Shellness Banksy

I haven't really that much to talk about in this posting, it was more a case of sharing a piece of "Banksy" style graffiti with you, which I find quite amazing.
Those of you who visit Shellness Point on Sheppey will be familiar with the old military blockhouse on the beach there, below.

 Yesterday, a good friend doing a bird count there was surprised to find this superb piece of graffiti painted on the seaward wall of the blockhouse. I popped out there this morning to get my own photos of the painting. It's so apt seeing as the saltings behind the blockhouse are the main winter roost site on Sheppey of Hen Harriers, hopefully the reserve management will see it as a great asset to the reserve.

This is how passing boats will see it, quite amazing.

Prior to that I was on the reserve at 05.00 this morning, just after the sun had come up and even then it was very warm but a beautiful morning with the reed beds full of the sound of Reed Warbler song.

And out on Horse Sands in The Swale there were several Common Seals  resting on the sands at low tide (a bit distant I'm afraid)

 Lastly, as a result of the recent grass topping exercise, some of the hundreds of "emmett casts" or Yellow Field Ant hills were also unavoidably "topped"......

 .........but it's amazing how quick the ants start to rebuild the top of their hills, in this photo you can already see the fresh deposits of soil beginning to build up.

Early Autumn?

The majority of the reserve has had it's annual vegetation "topping" over the last couple of weeks, in some fields it's pretty much negligible but in others, as above, it is quite noticeable. It is a necessary exercise each year in order to reduce the overpowering growth of club rush in some fields such as The Flood, vegetation that renders those areas as unattractive to the type of birds that the reserve is trying to attract and be seen. It is also vital to catch thistles just as they begin to flower and by doing so prevent millions of seed heads being blown across the grazing meadows and neighbouring farm land.
I know some of the less informed naturalists out there see the cutting of thistles just as they are flowering and becoming attractive to all manner of butterflies and insects, as some kind of travesty but it is something that has always been part of farmland management for hundreds of years. There's nothing worse for a landowner than to see huge clouds of thistle down blowing off a neighbour's land and spreading the seed all across his hay meadows.

Despite the fact that we had a mild winter, early spring and so far, dry and sunny summer, it has been a disappointing summer so far on the reserve for butterflies and dragonflies. After last year's large numbers of both species and the mild winter, we had reckoned on another bumper year but it just hasn't happened so far. Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock butterflies appeared in good numbers in the spring but so far haven't re-appeared at all, the Meadow Brown and Skippers are in small numbers and I have seen few Small Heaths and no Gatekeepers. Dragonflies are the same, with very few being seen along the ditches and waterways on the reserve and it's all a bit hard to understand, perhaps the long periods of wet, waterlogged or flooded weather last winter had something to do with it.

That aside, birds this year on the reserve appear to be having a superb breeding season, many more broods of ducklings have been recorded than in recent years, around 25-30 pairs of Skylarks have bred but by far the biggest success story this year is Lapwings and Redshanks.
Five co-ordinated breeding counts of Lapwings and Redshanks take place each year on the whole of the Elmley NNR, (including the ex-RSPB site) and The Swale NNR and combined totals from these sites recorded 513 pairs of Lapwings fledging 550 chicks. With a productivity of 1.07 chicks per pair this could see the area achieve top spot in Lapwing productivity in lowland wet grassland in the whole of the country and huge credit must go to the Elmley Conservation Trust management for creating the habitat that has achieved this.

With the autumn migration now seemingly underway already, noticeable by the large numbers of hirundines already moving south and passage waders such as Wood and Green Sandpipers now appearing at places such as the Oare floods, the Swale Wader Group carried out the first of their annual autumn/winter ringing sessions on the Swale NNR last week. Unfortunately, due to the dry conditions, few birds were caught but one re-trapped Redshank was of interest. The bird was first rung as a juvenile at Shellness on the 31st July 2000, re-trapped at Harty on the 12th August 2011 and now re-trapped again. At 14 years of age it is the 6th oldest Redshank re-trap, with the oldest being over 16 years old.

Lastly, I was left exasperated again last week after reading the account of one blogger's visit to Sevenoaks wildfowl reserve. While there he was surprised to see a large Mink coming towards him along one of the tracks, whereupon it quickly disappeared into the undergrowth. Questioning it being allowed to be there at the Visitor Centre he was advised that they only trap Mink outside the breeding season, a procedure that I have mentioned before that is also carried out at the Oare nature reserve. Mink are one of the worst wildlife killers that you can have on a wetland nature reserve and can decimate breeding bird populations. Culling them for two thirds of a year but then allowing them to breed and increase in numbers for the other third is plain barmy but is so typical of the weird views of some conservationist these days. It's a bit like going to war but only firing blanks at the enemy in case you hurt them!

