"This day winding down now
At God speeded summer's end
In the torrent salmon sun,
In my seashaken house
On a breakneck of rocks
Tangled with chirrup and fruit,
Froth, flute, fin and quill
At a wood's dancing hoof,
By scummed, starfish sands
With their fishwife cross
Gulls, pipers, cockles and sails"................Prologue - Dylan Thomas
The above, the last stand-alone poem written by Thomas, a year before he died, could when you read throughout it's whole length, be seen as a kind of goodbye to all that, sort of poem. It pretty much sums up the way I feel these days.
Here on Sheppey, our little island off the North Kent coast, there are not many of us aged, in our 70's, "men of the countryside" left. By that I mean people who have spent their whole life wandering the fields, hedgerows and marshes of this island, and as a result have memories of its wildlife, it's seasons and it's people that go back a lifetime. When I was a youngster there were always those old boys that wandered the countryside, that drank from a bottle of cold tea, that always knew where wildlife had hidden up, that could kill, skin and gut a rabbit in minutes, or look at the sky and always seem to know when it was going to rain.
I can only think of a few of us now of that ilk, that are left round here. I'm not trying to portray myself as some kind of modern day Jack Hargreaves, far from it, but it's rare these days to come across someone else that you know who has been wandering the area for so many years. A lifelong friend of mine, who I first worked with on the Kent River Authority on Sheppey's marshes here in the 1960's is another such person. He's a couple of years older me and has a store of knowledge and skills that you just can't buy, that come with a lifetime's experience. We still coax our arthritic limbs round the fields each day, still always have a dog at our side and now despair at some of the changes that continue to occur. Who for instance would of expected to see so many empty rabbit warrens. We could never have imagined that in our lifetime, rabbits, that once were counted in thousands, would now only be counted in dozens.
For me, it begun as a young boy in the 1950's, keeping tadpoles in an old sink in the garden and watching them turn into frogs. Keeping the very common Small Tortoiseshell caterpillars in a sweet jar with muslin on the top, feeding them on stinging nettles and watching them pupate. Now Small Tortoiseshell butterflies are very hard to find, almost rare. As a young child I wandered the marshes near me, all alone - laid besides ditches, clambered through bushes and learnt what I could about wildlife. When I joined the Kent River Authority as a teenager I found myself among several people who fished, hunted, shot and trapped, and I learnt a lot about countryside ways. When I left to work in the local docks for the next 34 years, I still carried on practising those skills. A friend and I spent the cold, wet and wintry months for many years catching rabbits which we would skin and gut and sell for pocket money. During the summer months we netted the ditches and caught eels, often lots of eels, and sold them to a shop in the East End of London and then later, I even tried duck shooting for one winter. Then I became involved with the local nature reserves and my bird watching became more serious and so did my convictions.
I still roamed the marshes with my dogs(s) in the usual unrestricted ways but I had a purpose, I recorded everything I saw and passed it on. In 1987 I became a Voluntary Warden of a local, Natural England reserve on the marshes and still am 32 years later. As a result and for many years, I was very anti shooting and hunting, fell in with the mind set that if you are a bird watcher or to do with conservation, then you automatically have to be opposed to such things. However, a number of years ago a wildfowler began to make me realise that many of the things that I was opposed to had their rightful place in the countryside and in many ways helped preserve what is left of it. I began to realise that there was and should be, room for all of the various pursuits in the countryside, after all, it was how I had begun, not with the blinkered and idiotic Chris Packham views about hunting and shooting.
So, I'm ending my time in the countryside as simply a "man of the countryside", enjoying being part of it and all that goes on it, and as my friend often says, we should be glad that we're the age that we are - we've had the best of it and won't have many more years to see it get any worse.
And that is about it.
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Wednesday, 7 August 2019
Harty and the Reserve
The view below shows what you first see as you drive down Capel Hill along the Harty Road at the moment, here on Sheppey. A combination of stubble fields and grazing marshes, all golden yellow and bone dry.
In the stubble fields, the resident Greylag Geese, numbering several hundred in total, are now a daily feature as they glean all the spilled grain.
On the nature reserve itself, we have two herds of cattle and their calves, one larger one and this small one. Once again the dryness of the grass is quite evident.
These well grown calves were curious to see what I was up to. They'll probably be taken away some time in October as their parents are already pregnant with next year's batch.
