Monday 22 February 2010

Another wet day.

My first posting of a new blog and the weather is awful, making a visit to the Swale NNR today an unattractive proposition. It has remained very wet and muddy since the New Year and large areas of the reserve still remain under several inches of water, making movement around it by either foot or vehicle very restricted. With the near continuous rain today and more forecast throughout the week, unless we get a dry March, suitable breeding conditions for birds such as Lapwings and Redshanks could be threatened by grassland that remains waterlogged and cold.
In the meantime however, with vitually the whole of Harty waterlogged, the wildfowl, plovers and waders have been enjoying while its unfrozen, superb feeding conditions, and have been spread across both the grazing and arable fields in many thousands each day.

There are however, harbingers of Spring beginning to appear. For a few weeks now in my garden, we have had the dawn song most days of a Song Thrush, a pretty uncommon bird these days on Sheppey and so a rare treat to wake up too. A Magpie has begun building a nest in a neighbour's bush and despite an abundance of suitable material lying around on the ground, spends much time each day trying to snap growing twigs from a laburnum tree. In the same tree, a pair of Collared Doves seem to mate most days, although nesting through the winter is a pretty common event for them.

I wonder how far north early Sand Martins have got, normally in early March the first birds will be seen along the South Coast and they will be in for a shock this year if they stick to their normal timetable.

9 comments:

  1. Welcome to the Blogging world Derek. I'll give your blog a plug on my site, and post a link to you.

    Look forward to many more posts! ( now you will have to get a camera! )

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  2. Welcome Derek, good luck with the blog and look forward to reading your posts.

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  3. Hello Derek, Warrens plugging worked! A good time of year to start the blogging, it can only improve from now....I wish the Sand Martins were back...

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  4. Hi Derek
    Always good to see another local blog. I look forward to reading your posts.
    Good luck
    Phil Sharp

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  5. Hi Derek
    Good luck with the blog, I'm sure you'll keep much more up to date than I am.
    All the best
    Barry

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  6. Welcome to Blogging World Derek - look forward to reading more. Great piece on KOS Forum about Harriers....more of that please! Looking forward to some more history about the island...and photos.

    Adam

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  7. Welcome Derek - I come to you from Warren's plug!
    Nice first post, looking forward to many more.
    We also have a Songthrush waking us up every morning, often in competition with the Robin! Hopefully Spring is just around the corner (don't ask which corner though!)

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  8. Hi Derek, nice to see you in Blogland, I will look forward to your poetic prose (if the Harrier roost on the forum is anything to go by). Best of luck,
    Tony

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  9. Welcome from me as well Derek

    Corinna

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