Somewhere beyond the sea Somewhere waitin' for me.................

 I wandered down to the bay after lunch and spent some time looking at a mainly empty sea.

I did come across three Common Seals some way out and not visible without the aid of a telescope. I bumped into an OLD friend, or rather he covered my telescope to attract my attention. Jack told me that the local fishermen are reporting a lack of fish, and this will account for the lack of auks, Gannets and Divers on my sea watch. I did manage to add a few common species to my year list including Kittiwake, Fulmar, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe and Cormorant.

Even with the sun in my eyes I still enjoyed the view of the Bay from the Lees. 

From up here a big chunk out of the cliffs reveals some quite clean chalk face formed when the was a large fall a couple of years ago. As I looked out to sea a small group of Brent Geese headed north.

As dusk arrived I had another look round for the Barn Owl, but ended up looking along Pond Lane for anything in the field there. Almost immediately I came across a Common Buzzard, and as I watched it a Kestrel was up in the air, hovering behind it. Apart from that and a few Black-headed Gulls there was very little to see until I surprised a Common Snipe from the side of the road as I drove down the hill.

 From the top of pond lane there isa good view back to the village and "The Hidden House" is clearly visible.

 From up here I can see our attic windows It helps me to realise what a good view I get from them back over the fields. The attic list is quite good and includes Osprey, Honey Buzzard and Hobby.

 Just at the bottom of Pond Lane is St Peter's Church and Wallet's Court. The Church yard and gardens is a good place for Little Owl, but no sign tonight.

St Margaret's Church from Pond Lane.

No winter yet but is Spring in the Air?

Today was a much brighter day, and I managed to venture out for a short walk round the village.

A walk down Chapel Lane showed that winter really hasn't arrived. There are more flowers out than I can remember seeing before and even a few bees around,

The village pond is always a focal point, the only problem is that it does sometimes attract people to feed slices of bread to the ducks. There are two things wrong, it isn't good for the ducks and it does attract rats.

There were only two Mallards on the pond, but the drake was looking very dapper and if it stays warm and they remain true to type it won't be long before spring will be in the air.

Just down the road, at the corner of Dover Road, a great deal of noise was coming from the rookery. Most of the nests are in Holm Oaks, but a few are now in view in other trees. 

Rooks, and their co-tenants Jackdaws, are among the earliest of our birds to start getting their nests sorted out. Breeding probably won't start until Mark, but a great deal playing with sticks will take place before then.

It's got me Singing the Blues

Despite the winter-like weather there are some seasonal changes in the make up of the birds visiting the garden. A little on the late side, but by the end of March the usual influx of migrating Siskins had started. They seemed arrive in batches with several for a couple of days then none on the 31st March or 1st April, but a few back again this morning.

The groups of Siskins coming down to feed in the garden are just a small reflection of what is going on at the "vis-mig" watch point near the Monument. where daily totals of over 100 are being reported.

The flock of Chaffinches shows little sign of diminishing yet, this morning I quickly got to 60 with still more in the trees around.

Meanwhile the excitement was happening not far away, as a Bluethroat had been seen near the large manure heap near Braeside Stables. It was found yesterday morning and Brendan Ryan posted a couple of stunning photos on the KOS website. Well I had a couple of tries yesterday but with no luck and spent a total of around four hours today in four sessions without seeing it. The worst thing is I can see the mountain of horse given by the regular Yellowhammers at this site.

As I went down to the stake out before breakfast this Grey Heron was standing in the middle of the adjacent field.

There were at least a dozen Yellowhammers around, some of the males are now exceptionally bright and even the females are quite striking. I'm not sure if the females become brighter as they age. Along with the Yellowhammers I was pleased to see a couple of their close relatives, Corn Buntings. 

Nowhere near as colourful as the Yellowhammers the Corn Bunting is the ultimate Little Brown Job, but I think that they are still attractive in their own way. Like the Yellowhammer changes in our countryside and farming methods have brought about a large population decline nationally, but locally we are still not doing to badly. We will need some spring weather soon if these resident species are going to be able to get on and breed successfully.