Just two months ago, "The Scrape" as we know this site in the middle of the reserve, was full of water and home to several pairs of Avocets and their chicks. It only re-fills from rainfall and some water pumped from a nearby ditch, which itself is very low, and so it's unlikely that it will be full again before the New Year.
On the reserve we have three types of clover, the common red and white types and this one known as Strawberry Clover - easy to see why.
I came across this male Common Blue butterfly this morning, sheltering from the wind. Apparently, nation-wide, they have seen a large rise in numbers both last year and this, which has to be a good thing.
In the stubble fields, the resident Greylag Geese, numbering several hundred in total, are now a daily feature as they glean all the spilled grain.
On the nature reserve itself, we have two herds of cattle and their calves, one larger one and this small one. Once again the dryness of the grass is quite evident.
These well grown calves were curious to see what I was up to. They'll probably be taken away some time in October as their parents are already pregnant with next year's batch.
Just two months ago, "The Scrape" as we know this site in the middle of the reserve, was full of water and home to several pairs of Avocets and their chicks. It only re-fills from rainfall and some water pumped from a nearby ditch, which itself is very low, and so it's unlikely that it will be full again before the New Year.
On the reserve we have three types of clover, the common red and white types and this one known as Strawberry Clover - easy to see why.
I came across this male Common Blue butterfly this morning, sheltering from the wind. Apparently, nation-wide, they have seen a large rise in numbers both last year and this, which has to be a good thing.
At the moment (Weds), the weather forecast nationally is for extreme weather for most parts of the country, Friday into Saturday. Strong winds and heavy rain are forecast but I think that the operative words are "most parts". We'll of course get the strong winds, a combination of those and hot sun have been drying every last drop of moisture from us all week. But heavy rain - I'd love to be proven wrong, but rain has a nasty habit of always passing just wide of this island a lot of the year - time will tell.
Friday, 2 August 2019
Times Move On
I feel a bit awkward posting a photograph like the one below, bearing in mind the damage that the heavy rains have caused to both farmers and households in Northern England but this blog is about the local scene.
Here on Sheppey all the farmland is very dry and the harvest has been very successful due to pretty much perfect weather conditions. Once all the bales of wheat, barley and rape straw have been collected and stored, then various tidying up and light cultivating of the fields will take place. Rape is normally sown first, in between the lines of wheat stubble, followed by the wheat or barley further in to the autumn, but neither is likely to germinate given the dryness of the soil.
The next couple of weeks will see the arrival of the partridge and pheasant poults ahead of the game shooting season, which for partridges, starts next month. It all seems a bit early given the warm and sunny weather that we are experiencing, most forms of shooting one tends to associate with cold winter days and besides the poults will need time to grow into adult birds.
On the reserve, the last couple of days have seen the continuation of the early autumn migration with the first Wheatears passing through on their way south. So it may be only late summer but an autumnal feel is beginning to gather in the wings.
Here on Sheppey all the farmland is very dry and the harvest has been very successful due to pretty much perfect weather conditions. Once all the bales of wheat, barley and rape straw have been collected and stored, then various tidying up and light cultivating of the fields will take place. Rape is normally sown first, in between the lines of wheat stubble, followed by the wheat or barley further in to the autumn, but neither is likely to germinate given the dryness of the soil.
The next couple of weeks will see the arrival of the partridge and pheasant poults ahead of the game shooting season, which for partridges, starts next month. It all seems a bit early given the warm and sunny weather that we are experiencing, most forms of shooting one tends to associate with cold winter days and besides the poults will need time to grow into adult birds.
On the reserve, the last couple of days have seen the continuation of the early autumn migration with the first Wheatears passing through on their way south. So it may be only late summer but an autumnal feel is beginning to gather in the wings.
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
The Doldrums
Driving across the marsh road lately, it's difficult to distinguish the reserve fields from the neighbouring farm crops of wheat and barley. The farm crops are resplendent in bright golden colours and are currently being harvested, the harvesters marked out by the great clouds of dust that follow them across the fields. The long grass on the reserve's grazing meadows is also now looking golden and dry, an air of mid-summer quietness covers the reserve, little, 'cept the butterflies, is moving.
The ground is baked hard and a strong, sweet and sickly smell hits you as you arrive - the ditches, low in both water and oxygen, are stagnating and turning funny colours.
