Go Wild In Kent

Hi Queenie

2012-01-24T19:46:00.001Z

Went to Grain on Sunday to try and get some photos of the shorelark at high tide. A bright but windy day found me wandering up to the small beach that the shorelark seems to prefer to find not a shorelark but a Barry Wright instead.

Barry indicated that there was no sign of the shorelark but instead there was a fine gathering of sanderling, dunlin, turnstone, ringed plover and a purple sand. What cute chaps feeding and resting amongst the seaweed and attractive shoreline rubbish.

Barry managed to get some cracking shots of the purple sand before I arrived after that it became a bit trickier and the best I could manage was it sensibly having a doze albeit with one eye on me!

Barry and I then went our separate ways and as I wandered along the seawall heading further into the Medway a furry blob winged its way toward me and crashed into the grassy bank.

This is a Bombus terrestris or for those of us that struggle with latin names, me included, a buff-tailed bumblebee and a queen to boot.No doubt someone will tell me it is a queen white-tailed bumblebee but in the other photos I have the tip of the abdomen looks buff, honest. B. terrestris is a species that does emerge early in the year and there have already been plenty of sightings this year. There wasn’t much evidence of flowering plants in the near vicinity so whether this queen was going to survive I’m not sure as she certainly looked a bit dazed and was just trying to warm up a little bit. By their very nature though bumblebees being furry have adapted to life in a cold climate and in fact they don’t like really hot days as they overheat and tend to stay below ground level in their nests. Even so Jan 22nd is stretching the bounds of survival for this beastie methinks a few accompanying flowering plants would have been good.

Starting to head for home I checked the Mosco pool to see if the ring-necked duck that has been in the area was on view but once the teal, pochard and tufted ducks took one look at me they decided to leave en mass even though I was on the road a nowhere near them. Still I don’t think it was there.

A phone call from Barry (thank you) later found me joining him at Northward Hill looking at a reasonably close (i.e. in Kent!) juvenile rough-legged buzzard.

At least in the photos you can make out the tail pattern.

So no shorelark but plenty of good wildlife and some pleasing photos.

And finally…RSPB

A long time ago, I visited the legendary Minsmere RSPB reserve for the first time. Back then, even though I was in my teens I was too old to join the YOC, so I had to pay full RSPB membership (£12) and had to apply to get a permit to visit Minsmere. In those days, I don’t think you could just turn up and get in, or if you did you risked being turned away as the number of daily visitors was restricted. Coming from Hampshire having a pre-paid approved permit allowed me to turn up at the wardens hut get my name checked against a register and off I went with me dad for a day watching rarities such as avocets and marsh harriers. Fast forward a few years and I’m now living in Kent and visiting Elmley a lot. Certainly the RSPB has changed a bit and now you don’t need to apply to visit reserves. I’m getting more aware of the environment and other aspects of the natural world than just birds. I get to know a few RSPB wardens and ask them about reserve management but the RSPB reserves are just there for the birds, not interested in protecting anything else, birds, birds, birds, birds and birds. Seemed a shame to me but hey what did I know and birds were pretty cool. Fast forward a bit more, the RSPB strapline, ‘for birds, for people, for ever’ still implies it’s just for birds but now people are included too, a lot of new reserves with great visitor facilities were appearing. Fast forward to today, who would have thought that the content of Birds magazine would have included so many pictures of other wildlife, even including mammals on the front cover! Who would have thought that the RSPB would have had so much success conserving not just birds but a whole forest eco-system in Sierra Leone, fantastic. I like the RSPB, I’ve supported them for years and they do a brilliant job, some of my best friends work for them, they are a British success story. So why can’t they get it right at Cliffe Pools?

Bumblebees

2012-01-16T21:58:00.001Z

My last post has provoked a comment from someone I hold dear that I sound like a moaning old codger or words to that effect. So in an effort to maintain a status quo of normality here is a belated post regarding my growing interest in bumblebees. Whilst there are only a small number of UK species, I’m finding them quite hard to identify. I’m lucky though in that going to Grain I’m getting experience of a couple of the rare species to be found in Kent, namely shrill carder Bombus sylvarum and large carder bee Bombus muscorum. Shrill carder bee has a distribution in Kent that is mainly confined to the Thames corridor although it does appear to now be cropping up in a few other coastal localities within the county. It is quite a small but distinctive bee with an obvious dark furry saddle across the thorax between the two wing joints probably being the easiest id feature although you need to be wary as older bees of other carder species can show a black mark where the body fur has worn away. In fresh condition they also show an orange red tail.

Then onto the large carder bee B muscorum.

I found the above presumed Queen, hanging on this flower on a cool and damp September morning. The problem with trying to id B. muscorum is that it is very similar to brown banded carder bee Bombus humilis. Plus you also have to rule out common carder Bombus pascuorum, which can be done by checking the colour of the hairs of the pollen basket in the queens and workers (i.e. all the females), so, easy isn’t it.

The following 4 photos are almost certainly B. muscorum (large carder bee), well I cannot see a black hair on the pollen basket. There is also the separation feature from common carder B. pascuorum of no black hairs on the side of the abdomen which can sometimes be very extensive.

Now this little chap and yes I think it is a drone (male) on the shape of the antennae but I could be wrong is a common carder B pascuorum but you couldn’t really tell from this photo alone and i’ve probably got the id wrong anyway.

Now onto something a little different from carders. I think the following two photos show Bombus ruderarius or red-shanked carder bee.

The features on this declining species being the orange hairs on the hind tibia, the abdomen being about as long as it is wide and the pale coloured wings. This hopefully separates it from Bombus lapidarius red-tailed bumblebee and Bombus rupestris hill cuckoo bee, both being commoner, so i’m sticking my neck out here going for the rarer of the 3.

Now the next photo is interesting in that I took it at Darenth CountryPark and I think it is a B. humilis or muscorum which just could be a new site. Although I could have got it totally wrong and it is a common carder B. pascuorum, is that a dark hair on the pollen basket?

So bumblebees are cute, cuddly, furry, funny make great noises especially when they get stuck in a foxglove flower and are not easy to identify. Grain has a couple of rarer species and they are proposing to build an airport there what a tragedy if it went ahead.

Toilets

2012-01-15T19:18:00.001Z

Went back out onto the Hoo Peninsula again today, this time with Lisa. If you need a toilet stop when you are in between Cliffe and say Northward Hill then the public toilets, separate men and women's, at Cooling are worth knowing about. Situated just past the church on a relatively little used road and very clean. Stopped off at the lookout at Bromhey Farm again and managed to get distant views of a couple of marsh harriers and a couple of buzzards one of which might have been a rough-legged but Lisa was getting cold so we headed back to the car before I could get decent views. Don’t forget there’s a toilet at Bromhey Farm another good clean example although only a single loo for all visitors to share. I then drove to Grain to try and get some photos of the shorelark in the wonderful winter sunshine. On the way driving through High Halstow there is another toilet opportunity with public loos available although I don’t know what these ones are like. Shortly after starting to wander along the seafront at Grain a canary flew past us making a sound not unlike a snow bunting but it was a canary. On approaching the beach we noticed a couple with their dogs were wandering along it, bugger! It would have been the perfect photo opportunity with the sun behind me but unfortunately the bird wasn’t there. Lisa and I then went for along wander around the Grain area, down west lane to see if the Bewick’s Swans were visible but we couldn’t see them, but a nice flock of 102 lapwings. On returning to the car I decided to give the shorelark another try and drove to the power station perimeter gate, parked up and jumped out for a quick look at the beach on the rising tide. Bumped into Alan and Brenda Fossey who had not seen the lark either and then Jerry Warne turned up as well. I think it has been a while since so many birders had been in one place at Grain, As the lark was not being seen I decided to call it a day but received a message later to say that the shorelark was still there presumably appearing on the beach with the rising tide (odd), I wonder if it turned up with any turnstones?

There are also public toilets at Grain but I've never been brave enough to go near them.

Going back to the two rough-legged buzzards I saw on the 10th, although both birds were very distant, one I certainly thought was a juvenile with pale head, light bases to the primaries and what appeared to be buff washed coverts with the obvious white based tail and broad dark trailing edge.

And finally… Airports

As per the comment on my 10th Jan post (thank you), yes certainly the Hoo Peninsula and especially Grain could have a very final episode within my lifetime. It’s hard to believe that twice now the general area has come under threat with the very dubious honour of hosting a new UK airport. On one of my weekday visits to Grain last year I happened to be interviewed by a journalist for one of the local radio stations who was trying to get views from locals. I was watching the journalist for a while as anyone with a microphone trying to drum up comments from folks sitting enjoying the views into the estuary is a bit different from the norm. What I found odd was that the locals she attempted to talk too were not willing to comment and therefore I was itching for her to approach me. I stood in the same spot and probably out of desperation to get some comment from someone I had my chance. She asked me what was special about the area and what did I think about the proposal to build a Thames airport. I managed to provide what I considered to be a reasonable answer and only managed to mention Boris Johnson once where I said that ‘I thought he was the Mayor of London and didn’t realise the London boundary extended this far i.e. Grain. I suggested that he concentrated on keeping Londoners happy and left the people of Kent alone’. No doubt further posts on this subject will appear in due course.

Catching Up

2012-01-10T15:00:00.001Z

I was going to go to Sheppey today but at the last minute changed my mind and decided to go to the Hoo Peninsula, primarily to try and see rough legged buzzard and shore lark. First stop was the lookout at Eastborough Farm. With the day almost windless it was quite a pleasant January experience to stand there and overlook the superb grazing marsh albeit if it is a long way from the actual lookout, a telescope is a real necessity here. Initially my first scans picked up no raptors but after about 30 mins and 1 marsh harrier, I picked up a raptor straight out sitting on a fence post, it looked like a rough legged buzzard and once it started to preen I could see further features which clinched it for me.Then a clump of raptors started to appear with 3 buzzards and 4 marsh harriers, soaring or sitting in the various leafless scrub. I then picked up a rough legged buzzard flying low over the bare fields and slightly behind and occasionally obscured by a reed fringed ditch. It finally sat in a field almost totally obscured. I then scanned back to the original raptor clump area and saw what looked like a second rough legged buzzard sat on a fence post with nearby buzzard and marsh harrier. Excellent a second bird, I don’t think I have seen two together in the UK before so a good result. I then moved onto Grain to look for the shorelark that had been found just before xmas I think. It favours the area of the seawall south of the outflow to and including the beach adjacent to the perimeter fence gate. I had great views of it on the beach where it seemed to be loosely associating with a group of turnstone. As the tide rose the feeding turnstone departed up river and the shorelark went with them!

Spoke to one of the anglers who mentioned that recently a 22 pound cod had been caught in or around the mouth of the Medway and this isn’t the first time that anglers have mentioned catching cod in the area. Good news to me that such a large codfish at least existed in the river and estuary. Then he went on to say that trawlers had also been in the Medway estuary, so not really much chance for the larger cod to continue to recover.

And finally… Tesco’s

This year i’m going to start to be a bit vocal regarding environmental issues that get under my skin. The sub section will always start with ‘And finally…’

Did you know that Tesco’s sell live turtles in their stores in China? This has been going on for some years now and as a result I boycott Tesco’s refusing to support them in the high street. I recently sent their customer services section an e-mail asking them when they intend to stop selling live turtles and received the following reply.

Dear John
Thank you for your email and please accept my apologies for the delay in my response.
We appreciate you are concerned about the animal welfare issues associated with the sale of turtles in China. We have a track record of considering evidence, working with others and listening to their concerns. As a result, we have made several significant improvements to the way turtles are sold in our stores, such as making sure that the way in which they are handled is to the highest possible standard.
This approach to animal welfare and the sale of live turtles - seeking out research, acting on it and educating customers - is unprecedented by any retailer operating in China and we hope that these actions will help to drive up standards throughout the supply chain.
Some organisations are asking us to stop selling live turtles completely. While we are committed to upholding the very important issue of animal welfare, we also need to balance different cultural attitudes, in this case respecting the different traditions, expectations and values on this issue that exists in China.
Turtles are a popular and traditional part of the Chinese diet and, having addressed these important animal welfare concerns, we continue to sell turtles in our stores in China.
Thank you for your interest.
Kind regards
Lexy St Clair
Tesco Customer Service

Well the reply hasn’t changed my views on this activity. China has a poor reputation for upholding human rights let alone starting to consider animal rights. No doubt to meet with so called Chinese tradition, Tesco’s will start selling dried pangolin skins and bear gall along with tiger bones in their Asian stores soon within the toiletries aisle, has anyone checked?

Just In The Nick

2012-01-01T15:27:00.001Z

Managed to get a local short walk in this morning before the rain set in. Only up to Highcross and back to get a photo of the pond where I have found dragonflies and damselflies previously. Flushed a group of 15 golden plover from a ploughed field which I think is a first for the aera for me and also managed to see a couple of stonechats and a nice group of c. 25 linnets.

Sri lanka 2

2011-12-02T21:46:00.001Z

More photos from our superb Sri Lanka trip.

Sinharaja

Yala, leopard jam

Hindu temple

Dambulla Cave Temple

Polonnaruwa

Yellow-browed Bulbul

Ruddy Mongoose

Oriental Scops Owl

Leopard

Grey Langur

Indian Nightjar

Jungle Owlet

Samba Deer

Hindu Temple

Black-naped Hare

Blue-tailed Bee eater

Grey Slender Loris

Sigirya Rock Fortress

Sri Lanka Swallow

Brown-capped Babbler

Moon Stone

Sri Lanka

2011-12-02T18:37:00.001Z

In November Lisa and I went to Sri Lanka for an 18 day trip focusing on some of the harder to see mammals and birds found in the country. We booked through Naturetrek and had a superb local ground agent of Baurs. The Baurs guides and driver were absolutely brilliant and I would recommend them to anyone thinking of visiting the country for any type of wildlife trip. In all we saw c. 194 species of birds including 26 endemics, c. 32 species of mammals. A selection of photos below.