The Real Out Of Town

It was extremely pleasing this week to see that a review carried out by the BBC Trust has reported that the BBC is failing it's rural viewers with it's countryside programmes.
Apparently the report found that the BBC's content does not reflect the real economic and social concerns of the countryside and a BBC insider is quoted as saying that it feels like the BBC is looking from London into the countryside as a place of entertainment and leisure, and not at the wider social and economic diversity present in rural areas.
Let's face it, most of us who work or who are active in the countryside at ground roots level accept that the likes of Countryfile and Springwatch  are entertaining but they also have a definite blind spot when it comes to showing the grittier aspects of the countryside. I thought that this year's Springwatch had finally woken up to that fact when they actually showed what corvids and badgers are capable of in respect of young animals, chicks and eggs, but they left it at that. Where was the follow on about pest controls and the measures that are used to combat these predators, you can better your bottom dollar that Minsmere, like many RSPB reserves, carry out pest controls such as culling of foxes and corvids but if they do, neither the BBC or the RSPB were willing to show them. It's always about the fluffy side of countryside events and we have a generation growing up being fed only half the story by these programmes. Too quote the British Association for Shooting and Conservation - "shooting is an integral and important part of life in the countryside but is rarely given due credit. It provides jobs, generates income and makes a significant contribution to crop protection and food safety. By creating and managing habitats it benefits a wide range of wildlife. Little of this good news ever gets fully reported." It certainly doesn't on Countryfile.
It could be justifiably argued these days that shooting associations/landowners are contributing as much to conservation on their land as the likes of the RSPB and others on their reserves. And before some of the more sensitive types that call themselves countryside lovers start ranting about the fact that shooting types kill things, well so they do. But what's the difference between what they do and a reserve such as Minsmere where the conservationists stand by day after day and do nothing as the likes of gulls, corvids and badgers kill and eat countless of the eggs and chicks that they are supposed to be protecting.

On my shelf at home I have the complete box set of all the episodes of Jack Hargreaves's "Out of Town" television series. Now these programmes went out in the early evening and were presented by a 100% old countryman who spoke about and described countless old country pursuits such as shooting, ferreting, eel trapping, fishing, killing things, etc. etc. - pursuits that don't exist in Countryfile's view of the countryside. Youngsters such as I learnt a lot from those programmes and were determined to get out in the countryside and have a go at them and I for one took up both eel trapping and rabbiting.
Just look at the features in one of the DVD's - one of them is about pigeon shooting - perhaps they should rename Countryfile as Countryfile (only the nice bits)

Spuggies and things

During this last week there was a brief bit of chat on a local forum about how many House Sparrows (Spuggies) some of us were recording in our gardens. The result seemed to suggest that they were doing quite well, especially in gardens where the birds had a large bush or hedge where they could gather together and pass the day away safely. I've regularly commented on my own consistent garden flock of 30-40 birds and Sheppey, especially the rural parts, still seems to be recording reasonable numbers of this bird that was once so prolific that people were paid to shoot large numbers of them.
Personally I think that they have great charm and a pretty much unique plumage colour, which is often wrongly described as drab but there aren't that many birds with a similar combination of browns and greys. It;s also rare to see regular records of spuggie numbers being submitted to various bird organisations - perhaps people still take them for granted as they chase the more colourful rarities around the countryside - that common old spuggie - but is it?

This morning, before 6.00, I was on the reserve enjoying a couple of hours in the windless and warm sunshine of a lovely summer's morning. At any time of the year you only get that kind of stillness and serenity twice a day, at dawn and at dusk. I love looking at the windpump in the early morning, it captures so much the images that I retain from my childhood on the marshes of Sheppey when they were a far commoner sight.

Moving past the windpump I made my way to the western entry gate on to the reserve and it's seawall, where the track leads down from Harty Church.

The track is sandwiched between tall poplar trees and this year's corn crop and gives good views across the flat marsh of the reserve to distant Shellness Hamlet and at it's top end leads left to Harty Church.

Turning all the way round at the track gate, the view southwards is of a low tide Swale with Horse Sands exposed in the middle and the assorted boats moored in Faversham Creek. Many days of the year you can usually see 20-30 Common Seals as they rest on the Sands at low tide and during this month they will often have pups with them.

Tucked away in the distance from the track above is Harty Church and it's neighbouring farm buildings

Back on the reserve itself this is a Coot's eye view of a typical ditch on the reserve - now shallow water bordered each side by club rush but still retaining the charm that only a marshland ditch can - the odd ripple of a Rudd at the surface, the startling leap of a Marsh Frog into the water, dragonflies chasing flies, a Dabchick bringing a Minnow to it's eager brood - a ditch has a lot to offer if you tarry long enough!