Bird life becomes less obvious with every day, the wildfowl are moulting and with the temporary loss of their flight feathers, are skulking close to reed beds out of harms way. Hard to believe that in just four weeks time the wildfowlers will return, intent on shooting them. Sitting on the saltings at either end of a hot September day, being pestered by mosquitoes and feeling too hot, doesn't really fit with the romantic image of stormy, bitter cold winter shooting days but some still do it.
But back to the birds, the reed beds are becoming quieter as the Reed and Sedge Warblers gradually begin to slip away southwards, back to their African winter quarters. This has been most apparent over the last 2-3 weeks as regular numbers of Swifts, Sand Martins and young Swallows, pass across the reserve in the mornings, swirling around me looking for those last fat flies and then, they're gone, southwards is calling! Just 4-5 weeks ago they were eggs in a nest and now as young birds are taking an untravelled and unknown road across continents - a brief moment of feeling regret and abandonment flits across my mind as I look at a now empty sky.
Some Cuckoos, fitted with satellite transmitters a month or so ago in England, have already reached their winter quarters in Southern Africa, such a fleeting summer visit each year. A friend recently likened them to some humans - they arrive, they breed and then quickly bugger off to leave their children to be brought up by somebody else!
Birds are currently leaving us faster then any newly arrive. Small numbers of waders, fresh from breeding in northern climes, such as Greenshanks, Spotted Redshanks and Green Sandpipers, will briefly drop in to feed along muddy ditch edges and then be gone again. It's what many birdwatchers call the summer doldrums - the dry, boring gap between mid-summer and mid-autumn, when birdwatching becomes a faintly inspiring past time.
The ground is baked hard and a strong, sweet and sickly smell hits you as you arrive - the ditches, low in both water and oxygen, are stagnating and turning funny colours.
Bird life becomes less obvious with every day, the wildfowl are moulting and with the temporary loss of their flight feathers, are skulking close to reed beds out of harms way. Hard to believe that in just four weeks time the wildfowlers will return, intent on shooting them. Sitting on the saltings at either end of a hot September day, being pestered by mosquitoes and feeling too hot, doesn't really fit with the romantic image of stormy, bitter cold winter shooting days but some still do it.
But back to the birds, the reed beds are becoming quieter as the Reed and Sedge Warblers gradually begin to slip away southwards, back to their African winter quarters. This has been most apparent over the last 2-3 weeks as regular numbers of Swifts, Sand Martins and young Swallows, pass across the reserve in the mornings, swirling around me looking for those last fat flies and then, they're gone, southwards is calling! Just 4-5 weeks ago they were eggs in a nest and now as young birds are taking an untravelled and unknown road across continents - a brief moment of feeling regret and abandonment flits across my mind as I look at a now empty sky.
Some Cuckoos, fitted with satellite transmitters a month or so ago in England, have already reached their winter quarters in Southern Africa, such a fleeting summer visit each year. A friend recently likened them to some humans - they arrive, they breed and then quickly bugger off to leave their children to be brought up by somebody else!
Birds are currently leaving us faster then any newly arrive. Small numbers of waders, fresh from breeding in northern climes, such as Greenshanks, Spotted Redshanks and Green Sandpipers, will briefly drop in to feed along muddy ditch edges and then be gone again. It's what many birdwatchers call the summer doldrums - the dry, boring gap between mid-summer and mid-autumn, when birdwatching becomes a faintly inspiring past time.
Friday, 12 July 2019
More Flowers
As I promised yesterday, I was on the reserve earlier this morning in order to get a few more photos of mostly meadow flowers.
Meadow Rue - this grows to around 6ft tall
Common Club Rush
White Clover
Lady's Bedstraw - strong fragrance
Yarrow
Bird's-foot Trefoil
Agrimony
Sea Lavender
Bristly Ox-tongue
Goatsbeard
Essex Skipper butterfly
Marbled White butterfly - only my second on the reserve in 32 years
Ellie doing her best Meerkat impression - the only way she can see over the long grass
Meadow Rue - this grows to around 6ft tall
Common Club Rush
White Clover
Lady's Bedstraw - strong fragrance
Yarrow
Bird's-foot Trefoil
Agrimony
Sea Lavender
Bristly Ox-tongue
Goatsbeard
Essex Skipper butterfly
Marbled White butterfly - only my second on the reserve in 32 years
Ellie doing her best Meerkat impression - the only way she can see over the long grass
Thursday, 11 July 2019
Summer Meadows
Well as I mentioned in my last post, the small herd of cattle that we have on the reserve this summer, have been fighting a losing battle to reduce the height of the grass and other vegetation. But while that was a problem in the early breeding season because long, wet grass, not only conceals plover chicks from being counted and can keep them wet and cold, at the moment the grazing meadows look quite lovely.