White-spotted Chevrotain

Sinharaja

Sigiriya Rock Fortress

Serendib Scops Owl

Sri Lanka Frogmouth

Ceylon Blue Magpie

Brown Mongoose

Spot Winged Thrush

Blue Whale

Bryde’s Whale

Sloth Bear

Leopard

Blue-tailed Bee-eater

Rusty Spotted Cat

Indian Blue Robin

Purple-faced Leaf Monkey

Dull-blue Flycatcher

Ceylon Whistling Thrush

Indian Pitta

Cliffe - Isabelline Shrike

2011-10-16T21:01:00.001+01:00

I’ve never seen a male anywhere, let alone the UK. A great looking bird that performed well.

Just The Cricket

2011-10-16T20:58:00.001+01:00

I recently attended a wildlife study day about crickets and grasshoppers which I must say was superb. It was a KWT event and only cost £25. I’ve now found another use for my bat detector and next year I want to try and see a local great green bush cricket. The photo of the one below I took in Cornwall in September and was the first one I’ve ever seen. They seem to start stridulating in the late afternoon and then carry on well into the night when this male was photographed. A brilliant insect, got to be up there as one of the best insects in the UK.

Great Green Bush Cricket

Oak Bush Cricket. A predominantly arboreal species which is under-recorded. This female was a surprise to see in my back garden literally the day after I had been on the study day and it was in a hazel rather than oak tree.

Speckled Bush-Cricket. This is the one you are most likely to get inside your house. This male is good and spotty or should that be speckly.

I wish….

2011-09-26T20:40:00.001+01:00

I could find such a stunning bird as the juvenile Pallid Harrier found at Cliffe Marshes. I was able to see it late this afternoon and for once I had my camera ready.

It’s Grey, It’s Hairy But It’s Not A Mouse.

2011-05-04T15:21:00.001+01:00

I'm celebrating finding Grey Mouse Ear and here are the photos to prove it, which I took yesterday. I don’t consider myself vey good at identifying plants and I have been looking for this species for about 4 years now having realised that a colony exists at the small KWT reserve just up the road from my house at Longfield. The only other site in Britain is in Bedfordshire.

It is just so amazingly hairy, brilliant! Despite the lack of rain the plant is in a shaded area so should still be ok for a couple of days hopefully. Get in touch if you are in the area and would like to see it.

Get Close To A Pansy

2011-04-11T18:16:00.000+01:00

Noticed these beautiful pansy’s in my garden this morning. A small flower that warranted a close up shot. I just love the vivid colours.

Badgercam

2011-04-10T09:15:00.001+01:00

More fiddling about with the trail cam that I now have last night and this time i’m giving the video mode a go with the camera located next to a well used track baited with a handful of peanuts. The badger knew that something odd was nearby but the peanuts were worth the risk.

Nuts!

2011-04-05T20:22:00.001+01:00

Well i’ve no idea what this moth is and the other night I caught two. So please let me know what you think cos it’s drivin me nuts!

It All Happens At Night!

2011-03-22T21:22:00.001Z

Been running my actinic trap a couple of times over the last few days and on the first attempt I got totally caught out by the hard frost but unfortunately so did the dead common quaker that was the only moth in the trap. However last night was much better with a new species for me in the shape of a clouded drab. Now what did this reasonable looking moth do to deserve a name like that? Well I guess i’m in a minority to think that it really isn’t that drab, poor thing.

Clouded Drab

Double Stripe Pug Small Quaker

Recently I purchased a Bushnell trail cam and have been enjoying checking out photos of a hedgehog that is visiting the garden on and off during the night as well as all the local cats that seem to use my garden as a highway! I really wanted to get to know how to use this camera for getting shots of other mammals in the area and last night I setup a camera at a badger sett and was lucky enough to get some shots.

More Moths

2011-03-13T11:50:00.001Z

Continuing to run my 40w actinic in the back garden as I don’t think the neighbours would appreciate my mv running with so little foliage available to block the light from their bedroom windows. Anyway a better night than before with 7 Hebrew characters, 6 common Quakers, 1 small Quaker and 1 early grey.

Small Quaker

Hebrew Character

Early Grey

Plume Moth, probably Emmelina monodactyla

The very variable Common Quaker

The Common Quaker above with a Hebrew Character

Sunshine Treats and Disappointments

2011-03-13T09:36:00.001Z

A good day for butterflies yesterday in the sunny spells with 2 brimstones and a holly blue visiting the back garden. I thought it would also be good weather for finding basking adders so headed off to a couple of sites near the Medway towns and saw a further 3 brimstones at Meopham along with a brief glimpse of probably a peacock. At Queendown Warren the sun was still out but unfortunately the adders were not. This is a worry as I know the folks that perform regular surveys there have indicated a general decline and I don’t know how the hard weather in December may have affected them. Certainly the Kent reptile and amphibian group (KRAG) are concerned over a perceived decline and have setup a project to gather data. I did manage to see a couple of commas though, so a 4 butterfly day, not bad for early March, I think? I then moved onto a second site but by this time the sun had gone in so no real chance of finding anything.

I’m branching out into the world of motion sensor cameras and have been given one for a month to ‘have a go’. So I positioned it in a suitable place in my back garden last night, hoping that the elusive hedgehog that appeared a week back may make another appearance. Unfortunately I only managed to get pictures of the local cat population which confirms my suspicions that my garden is the local cat highway

Its March so migrate!

2011-03-10T19:35:00.001Z

It’s all too easy to look at the weather and just think that nothing will be migrating cos the weather is not right. I tend to forget that the urge to migrate and move north is a strong instinct in birds in the spring and a birds understanding of the weather is luckily very different from mine. So after giving myself a pep talk I wandered around the local fields this afternoon behind Pinden quarry just on the outskirts of Longfield. I kicked up a flock of 46 corn buntings and 25 skylarks and then there in front of me was a superb male wheatear. I say superb because that is just how it looked, the bird appeared to be in its peak of breeding plumage. My spirits were lifted you would have thought I’d just found a major rarity, I was elated, it made my day and only 15 minutes from my front door.

Winter Moths

2011-02-27T14:59:00.001Z

Finally managed to get a moth trap running last night just as the overnight temperatures start to drop. Given the forecast of o/night rain it was only safe to use my 40W actinic but it still managed to pull in 2 hebrew characters and a common quaker.

Common Quaker

Hebrew Character

Otter Rubbish

2011-02-19T08:44:00.001Z

Otters do not exist in Kent!
It’s official, at least it is if you believe the Environment Agency, who have completed their recent survey (completed every 10 years) of the UK and based on the results have determined that Kent no longer has any otters living within the county. Hurrah, say the road, house and rail builders lets get on with destroying more of the concrete county, no need to worry about otters getting in our way.

Hang on a minute, there is just one tiny error in all this, the EA are wrong. Otters do still exist in Kent if you know where and how to look. Admittedly the population isn’t very large and some areas have lost their otters but we still have them. Does make you wonder just how hard the EA were looking in Kent? Ok, so they may not have had the local knowledge required to actually find evidence of otters but did they ask the right people? Maybe a bit too focused on where they thought otters should be rather than thinking where they might be.

So Otters are doing really well in most of the rest of the UK which is brilliant, why not in Kent? Well think about it, unless you have a boat it is quite tricky to enter Kent with 3 sides of the county bordered by water. The landward side is equally hard to enter even for us humans as most of the roads tend to get gridlocked and rail services are not too reliable. For an otter wandering from Sussex into Kent a complete nightmare with road kill and electrocution on railway lines likely to be the end result.

The good news is that there are people out there in Kent that know where the otters are and are doing everything they can to make sure they are given the best chance of survival and hopefully increase their numbers.

So what else have I been up to. Well found a flock of 32 Corn Buntings just north of Longfield which I’m pleased about and it looks as though Buzzards are starting to populate the local area i.e. 1 mile so maybe a chance of breeding who knows. Some good flocks of Lesser Redpolls as well including a couple of Mealy or Common Redpolls. Might run the moth trap tonight for the first time as I know other folks out there have been catching some good stuff. Also first common frogs in the garden last weekend.

Shocking Winter Atlas

2011-01-16T17:32:00.001Z

Decided that today would be my Jan visit to the tetrad that I'm down for surveying. Must admit that I was a bit late on the scene for getting involved in the BTO and KOS winter atlas but I’ve just managed to grab one of the few remaining tetrads in the north west of Kent. A nice sunny but blustery winters day saw me stomping into the area with no real expectations except to record the common woodland and garden species found at the top of Wrotham Hill. So it was a real shock to suddenly see a Brimstone butterfly hurtling toward me, incredible to think that it had managed to survive the extreme cold weather of December but what a great flash of colour to light up the general winters gloom. The rest of the walk was generally uneventful except for a nice mobile flock of 290 Fieldfares and a further unexpected bonus in the shape of 3 waxwings giving frustratingly brief glimpses before they disappeared. Now I cannot wait for my February visit.

Snow Surprise

2010-12-24T08:06:00.001Z

I haven’t been out in the snow apart from travelling to and from work. I hate the snow, well actually not really, I just hate the snow in this country. We are totally rubbish at dealing with the smallest amount of snow and it makes the whole snow experience very tedious. Anyway let me talk about waxwings. Kent for once has been invaded by loads of the beauties in big flocks, one at least being estimated at 1,000 birds. Have I seen any, well no, as they have avoided all the berries in my garden and given that I’ve not been out and only been to work, it’s not really that surprising. So yesterday there I was at work in Dartford holding a meeting with some of the folks that I manage, when all of a sudden in the car park appears a flock of waxwings, about 30 birds. Well I did what any sane individual would do, I stopped the meeting and all participants had the opportunity to marvel at these wonderful birds for a minute before we got back to the dull reality of work. I would say that it was probably the best works meeting I had attended or held, although I'm not sure all participants had the same view.

Birding On The Somme

2010-11-06T21:40:00.003Z

At least that is what it could have sounded like as the machine gun and heavy rifle fire could be heard from the nearby Dungeness ranges. At least the Red-flanked Bluetail didn’t mind as a well behaved small group of folks weighed down by much photographic equipment ran about a bit along Dengemarsh Road.

Toad Rage

2010-10-02T16:00:00.001+01:00

Yesterday evening Lisa and I were on our way for a pub meal to celebrate my birthday. It was not ideal driving conditions, pouring with rain, dark and misty and I was driving down narrow and steep country lanes on my way to Trottiscliffe. So the car that was behind me decides to drive along in my boot with blinding headlights and I’m naturally frustrated by this but there seem to be more doughnuts appearing on the roads these days and i’m generally not intimated by them. Approaching Trottiscliffe village a number of speed bumps have been placed in the narrow lane and you have to slow to 20mph. Luckily for the toads this is what I did (presumably to the annoyance of the doughnut) and saw 2 mature toads just the other side of the first speed bump and in the middle of the lane. I put my brakes on and stopped opened the door and leapt from the car. The car in my boot narrowly missed crashing into me and suddenly reversed back up the lane a ways. At first I didn’t think this was odd as I quickly scooped up the two toads and deposited them safely in the grass verge. It wasn’t until I then got back into my car and pulled away that Lisa mentioned the other driver probably reversed away because they thought I was getting out to ‘have a go at them’, the thought could not have been furthest from my mind but now that she had mentioned it………….

Happy Solstice

2010-09-21T20:06:00.002+01:00

Visited Grain again this morning between 09:00-12:00, wandering around in a t-shirt in the hot weather and despite the clear blue sky, a few migrants were in the coastal scrub. 21 blackcaps, 12 chiffchaffs and singles of whitethroat, sedge and reed warblers. I also had a group of 20 blue tits which seemed to be moving south through the scrub and a coal tit, presumably all migrants. A local fisherman mentioned to me about large green lizards that he keeps seeing near to the sandy beach just south of the outfall, presumably they are common lizards, so something for me to look out for in the future. Also 10 species of butterfly including a wall which is the first one i've seen at Grain for quite a while and thinking back probably the first one i've seen for a couple of years since my first post for Shorne marshes where I had 2. Back home and in the garden were 2 chiffchaffs, a brimstone and holly blue. Whilst gardening I also disturbed around 10 froglets which i'm right chuffed about. My pond is so full of newts that any tadpoles get eaten and never survive. This year I moved frog spawn into a newt free pool and once the tadpoles were large enough moved them into the main pond and it looks as though my strategy has worked.

Catching Up

2010-09-20T20:39:00.001+01:00

Luckily for me a couple of rare waders that had turned up in the county had stuck around so I spent part of today having a good time at Oare Marshes looking at a white-rumped sandpiper, plus an excellent high tide wader roost. Whilst the white-rumped sandpiper remained distant other waders were a little more confiding. Large groups of golden plover flew in to join those already settled.

At one point I estimated the number of golden plovers to be 850. A group of 10 juvenile curlew sandpipers also flew in and started feeding amongst the dunlin and 2 little stints. In amongst the grazing cattle there were also 11 yellow wagtails.
I then moved onto Marshide to a site where a week ago I heard about a colony of willow emerald damselflies that had been found by Dave Brown. Unlike a week ago I had my camera and managed to find 7 individuals that were still in good condition.

So why a willow emerald? Well the pterostigma on the wings are pale and large and the appendages (this is a male) are pale and contrast with segment 10.

In this shot you can also see the forward pointing spike (bronzy colour) on the lower left side of the thorax.