A view across the flat grazing marsh that makes up most of the reserve, marshes are fortunately not everybody's cup of tea, especially when the bitter cold winds of winter make the shelter of woodlands a far more enjoyable experience, but I have lived and loved them all my life. Real hardy people are marsh people as they endure the endless winter damp, the freezing winds, the fogs, the frosts, the baking sun of the summer days - special people and I' proud to have spent 67 years being one.

And I'm not alone, Midge and Ellie wouldn't swap the place for the world - well, a few extra rabbits would be nice. And that leads me onto another favourite rant of mine, (see below).

I read a local blog yesterday where the writer had gone from his usual Kent patch to the Ashdown Forest in Sussex, presumably to someone else's patch. Whilst there his photography session had been spoiled by someone's dogs that has appeared and jumped into the waterway that he was photographing - cue a big rant on his blog about dogs and what a pain that they are - seconded by at least one other blogger.
What is it with these up their own arses, PC perfect photographer types - that's what dogs do, if I was a dog on a hot day, I'd jump in a ditch too. The point they always miss is that they have travelled to someone else's patch, the dogs and their owner probably walk that same patch every day of the year and then one day they have to endure some prat appearing out of the undergrowth, trying to stick his lens up a dragonfly's arse to get that perfect, better than anybody else's, macro shot. I doubt that dog owner takes his dogs into another county to annoy somebody on their own patch - some of these birdwatchers/photographers need to accept that other people enjoy the countryside in different ways, it's not for them alone.
Thank Christ for big, wide open and unpopular North Kent marshes, the dogs and I love the solitude.

Drying Times

Since my last posting the reserve has continued to dry out at an amazing rate and clearly we are now settling into the annual summer event now of bone hard ground and very low water levels, it'd now be almost impossible to convince a stranger that just four months ago we were experiencing the wettest winter on record. All of the rills that traverse the flat grazing marsh for the benefit of wader chicks, full of water just a month ago, are now dry and cracked.

With the breeding season now coming to and end and many young birds and their parent dispersing in post-breeding flocks and little water to attract passage birds, it'll become an increasingly quiet next few months wildlife wise, with mainly butterflies to brighten up each visit.
And of course wildflowers, along one ditch in particular there are clouds of this Marsh Bedstraw in flower at the moment, not the most spectacular of flowers but I like it.

Every year I can't resist photographing the bulls on their summer holidays with the ladies. There are two of these fine black specimens in a herd of around thirty cows in one field on the reserve, that's fifteen each if they share - reminds me of some of the better nights in the Swinging 60's!

One early morning out there I watched these two sailing vessels making their way down the Swale, the sailing barge looked like it was chasing after it's baby barge.

One morning last week I came across this late brood of Greylag Geese being shepherded along a ditch by their parents.

I took this photo of a Redshank on Sunday as I drove back down the Elmley track. It was sat on top of a gate post and I was amazed that it allowed my car to edge to within a few feet of it, close enough to take this photo with my little camera through the windscreen.

On a more serious note, Kent has been very excited this last couple of weeks to find that it's first pair of Black-winged Stilts were nesting, fortunately on the RSPB's Cliffe marshes reserve, where they were given 24hr surveillance. Four chicks duly hatched and were photographed and what happened next - they were bloody predated!

This seems to be happening more and more these days, look at Springwatch this year, where a complete colony of breeding Black-headed Gulls and Avocets was cleaned out in one night by a single rogue badger. It's happening far too frequently now a days, where birds breeding for the first time in this country, or who are only breeding in tiny numbers, are having their attempts to establish breeding colonies ruined by very common and predatory species such as Herring Gulls, LBB Gulls, Magpies, crows and foxes. It really is about time that we took a firmer stance with some of these predator species and increased culling rather than continually giving in to the ridiculous and likely argument put up by bunny-huggers that losing the first ever brood of BW Stilts is justifiable because what ever ate them has a right to live and feed its young just the same, despite the fact that Herring Gulls say, outnumber them by hundreds of thousands to one. In my book, that one rogue badger at Minsmere, (and one hopes that the RSPB do quietly achieve that), should "disappear" one night.

Quiet Times

It's been a struggle just lately to find anything worthwhile to comment on, apart from the weather which continues in it's topsy-turvy style - last week hot, sunny and humid and this week heavy grey skies and chilly N. winds. It does seem however, that the dryness of the ground appears to be settling into a prolonged spell, supported by Met. Office forecasts, not really what anybody trying to grow crops needs. Having said that, so far on the reserve the cattle have struggled to make any great impression on the grass levels and counting hatched and fledging wader chicks has been pretty difficult as they regularly disappear among the taller areas of grass and sedge.
Considering how ideal the conditions on the reserve were after the mild, wet winter, we were hopeful of a really good breeding season for Lapwings this year but with one final count yet to do, the totals of both breeding pairs and fledged young are not exceptional. The heady days of 2010's 81 breeding pairs of Lapwings seem far away at the moment, despite improvements to the reserve making it seem pretty much ideal for them. Over the last two years they also appear to have also changed their preference of breeding site, almost ignoring the western half of the reserve to favour the eastern half, which is hard to figure out. The western half consists of previously well favoured breeding areas of flat, short grazed fields containing numerous rills of shallow water with muddy fringes, ideal for providing insects for growing chicks. The now favoured eastern half of the reserve consists of the Flood field, which begins the breeding season with large areas of standing water or water-logged grass and sedge, and one or two other part-flooded fields, there has to be a reason there somewhere.
Redshanks on the other hand, are doing really well and this year has seen a continuation of the upward rise in numbers of breeding pairs, and fairly spread throughout the reserve.