 There are always loads of Wood Pigeons around the area so it was good to see two of the smaller and shyer Stock Doves come n to feed. These are not to be confused with the feral pigeons, there are descendants of Rock Doves that plague our towns and cities.

One last shot of the brightest Yellowhammer on show today. It almost glowed when it was in the shadows.

The world is in THEIR HANDS

 I took my moth "exhibit" to the wildlife event in the village this afternoon. As the weather was so good the action took place in the field opposite the Village Hall. I did get to see quite a few people, several who'd visited us during the garden safaris over the years, but also quite a few others who were probably having their first proper look at some of the garden moths. Most kids get to see butterflies, in fact I think several classes in the village school are doing projects on butterflies at the moment, but few realise how many great looking moths that we also have.

 

Holding a small moth requires a lot of concentration, and of course it also means that you are not at all scared of holding insects. It's great to get children used to the idea that insects are a part of their environment and that they can be interesting. Of course they need to learn that some things, like bees and wasps, can sting and need respect, but they also need to be confident and not scared what are mostly harmless creatures.

 

One of the most popular "bugs" I had on view was a Cockchafer These large beetles, also known as May Bugs are quite daunting at first. But once the children found they it was fun to have then walking on their finger they all lost their reluctance and had a try. They Cockchafer has a king of natural Velcro on their feet that makes then stick quite tightly to an out stretched finger. Their grubs are a pest though, they're the big white grubs that eat roots, and are the enemy of potato growers.

 

When it was time to let all the moths go I had quite a lot of help from this bunch of budding lepidopterists. The seemed to enjoy watching them make their escape. Of course the sight of a camera produced a certain amount of "posing"!

Up until a few days ago mothing had been terrible in May, the worst I've ever know. The warmer weather mas meant that it's been a bit better for the last couple of days, so I did a least have a few moths to show. One that I didn't take along was this Lunar Double-stripe, it is quite a rare migrant and the first I've caught or seen. It will be released tomorrow night, after a couple of people who want to see it have visited it.

I was.surprised to see this stuffed bird on the the Rippledown stall. From a distance I realised it wasn't a Common Kestrel, but a Lesser Kestrel, a bird of southern Europe with just a handful of records ion the UK. It turned out to be the bird that was found dead at Dover Castle on on 20 April 1989, a bizzare record. Presumable the bird had made it across the channel but had become exhausted and too weak to feed. It is the only Lesser Kestrel I've seen in Kent, but hopefully a fit and healthy one might arrive sometime.

Meanwhile in South Foreland Valley the two young Konik Pony foals are growing fast. I wrote about one before my Pacific trip, and the week after I went a second foal was born. This one seems to have an itch that needs scratching.

In the evening light his fellow new conservationist (for that is their purpose) trotted over to see him.

A bit of mutual grooming and scratching was on the agenda. I must admit I always like having my back scratched, much better than doing it your self!

Keeping my fingers Crossed

On Sunday afternoon I'm taking part in a Wildlife even in the Village Hall.

I hope that a lot of families in the village will come along. I always have a lot of interest in the garden wildlife when the garden is open for the Garden Safari weekend, particularly the moths that I catch in the garden. My aim was, and hopefully still is, to show some of the moths that live in our gardens, largely unseen to all those interested. I must admit at the beginning of the week I was doubtful if I was going to have any to show anyone. Foe nearly three weeks, since I returned from my travels, I have run my moth traps with hardly any success. Never have I known a May so bad. For instance, on the 18th May this year I caught two moths of two species, on the same day last year it was 52 moths of 22 species.  This terrible situation seems to be due to the cold wet weather. The knock on effect must mean that there will be far fewer caterpillar around that many of our birds rely on to feed their young. The last two days have been significantly better and hopefully, on Sunday afternoon I'll have some moths on show, so I'm looking forward to seeing some potential young wildlife enthusiasts.

Yesterday as I was checking through my trap I was delighted to hear and then watch a Willow Warbler singing in one of the trees in the garden. This was at about 5.45 am and, not surprisingly it didn't stay around. May 23rd seems quite late for a migrant coming through, but I presume the awful spring weather has help up many of our summer visitors. 

And did those feet?