I also had 3 red admirals, 2 commas a small white, banded demoiselle and blue-tailed damselfly.

They had all better watch out though cos in the bushes is lurking…

This beautiful wasp spider was at head height, what a cracker.

I then moved onto Grove Ferry and had great views (albeit slightly distant) of the juvenile Wilsons Phalarope.

Surprisingly …Grain!

2010-09-14T21:00:00.001+01:00

I’ve recently been visiting the scrub and coastal bushes at Grain in north west Kent or to give it its proper name Grain Country Park although you wouldn’t see a sign to confirm that. Most of the time the amount of scrub and bushes is just daunting for a single observer to cover and you don’t end up seeing that much anyway but last Sunday was different. On arriving at Grain car park I had barely gone 60 yards and had already noted 1 redstart and 10+ lesser whitethroats. It was already an unprecedented visit and I was mildly panicking due to the number of migrants that I was seeing and hearing all by myself. As I wandered along the footpath that borders what is left of Clubb pits I had a group of 8 Lapland buntings fly west and they were followed by a further group of 4 a few minutes later. I continued to pick up whinchats and garden warblers, whitethroats and blackcaps. I then moved to the scrub areas bordering the Swale and added pied flycatcher and willow warbler. Also managed to clock up 8 species of butterfly as well. A great morning, fingers crossed I get another one like it soon, although it is Grain I’m writing about.

At last a bird photo!

2010-08-31T11:10:00.014+01:00

Mothing over the last two weekends has been influenced by the ar temperature. The bank holiday weekend with its colder nights has certainly started to impact the number of moths being caught, whilst last night was one of my biggest catches of the year with 83 individuals. I’m still catching the odd new species for me though, such as square spot rustic.

Square Spot Rustic
Big and brown, the Old Lady, it looks dead but is quite alive.
Vines Rustic
Agriphila tristella , a dark brown individual which shows off the lateral stripe nicely.

A white point, only the second one I have ever caught, possible immigrant but more likely to be a local breeder.

Centre Barred Sallow

Agriphila geniculea, the trap is full of these common grass moths although this one seems to have lost a lot of scales.

They should look more like this one, although the right way up.

Common Wainscott
My favourite, what a cutie!

Back to my last Biscay trip and a couple of sperm whales, probably a juvenile and mother. We managed to record 20 sperm whales on our trip something that would have been unheard of a few years back.
A pilot whale with its characteristic reverse smurf hat dorsal fin.
2 tonnes of blubber being launches clear of the water in the shape of a Cuviers beaked whale. The animal managed this 5 times in a row.
Bottlenose dolphin, unfortunately fast disappearing from coastal UK waters.

3 adult Sabines gulls, probably the best looking gull in the North Atlantic.

Finally a bit of colour on it’s last legs in the strong breeze yesterday at Grain. Make the most of it as it will soon be xmas, groan!!
Common Blue

The End Of An Era….. and a record?

2010-08-28T08:25:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend of the 21st/22nd I was lucky enough to be guiding for the Company Of Whales across the Bay of Biscay. In fact it was my last trip on the P&O ship the Pride of Bilbao as a Company Of Whales guide as this particular crossing is being stopped at the end of September. What a great trip to end on though with the main highlight for me being the sighting of a single pod of 15+ Cuvier’s Beaked Whales just south of the northern shelf edge. To date this is the largest single group of Cuvier’s recorded in the Bay. The following thinking is purely supposition on my part based on the observation and that of others. The group was of animals of different sizes with large mature types and smaller probably immature types. One of the group saw 8 of the larger animals through a scope and was unable to observe any scarring on the bodies indicating that these were female. Males show scarred bodies as they spar and scratch each other with their teeth. This would suggest that the smaller animals (at least 4) were immature animals and possibly lead to one conclusion that we were looking at a large group of females and immature whales. The pod surfaced 4 times and appeared calm before disappearing. So were we looking at an extended family group possibly even led by a matriarch or some type of crèche, if so is this a seasonal activity? The frustrating thing is we’ll probably never know.

The two photos below were taken by Rik Addison.

Cuvier's Beaked Whale

So why are they Cuvier's and not northern bottlenose whale? Well, you can make out a sloping beak, and shallow dip behind the small melon. Slightly more tenuous is the fact that you can see the head and dorsal fin in view at the same time when they surface, the chances are that in bottlenose whale, being a larger cetacean, you probably wouldn’t see that.

Tiger In The Garden

2010-08-08T20:22:00.001+01:00

Suddenly there seems to be a lot of postings about moths on various blogs and it is good to see an upsurge of interest in this exciting group of insects. This blog is no exception and once again over Friday night I was running my mv light trap although I was slightly concerned about the slim prospect of rain but in some way wishing it would as the garden is parched. On checking the trap in the morning in between the heavy rain showers, I was pleasantly surprised to find a Jersey Tiger on one of the egg boxes. This moth species, I suspect, is an immigrant and recently has been cropping up in gardens within London.
Jersey Tiger

In the 20 odd years I have been mothing, albeit at a very erratic pace, I have only ever caught two tigers. This one and a garden tiger that i found sat on my old 8W Actinic trap that I used to run when I lived at Hoo St. Werburgh. Other species that I photographed were:
The Nutmeg

Pebble Prominent

Lime-speck Pug

During the day in the garden I noticed this day flying pyrallid moth feeding on some marjoram, Pyrausta aurata

The best of the bunch I placed into pots as I was leading a butterfly walk for Dartford Borough Council later in the morning at Darenth Country Park and given the wet overcast conditions I wanted to ensure that anyone who turned up would at least see some good moths.
The walk actually went well with the sun peaking out from behind the clouds at just the right moments and a good few butterflies were on the wing.
Today (Sunday), i’ve now gone down with a cold but not really being able to stay in, Lisa and I went to Trosley C.P for a walk in the sunshine. There are some great looking violet helleborines in flower with around 12 plants all looking fresh and one or two being tall with many florets. Walking the chalk down land section we were rewarded with 10 species of butterfly, including some fresh chalk hill blues and a couple of small coppers. Notable by their absence though were any peacocks! What has happened to them all? I think I have only seen one all year. One insect that has clearly had a welcome revival though is the 7-spot ladybird, with loads of them there and oddly enough I haven’t seen many harlequins.
Back home and enjoying a cuppa, I suddenly ended up with two new dragonfly species for the garden, common darter and brown hawker, couldn’t believe it! The darter decided to use one of my raspberry canes as a perch and stayed for 15 minutes, superb.

A Day In The Garden

2010-07-31T22:10:00.001+01:00

A couple of picks from the overnight moth trap.
Pale Prominent, excellently freaky.

Lathronympha strigana a rather striking member of the Tortrix group of moths. Although a common southern species the first one I have caught.

Noticed a large dragonfly patrolling the garden and finally caught it settled on a cotoneaster.
Migrant Hawker

More Moths….and a free cream tea!

2010-07-27T20:37:00.001+01:00

Oncocera semirubella

Blood Vein

Early Thorn (2nd Generation)

Black Arches

Also went back to Cliffe this time looking for two species of rare Odonata and failed to see either but never mind as the day was rounded off with a free, yes free cream tea at Milbrooks Garden Centre. Before you go racing off, you do need a voucher from their calendar though.

Infantry vs Tanks

2010-07-25T19:50:00.001+01:00

At first glance all seems quiet in the garden but on closer inspection, today heralded a major offensive….

The Battlefield
7-Spot Ladybird Laagar.
Ant front Line and the 7-spots are on the move.

Direct hit, one aphid down.

Counter attack but it’s a heavily armoured predator and the best the ants can hope for is to drive it away.
The opposition are too many so withdraw, check damage and clean up.
Rest and regroup, ready for the next attack.

A pleasing total of 12 7-spot ladybirds in one small area of the garden today along with several harlequins. At one point I was watching 7 ants defending and losing against 2 7-spots. The life of the infantry is tough, what chance do they stand against tanks?

Elsewhere in the garden…

Brimstone feeding amongst the sweat peas.

Scaeva pyrastri
Hairy Eyes

Out amongst the hoverflies was this amazing beastie.

I’ve no idea what it is but it would ambush hoverflies, hold them in it’s long legs and appear to sting them and then let them go. I’m assuming it was laying an egg in or on the hoverfly. It also had some very fierce looking pincers and extremely large eyes which definitely helped it to track the hoverflies. The preferred prey species seemed to be Episyrphus balteatus but that may be because they are the ost numerous amongst the ox-eye daisies and valerian.

Ran the mv trap on Friday night but a full moon lit night affected the number of the species caught. A couple of nice waves though.

Dwarf Cream Wave

Single-dotted Wave

Local Specialities

2010-07-20T22:32:00.001+01:00

A stupendous night for the moth trap, 53 species and I almost certainly missed quite a few others. Which is more than can be said for the local sparrows and blackbirds who seemed to have tuned into my trap and surrounding bushes, helping themselves to many a hapless moth. Not content with struggling to identify most of the macro species I’m now struggling even more in trying to identify the micro species, a not insignificant challenge but whilst they may be small they still look smart.

Lozotaeniodes formosanus
Crambus culmella

Epiblema foenella

Scalloped Oak
Festoon

Evergestis extimalis

Around midday I visited Cliffe pools to try and see if I could find the Southern Emerald Damselflies that had been found there. Needless to say I didn’t see them but the marsh was alive with darters, emeralds and butterflies.

Ruddy Darter Scarce Emerald
Gatekeeper

Watch Where You Step

2010-07-19T20:33:00.001+01:00

The weekend started off well as I ran my moth trap over Friday night and was pleased to get a good number of different species when I checked the following morning. One nice find for the garden was a species called waved black which has a nationally scarce B status which means that it has been recorded from between 31-100 10Km squares in Great Britain since 1 Jan 1980. It has two main centres of distribution (Surrey and Worcestershire) with the moth increasing its range in recent decades into many southern counties including Kent.

Waved Black

Then on Sunday, having been avidly reading Greenies blog, I set off to try and see purple emperor at Dene Park near Tonbridge. It felt good to be going to a new location and also trying to see a new species of butterfly before especially one that I had wanted to see for many years. The first thing that struck me about the Forestry Commission site was the amount of dog mess littering the paths. Whilst potentially good for attracting the butterflies you certainly had to be very careful where you stepped and knelt when taking photos. I could start a rant here about irresponsible dog owners but I won’t as it has been done many times before. Leaving the muck aside, the site is superb for butterflies and without really trying I notched up 11 species and two species of Aeshna dragonflies in southern and brown hawkers. We managed to see 4 purple emperors including 2 males, with a fifth male being photographed on the ground by some other visiting folks.

Southern Hawker

White Admiral

Purple Emperor

A Stroke Of Luck

2010-07-16T20:31:00.001+01:00

Having got back home after the cetacean survey on Tuesday evening I found out that the white-tailed plover had appeared at Dungeness on Sunday. On Wednesday evening I found out that it was still there and decided to try and see it after work on Thursday as I had never seen one, anywhere. I arrived at the north end of the ARC pit and parked up amongst the throng of all the 5 other cars. I quickly made it to the hide and fought my way past the 6 other people to finally sit down and see this great looking bird.

The amazingly few people watching such a rare bird was a surprise but I guess it had been around for a few days/weeks. A stroke of luck for me.

ORCA Biscay Survey

2010-07-16T19:00:00.001+01:00

Earlier in the week I led a cetacean survey across the Bay of Biscay and English Channel aboard the Brittany Ferry Pont Avon which leaves from Plymouth goes to Santander and returns to Portsmouth. The survey was run for Organisation Cetacea www.orcaweb.org.uk . The weather should have been good from the look of the isobar distances on the BBC weather site but seemed to be contradicted from the info provided by the shipping forecast. So I plumped for not really knowing what to expect and would just see what happened, hoping that the sea state would be a good calm one to give the survey team the best chance of seeing whales, dolphins and porpoises. As it turned out the sea state was great for the majority of the trip.

And ended up just getting better.

However we had frustratingly long gaps in between our cetacean sightings and whilst we clocked up a commendable 6 species we didn’t really see that many animals. We managed to record, Common Dolphin, Striped Dolphin, Harbour Porpoise, Sperm Whale, Minke Whale and an unidentified Beaked Whale along with Basking Shark. And for the bird lovers a smattering of species, Balearic, Manx and Cory’s Shearwaters, Great and Arctic Skua a Black Kite a few Common Terns and Gannets.

This shot of one of the Sperm Whales show the distinctive low angled and sideways blow, the glint in the water to the right of the blow is the start of the dorsal ridge.

The survey trips are always good fun and it is certainly a privilege to be able to look from the bridge. Role on August 20th when I m back out there again.

Trouble in the trap

2010-07-10T08:30:00.001+01:00

Had a good catch in the moth trap overnight but it would have been better if some enterprising wasps hadn’t also found it. On checking the trap at 06:00 this morning there were the signs that the efficient predators had been at work, moths wings on the ground. Whilst emptying the trap a couple of wasps made a visit and started to attack moths on the ground, no matter if they were even bigger than the wasps. In fact a set of wings I found belonged to an elephant hawk moth, which must have been some struggle and some feat of flying for the wasp to carry away the body. The wasp tactics were simply pounce and sting several times with the poor moth struggling to walk away, they didn’t seem to fly off. I then had to keep an eye on an inquisitive and bold female blackbird who was intent on getting under my feet and grabbing any moth she could. Still there were still some good moths in the trap to see, including fresh elephant hawk and privet hawk moths, buff ermines, swallowtail moths, smoky wainscott and others. The rarest of the night was a festoon, only the second I have caught and having a nationally scarce status.

