry, (see below). The ditches stink with stagnated and inch deep water and are failing to act as wet fences to keep the cattle in and there are cracks on the sea wall that you could break your leg in. But it's the normal weather cycle that we come to accept on the North Kent marshes, I can guarantee that at some stage in the winter I will be complaining about how wet it is.

Normally at this time of the year I would be thinking about gathering in some sloes to make my annual bottle of sloe gin but this year the hedgerows look quite bare, it could be a struggle to find enough. I tried a sip of last year's the other day and it has turned out really well, how well a small glass goes down after returning in the dark from a bitter cold afternoon on the marsh!

I mentioned the wildfowlers in the last posting and have chatted with several over the last couple of days as they come back to the sea wall from dawn flights out on the saltings. Below, taken from the seawall, you can see a couple having a chat out on the saltings before packing up, notice how even the saltings are burnt yellow from the heat and sun this year. What you can't see in the photo are the deep and muddy gullies that meander through the vegetation, that are filled by the tide during high tides and can make it quite hazardous in the dark. Talking to the wildfowlers this morning it seems that the geese that I mentioned in my last blog have continued to frustrate the wildfowlers by flying the length of the reserve each morning, well inside the reserve - almost laughable.

Shopping in Morrisons at lunch-time I stopped to read a poster put up outside by a member of the public. It related to a small terrier type dog that had escaped from a car en-route to the vets for some treatment to some serious ailments. It was last seen running across a main road and into some farmland and has been missing for over a week. As a dog owner myself I have been constantly thinking about that poor, terrified dog out there somewhere and imagining how I would be if it were one of my two, don't bear thinking about!
Lastly, as an avid reader of anything to do with well known people who lived through the 1920's-1950's, especially the Bloomsbury group, I am thoroughly enjoying this new book about the six Mitford sisters.

A New Season

This morning, an hour or so after dawn, I wandered along the reserve sea wall. It was a still, warm and sunny morning and large numbers of swallows and martins zipped past me, stopping now and then to snap up an insect, but generally, speeding south to their winter quarters. I stopped at the Sea Wall Hide and scanned along the saltings, nine wildfowler's heads were pretty obvious, peeping out from the rills and gullies. Today is the first of September, the first day of a new shooting season, the first day of meteorological autumn and for me at least, that awful gnawing feeling that summer is pretty much over. For a moment I was lost in thought, no more long, hot summer days, warm and balmy evenings and eighteen hours of daylight. Every day now darkness inches forward in the mornings and backwards in the evenings with ever increasing haste.
Three quick shots rang out and woke me from my daydream. A Mallard duck, clearly out of killing range, wheeled round in the sky and hastily made it back on to the reserve and dropped into the safety of a ditch. I continued along the top of the sea wall, wildlife-wise it was pretty quiet, just a few Reed Warblers and Bearded Tits in the reed beds, who were suddenly out-sung by a Cettis Warbler.  I felt confident that this first morning at least, was going to be a bit of a waste of time for the wildfowlers, although I know that for some of them, just being back out again is good enough. That was certainly not the case somewhere in the distance across Harty, probably the lower reaches of Capel Fleet and the stubble fields around it. From there could be heard periods of heavy shooting that went on at regular intervals over a couple of hours, clearly the comments that I made about the geese in my last posting was coming true!
Another two shots rang out across the saltings and two ducks fell from the sky, later confirmed by the guy that shot them, as a pair of Gadwall. The sun was getting warmer, the mosquitoes were beginning to bite and the wildfowlers began to pack up and walk in to the sea wall, two ducks among nine men was a pretty poor but acceptable return, unlike the numbers taken by the inland duck shooters this morning. For the last three weeks, at around 8.00 each morning, around 200+ Greylag Geese have risen from the stubble fields near to the reserve and flown the length of the reserve, on the inland, safe side of the sea wall to spend the day at one end of the reserve. Chatting with some of the wildfowlers this morning I explained this goose routine to them, stating that none of the geese fly out over the saltings where they might be shot. The wildfowlers had barely digested that disappointing news when six geese flew straight towards us and making me out to be completely untrustworthy, flew out over the saltings where the guys had just come from! That prompted an immediate return to the saltings by those guys, in the hope that more might follow and I, disgusted with the stupidity of the geese, left for home. I shall ask the wildfowlers tomorrow if the main flock of geese did as I said they would, later fly within the safety of the reserve.