Last night I had the privilege to talk to the ladies of the village at a WI meeting. It's the second time I've done this, the last time was on 12/1/2010, when the village was almost snowed in. I thought that not many would make it, but I reckoned without the spirit of the WI and there was a good turnout. Last night was even better and it certainly made me wish that other groups that I belong to, like the KOS, had such good attendances at meetings.

The fact that it wasn't that long ago led me to think about what changes there had been in the time (apart from the snow melting). The cottage at Bockhill was still a shell, just starting to have the roof done, then. Now it has been renovated and has new occupants, and the barn behind it is being modernised and incorporated into the building. As I always thought that it was a sad sight to see the old building crumbling I'm really pleased to see it back in use.

Back along the Droveway, towards the village there has been no such movement in the state of the site where "Franconia" still, just about, stands. I last mentioned it on the 7th July, when the site round the empty building had been cleared. Since then the building has become a ruin and the cleared site is now becoming a jungle. I guess the development of the site is held up at the planning stage, but it doesn't enhance the look of the area as it stands.

At long last something appears to be happening at the burned out house in the High Street. Again this eyesore has been around too long and the sooner something appears there the better.

I had a good time at the meeting, although I wasn't all that confident when my computer and projector refused to talked to each other when I first set up. Fortunately there were lots of cups of tea to be drunk and other things going on, so my panic wasn't noticed by too many. A quick switch off and restart of the computer solved it and the "no source found" message went and all was OK.

The one positive to come out of me taking most of the interval getting set up was that it go me off having to judge the competition. Ive done this before at other meetings and have always felt that although I may have become a friend of the winners, I might be in danger from the losers!

Behind the group here I could see a large notice board, and of course curiosity got the better of me.

It was of course there so that the ladies could practice the words of "And did those feet..........." in readiness for England reaching the Rugby World cup final. Nothing like a good chorus of this stirring hymn to support the team out in New Zealand. Here Gloria is giving it a try, but I'm not sure she's totally convinced that we'll win.

I made the walk down to Backsands Scrape this afternoon. With the winds of the last few days, and lots of rare waders around the country, it seemed like a good idea when I started. It wasn't. There were three Little Egret's, on Green Sandpiper and four Greenshanks.

One of the greenshanks did come very close to the hide, and although I've already taken far too many pictures of Greenshanks this year I couldn't resisit a few more, especially as the light was perfect.

Deep Freeze

Hopefully today will be the last day of the very cold weather, with much warmer temperatures forecast for tomorrow.

Today though was very cold, when I stated my car this afternoon, just to check it would start, the thermometer was reading -7 deg. Fortunately the wind had dropped and it didn't actually feel that cold. For a while I thought that the freezing fog we'd be warned about was going to arrive. The church had disappeared from view and it seemed to be closing in. This was as bad as it god, and by sunset it was much clearer.

The front garden pond has now frozen over, except for a small area where some water is being pumped down the stream. It would be an ideal habitat to find a wandering Woodcock, but so far, unlike several Kent birders I haven't had one in the garden.

Kingsdown Road looked pretty bleak today and from the look of most cars along the road most people had decided to stay off the roads at the moment.

There were no new arrivals in the garden today and I was forced to take a few photographs through the window. The Pied Wagtail remained around but I say no sign of the Grey Wagtail today.

There was also another visit from a Brambling, I don't think it was same one as a few days ago. I did go on a feeder for a short while, but it didn't seem as confident as the Goldfinches in this position.

There are increasing numbers of Goldfinches around the garden and their noisy harsh calls, signalling a bit of conflict when two are contesting a favoured feeding perch are constantly heard.

The Brambling fed on the ground for a while, but after one of the periodic panics, possibly due to an unseen cruising Sparrowhawk, it didn't return.

I was surprised that the Blackbirds tolerated this Song Thrush feeding on the berries, they are normally quick to chase each other of their patch and not normally welcoming to any other birds.

Pam took a couple of nice pictures as dusk arrived. The clouds here look as if there is still a lot of snow waiting to be dropped, but thankfully so far we've be free of fresh falls since mid-morning.

The fog had lifted when Pam took this from the attic window, looking towards the remaining two sisters (What would Checkov say about that?)