Some photos below of recently caught goodies.

Scorched Wing

The Coronet

Blue-bordered Carpet

Small Yellow Wave

Privet Hawk Moth

Also in the garden today, small skipper, comma, small white and silver Y and a crossbill over.

Then this evening, a holly blue and a lovely fresh small tortoiseshell, cannot remember the last time I had one in the garden.

Pneumonia

2010-07-07T21:09:00.001+01:00

Walking home this evening, one of my neighbours had found a hedgehog by their garage door. Whilst the neighbour had put down some cat food the hedgehog wasn’t interested and was not really behaving normally, especially wandering around in the day. I managed to pick up the hedgehog wrapping it in an old towel and placing in a box. On calling the RSCPA we were advised to contact our local vets which we duly did. They took in the hedgehog which was having breathing difficulties and also losing blood from its nose. On contacting the vets later in the evening the poor hedgehog had been put to sleep as it had been diagnosed with pneumonia which according to the vets is a common illness in hedgehogs. Such a shame as I’m sure this hedgehog was the one I had seen in the garden on Monday and the first one I had seen in the garden this year.

Breakfast Birding and Brief Visits

2010-07-06T22:28:00.002+01:00

Having breakfast on our patio is usually an infrequent treat but this summer it is becoming the norm. Between mouthfuls of cereal this morning though it was unexpected to see two small flocks of lapwings flying west over the garden totalling 22 birds and finally I caught up with the crossbills that I have been hearing for over a week and a half, seeing and hearing 21 birds, a welcome garden tick. I then had to go down to Hampshire and stopped on the way at Thursley Common but only for a very brief visit. Whilst many of the ditches and pools were drying up, I managed to see a couple of new species for me, namely black darter and emerald damselfly.

Black Darter, male.

Emerald Damselfly, female

New Forest, Dragons & Damsels

2010-07-05T21:01:00.000+01:00

A short break for Lisa and me in the New Forest last weekend saw me eagerly trying to find sites for all the rare and local insects and plants but just nowhere near enough time to do the place any justice. However I did manage to spend a fantastic few hours at a site near Crockford Bridge specifically for southern damselfly but there was just so much else on the wing, it was fantastic. The weather couldn’t have been that much better either, lovely and hot.

The heath was alive with silver-studded blues and we caught this couple upto a bit of mischief.

In the heat the butterflies were extremely active and it was a job to get a shot of one at rest, but finally…

The dragon and damselflies were just amazing though, with the following highlights:

A new species for me was this small red damselfly with attached female.

Large red damselflies also occur at the site but are easy to tell apart from the smalls, at least in the males, with their black abdomen markings.

Another new species and a speciality of the site is southern damselfly and I managed to find this pair mating, with the male clasped onto the female.

The beautiful demoiselle was also present along the stream in good numbers, what a cracker.

Then a very nice chap asked me if I was interested in dragonflies and directed me to a pair of golden-ringed dragonflies that were in a mating wheel. Just superb.

We then went for a walk in a nearby piece of woodland and clocled up a few butterflies, namely silver-washed fritillary, large skipper, small skipper and marbled white.

Then tried a site called Latchmore Brook for scarce blue-tailed damselfly but couldn’t find any in the time remaining. All in all though a grand day out with my camera.

Moth With A Wierd Name

2010-07-01T20:49:00.002+01:00

Back on the 26th June I ran my MV trap for the first time this year and caught an L-album Wainscott, which is a first for me. Seems to have starting breeding in the UK in Devon or the west country in the 1930's and now is a south coast species, certainly having occured at Dungeness. I know that a few records exist from London, Essex and Suffolk but very pleased to have also recorded one in my back garden which is very much inland.

Lions that go GIR!

2009-12-04T08:01:00.000Z

The gir forest is a dry forest and the majority of trees are deciduous with a lot of leaf litter covering the forest floor.

We stayed in this area for 3 full days with the target species being Asian lion. We had a total of 7 game drives scheduled with each drive being either morning or afternoon. The morning drives required us to be ready for 06:30 which meant a 05:45 alarm. Generally we were always a little late getting going as we had to await the arrival of entry permits to get into the forest. Also before we could enter the forest we had to get a permit for my camera which being over 7mp cost 500R, this now seems to be the going tourist rate for many reserves. This area in particular seems to be competing with the more famous tiger reserves and the local ‘trackers’ also expect a payment for any lions seen whether you are a tourist or a local. For example for seeing a male lion the going rate is 300R.

We asked some of the locals who were on a tour and had seen a male lion and they had also paid the trackers 100R each. This is probably taking ecotourism to an extreme but I guess in the end people have to live and if it ensures the on-going welfare of the lions then that must be a good thing.

As we were to find out over the next couple of days the lions are very hard to find (at least that was our experience) and the reserve is extremely dusty with many vehicles driving the various tracks looking for the lions, Sunday being an extremely busy day. Our first 3 game drives resulted in no lions but some good general wildlife experiences.

The reserve holds a population of 359 lions, of which the mature females can have a litter of cubs once every 3 years. So whilst the population is increasing the rise in numbers is very slow and all the time at risk from disease as the gene pool is restricted.

Good numbers of spotted deer (chittal) in the park along with wild boar, sambar, nilgai and leopard. At the time of our visit there were some young spotted deer calves and some excellent stags with impressive antlers in velvet.

Ruddy Mongoose

Jackal

Plenty of warning calls from spotted deer and langurs, usually warning of leopard which we didn’t see initially until our 6th game drive. We were then almost at the end of the drive and it was getting near to dusk when our guide saw the first of an encounter with 3 leopards. The first was a male which crossed the road in front of us and then proceeded a little way into the forest before sitting and then crouching down. Our guide then saw a female lion moving deeper into the forest which neither of us saw. The male then moved off and our driver then reversed a little way to try and see if we could see him and our guide then saw a second (female) leopard in some deep shade. We only caught the briefest of glimpses of her but we could hear her panting in the shadows. We then heard a leopard roar and thinking it was the first male we drove slowly forward to then see a third male cross the road and move off into the forest, this male had a radio collar and was much larger than the first.

Whilst at Sasan we stayed at a luxury tented camp which was excellent and bordered onto a river which meant we could go for a walk in-between the days game drives and catching up on some sleep.

In the reserve itself birding is quite diffiicult as you are not allowed to walk about however some species were easy to see from the vehicles, such as Tickells blue flycatcher and mottled wood owl.

A leopard made a kill along the track between the town of Sasan and the camp where we were staying. The buffalo carcass could be seen from the track and was slowly being eaten away by egrets, crows and occasionally a returning leopard.

On our fourth game drive we finally scored asian lion, the first lioness we saw we almost ran over in our drivers efforts to get the prime position for viewing.

Then drove very fast along the forest tracks to see a pride of 4 lionesses and 5 cubs, something that is a rare event, with all 5 cubs having a good chance of survival.

The lions are monitored by trackers, in fact these guys are almost lion keepers as they seem to stay with lion groups or individual males supposedly to make sure that all remains well. They try to ensure that cubs do not get killed by rogue males as they are such an important commodity to help ensure the survival and future of the asian lion. The trackers wander about the reserve with only a large stick for protection and sometimes they remain quite close to their charges.

Velavadar

2009-12-03T07:58:00.000Z

An early start again today, away from the hotel by 06:00 to get to Velavadar for an early morning game drive. No tea stops this time and we managed to arrive shortly after 07:00. The tide was high as we journeyed along the road on the edge of the coastal strip and much of the surrounding salt marsh was flooded.

On entering the reserve we picked up a local guide who then took us to the location of the striped hyena den. Initially there was no sign of her but then two ears appeared in the grass and we enjoyed watching her waking up as the sun rose.

Sometimes she would roll on her back and stick all her legs in the air stretching. Finally after a bit of yawning and more stretching she got up for a quick stroll around before returning to the den entrance. Then a one year old juvenile male appeared beside her and finally 3 of her 5 small pups appeared and settled down to suckling. Her markings were striking and altogether she was better looking than the spotted hyenas normally seen in Africa. Only in the last couple of years has it been possible to see striped hyena with any degree of certainty at Velavadar as up to 5 years ago they were very hard to see and uncommon in the area.
Striped Hyena

We pulled ourselves away from such a great encounter and climbed back into our vehicle to continue around the reserve. Whilst approaching a water hole our guide noticed, with some excitement, a group of 5 Indian Wolves that were trotting at speed away from us and into the light. Incredibly efficient movement they quickly put some distance between us and after the initial excitement of seeing them we went in pursuit. However they initially disappeared in the grass and then we picked up 3 of them as they tried to get close to a spread out herd of Nilgai or blue bulls. Finally we lost them as they crossed the road to enter the eastern part of the reserve.
Indian Wolf

Whilst the wolves would almost certainly try to catch blackbuck I expect that they would try for larger prey such as Nilgai. This species is doing well in India and can quite often be seen outside of the reserves, in fact we saw several in agricultural areas.
The mature males have a lovely steel grey/blue coloured coat, giving them the alternative name of blue bulls.

Nilgai or Blue Bulls

Whilst Velavadar is a national park, locals are never too far away and people wander around collecting wood and materials for day to day life. Within the park is an interpretation centre which schools make use of and whilst we were there we became quite the celebrities with a pack of school kids wanting to say hello.

As the morning temperature got hotter animal and bird life became harder to see and despite more efforts to see MacQueens bustard we finally had to make the decision to move on.

Bay-backed Shrike
There are plans to improve the main coast road to a 6 lane highway which whilst great for the local economy will almost certainly result in the isolation of the reserve and increase the threat of road kill for the local wildlife. The thought of building bridge corridors for the wildlife has been considered but there isn’t the funding available.

Just outside the reserve there were two small groups of common cranes in the more cultivated areas. One of my target bird species was demoiselle crane and I was hoping to see these in the Rann of Kutch part of the trip. However little did I know that I stood more chance of seeing them in the coastal area as the monsoon had failed and many of the inland waterways favoured by the cranes had dried up. None the wiser we moved onto the Gir forest and subsequently I never did see demoiselle crane and it remains on my hit list.

On the way to Gir we stopped off at a cafe and enjoyed some giant Bombay mix along with a cup of milky tea.

The journey to the Gir forest took a long 7 hours arriving shortly after 16:00, with some of the drive along dirt roads.

The 3,800 Steps

2009-12-02T07:55:00.000Z

Not an extended remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic but almost a religious classic. The things people do in the name of religion. Palitana is a site of pilgrimage for those people that worship the Jain religion and I've taken the following from Wikipedia.

‘Jainism is an ancient religion of India, also now found in other countries around the world, that prescribes a path of peace and non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice rely mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness. Any soul which has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state of supreme being is called jina (Conqueror or Victor). Jainism was revived by a lineage of 24 enlightened ascetics called tirthankaras culminating with Parshva (9th century BC) and Mahavira (6th century BC). In the modern world, it is a small but influential religious minority with as many as 10.2 million followers in India, and successful growing immigrant communities in North America, Western Europe, the Far East, Australia and elsewhere.

Jains have sustained the ancient Shraman or ascetic religion and have significantly influenced other religious, ethical, political and economic spheres in India. Jains have an ancient tradition of scholarship and have the highest degree of literacy in India; Jain libraries are the oldest in the country.’

Now whilst I try to focus on wildlife for most of my foreign trips there are some cultural experiences that it would be a shame to miss and this is one of them. At the top of this one particular hill are around 900 temples and to get there you have to follow a path that is in much better condition than most of India’s roads but consists of 3,800 steps.

The view you might get after collapsing with exhaustion.

The Palitana temples are considered the most sacred pilgrimage place (tirtha) by the Jain community. There are more than 1300 temples located on the Shatrunjaya hills, exquisitely carved in marble. The main temple on top of the hill, is dedicated to 1st tirthankar lord Adinath (Rishabdeva). On the top the Shatrunjai Hill is a cluster of Jain temples, built by generations of Jains over a period of 900 years, from the 11th century onwards. From the foot of the hill to the top there are 3,800 and odd stone steps cut to facilitate climbing.

Getting close–ish to the top.

If you don’t have quite the religious zeal to make it to the top without assistance then you can hire sticks to help you and also teams of 2 and 4 people to help carry you to the top for a price, 300 Rupees.

Now the guys doing the carrying would make the journey to the top and back down again many times a day!!!

On the day we visited it was the festival of the moon as we were in a full moon period and it was very busy with many worshippers making their way to the top. One thing to point out here is that no-one is allowed to stay overnight at the top so every day you have to ascend to your place of worship and descend especially if you are there for the week. Now that is religious dedication or something like that! All the food and festival/worship trappings have to be delivered to the top by hard working donkeys.

Just don’t get in their way as they descend as you are likely to get bowled over as donkeys have not yet evolved brakes.

The ascent for Lisa and myself started at 06:00 to get up and down in the coolest part of the day.

Once at the top the worshippers follow a circular route to gain access to various temples culminating at the main temple of worship. Senior priests sit at key locations and people are on hand to provide fruit, flowers and rice as offerings to the gods which can then once offered can then be consumed by the worshipper.

To look down on the worshippers in the main temple was quite an amazing experience. Those people on the right behind the netting were packed in like sardines packed amongst tightly packed sardines. Very slowly they would shuffle into the main place of worship, do their stuff and then pop put on the left. Despite looking like chaos it was all very orderly and well organised.

Some of the temple architecture was quite impressive.

Coming down the steps was much easier although harder on the knees and calf muscles. We met many people still climbing as the day started to heat up including a couple of people who were climbing up on hands and knees, presumably some sort of penance or stricter version of Jainism.

Further on in our trip our driver pointed out a hill where a 10,000 step path had been built to the temples at the top, needless to say we drove on.