The latest breeding discovery was also very satisfying because we thought that we had lost them this year, the Barn Owls have been successful, or perhaps that should be Barn Owl. They have nested on the reserve pretty much continuously for the last twenty-odd years but during this last winter they first of all disappeared and then eventually, only one has been seen, never two at times as is the norm. That has remained the case on an almost daily basis but an inspection of the nest box last week found three almost fledged chicks, which were rung. So we remain a bit mystified, why have we never seen a second bird.

Lastly, the Mute Swans, as they do each year, have provided us with the usual and delightful sight of their cygnets in the early summer sun.

Save the Harrier

Reading a local blog the other day I was intrigued by the blogger's obvious excitement when urging readers to sign a new E-Petition that had been started by the ex-Conservation Director of the RSPB, Mark Avery, this is the BIG One the blogger stated.
I had a read of the petition, found at http://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com (trawl down to the 28th May) and it is an E-Petition started by Mark Avery in a somewhat tongue in cheek effort to get driven grouse shooting in England banned in order to help protect Hen Harriers from persecution. I say tongue in cheek because he hasn't got a hope in hell's chance of getting the wealthy owners, including Royalty, of the great grouse moors to accept such a thing and pretty much admits that in his petition. However it will obviously appeal to all those hunting antis out there that will sign anything at the drop of a hat if the words ban and shooting are in the title.

Now I have been involved in various forms of conservation for over many, many years and in recent years have been part of a team that counts the numbers of harriers going into evening roost at numerous sites in Kent during the six winter months. At the site that I watch at, Hen Harriers have had a traditional roost for countless years but in the last few years have dwindled down to the fact that this last winter, for the first time, no Hen Harriers were recorded on any of the six roost counts that I carried out. So I know, from actual first hand experience, how badly the Hen Harrier is doing and would be happy to petition for most things that would help the birds but Mr. Avery's petition makes no mention of what he sees as the after effects of such a ban becoming law. Obviously, many of those that have rushed to sign the petition simply presume that such a ban would mean everything suddenly becoming honky-dory overnight and that the harriers will start to breed in much greater numbers because there will then be no nasty shooting types protecting their grouse by shooting and poisoning them - well that sounds great and I'd like to believe it as much as the next person, but come on, it ain't as simple as that.
Would all the people that get profit, wages and pleasure from what is a multi-million pound industry, simply accept such a ban with no spite, would potentially, even more persecution of harriers take place because people would see them as the cause of such a ban, would the spite of estates who until the ban had always left harriers alone, not be brought into the conflict. And let's face it, shooting and poisoning are the more blatant and identifiable ways of killing harriers, a more subtle way is to identify a nest and "accidentally" stand on the eggs as you walk by. There is also then, the huge and costly amount of moorland management that goes into making a moor ideal not only for grouse but for Golden Plover, Curlew, Merlin, Meadow Pipits, etc. etc. Ban grouse shooting and all of that management and it's necessary pest controls will likely stop, might the moors become overgrown, or what would be in place to stop huge moors being grazed to the ground by sheep by the owner as a means of both revenge and making profit.
People who rush to sign petitions need to first put aside their bias for a moment and look at the bigger picture and determine if in the long run, such bans will actually help to protect a particular species. Assuming that the moors will still look as good after a ban, or that the RSPB will simply rush out and buy them is a dream too far.

On a slightly different subject, I found as usual, Robin Page's article in the Telegraph this weekend, interesting, especially where he quoted what Martin Harper (Mark Avery's successor as head of Conservation at the RSPB) had to say when addressing the National Gamekeepers Organisation recently. He told them that the RSPB controlled mink and foxes - apparently 30 mink bit the dust on RSPB reserves last year and 273 foxes were shot on 26 reserves.
Now, as someone who has actually got his hands dirty on nature reserves, I like Robin Page, have known for some years that the RSPB control predators and not just mink and foxes and not always by shooting. But why are the RSPB so reluctant to report these facts in their magazine, they always give glowing reports and photographs of such reserves and what they have achieved, why not tell the whole story of how they have achieved such success. In that way we might end up with RSPB members better educated in the true ways of countryside and reserve management and far less of those that believe that such things don't and shouldn't happen.