Dusty old Drought.

The drought here in North Kent continues to take hold. According to the Sunday Telegraph yesterday, many parts of E. England have had just 2mm of rainfall over the last couple of months. Strong drying winds and very warm sun have been the most dominant type of weather lately and you can spot tractors carrying out cultivations across the arable fields here by simply looking for the dust cloud that is following them. The rather poor photo below shows the bone dry, yellow stubble fields stretching as far as the eye can see.

Farmers are often regularly depicted as the next best thing to Satan, especially if they also combine farming with game shooting. One farmer here on Harty however, does do his bit for the wild birds on his land. The set-aside strip shown below is around 400 yds long and 12 yds wide and is typical of the sort of thing that he sows each year. The grasses below the sunflowers are an amazing mix of around six different varieties, each producing seed heads bursting with small seeds. With the grasses there are also seed producing plants such as Fat Hen and Redshank and I've taken mixed bunches home for my canaries and British birds and they love them, as do the finches and buntings there each winter. Last year winter a nearby strip, with chicory flowers instead of sunflowers, was attracting a flock of Linnets of up to 160 birds daily and that flock was often joined by Reed Buntings.

Unfortunately it's not all good news. The two photos below show the current wheat stubbles along the Harty Road and just a third of the several hundred Greylag and Canada geese that are feeding on the spilt grain each morning. This and another field alongside, are sandwiched between Capel Fleet on one side and the dark green mound in the background, the other side of which is a large pond dug to attract ducks for shooting. The wildfowl are also shot in Capel Fleet, often in large numbers. It's hard not to believe that in several days time (Sept 1st) when the shooting season commences, that those unsuspecting geese will fly in as usual to be met by a barrage of shot from the syndicates that ring and shoot the area.
 

The Annual Drought

Last Tuesday night we had a few hours of rain, which after several weeks with no appreciable rain, was most welcome. However the following day saw very warm sun and strongish winds and the moisture disappeared very quickly and so we continue with increasingly dry countryside here in North Kent. The grazing marshes are now looking quite yellow and dry and water is disappearing quite fast. Just look at what is normally the large splash of water in the Flood Field on the reserve, it seems to disappear by several inches almost daily and unfortunately will now not get replenished until winter rains.

Likewise this large clump of water lilies in one of the fleets, only a few weeks ago the water was almost level with the upper leaves of the plants. It's all part of the annual cycle of events here on the North Kent marshes as I've mentioned before, water-logged in winter and bone dry in summer, although this year water levels have hung on longer than usual.

 However, the continual warm, sunny and dry days has seen an upsurge in butterfly numbers, with really good numbers of the various brown butterflies now on the wing, including this Small Copper.

And some late broods of wild pheasants have also been seen on the adjacent farmland, presumably soon to be joined by many hundreds of their hand reared cousins, ready for the new shooting season.

 And on the subject of hand reared game birds, there was a disturbing announcement from Natural England last week, they have granted a licence to a gamekeeper on a shooting estate to potentially kill up to ten Buzzards! The reason - these birds of prey are guilty of harassing and often killing some of the game bird poults while still in their pre-release pens. Now it has to be remembered that pheasants are artificially reared by the many millions each year to be released into the countryside to be shot, we're hardly talking about an endangered species here. It's possible that some shooting estates can often release more pheasants and partridges in a year than there are buzzards in the whole of the country and Natural England's judgement here has been severely questioned. The concern now is that this will start a creeping tide of calls from other shooting groups with what they will see as valid reasons why various birds of prey should be culled.
While I'm talking about shooting it's amazing that we're only three weeks away now from the resumption of wildfowling in front of the reserve, the last six months since the last season ended seems to have wizzed by. It's no secret that I get on OK with these guys and they have a minimal effect on what wildfowl we get on the reserve, mainly because the reserve only gets wet enough to attract good numbers of ducks for the last couple of months of the winter.