Over the last couple of weeks of very warm and sunny weather, the meadows, with their grass seed heads all swaying gently in the breeze, have been a joy to see. That weather has also brought about a moderate hatch of Meadow Brown butterflies and they form so much a part of the meadow scene as they flutter across the grass tops. In the last couple of days Gatekeeper and Small Skipper butterflies have also begun to join them. Hot and dry conditions on the reserve are now starting to tighten their grip, the dirt tracks are dry and dusty and ditch levels are dropping fast.
This view across one of the grazing meadows shows the uniform, near thigh high grass levels. In mid winter these fields would be short grazed, wet and muddy.
As a result of the reduced grazing it is turning out to be a great year for wild flowers on the reserve, a few are shown below. I will post a larger selection next week.
This is Weld.
Scentless Mayweed
Great Lettuce. It grows to about four foot high and is almost identical to Prickly Lettuce, just missing the prickly stems.
Teasel.
Lesser Reedmace. A small, slimmer seed-head than the normal bullrush.
My annual favourite, the appearance of Cinnabar Moth caterpillars feeding on Ragwort. This year has seen the best hatch of the caterpillars for years.
Over the last couple of weeks of very warm and sunny weather, the meadows, with their grass seed heads all swaying gently in the breeze, have been a joy to see. That weather has also brought about a moderate hatch of Meadow Brown butterflies and they form so much a part of the meadow scene as they flutter across the grass tops. In the last couple of days Gatekeeper and Small Skipper butterflies have also begun to join them. Hot and dry conditions on the reserve are now starting to tighten their grip, the dirt tracks are dry and dusty and ditch levels are dropping fast.
This view across one of the grazing meadows shows the uniform, near thigh high grass levels. In mid winter these fields would be short grazed, wet and muddy.
As a result of the reduced grazing it is turning out to be a great year for wild flowers on the reserve, a few are shown below. I will post a larger selection next week.
This is Weld.
Scentless Mayweed
Great Lettuce. It grows to about four foot high and is almost identical to Prickly Lettuce, just missing the prickly stems.
Teasel.
Lesser Reedmace. A small, slimmer seed-head than the normal bullrush.
My annual favourite, the appearance of Cinnabar Moth caterpillars feeding on Ragwort. This year has seen the best hatch of the caterpillars for years.
Thursday, 27 June 2019
Back Again
I've been asked recently, why no new blog postings, well to be honest I ran out of ideas and enthusiasm. But time has moved on, so perhaps a few up-dates will prove interesting.
The weather here on the North Kent coast this week has certainly been frustrating, we've been stuck with a strong and chilly NE wind all week. It has come straight down the North Sea for several days and kept us under grey skies and low temperatures. Today was a classic example, the Western side of England had temperatures of 27 degrees and the best we could do was around 17 degrees. It has been a rubbish summer so far.
Sitting in a hide of The Swale National Nature Reserve this morning, with a large bed of the tall, phragmites reeds in front of me, I felt sorry for any nesting Reed Warblers in them. They build their small nests by weaving them round two or three of the upright reed stems. Watching the reeds being smashed to and fro in the blustery wind this morning, it was easy to imagine the nest either being pulled apart, or any eggs or chicks being thrown from the nest.
The breeding season on the reserve is running down now to it's finale and from what I've recorded on my daily patrols, it doesn't appear to have been all that spectacular. Lapwings have continued their run of several poor breeding seasons, for no reason that we can particularly identify, despite conditions being very good for them. Around a dozen or so pairs do not appear to have fledged all that many young, although the long grass this year could of prevented some being seen. The Little Terns on the Shellness shingle beach also appear to have failed miserably, despite high hopes from several pairs of this delightful small sea bird this year.
On the plus side, the Greylag Geese have raised their regular, annual 50-60 goslings, not that we need many more and Skylarks have also continued with a consistent annual number of around 24-26 pairs. Throughout the marshes of Sheppey as a whole as well, Barn Owls have had a good breeding season and many chicks have been ringed.