Velavadar

2009-12-01T07:51:00.000Z

A small reserve of 35 square km, securing one of the few remaining areas of dry grassland left in India or the region. It is the best place in India to see good numbers of Blackbuck with a stable group of 1,500 animals and also a top site for Indian Wolf. We had an early start of 07:00 for a day at the reserve. Our guide arrived a little late as the area he lived in had suffered a power cut, his name was Dr Indra Gadhvi and he worked at the department of marine sciences at Bhavnagar University. His main interest was birds and he had a degree in ornithology, the students he taught were involved in the marine ecosystem of the gulf and tidal mudflats. The day started with us bird watching along an area of grazing marshes that were under threat from industrialisation and the creation of very large areas of salt pans. So much grazing land has already been lost that Blackbuck that used to occur in good numbers along the coastal strip are no longer seen. Birds included glossy ibis, black ibis, greater and lesser flamingos, little stint, wood sand, green sand, Temmincks stint, yellow and citrine wagtails, spot-billed, teal, pintail, pochard duck, red-rumped, swallow, wire-tailed swallows, plain prinia, imperial eagle, marsh harrier.

Wetland outside of Bhavnagar Ruddy Shelduck
Indian Pond Heron

Plain Prinia

Lesser Flamingo

We had several tea stops along the way too and from Velavadar, being served small cups of tea and despite not asking for either milk or sugar we received a very sweet cup of black tea and an extra bowl of sugar. Our patrons couldn’t believe we just wanted black tea, it had the consistency of thick syrup. After this we just accepted milk and no sugar which seemed to work, producing a palatable cuppa.

The dry grassland reserve of Velavadar.

Mature male blackbuck are amazing looking antelopes, with incredible antlers. They are endemic to India and in the days of the Maharajas of Bhavnagar were protected for the occasional royal hunting trip.

The mature males hold a small territory in a lek area, staying in this area day and night, even during the heat of the day. They wait until a female walks through their territory and then attempt to breed with her. They are constantly on guard to protect the territory borders from rivals but will eventually have to give up the area when the food supply has been exhausted and they are forced to move on by hunger and thirst. They can also be displaced by a fitter animal once they start to weaken. This way a constant supply of strong and fit male blackbuck can mate with several females in the herd.
When crossing a road they perform high leaps.
Velavadar is also a good place to see the vulnerable Stoliczkas Bushchat. This desert species has a small declining population because of agricultural intensification and encroachment.

Little-Green Bee Eater

Short Toed Eagle, but I prefer the name ‘Toady’.

Velavadar also boasts the largest harrier roost in the world consisting of mostly Montagus harrier and many pallid and Montagus harriers were seen over the grasslands. The farmers like the harriers because they eat a lot of locusts during the winter saving over a 1,000,000R is pesticide costs.

Toward the end of the day we attempted to find MacQueens bustard in the more arid areas of the reserve but without any luck and we had also missed striped hyena and Indian wolf, the latter having a healthy population here. As it was just getting dark and with us nearing the reserve gate our jeep suddenly jolted to a stop and in front of us were 2 jungle cats just sitting in the grass and looking at each other. Finally one got up and wandered across the road in front of us still being watched by the other. Great sighting to end the day.

India 29th November – 12th December

2009-11-30T07:50:00.000Z

Gujurat – Bhavnagar

India has a diversity of wildlife to match and possibly surpass Africa and whilst most people know that India is the best country to see Bengal Tiger not many people know that you can also see Lion. The Lion is a sub-species of Panthera Leo and was separated as recently as 100,000 years ago. It almost became extinct with numbers falling to around 20 about 100 years ago. Luckily it has managed to stage an incredible recovery with numbers now in the region of 350, however the gene pool is still very restricted and the sub-species threatened. Almost the only place to see them with any degree of certainty is the Gir forest in Gujurat state and this was where Lisa and I ended up.

Arriving in Mumbai at 01:00 and then transfered to the domestic terminal for a long wait for out 07:10 flight to Bhavnagar. Jet airways was used for the domestic flight and we had to wait 45 mins before we could take off due to various repair works being performed on the runways and taxi ways! We finally made it to Bhavnagar around 09:00. We then transfered to the Nilambagh hotel and it looked as though a wedding had been held there the previous day as a lot of rubbish and red carpet had been laid around. In fact we had arrived in peak wedding season and Indian weddings are huge affairs lasting several days in some cases.

The hotel was originally the palace of the ruling Gohil dynasty, the dining room had impressive Bohemian crystal chandeliers and a carved Burmese Teak banqueting table.

We both then fell asleep for 4 hours until we met up with our driver and he took us on a visit to the old town market and a mauseleum built in 1873 for the maharajahs wife. Also a musuem and temple on a hill giving good views around the city. Didn’t realise that Ghandi went to college here and a lot of the museum was dedicated to his life although most of it was in hindi so couldn’t understand but luckily there were lots of photos. Noticeable that not many tourists are around. Good restaurant in the hotel.

A few birds in the hotel gardens, coppersmith barbet, house crow, rufous treepie, large grey babbler, red-vented bulbul, common myna, black kite, green bee-eater, asian koel.

Post roost flight of Indian Flying Fox over the hotel at dusk.

The Edible Dormouse Experience

2009-09-06T17:06:00.003+01:00

For ease of blogging i'm going to have to extend the boundaries of my blog and rebrand, maybe calling it 'Go Wild in Kent and Beyond' as it sounds suitably Buzz Lightyear

So on September 6th, myself and Lisa had the opportunity to go to the Chilterns and help out with a group of volunteers who have been monitoring an area of woodland that holds around 180 edible dormouse nest boxes.

We were in the good company of dormouse expert, Pat Morris who having studied these wonderful animals locally for around 14 years was in the process of handing over the monitoring scheme. The monitoring process is based on volunteers who come and go, so having some folks turn up from the Kent Mammal Group was an opportunity not to be missed.

The Edible Dormouse (Glis glis) was introduced by Lord Rothschild around 1902 to the area of Tring. No one knows how many were released but since then numbers have gradually built up but remained within a rough 30Km radius. Pat explained to us that although and introduced species and having the dubious honor of being regarded as a pest they are fully protected but once caught it is illegal to release them back into the wild unless under license. So why would you catch them, well they have this habit of appearing in peoples homes and causing a great deal of damage. Some folks have done the release deed and Pat mentioned that they are now appearing in the New Forest and possibly even Essex.

Difficult to see in the wild, a nocturnal and highly arboreal species, this lactating female had managed to escape from the monitoring team and looked back for her young which were being placed back into the nestbox and quickly put back onto the correct tree, ready for her to re-join them.

Unlike Hazel Dormouse nest boxes, those of Edible are more bird box in design and have a side or front facing entrance hole. In the Autumn the dormice really start to pack on the weight and will make the entrance hole larger to accommodate their ever increasing girth. The nest is made up of dry leaves with an inner ball of sawdust.

Sometimes when approaching a nextbox a cute little face would appear at the entrance.

We started to help out with the nest box monitoring and the number of young we came across were all ages from the allmost newborn to almost old enough to leave the nest.

Except for the very young, each one had to be sexed, weighed and chipped. The chipping is a research technique that will hopefully answer a number of questions about dispersal and longevitity. Certainly one of the recaptures was at least 9 years old. Nests contained upto 11 young in some cases and the plastic bags into which we emptied the box contents were a wriggle of bodies.

The same sort of chipping process as used for cats and dogs.

Once the chip had been implanted then a scanner was used to check that it worked. Each chip would uniquely identify the individual.

For such a small mammal they can have a fierce manner and in some cases when checking nextbox contents a sort of light growling eminated from inside and they have sharp teeth, so thick gloves are essential for handling.

Life for such a cute animal remains a tough one. Historically the Romans used to eat them and keep them in jars whilst fattening them up, even today in eastern Europe they continue to be caught for food.

Trosley Country Park

2009-07-12T15:46:00.005+01:00

Despite the reasonably strong wind the sunny weather (and all of Greenies excellent butterfly posts) found me at Trosley Country Park over lunchtime. I checked out the ride where I have seen violet helleborine in the past and there are at least 6 good plants that I reckon in a week or so will looking their best. On the sunny south facing slopes above Trottiscliffe chalk hill blues (30) were out in force along with meadow browns(40), ringlets (20), gatekeepers(5) and small (4) and large whites (8). I then saw what I'm sure was a white admiral flying up the slope along the edge of a bramble hedge toward the wood at the top. A first for me at Trosley and I'm not sure whether they do actually occur there. Back in the woods and walking to the cafe I heard around 3 crossbills but couldn't see them, not until a hot brew and bakewell tart were being enjoyed did a further 3 crossbills fly across the car park clearing. Walking back to the car I noticed a small female type adder curled up next to some refugia. All in all a great couple of hours.

Also had an adult Med gull flying over Longfield yesterday, they seem to be getting more frequent in the area.

Longfield - Garden

2009-07-11T16:24:00.003+01:00

On Friday I noticed my first hummingbird hawk moth of the year feeding on the valerian and also had a hornet inspect the lounge and then return back to the garden via the open patio doors. I think we passed inspection. Not something I see very often but always an impressive insect.

June Round Up

2009-07-04T15:17:00.002+01:00

The month started off with a visit to Jeskyns where I went for a wander around the orchard an area that I had not visited before. I had a number of small heath butterflies along one of the paths but my attention was drawn to the calls of up to 6 Mediterranean gulls circling overhead and then drifting off west before returning again. I thought to myself that it wouldn't be long before I started to see them over Longfield. Well I didn't have long to wait, in fact early the next morning (2nd June) I had two adults circling over my garden calling and this then occurred regularly for the rest of that week and then none since. When I lived in Hampshire, I can remember when Med gull was something of a scarcity, although they had already started to breed in the county albeit in very small numbers. I saw my first one at Fareham Creek and marvelled at how David Billet the warden of Farlington Marshes was able to pick one up by call one day. Back in Longfield that same morning I heard a turtle dove calling from the garden, so two garden ticks in one morning, nice.

For once, just slightly outside of the county, I went across the Bay of Biscay mid month as team leader for a whale and dolphin survey on behalf of Organisation Cetacea, a charity I volunteer for. The surveys are great as we have access to the bridge of the Pont Avon, the commercial passenger ferry that runs from Plymouth to Santander in north Spain and then back to Portsmouth. We had very calm sea states for the whole crossing and whilst seeing 5 species of cetacean I would have expected to see more given the calm seas. However we did have an amazing encounter with a super pod of common dolphins of around 1,000 animals with some groups of 20-30 coming into the bow of the vessel. I managed to get a shot of 2 out of the 1,000.

Common Dolphin

I know of two locations in Kent where you stand a chance of seeing meadow clary an interesting looking plant of chalk downland and overgrown grassy verges. Some UK range maps of the species do not even show Kent as having any plants and I know that at one site a couple of years ago flowering plants were dug up. Its name comes from 'clear-eye', and an infusion was traditionally used as an eye-wash, particularly in the days when smoke from indoor fires made the eyes smart.
Meadow Clary

I remember that about 3 years ago was the summer of the bee orchid, they seemed to appear in large numbers in locations where normally only a few emerged. This year, I must admit to having struggled to find that many. However there is an amazing roadside orchid experience that can be had near Tyland Barn on the A229 and this year the spectacle of common spotted orchids was amazing and whilst checking this out I came across small numbers of bee orchids and it started raining. To the passing traffic, I must have looked an odd sight on the roadside, bent down, bottom in the air in the pouring rain....but what a wonderful looking flower.
Bee Orchid

A very similar looking orchid and member of the Ophrys group is the late spider orchid, a rare UK orchid species, whose origins in Kent are unknown. However in the east of the county a small population occurs and I had almost left it too late in the month to visit the site.
Late Spider Orchid

The small populations are protected by cages to try and keep rabbits from taking a nibble, looks to me like plant prison.

I've started to build up a portfolio of photos for submission to an agency and looking at their submission guidelines I've discovered that a lot of my older photos are not up to spec. Luckily my new camera purchased earlier in the year just reaches the minimum pixel size required and this has meant that I've had to re-visit a number of locations to try and build up a collection of stock shots. One thing on my hit list was field poppy and as I was driving around the county I kept on the lookout for any red fields of poppies. Eventually I found some probably the best fields I had ever seen, my problem was that getting too them wasn't going to be easy. The best route was a non starter, a footpath from a church carpark would have taken me straight to the site within minutes but a wedding had filled the car park and being in a village with narrow lanes there was no other safe place to park up. Eventually I found a small pull in and another footpath in a village a mile or so away and yomped back to the poppy fields in the June heat. It was worth it, what a sight, I'm not sure what the original crop was as it was hard to make out given the number of poppies, just stunning.
Field Poppy

When I can, I continue to wander around the local area and it was this time last year that I discovered a Kent Wildlife Trust roadside nature reserve near Longfield railway station. To my amazement the bank next to the road contained many pyramidal orchids although by the time I discovered this they had gone over. This year I kept going back checking on the status of the orchids and eventually got a count of 556 plants, just incredible and only 5 minutes from my front door, how lucky is that! Opposite the main bank on the other side of the road is an area of grass that has been left to grow and looks to be turning into a verge side meadow, and I thought there had to be more pyramidal orchids in there somewhere. One morning I decided to check it out and sure enough a few pyramidal orchids where hiding within the tall grass but to my astonishment I found over 20 bee orchids and not just small ones, these boys had between 6-8 flowers on them and were over foot tall. I now have 5 species of orchid that I can easily see within walking distance of my house, just cannot believe it.
The roadside verge nature reserve, pyramidal orchids on the left, bee orchids on the right!
Bee Orchid - Longfield

I have managed to get a bit of mothing under the belt as well adding a few new species to the garden moth list including this excellent beastie called peach blossom. I think the patterning reminds me of some mid seventies curtain material, sorry mum!
Peach Blossom

This one is a local rarity that I tend to catch maybe once every 3 years called small ranunculus. At one time it had been considered extinct for 50 years and then started to turn up in a few localities in Essex and Kent with one of them being Gravesend.
Small Ranunculus

I have a lot of ivy in my garden so it is no real surprise that I catch this beautiful moth called swallowtail as ivy is their preferred food plant.
Swallowtail Moth

Early one morning I decided to visit Lullingstone Country Park to check out the dark green fritillary butterflies and orchid situation. Whilst the fragrant orchids had gone over there were many dark green fritillaries on the wing and I was able to locate two mating individuals at the base of some long grass. They allowed me to get very close, in fact by moving slowly I was able to get close enough to start taking photos using my macro lens and at one point was able to get below the pair to give the odd 'stained glass window' shot.
Dark Green Fritillary

The 'stained glass window' shot.

