Rainy Days

Well at long last, although possibly only for a short time, I'm not on here bleating away about lack of rain and droughts. It rained Tuesday night, it rained a bit harder Wednesday night and through Thursday night we had around twelve hours of non-stop moderate rain. Water seems to be running out of every drive and garden for a while on Friday morning. Surprisingly, there were few substantial splashes across the reserve to show for it all and certainly no rise in ditch levels, the ground being so dry and absorbed it all, but there was plenty of mud and boy how it had freshened the place up. Stagnant ditches had been rejuvenated by being re-oxygenated and grazing meadows looked so much greener. It won't take long for drying winds and sunshine to get to work but for the moment all is well out there.
This morning, despite a gusty wind, it was pleasantly warm in the sunshine and this Marsh Frog was enjoying the improved water quality.

This is a view across the tidal Swale to the mainland on the other side. The Swale is what maintains Sheppey as an island and lends itself to the reserve's name, The Swale National Nature Reserve.

Below are part of a collection of around forty Greylag Geese goslings of different ages that were in the sea wall fleet this morning.

A Common Blue butterfly settled for a while in front of me and opened it's wings to the sun. I also had the first Painted Lady butterfly of the summer as well.

 And of course, early morning, warm sun, just right for chewing the cud, as these two pictures show.