Time to build the Ark?

On January the second, I had a wander along to the Restharrow Scrape. 

A far as I c an remember we were already well into the wet season, and the water level of the scrape had already reached a height that exceeded the norm. Nevertheless there was still quite a large island in front of the hide on which a lot of the ducks chose to sit around.

Yesterday, despite the days benign weather, there was, as it has been for sometime now, no obvious sign of a island.

But a careful look at the identical area of water show that the top of the island is just about high enough to allow a couple of Shelducks the luxury of standing.

 On of my favourites on this particular puddle are the Dabchicks, and at this time of year they are in splendid plumage and can be good fun to watch. The are not too impressed when an uninvited guest invades their territory.

And the braying noise, I suppose that it could be called their song, that they used to advertise their ownership, is one of the great sounds in the spring.

Our Wet, Wet, Wet Climate

The flooding situation in East Kent is not as dramatic as it is in some parts of the country, but for those people around Ickham, Wickenborough and then through to Bridge and Patrixbourne and surrounding villages the situation is quite critical. Closer to here the Alkham Valley is flooded and the cricket pitch in the village centre has become a large village pond.

The Cricket Pitch at Alkam.

Football Pitch at Alkham

Hydroponics at Meggets Lane, Alkham

The fledgling Dour, normally at trickle at Meggets Lane.

 High winds have brought down a large Cedar Tree at the Old Rectory Ickham.

 Wickham Lane, Ickham, impassable to traffic as the Little Stour overflows.

 Drill Lane. Ickham, also closed to traffic. The water still rising and the sandbags in place.

 Grove Ferry Road, coming from Stodmarsh the road was closed at the junction near Elm Tree Farm.

 Wellies on and the water nearly reach the top, but a good view of the reserve that now looks like a large lake.

 One car seems to be stuck, or parked in a rather silly place. The driver in the car coming towards me stopped, wound his window down, and asked me if he could get through OK. When I assured him he'd be OK, but asked him not to got too fast as he passed me, the stupid idiot managed to create a wave that topped my wellies. If you know Mr R14 ALT. pass on my good wishes and tell him he's a pratt!

 Looking away from the reserve, in a NE direction, the fields were still mainly under water.

 The Little Stour at the Blue Bridge had over flowed on both sides, making huge lakes.

 The water table is now so high and the ground totally saturated that more rain will inevitably cause further flooding.

 The farmland by the Salvatoris depot is largely submerged. This is looking North-East

And the same situation looking South-West.

Thirty degrees under

When will the frogs learn, never lay your spawn without looking at the long range weather forecast!

It's a shame the pond was full of spawn, but I doubt if any of this lot will survive the weather. It is about the coldest March day for 30 years and follows last year when we had a "heat wave". In old money (deg F) it was about 30 degrees lower today than on the same date last year, and out in the Northerly wind if felt double that. I certainly wasn't expecting another load of snow, and in places where it had blown off the field and formed drifts against the road side, it needed to be cleared to get the roads open. 

There have been a good flock of finches round and this morning there were at least 60 Chaffinches feeding round the garden, with around 30 Greenfinches and a few Goldfinches. The hoped for Bramblings and Siskins didn't appear but at lead one of the Long-tailed Tits became bolder and fed right by the house.

On the few occasions I've seen them in the garden they've either fed on one of the peanut feeders at the end of the garden, or on a couple of occasions on a sunflower seed feeder.

Obviously the bird today had decided that the energy form fat balls would be best at fending off the cold wind. It spent quite a long time moving round each ball, as if picking out the choicest bits. While it was there it was joined at various times by the male Blackcap, Goldfinches, Blue Tits and Robins. Robins in the plural did cause a slight kerfuffle when two arrived at the same time. Even in today's conditions they remain territorial and intolerant of any intrusion when another appears.

 

Underneath all the activity above  Pied Wagtail trotted round picking up the bits dropped by the careless feeders above. 

As I had to be in Deal in the early afternoon I did my customary drive along the Ancient Highway and took a look at the Restharrow Scrape. The wind was whipping across the water and nearly all the birds remained hidden in the reeds. The odd Teal and Tufted Duck did venture out but mostly it was a game of hide and seek looking between the stems. The cold temperatures and strong wing whipping up the water had produced some strangely iced reeds and sedges.

 The ice along the edge of the small island was also formed in artistic shapes, that were less easy to explain.

I wasn't surprised that there was no sign of the pair of Lapwings that had been displaying on the spot last week. Minus two degrees must cool off an ardour.brought on by the spring like spell we were having.

Snow Birds

The snow is now bad enough down the lane to the back of the house for me not to want to drive down it. So I confined myself to the house today, apart from going into the garden to top up the feeders. The pictures are taken through the windows, so are even worse than my normal standard, but it saves me getting castigated for letting the cold in if I open them!

These Starlings got the benefit of a de-snowed feeder once I'd added some more fat balls to it. This is a popular feeder as most species have learnt to get on it, but the Starling do a pretty good job of keeping possession until something a large as a Jay appears.

Although Chaffinches are now adept at using most feeders, they spend much of their time on the ground mopping up the bits dropped from above. With two feeding stations, one on each side of the house it's difficult to get a count of the birds in the garden, but I reckon there are at least 40 Chaffinches around most of the time.