May Round Up

2009-06-02T22:21:00.020+01:00

For the past couple of years, May has been a a very plant focused month for me and this year has been no exception, although I feel that this year many orchids are coming into their best a week earlier than in previous years. There is a very small piece of managed common land within a few minutes walk from my front door called Rectory Meadow, on which, last year I counted over 100 spikes of man orchid, and whilst trying to get some photos it rained. This year I counted 61 spikes and once again whilst trying to get some photos it decided to rain! Still I'm getting to grips with man handling my benbo tripod, which for those in the know is a bit like handling a metal octopus but my results are getting better (I think?)
Man Orchid

A trip to Queendown Warren, to check out the state of the various spring time orchid species there had me looking at a chalk downland plant called sainfoin. I'd never really looked at it too closely but the delicate stripey flowers are wonderful. I'll hopefully be going back this weekend to have another look.
Sainfoin

Early in the morning at Queendown, I noticed a good stand of houndstongue which was just alive with bees. I decided to sit on the edge of the stand and with my macro lens try to get some shots of the action. Most of the images came out blurry as it wasn't really possible to use a tripod but one or two were in focus. In the early morning sunshine and sat in the middle of loads of furry bumble bees it was an excellent wildlife moment.

Mixed in with the bumblebees I noticed this hoverfly bee mimic Volucella bombylans, this one is the variant plumata. The larvae feed on the debris in bee and wasp nests.
Volucella bombylans

There are quite a few good sites in Kent for fly orchid, the shot below is from Queendown Warren and the plant was tiny with the flower head almost parallel to the ground surface so making it easier to get a good macro shot with most of the flower in focus.
Fly Orchid

White helleborine is another relatively common orchid species in Kent and seems to favour shady areas under beech trees. My very first encounter was only a couple of years ago and after finding my first plant I waited for the flowers to open only to find that the flowers subsequently went over. It wasn't after reading up on the species that I came to understand that they barely open their flower heads at all, so since then I have always been on the lookout for individuals that break the rules and show me what is inside the white flower head. Once again at Queendown there was an excellent variety of flowers in bloom and it is getting better each year here as a result of the scrub management that is being done. I found this one with a slightly open flower head.
White Helleborine

I almost missed the spectacle that is Marden Meadow and the green-winged orchids. By the time I got there many of the orchids had passed their best but after a bit of wandering around I did manage to find a few plants that were still in their prime. The orchids at Marden are photographed to death and trying to think of new ways to get an interesting shot was a challenge for me but once again I got down low and looked upwards and managed to get a blue sky background.
Green-winged Orchid

I also found this white form of green-winged orchid, hopefully next year if it flowers I can get a shot of it in it's prime.

The trouble is the orchid spectacle is so amazing that you just get carried away and take loads of pictures.

I know of a couple of sites in north kent where you can see birds-nest orchid and at one of the sites a single flower had appeared in a new location. Lacking chlorophyll they initially look bland for an orchid but when you get in close the flower structure is quite amazing.
Birds-nest Orchid

Lesser butterfly orchids are tricky to see in Kent, being very local and scarce. Luckily there is one reliable site in north Kent and this year the flowers seemed to be well advanced by the time I got to see them. To me, along with the greater butterfly orchid, the flowers seem to be more angel like than butterfly.
Lesser Butterfly Orchid

At one site, it was possible to see fly, lady and lesser butterfly all within an area of a couple of feet. Some of the best lady orchid sites are in the east of the county but there is one reliable area in north Kent that generally holds 20 or so flowers. This plant had a large white butterfly holding on in the stiff breeze.
Lady Orchid and Large White Butterfly

Finally at the same site there was a great example of a fly orchid, with over 6 flowers along the stem.
Fly Orchid

I have also been wandering around the local Longfield area and there have been some impressive buttercup displays. Not sure what species these beetles are but I found them crammed into the buttercup flower head early one morning.

The background of the shot below is a densely packed field of buttercups and I'm pleased with the way I have managed to isolate this individual flower head.

A nice beechwood nearby is host to several hundred early purple orchids set amongst bluebell stands. Wandering around I located this white version of the early purple orchid, in fact I think it is the first white version I've seen along with the green-winged orchid.
Early Purple Orchid

Once section of bluebells is reasonably dense and I just love the rich greens of the beech foliage.

In some places there are groups of early purple orchids and this plant was one of the tallest and most impressive flower head.

Longfield chalkbank is a Kent Wildlife Trust reserve. To be honest it is really a small grassy bank with a tiny bit of woodland and whilst being a lovely wild space that is home to slow worms, lizards and grass snakes some of the locals don't respect it and rubbish and dog mess is commonplace. Probably the most amazing thing about the tiny reserve is that it holds one of the few populations in the UK of grey mouse ear a small plant that I have yet to find there. My challenge is that common mouse ear also occurs on the reserve and is, well, common! I'm also struggling with the id features for grey mouse ear as never having seen one, finding a satisfactory picture is hard and I've certainly picked an id challenge for a plant novice.
This is a picture of a common mouse ear, the flowers do open up more but the key features are the white/silvery edges to the sepals i.e. the green bits that cover the white flower petals and the length of the sepals to the flower petals. In grey mouse ear, the sepals have green edges and the sepals are longer than the flower petals, I think! There is also a difference with something called a bract but for the life of me I cannot fathom it out. Still, if everything was easy to identify then life would be that much duller.

Common Mouse Ear

Another place I have visited is Shorne Marshes always good for marsh frog and hairy dragonfly.
I believe that the RSPB are doing a good job in developing the grazing marsh for waders and I unexpectedly came across this little ringed plover which just dropped into a muddy area just long enough for me to get a shot before heading off.
Little Ringed Plover

This is the second time I have been able to get close to a hairy dragonfly at Shorne.
Hairy Dragonfly

Painted Ladies

2009-05-24T19:19:00.004+01:00

This is a painted lady butterfly taken at Queendown Warren in June 2006, normally I see around 10 or so a year on my travels in Kent. Today at Reculver I counted 109 in a 3 hour period and I wasn't really paying that much attention. I gather that many are being seen around the county and we are enjoying an influx of this non resident, migratory species. Taking advantage of being in the east of the county I then moved onto Grove Ferry and connected with the long staying black winged pratincole along with a further 20 painted lady butterflies. I think it could be a very good year for this species in the U.K, at last!

Solitary Bees

2009-05-09T18:07:00.004+01:00

I've been mostly in the garden today and noticed that there was some activity around the bee tubes. 3 solitary bees which I think are leaf cutters were busy in and out of some of the tubes for most of the afternoon.

I've certainly had some success over the years since putting the tubes out and noticed red mason bees as well as these leaf cutters in evidence. Earlier in the year though I was a little concerned to notice a parasite in the form of a small red eyed fly called Cacoxenu indagator around the tubes. In fact I think that several tubes had been suffered parasitism as small holes had appeared in the mud casings and freshly emerged flies were sat around the entrances. There were 6 flies watching the 3 bees going about their business and I must admit that the 6 flies are no more, I'm hoping that they didn't get a chance to lay any eggs in the tubes the bees were working on.

The bees will create upto 6-8 cells, each partitioned from its neighbours with mud or leaves and containing an egg sealed in with enough pollen to see the larva through its growth and development. The larva becomes an adult around mid-September and remains in a cocoon over the winter, biting its way out in the early spring. The bee at the back of the tube is the oldest and is the first to be ready to emerge in late March-early April. It bites through the partition of the cell in front and then bites through the cocoon and nips the rump of the bee inside, waking it from hibernation. This bee then repeats the process until all the bees are awake and ready to exit the nest tube.

You can see a parasitic fly waiting in the tube in the top right of the picture.

April Roundup

2009-04-30T21:54:00.013+01:00

A different blog approach for me, with an April roundup of images and narrative, just so I can spend less time in front of the PC and more time out in the field.

In early April, I decided to try and look for some wild daffodils, never having really given them a second thought before. I have a copy of the Atlas of Kent Flora, which I was given a long time ago and checking out the dots on the appropriate map it looked like there is a site quite close to Longfield. A check on on O/S map for a suitable looking woodland and before I knew it I had arrived at Cobham Woods and got lost wandering about the various tracks. I did find some daffodils in the woodland but they looked very cultivated to me and I started to give up hope. I was on my way back to the car having now wandered around for a couple of miles and by this time had forgotten about any daffodils when suddenly I noticed four right by the side of the path and they just had to be the wild variety.

I was quite excited by the find as my investigation and ability to look for suitable woodland habitat had paid off. Generally wild daffodils have a greyish cast to the petals which are very upright and not so tall as the cultivated varieties, so fingers crossed I got it right.

The next day, Lisa and I returned just for a local wander through the same woodland which also backs onto Ranscombe Farm. What should I then find on the walk but loads of wild daffodils in reasonably large groups and I hadn't taken my camera! Oh well at least I know where to go now and it is a local site for me, something for next year.

From Cobham village the main track into the woods had a good hedge of blackthorn which in early April was in full bloom and on a sunny day attracted this peacock.

A little bit of damage on one of the hind wings but otherwise a stunner and in my opinion one of the best European butterflies.

Although I have been putting my moth trap out on a few nights during the month, I haven't really been having that much success, only catching a handful of moths. One of the nicest looking catches was the herald.

This common moth is one of the few species in the UK that overwinters as an adult. During the day it tends to favour resting in dead leaves.
For the regulars to my blog, they know that I visit the Kent Wildlife Trust reserve at Queendown Warren quite a lot. The reserve has a very good flora, especially orchids and one of the first orchid species to come into flower there is the early spider.

The population of early spiders on the reserve is quite small, I've probably only seen maybe a dozen at the most in some years and they tend to be very small plants, certainly compared to those that occur at Samphire Hoe. It is always a challenge to try and find them even if you know the spots where they occur and no matter how often I see them I always find the delicate flower heads just amazing. The orchid in the photo above had its flower head facing upward rather than parallel with the stem which made it ideal to try and photograph. I went back to look for the same plant in late April and found that the stem had been nibbled and broken and the flower head had lost its colour. This had probably been done by one of the local rabbits but you cannot be mad at them as they do a good job in keeping the grass low on the chalk bank where the plants occur. If the grass and invasive/aggressive plants took a hold then the wonderful plant diversity wouldn't exist.
I also cannot mention Queendown without another pic of an adder, this one a male, catching the suns warmth.

By the end of the month the adders I had been regularly seeing there had dispersed as on a couple of trips I couldn't find one in the usual places. The dispersal of the males and females is a usual event but generally occurs a little later in the spring, maybe the warmer April days had encouraged them to move on earlier.
On my last visit to Queendown in late April I wanted to try and get some photos of green hairstreak as I've found this site to be excellent for getting very good close up views of them. In fact I've challenged myself to get a close up shot of one with a 60mm macro lens but haven't quite managed it yet. An early morning walk through the brambles in Potters Wood resulted in a couple of green-veined whites, one of which posed nicely.

I then moved onto the main bank and in the sunshine it wasn't too long before I noticed a green hairstreak feeding on the common milkwort.

I think these small butterflies are full of character, with their black and white banded antennae and white furry bodies contrasting with the iridescent green on the wings.

Well that was it for April, it is now May 1st and I should be going out soon.

Longfield - Moths

2009-04-06T20:23:00.007+01:00

With the nights remaining above freezing and despite the cold mornings the number of moth species on the wing is increasing. Over the weekend I managed to run the mv trap for a night and caught 6 moths of 5 species.
Early Grey

One of the odd plume moth species with the great Latin name of Platyptilia gonodactyla, certainly you'd be forgiven for thinking it was some sort of duck-billed pterodactyl. The wings of this group of moths are split into fingers, or plumes and are held out in this characteristic T shape.

Funkiest moth of the night award goes to the two male muslin moths, bad hair day or what!

Great antennae though.

Queendown Warren

2009-03-29T22:02:00.003+01:00

Back to Queendown again but the morning was much colder and far less sunny than I expected. Still I managed to find one adder in the overcast conditions and once the sun finally emerged a total of 3 males and a single female. Many bumble bees and bee-flies and having read Steve's New Hythe blog I was on the lookout for dotted bee-fly and without too much difficulty I was surprised to find one. Albeit the only one I saw amongst the more common Bombylius major.
Dotted Bee-fly

The adders definitely appeared not to like the cold and this small male whilst trying to gather the most of the mornings heat looked decidedly chilly to me as it tightly rapped its coils together. The blue cast over the eye is a sign that it will soon shed its skin, called sloughing, normally the eyes are a lovely red in colour.

