Friday 30 November 2018

Happy Days

Joy of joys, a day to lift the heart strings, we are having clear blue skies, warming sun and light winds, it could of been early Spring. It was lovely to get up at 5.30 this morning, look out of the back door and see the moon and stars in the sky, rather than rain.
I arrived at the reserve just as the sun was rising from behind some distant clouds on the horizon and the effect that it had on the marsh was amazing, no more grey and gloom, oh no, the reserve looked green and sparkling. OK, it was still wet and muddy but it just felt better and the first bird that I saw, was a female Hen Harrier, gliding over the tops of a nearby reed bed. Ellie and I set off to walk round the whole of the reserve's grazing marsh, watching and listening to Curlews as they came off the arable fields alongside and made their way out to the nearby tidal mudflats, now becoming exposed as the tide ebbed away.
Next on my list were the grazing geese out on the marsh - 70 Greylag Geese (our resident birds) and 17 White-fronted Geese, truly wild birds that breed in the far north of Europe and visit us in the winter. As the winter progresses and especially if cold weather on the Continent gets bad, the flock will normally build up to c. 200-300 birds, they are lovely birds. Yesterday there was a lone Barnacle Goose with them but I couldn't find it today. We carried on through the 40 strong herd of young cows, next year's breeding stock and Ellie and they normally manage to ignore each other. It was then that my spirits really rose, I spotted the male Hen Harrier gliding across the reserve. I knew that there was one about but it had been evading me up till now. Seeing the male bird in flight with it's silvery grey plumage looking almost ghostly is a spectacular sight.

We carried on as the sun became warmer and brighter, Skylarks were springing up from everywhere, some resident, some winter visitors, and one or two even climbed into the sky to sing, now that really did make it seem like Spring! Two Buzzards, mewing like lost kittens, joined the raptor list, while several Herons and a couple of Little Egrets rose from the ditches. 
We walked up on to the top of the sea wall and begun to follow that for almost a mile, with the saltings and the tide to the left and all of the reserve's grazing marsh to the right. That stretch of sea wall has on it's landward side, the sea wall fleet, or Delph, thick with tall phragmites reed beds. As we carried on a couple of Bearded Tits "pinged" away with out showing themselves but I did eventually get a count of 22 Reed Buntings along that same stretch. Coming to the end of the sea wall we cut back on to the reserve and followed the reserve boundary ditch the mile back to the barn where I had left the car. On the farmland side of this ditch there is thick line of mostly hawthorn bushes and it is a magnet for smaller birds at this time of year and today was no exception. Feeding on the berries were several dozen Fieldfares, as they have been for a couple of weeks, also there were Linnets, Chaffinches, a few more Reed Buntings and the odd Wren and Robin.
That's been just a few of the birds that I saw today as we wandered round and boy, did the whole walk in that weather make me feel good.

10 comments:

  1. These are the days to remember Derek. They always come round again. When the weather's gloomy we can only grin and bear it while we wait for the next bit of sunshine. The wind was so cold this morning that our red squirrel took himself inside the bird feeder to get the seeds and a bit of warmth. Usually he hangs upside down and reaches in with his hand. Today he disappeared inside and spent a good ten minutes in there out of the weather. When I went down I saw all the seeds had gone, so now I've filled it up again for the birds. Mostly its the great tits who dominate the scene. They are abundant here.

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  2. Wow, a Red Squirrel on your feeder, that would be something to remember here, very special.

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  3. I'm pleased you heart sung, probably not only because of the good weather but also the birds you saw. Seeing and recognizing birdlife adds so much more to being outside. I would love to see a Bearded Tit, they are around here but I've yet to spot one.
    May your heart sing on a few more days this year.

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  4. Thanks Dave.
    You tend to hear Beardies before you see them. They have loud "pinging" calls, a bit like the sonar that you hear in a submarine.

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  5. Oh Derek - if only. When I walked Tess the sun was just rising and was a round orange ball sitting on the top of the field. It was a joy to see but when I drove into town a quarter of an hour later it was pouring - and so it has been all day. First one and then the other. How I long for a totally sunny day.

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  6. A grand morning indeed. How long a walk is it along the grazing marsh?

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  7. not as long as I probably make it sound Wilma. Depending on the route I take and how long I want to be out there, only about 3-4 miles, although it is at this time of the year, now walking in soft mud and water and I take my time.

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  8. Spot on Derek, a drop of sunshine certainly bucks you up this time of year. It was the same down here yesterday, a joy to be out in the field with birds everywhere, apart from Hen Harriers which have been scarce this winter at Dungeness. Shall have to have a day trip to the Island in the New Year. All the best, Paul.

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  9. What a wonderfully descriptive post, Derek - I could almost hear all the birds myself, and see the sun on the grazing marsh and on the tidings. You really managed to conceive how uplifting and joyful this walk was for you.

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  10. Thank you to Paul and the Librarian - back to reality this morning I'm afraid, it's raining and very gloomy.

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