The down side so far, presumably because of the cool and wet spells that we've had, butterfly numbers are very low, almost none at times.
The grass on the reserve this year has had a very good growing season with some fields showing far more grass than we would like and a lot of that has been down to a shortage of cows to graze it. This Spring/Summer we have been limited to just two small herds of 20-30 cows, plus their calves and with a bull in each herd. One of the herds has this magnificent specimen in attendance and he has become quite a determined character.
For a day or so this week, the two herds were separated my a wide fleet with a gate in the middle and one morning I noticed that the black bull was in with the wrong herd, who had their own brown bull. I assumed that it was planned by the grazier and walked on. An hour later I spotted a steaming black bull walking back across the marsh to his proper her but, the gate was still intact, clearly after doing what he'd wanted to do, he'd swam back across the fleet to rejoin his own herd. It was then thought best to separate the two herds better and so two large fields and two fleets were put between them to hopefully stifle the instincts of the bull. It didn't work, this morning when I got there, the black bull was back in the wrong herd again and had crossed two fields and two fleets to get there - nothing like the lure of a ripe female to a healthy male, is there!
Away from all that testerone and on the neighbouring farm land, a change of crop seems to be taking place. Last year a few fields of spring barley were sown and must of produced results as this year a lot more has been sown, vying with wheat to be the dominant crop. If it continues it could be beneficial for wildlife because the field lay fallow during the winter months, giving much more foraging areas for seed eating birds.
The weather here on the North Kent coast this week has certainly been frustrating, we've been stuck with a strong and chilly NE wind all week. It has come straight down the North Sea for several days and kept us under grey skies and low temperatures. Today was a classic example, the Western side of England had temperatures of 27 degrees and the best we could do was around 17 degrees. It has been a rubbish summer so far.
Sitting in a hide of The Swale National Nature Reserve this morning, with a large bed of the tall, phragmites reeds in front of me, I felt sorry for any nesting Reed Warblers in them. They build their small nests by weaving them round two or three of the upright reed stems. Watching the reeds being smashed to and fro in the blustery wind this morning, it was easy to imagine the nest either being pulled apart, or any eggs or chicks being thrown from the nest.
The breeding season on the reserve is running down now to it's finale and from what I've recorded on my daily patrols, it doesn't appear to have been all that spectacular. Lapwings have continued their run of several poor breeding seasons, for no reason that we can particularly identify, despite conditions being very good for them. Around a dozen or so pairs do not appear to have fledged all that many young, although the long grass this year could of prevented some being seen. The Little Terns on the Shellness shingle beach also appear to have failed miserably, despite high hopes from several pairs of this delightful small sea bird this year.
On the plus side, the Greylag Geese have raised their regular, annual 50-60 goslings, not that we need many more and Skylarks have also continued with a consistent annual number of around 24-26 pairs. Throughout the marshes of Sheppey as a whole as well, Barn Owls have had a good breeding season and many chicks have been ringed.
The down side so far, presumably because of the cool and wet spells that we've had, butterfly numbers are very low, almost none at times.
The grass on the reserve this year has had a very good growing season with some fields showing far more grass than we would like and a lot of that has been down to a shortage of cows to graze it. This Spring/Summer we have been limited to just two small herds of 20-30 cows, plus their calves and with a bull in each herd. One of the herds has this magnificent specimen in attendance and he has become quite a determined character.
For a day or so this week, the two herds were separated my a wide fleet with a gate in the middle and one morning I noticed that the black bull was in with the wrong herd, who had their own brown bull. I assumed that it was planned by the grazier and walked on. An hour later I spotted a steaming black bull walking back across the marsh to his proper her but, the gate was still intact, clearly after doing what he'd wanted to do, he'd swam back across the fleet to rejoin his own herd. It was then thought best to separate the two herds better and so two large fields and two fleets were put between them to hopefully stifle the instincts of the bull. It didn't work, this morning when I got there, the black bull was back in the wrong herd again and had crossed two fields and two fleets to get there - nothing like the lure of a ripe female to a healthy male, is there!
Away from all that testerone and on the neighbouring farm land, a change of crop seems to be taking place. Last year a few fields of spring barley were sown and must of produced results as this year a lot more has been sown, vying with wheat to be the dominant crop. If it continues it could be beneficial for wildlife because the field lay fallow during the winter months, giving much more foraging areas for seed eating birds.
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