Sharing the ground level are an increasing number of Blackbirds, there were about 25 around the garden today. They have to put up with the local Feral Pigeons that muscle in on the pickings.

The birds providing the crumbs are the less than delicate eaters, Greenfinches and Goldfinches. There are up to 30-40 Greenfinches around at peak times but fewer Goldfinches this year with a maximum of around 10.

Even though there's lots of water around in the form of snow it is still important for birds to have bathing water around. It may look pretty cold in the pond stream, but it is necessary if the birds are going to maintain their feathers in tip-top condition. 

This morning as the snow came down, some areas were very soft and I noticed a couple of Blackbirds sinking far enough into the snow to need to use their wings, almost in  a swimming or rowing motion, to propel themselves through it.

There are a few Pied Wagtails around the Village, but I rarely see them feeding in the garden until we have bad weather. They seem to be gleaners of small pieces bequeathed from above, I'm yet to see one attempt to go on a feeder.

On the other hand our national bird, the Robin, had managed to learn the tricks of using feeders in the last couple of years. This one is on a feeder very close to the lounge window, but it has now fear of coming close.

Even the more wary Gold and Greenfinches will come to this feeder, although they can be spooked by movement inside. 

I've put a small hanging bird table on the pergola just outside the lounge ( there's a vine on it but the grapes never ripen so no wine yet!). I really is very small and usually only Blue Tits get on it.

This Goldfinch is on a piece of the vine that I should have pruned, and is waiting its turn for the sunflower seed feeder. I've yet to see then on the fat-balls.

As the weather gets harder so the tolerance distance between the birds gets smaller. They seem quite prepared to feed almost shoulder to shoulder at the moment.

Over the years Song Thrushes have become less and less frequent as visitors to the garden, we've got enough snails for them but they for some reason they are in decline. Yesterday I saw one feeding on the snow a couple of times and today there were two at one time. Always a welcome addition.

As I said the hanging bird table is very small and despite several efforts a Starling that was determined to get on there failed very time. This Blackbird was more persistent and after two or three goes finally mastered the art of landing on a very small runway.

Great Tits, like Blue Tits seldom stay on a feeder to feed. They pick up a choice morsel and then fly off into cover, only to return a short time afterwards and do it all over again. I resume that this is an anti predator strategy, although somewhat strangely I haven't seen a Sparrowhawk in the garden for a few weeks. On the other hand House Sparrows have made a small come back, and I counted six in the hedge a couple of days ago. It would be great if this fledgling flock could reach the 30+ that were regular in the same bushes up to around five years ago.

In heaven you won't hear the mosquitoes.

I got fed up with sitting in front of a screen, trying to sort out a project I'm working on. I found an excuse that convinced me I needed to go out for a while and had a wander. What I really wanted to find was a hunting Barn or Short-eared Owl. It seems that this bit of Kent has been left out of the Owls wanderings.

I peered over the fence at the farm reservoir at New Does Farm Sandwich and was surprised at how many Tufted Ducks were on there, at least 35, plus two Pochard. I wonder if they are just resting or whether this over large plastic paddling pool actually has enough food in it to make it a worth while feeding site for the ducks.

Have you ever looked through your binoculars and seen what appeared to be a distant flock of birds, only to find, once focused that it is in fact a swarm of insects?

We're in the middle of January and one wouldn't normally associate "flocks" of Mosquitoes with visual hazards at this time of year. Even with the hard frost of last night there still seem to be a large number of insects in the air. I know that many insects are capable of surviving the winter but it is unusual the fins so many mossies around as there are at the moment.

Gull force winds

Today I woke to the noise of a very strong wind blowing from the South West. Gusts were getting up to around 55 mph by mid-day and walking around the cliff top was not a pleasant prospect. It occurred to me that Dover Harbour might be sheltering some birds blown off course, but when I got there I found that the entrance to the pier was locked off, presumably it wasn't thought to be safe to walk to the end with the strength of the wind. Instead I went on the Samphire Hoe, and shared a few minutes nattering with Phil Smith over a nice cup of tea. The sea wall was closed due to the weather and I ended up going on to Folkestone. Gulls were in short supply around Wear Bay Road, where Mediterranean Gulls can normally be found on top of the Street Lights.

The sea was looking pretty choppy and along Lower Sandgate Road waves were crashing over the groynes.

Looking back towards the harbour the sea looked very uninviting, certainly not the place for fishermen.

The Harbour had quite a few fishing boats safely in the calmer water, although whether or not they'd have been out with out the blow I don't know.

I did find quite a few gulls resting on the empty car parks. There's no doubt that this Great Black-backed Gull would win a beauty contest.

Herring Gulls in various plumages would have been useful as teaching tools to demonstrate the moults through the years to maturity.

What I was really looking for were some Mediterranean Gulls amongst the Black-headed Gulls. It took a while and I only found two, an adult in amongst a roosting flock of adult Black-headed Gulls and a first winter bird standing alone on the tarmac.

Unfortunately neither of these birds had colour rings so it won't be possible to check their histories. With the growing number of young produced in Kent it would be interesting to know if the birds that winter around Folkestone are just from those that breed in N France, Belgium and Holland, or whether any of the Kent birds join them.