I believe that their normally excellent eyesight is diminished during this process and you'll be pleased to know that it remained in this exact location both before, during and after the shots were taken. Plenty of gulls around as well including a couple of adult Med gulls.

Is it me or are the carpets of wood anemones not quite as good this year?

Queendown Warren

2009-03-24T21:24:00.006Z

I like adders (I might have mentioned this before) and although I have been working too much in March it was good to be able to get out on a couple of sunny weekends to Queendown to try and find and observe some emerging males and eventually a couple of females.

At Queendown, the KWT have been tasked with identifying exactly how many adders are there and this means identifying and keeping tabs on individuals. I think this will be no mean feat as it is hard enough to tell male from female let alone try to identify individuals throughout the year. It seems that the trick is to concentrate on the head patterns and I've supplied head images of the 2 females and 4 males that I have been lucky enough to see on my two visits this year. Males emerge first and then generally lay around and await the emergence of the females. My visit on the 7th March yielded 4 males of which 2 were together.
Adder males

I just love the contrast of the black zigzag against the pale body colour and it promises to just get better as the spring progresses and they start to shed their skin. You tend to know when this is about to happen as their eyes turn blue.

On my recent trip on March 21st I managed to find 2 females basking in the sunshine. Normally the female zigzag is browner in colour although I'm sure more knowledgeable folks out there will tell me it is not as straight forward as that.
Adder female

Can't wait to get back there when I can.

Longfield - Moths

2009-03-22T22:18:00.002Z

Decided to have a go with my MV trap last night for a few hours and was surprised to get 5 moths of 3 species, two of which were new.
Totals for the 4 hours of trapping were 3 common quaker, 1 small quaker and a yellow horned, so called because of the colour of its antennae.
It's amazing to think that these moths start to emerge from February onwards, how well adapted to the cold unpredictable early spring weather they must be.

Yellow Horned

Small Quaker

Common Quaker

The Strand

2009-03-01T16:27:00.006Z

I thought I might have missed the chance to see a waxwing this winter but a flock of 15 had been located at The Strand in Gillingham. There have been a few photos and blog entries by others regarding several groups of these wonderful birds that have been seen throughout the country. For me they will always have an affectionate reputation of being the hungriest of birds. Flocks just descend into shrubs and trees and devour any and all berries, the birds having bottomless pits of stomachs, gorging themselves on the fruit. It is always a wonder to watch especially when they start calling as well. They make the most wonderful trilling sound which just sends a shiver down my spine whenever I hear it.

I didn't notice that this bird had been ringed until I looked at the photo.

North Kent Marshes

2009-02-24T16:00:00.009Z

I went out today looking for hares again and had decided to try somewhere different from the Elmley track. Whilst where I went is open to the public and I walked along a footpath I'd prefer to keep the actual site detail to myself. A bit selfish I hear you cry, well you are probably right but it is my first visit to this area and until I get to know it a bit more and how the hares behave I wouldn't want to put them at risk. To those birders out there, this outing was one of those look at a map, try and work out suitable habitat and then pay a visit type of trips that worked out. Not far into the walk, I'd already managed to see a good group of 8 corn buntings and then whilst scanning my first hare bounded off into the distance. I wasn't even close to it and it's effortless stride took it far away from me and then it disappeared in a rutted field. Moving on another scan revealed 3 distant brown lumps that then became 4 distant brown lumps.

It was time to try out a theory that I'd been told about how to approach and get close to a hare and it seemed to work, although obviously they were a bit worried and crouched even closer to the ground but I must have got to within 15 feet and they stayed put.

I then did something that they weren't expecting and I laid down to see what they would do. Unfortunately for me, I had chosen the only patch of young nettles in the vicinity and ouch! it bloomin hurt but I couldn't then just jump up so I stayed put and suffered and took a few more photos.

Two of the hares then had enough of this odd behaviour and made a dash for it.

They both then stopped and one stood up on it's hind legs looking back at me laying down. I was lucky with these shots and I love the perspective that being so low down gave me.

I'm definitely going to try lying down again but next time chose my patch a little more carefully.
On the walk back to the car a merlin flew low over the marsh, rounding off a great few hours.

Longfield

2009-02-15T14:44:00.005Z

I had to work on Saturday night starting at 23:30 and going on until the early hours of Sunday. I had only driven about 400 yards from home and there in the road was a badger that had been hit. Remembering that a friend of mine who is involved with marine mammal rescue told me that it is usually the second collision that kills a badger, as the first is usually not fatal having strong skulls they just get knocked out. I turned my car around and parked up to ensure that no overtaking traffic could run the poor animal over. The badger was still breathing and looked like a male, there was a fair amount of blood around its mouth. I couldn't tell how alert it was and not wanting to get bitten I gently gave it a prod with a shovel that I had in my boot and it didn't react. I then picked it up by the fore and hindlegs and laid it on the verge of the road out of harms way. There was still warmth coming from its body, the collision could only have just happened a few minutes before I came by. I had to then get to work but I decided to check on the badger when I returned home. At 02:30 it was still where I had left it, still breathing and its front legs kept on jerking, it appeared to me to be in a state of shock. To be honest I didn't know what to do, should I bring it home and leave in the garden covered in straw and an old blanket for warmth and trust to luck. I was tired and not thinking straight, it then dawned on me, the latest newsletter from the North West Kent badger group was still in the kitchen and the back page had contact numbers for just such an occasion. Back at home I rang the RSPCA and provided them with the details of where the badger was, I said that I would return to the animal and wait for a van to appear to pick up the badger. With torch in hand I returned to the badger and waited, hearing the laboured breathing and snuffling of the poor animal in the dark from the other side of the road. Whilst I waited, little and tawny owls were calling in the distance, robins were singing and two foxes calmly trotted along the road toward me only realising that there was something odd (me) lurking in the gloom when they were within 15 feet and then quickly scurrying away. Whilst I was waiting I checked where I thought the badger had come from and where it might have been going and I could see that there was a well worn path in the hedges on either side of the road. After an hour the RSPCA appeared and the badger was placed in a basket and taken away more or less in the same shocked state. I got back home, around 04:15, cold and very tired but relieved to feel that I had done the best I could.

I guess the badger was destined to be put to sleep, old Brock just couldn't compete with a ton of car probably travelling too fast and maybe being driven by people that just didn't care.

Northward Hill

2009-02-14T16:39:00.002Z

I wanted to go and look for hares around Northward Hill and decided to try the marsh around Swigshole which used to be a place where you could park up and then wander out from but alas not any more and there is no where else to sensibly park. So my next stop was to Bromhey Farm which is now called Northward Hill RSPB reserve. Certainly over the years this area has greatly benefited by having the RSPB around but I guess that it is not an area of priority for them as whilst there are viewpoints to watch over the marsh you just feel that the birds are a little bit distant. A few well placed hides overlooking the scrape and pools would do wonders for the visitor experience, maybe one day when the money for Cliffe Pools is released. Anyway the area is quite flooded at the moment and full of common gulls as a consequence. It didn't really look that good to try and find hares and needless to say I didn't see any. For the first time though I wandered along the heron trail which provides you with a good view of the heronry in the woodland, and there were a few individuals already displaying and one bird that looked as if it was sitting tight on a nest. I've also been told that it is a good trail for grass snakes, so I'll be back another day.

Longfield

2009-02-07T15:47:00.003Z

At last some warmth from the sun although it was hard to believe, given that everywhere is still carpeted in snow. Whilst enjoying a cuppa and the goldfinches in the back garden I noticed a buzzard soaring over against the blue sky heading north. It is the first I have seen over Longfield since I moved here around 12 years ago, so I nice surprise and a welcome addition to the garden list.
A wander around the local countryside saw me end up in the churchyard down Fawkham lane and I couldn't resist this shot of snowdrops.

Dungeness

2009-01-31T14:54:00.003Z

Parts of the Dungeness shingle spit are now a national nature reserve, needless to say not the bit with the nuclear power station on it but despite being an eyesore it has no doubt helped to keep away further development in the area. Having said that or rather written that, the small airport at Lydd is looking to expand which given it is right next door to parts of the NNR is not a good idea and I tend to think is the sort of barmy idea that could occur in the small isle that is the U.K. To help support the great work being done by the RSPB to stop this madness visit:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/sites/england/lydd.asp

The purpose for my visit was to walk along the beach between the fishing boats and the end of Dengemarsh gulley on the look out for any washed up marine mammals as up to 3 harbour porpoise had been washed up dead in the preceding days. Now, I don't know that much about the small population of harbour porpoise off Dungeness and I doubt many people do as to be honest the marine environment is not one that many folks are interested in as it tends to be hard to study as most of the time it exists in the alien world beneath the waves. Interesting to note that the boundary of the NNR appeared to be very land locked and didn't extend out to sea!
One very real threat to harbour porpoise populations is entanglement in fishing nets known as bycatch and there is still a small commercial fishing outfit that operates from the point at Dungeness. Now I'm sure these fisherman are responsible folks and don't dump their nets at sea and are very careful to safely extract any entangled marine mammal or bird but needless to say many harbour porpoises are killed in net entanglement and populations around the Kent coast and in the English Channel are threatened especially in winter as more fishing fleets move into the area from France and Spain. Whilst heavy seas may take their toll on marine mammals it would generally only affect weak or maybe older animals. On my walk I didn't come across any dead porpoise only a small shark and a gannet which did give me the opportunity to take a close look at a gannets feet and I hadn't realised they had blue lines on them.
Not too far offshore there was a lot of bird activity especially large groups of guillemots and on the tide line were small drifting groups of kittiwakes. One of the fisherman there said that a lot of sprats were very close to the shoreline and these had attracted the feeding birds. Given the cold easterly wind and choppy sea conditions some of the birds were lying low and facing into the breeze. A couple of adult kittiwakes were amongst a group of resting black-headed gulls but took off to feed along the shoreline.

A few first winter kittiwakes were also around this one showing the characteristic black W shape on it's upperwing.

The sea looked quite rough and the waves pounding against the shore were certainly quite frothy (man).

Just behind where the waves would break against the shore a small area of calmer water had developed an interesting looking lumpy froth.

Groups of brent geese were also flying past, this particular flock was the largest I saw with around 150 geese. I took a series of shots but preferred this one with the glare from the sea and the geese in silhouette.

Also in the calmer area just back from the breaking waves were two little gulls, I saw three in all. Both birds would dip down into a trough and start paddling with its feet just on the surface of the water and then pick off whatever it had attracted to the surface, it reminded me of storm petrel behaviour.

Little gulls are beautiful dainty gulls and adults have lovely charcoal coloured underwings.

Looking back toward the shingle bank just up from the shoreline I noticed a group of turnstone trying to get as low as possible out of the wind. At the moment they are in their winter plumage but still very charismatic.

A couple of scarce white-winged gulls were also in the area, namely an adult glaucous gull and a juvenile iceland gull. Both were seen whilst I was there but I only managed to catch up with the adult glaucous and what a great looking bird it is. This bird appears to be in its summer plumage with the well defined red bill spot, it is probably just me but it also seems to be a small individual for a glaucous gull not really coming across as the large billed hulks that I remember seeing in the past. The bill ratio to primary projection is a give away though with the projection being very short compared to the bill length, iceland gulls generally have a long primary projection and shorter bill. Adult Glaucous Gull Different light conditions can have an affect on how pale the back colouration appears.

In flight the wonderful white-winged gull look.

New Hythe

2009-01-16T15:04:00.007Z

I thought I'd just go and see if the jack snipe was still lurking along the stream that ran along Lunsford lane at New Hythe but no such luck, too much to expect really after a week but you never know. Although it was very gloomy and cold, birds were still confiding with goldcrests down to a few feet. No sign of any bitterns although I didn't get as far as Brooklands. I bumped into two redpolls of the British ssp cabaret along the lane and then whilst watching them I heard what sounded like a woodpecker drumming against some metal and that is exactly what it was. I'm not sure what this great-spotted woodpecker was trying to achieve but I'm sure it must have been giving itself a headache, it was determined to drill a hole into the metal.

Last Saturday, Lisa and I went to Dungeness being tempted by the reports of bitterns being seen on the RSPB reserve. Most of the pools were frozen over but a few open patches of water held a good selection of birds with red-crested pochards, slav and black-necked grebes and smews including a cracking male. We also managed to see certainly 2 and possibly 3 bitterns and some of the views were very good for such a secretive species. Lens envy ensued as I noticed someone there with a Canon 500mm f4 and not to be out done by Steves jack snipe shot, here is my best close up of bittern on the day. You can just make it out where the reeds meet the water in the lower middle of the shot with its head facing left.

On the 3rd Jan I decided to finally go and get some photos of the falcated duck that has decided to stay at Southfleet duck pond amongst all the farmyard ducks and geese and large group of mallards. It was bloomin bitterly cold but luckily the sun appeared for just a few moments and allowed me to get this shot of the glossy green head on this superb male.

Dare I say 'beautiful plumage' but I think it is. The vermiculations and scalloping on the breast feathers is exquisite.

New Hythe

2009-01-09T14:54:00.012Z

It was one of those nights and mornings that hits our wildlife hard. Just about everything is covered in a layer of ice, making it difficult for foraging birds to find food and try to stay warm. Just on the off chance that a hungry water vole might make an appearance I decided to spend a couple of hours at New Hythe but the water voles were obviously tucked up in a cosy nest hole somewhere (hopefully) as they were not around. Still a few hardy goldcrests, tits and siskins were attempting to find some food as the sun arose higher in the sky and finally started to thaw the ice.

Certainly this morning song thrushes seemed to be more confiding and this individual was trying to warm up and catch a few rays. It had fluffed its feathers up so much it looked as though it had swallowed a tennis ball, one of my favourite thrushes though.