Hot Stuff

It has been a hot and sunny week and on a couple of days, very hot, and how enjoyable it has been after such a miserable summer so far. How wonderful it has been to be out on the marsh early in the morning while the dew is still on the grass and the sun is only just starting to warm the air. Birds are busy scurrying about, doing what they need to do before the heat of the day sets in and they then disappear to the depths and cool of the undergrowth. Yesterday a lone Cuckoo flew by, no longer issuing it's haunting call notes and no doubt already on it's way back south to Africa for the rest of the year. Some of the grazing meadows, that have not yet received attention from the cattle, are looking as good as I've ever seen them, long lush grass thickened by great carpets of red and white clover in flower and Birds-foot Trefoil. The heat and sunshine has also brought out larger numbers of various butterflies to skip through the grass, while bumblebees feed on the clover flowers, high summer is at last with us.
The hay has all been cut, baled and stacked and the rape crop harvested to leave great, dry fields of bare stalks. Very soon now the wheat and spring barley will also be harvested and it is looking very golden in the early morning light.

One of our two neighbouring farmers in recent years has taken to sowing wide strips of wildlife friendly flowers alongside some of his crops. Last year it was the tall and strikingly blue chicory flowers that attracted bees and butterflies from far and wide and whose fallen seeds fed a large flock of Linnets all winter. This summer it is a purple flower that I cannot identify but which is proving just as irresistible to bees. The flowers have a scabious look about them but rather than the pop-pom effect of scabious flowers, these have a curved effect to the segments.

A Lovely Sunny Morning

The early part of today was pleasantly warm and sunny on the reserve with no cloud or wind, lovely jubbly as the man said. I'll continue with another selection of odds and sods as I walked round.
Looking across the grazing marsh from the Tower Hide, I watched this Thames sailing barge making it's way down The Swale and out to sea.

This Mute Swan family have done well to survive with five cygnets.

Bristly Ox-tongue

This flower, Gipsywort, grows to around two feet in thick clumps along the reserve ditches and yet it has tiny little white flowers.

White Clover covers much of the grazing marsh and yet most days we don't give it a second glance, but just look at the lovely formation of the flower if we get up close.

and here, is the post-flower fruit pod of the Strawberry Clover.

This one's easy, it's Teasel.

This year, butterflies are about in much smaller numbers, this is a Small Skipper.

The cattle decided to follow me back to the car but there was agate

With the walk over Midge and Ellie waited in the car for me to stop taking photos.

The Harvest Beckons

So far here in North Kent, we've had over a week of dry weather and no rain. Some days have seen almost hot sunshine, some cloudy but humid weather and for most days there has been a strong and drying wind. Consequently, local landowners have at last, begun and successfully completed, hay-making. They have now begun harvesting the rape fields and this too is going very well and so all of a sudden, the weather related doom and gloom has gone and things are catching up. This is also apparent in the other arable fields of wheat and barley, the wet and warm weather has filled the ears with plump grains and yields look like they should be fairly high. The only downside of that is the high Black Grass content through the grain fields. Despite all their best efforts, farmers seem to be facing an uphill battle against this weed. It appears to have become resistant to spraying and so deep ploughing in the autumn has been the most recent suggestion. This has the effect of burying the seeds deep enough to stop them germinating and also has the beneficial effect of opening up compacted soil to improve drainage. Unfortunately fields here on Sheppey that were deep ploughed a couple of years ago, still have a 40% infestation of Black Grass this year, I guess there's little you can do if the seed is in the wheat seed that you buy in and sow.
I had a Hedgehog in my back garden early yesterday morning, which, given the slug infested and overgrown nature of it, makes for pretty ideal habitat for the creatures and I'd love to have them reside there. Unfortunately, owning two terriers, I've had to do my best to keep them out which is a real shame and I miss having them here and feel guilty at not helping an animal that is in dire straight these days.

I read an enormous amount of books each year, still in the old-fashioned, non-kindle way. I favour autobiographies and biographies, especially those about privileged people from the 1930's and 40's and especially members of the Bloomsbury Set. Currently I'm reading a new one by the Countryside farmer Adam Henson about his life to date and prior to that an 820 page book on Paul MCartney and another about the artist Sir Alfred Munnings and his life in an artists community in Cornwall pre WW1.

The reserve is now very overgrown and settling down into the post breeding lull, only butterflies and the start of returning wader migrants now seek to break the ordinary-ness of each day. Green Sandpipers and Greenshanks are beginning to pass through on early autumn migration and Cuckoos have already left. Below is a badly taken photo of a Gatekeeper butterfly on Ragwort, a plant that is a saviour to so many insects on the marsh in the summer.

I came across this small toadstall/fungus peeping out of the grass yesterday and have never seen one before. According to my wildlife book it is a Blackening Wax Cap but I'm happy to be corrected on that.