This male shovelers is now well out of his eclipse plumage and looks very handsome.
As the sun was still rising the frost and ice still covered most of the undergrowth and shaded areas. The reedbed where sometimes a bittern lurks looked suitably frosty.

Old dead seed heads were coated in a layer of ice which sparkled in the weak sunlight.

And close up looked like a frosting of small diamonds.

Rabbits on ice is not something that I see very often but this beastie was finding some tasty morsals along the frozen banks of the ditch.

Elmley

2009-01-05T19:02:00.009Z

Despite the blizzard like conditions at Longfield I decided to try my luck once again along the Elmley track and see if I could get any shots of Hares in the snow. I was hoping for a bit more snow on the Isle of Sheppey than there actually was but I guess the locals thought that it was bad enough especially adding on the wind chill.

Practically all the lapwings that I could see, and that wasn't very many, were huddled into the grass and facing the breeze that was blowing from the north east. There were quite a few hardier curlews that were actively feeding on the short turf.

A set of foot prints caught my eye on one of the frozen pools and I liked the pattern they created in the sunlight, I guess they were probably made by a coot.

Nearer the end of the track were I have normally managed to see a few hares a good sized group of wigeon and the odd gadwall had emerged from the frozen pool behind the toilet block and started to feed in the corner between the fence and the reeds. I assumed that the reeds provided some form of windbreak against the chilly breeze. Not daft these ducks. The light and view across the marsh was great.

So no hares and very little to report in the way of birds but nice to be out again.

Elmley & Harty

2008-12-06T21:13:00.007Z

Just had to take advantage of a beautiful wintry sunny afternoon after so much grotty weather. So I decided to head back to Elmley to look for hares and anything else that might appear. Lapwings were much more in evidence since my last trip and using the car as a hide were not too difficult to get closeup photos although they had this habit of running in the opposite direction as soon as I had my lens on them.

A wigeon flock was in the pool and on the grassy bank behind the toilet block looking amazing in the light, one of my favourite duck.

In the late afternoon light the view toward Capel was stunning and believe it or not there is a close brown hare in this shot. It is probably only about 15 feet away.

Initially having a bit of a doze.

It soon realised that it had a camera lens pointing at it and slightly startled opened an eye but the car makes a good hide and it settled back down to its afternoon nap.

That's two trips and hares in almost the same place, so now I need to try and get closer, somehow!

Also drove along the Harty ferry road and found a couple of hares in the fields around Elliots farm but much more distant. At the viewpoint over the Swale a wonderful short-eared owl flew by and landed on one of the signposts just in front but just before I could get a shot a group of carrion crows started mobbing it and it flew across the Swale. One for next time, maybe!

Longfield

2008-11-30T20:55:00.002Z

Haven't really been that inspired to get out much recently, grey days and all that. Still I have been getting the odd redwing in the garden, but it looks as though the pile of leaves carefully stacked up by the hedgehog have been blown to the four corners of the garden and the little pile that is left looks sodden. I haven't prodded whats left in the vain hope that hedgie might still be there but I don't really think so. To cheer myself up I have started a blog that allows me to reminisce and dust off my old slide collection. Before I went digital in 2005, most of the photos were taken with a Pentax P50 and then in 1990 I upgraded to a Canon EOS10. My selection of lenses was a little limited as I used a Tamron 500 F8 mirror lens and tamron 28-300 zoom, great fun.
My other blog can be found at http://rabbits-tales.blogspot.com/

Elmley

2008-11-07T16:34:00.013Z

Over the winter and spring I've set myself a personal target to try and get some photos of brown hare in Kent. I've read in a few places that the track to Elmley can be a good place to see them so I headed in that direction over lunchtime today. Certainly the access to the Isle Of Sheppey has changed with the new bridge now spanning the Swale but to get to the entrance for the Elmley track you still have to go over the old bridge and travel the old but now much quieter road onto Sheppey. Today I noticed a good sized flock of fieldfares and redwings in the hawthorn that ran alongside the track to the clay pigeon shooting site to the right of the Elmley track and decided to try my luck with an odd photo or two. The thrushes were very flighty around 150 fieldfares and 30 redwings and even using my car as a hide it was difficult to get very close. Annoyingly I had taken the wrong tripod mount for my camera so handheld shots it had to be or nothing. With the subject being back lit I had to compensate by setting the exposure against a more neutral colour even with spot metering. Greens and greys are useful for this so I exposed against the green hawthorn leaves and hoped to luck.
Fieldfare

Certainly both the fieldfares and redwings were feeding on the hawthorn berries and even drinking from a puddle in the road but these were just to skittish to enable a photo. I think fieldfares are one of the most handsome looking of thrushes and I have been lucky enough to see both fieldfare and redwing close up in the hand on the Orkneys. Certainly a redwing in the hand would not be a good advertisement for the merits of bird ringing as they make one hell of a racket, anyone passing by would think the bird was being murdered. On the contrary a fieldfare in the hand is totally passive, or at least the ones I have seen were. Anyway, I then went back to the start of the track up to Kingshill Farm and the Elmley RSPB reserve. The area looks just fantastic with grazing groups of cattle, flocks of lapwing, feeding curlews and the odd marsh harrier and kestrel but no sign of any hares. As I approached the car park at the farm I noticed a brown lump in a short cropped field just off to my right. Looking through my bins I confirmed that the lump was in fact a hare. At this time a helicopter decided to fly over and I took my eye off the hare for a moment. When I looked back into the field I saw two hares running toward me and across my front. Their turn of speed is just so impressive and they accelerate with such ease. I couldn't believe my luck when the two just stopped on the dirt track in front of me. I was still in the car and slowly poked my camera lens out of the car window expecting them both to race off but they sat there for a few moments.
Brown Hare

They then ran off into some thicker grass and I lost them. I certainly hadn't expected to see two hares in quite this way, what a treat. I turned my car around and headed back down the track to wait and see if they would re-appear. Eventually one did appear in the thick longer grass and a few more photo opportunities presented themselves. If only I had a more powerful lens.....still I'll have to save up for one but in the meantime a few more visits over the winter to hopefully see more of these wonderful animals.

Longfield - Garden & Awards

2008-11-02T19:18:00.012Z

The other week I glanced into the garden just before heading off to work and noticed a medium sized hedgehog wandering along the raised flower bed. Excited in having one in the garden I took my eyes off it for a few minutes to alert my wife, by the time I looked back in to the garden it had disappeared. I then saw it again wandering around the base of a spirea in its mouth was a load of dry leaves and a few berries. I wasn't sure what to make of it and thought it had been foraging and the berries and leaves had got stuck in its mouth. I then got distracted and by the time I looked back there it was again in the same spot this time with a new set of leaves in it's mouth. It then dawned on me that it was building a nest between the spirea and some pine logs that I have in the garden. This was confirmed when it appeared from beneath the pile of leaves to a well earned breakfast of cat food much to the indignation of our rather large tabby.

Given that I do have two hedgehog houses in the garden, they are either occupied or the decor is not to the liking of this particular individual. Either way it was an exciting and unexpected garden event. I'm not sure just how long the hedgehog had been building its winter home but it must have taken it quite some time to build the pile of leaves, pictured here in the centre.

Since 2005 I have been entering the joint run Council and KWT gardening for wildlife scheme and have been successful in winning a highly commended and two silver awards for my efforts. This year was the icing on the cake as I managed to get a gold award, I am so pleased and I have volunteered to be a garden assessor next year.

Also this week I received an award from the KWT for two photos that I entered in their wildlife photography competition. I was 'amazed' that I won first and third prize in the flora category with the following entries as it was all very spur of the moment.

1st Prize Winner in the Flora Category - Ox eye Daises at Yockletts Bank

3rd Prize Winner in the Flora Category - Bee Orchid Queendown Warren

West Hythe - Military Canal

2008-10-26T16:52:00.005Z

Couldn't resist going to try and see the Green Heron that had been seen at the dam on the military canal near West Hythe today and given it was raining and an otherwise gloomy day it was a good move as Lisa and I had an albeit wet but enjoyable time. Seems it has probably been in the area for at least 4 days according to some of the local dog walkers and has been seen walking about on the path that goes over the dam!
On arrival there wasn't much point in trying to get into the overflowing car park so we eventually managed to find a spot along the road running through the village although I think tempers of other motorists appeared to be strained as you had to weave in and out of the parked cars to make your way through. We then made our way back to the car park and along the track to the dam where in the heavy rain there were around 40 people admiring a very confiding bird that was oblivious to the small throng and concentrating on catching a morsal or two. Photography was a challenge in the driving rain but it had to be attempted and i'm pleased with these two snatched shots. Let's hope it stays around for a while and can be enjoyed in better weather.
Green Heron

Longfield Gallops

2008-10-25T17:02:00.003+01:00

I didn't go very far from home today and really just felt like going for a short walk. So I ended up in fields just north of Longfield called the gallops to discover that there was a finch movement happening. Small groups of chaffinches were migrating west using the predominently westerly wind to give them the lift needed for easier and efficient flight. The birds seemed to be using two small valleys to migrate along and i've tried to indicate their flightpaths on the map below. One was just south of Southfleet and the other seemed to be along the north ridge above Longfield.
The totals for my hour watch between 12:48 and 13:38 were chaffinch 191w, brambling 1w, skylark 21w and 31 in the fields, starling 155w and around 250 to the west of Longfield, 1 large female sparrowhawk, 1 reed bunting and 9 corn buntings. I know that migration can start at any time during the day but I did wonder what my totals might have been had I been able to get out earlier. Still it is great to know that a few steps from my door I can see migration in action. It was a shame I couldn't get there during the recent thrush movement last weekend as I did see 70 fieldfares and 20 redwings go over my garden early in the morning.

Queendown Warren

2008-10-17T15:07:00.004+01:00

Having looked for adders at Queendown Warren on Sunday in the late afternoon sunshine and failed, I thought I'd give it another go today in the lovely morning sunshine, however I still failed to find any. I did manage to see some there in October 2006 and I think these were my first adder sightings ever. As I wasn't blogging then i've posted a couple of photos from that time.

Adder Male

Adder Female

A nice cheeky herd of Exmoor ponies, have been at Queendown for a while now and it will be interesting to see the difference the grazing will make to the reserve as there is now also a small herd of cattle grazing on the main orchid bank. A few birds around, siskin flying over, bullfinch and a few goldcrests, 6 or so. Still the odd meadow brown on the wing along with singles of red admiral and small copper.

Isle Of Grain

2008-10-11T16:29:00.004+01:00

I've been out of the country for a while enjoying a holiday in Madagascar of which i'll be posting a 'knol' soon with a link to it from this blog. Whilst this weather may not be good for finding birds in north Kent it certainly is very pleasant to wander about in and I found myself at Grain this morning. There were unexpectededly good numbers of butterflies still on the wing. At one time I had 5 red admirals enjoying the nectar of a mature ivy along with several small whites and small coppers. My list for 3 hours of slow wandering was:
Red admiral 6, wall 1, small copper 3, small white 6, large white 1, migrant hawker 5, common darter 20, brent goose 24 flying into the swale, goldcrest 6, chiffchaff 4, med gull 1 ad wint, swallow 22s, house martin 2 s, siskin 3, blackcap 2, redpoll 2, little egret 4, stonechat 2 and whinchat 1.
It was also good to see that the outflow from Grain power station was in operation. In the past at the right time of year this has attracted feeding terns and associated skuas, i'm hoping that it isn't just a one off.

Longfield - Moths

2008-09-14T21:22:00.004+01:00

Competing against a full moon last night the mv trap managed to hold, angle shades 1, willow beauty 1, lesser yellow underwing 5, large yellow underwing 1, turnip moth 1, square spot rustic 2, setaceaous hebrew character 2, rustic 3 and pale mottled willow1.

Isle Of Grain

2008-09-13T18:28:00.010+01:00

What a beautiful afternoon and on the back of a fan-tailed warbler in north Kent and a honey buzzard movement along the English east coast I decide to visit Grain for a nose around. There were still some migrants lurking amongst the scrub namely, 6 blackcaps, 5 chiffchaffs and a goldcrest. The group of swallows that had been building up during my last visits seemed to have cleared out and despite a honey buzzard being seen flying south toward Kent from Wakering Stairs in Essex and another seen flying west over RSPB Rainham Marsh, I didn't see any, incompetence on my part, almost certainly :-). It didn't really matter as the invertebrates stole the show for me. Migrant hawkers, common darters, holly blues, common blues, small and large whites, small heaths, meadow browns, red admirals and several fresh comma's were taking full advantage of the glorious weather. I couldn't resist the following photos.
There were a number of holly blues on the wing along with plenty of competing common blues although they were mostly tustling with small heaths. The holly blues preferring the comparative peace of the upper foliage layers.

There are usually a few little egrets feeding on the shoreline as the tide goes out.

Migrant hawkers were very much in evidence in some places occuring in small swarms. The males are just great with their lovely blue markings.

Common darters were also around in good numbers and I'm particularly pleased with this shot. If common darters ate blackberries you might think it was saying 'hands off, this one is mine',

Common Darter

Almost destroyed this web but managed to see the wasp spider at the last minute. In my opinion Britains most beautiful spider, what a cracking beastie.

Longfield - Moths

2008-09-12T21:19:00.003+01:00

And competing with the near full moon, in the moth trap last night were lesser yellow underwing 6, clay triple lines 1, angle shades 1, pale mottled willow 2, garden carpet 1, large yellow underwing 6, square spot rustic 2, setaceaous hebrew character 3, common wainscott 1, the snout 1 and rustic 2.

Isle Of Grain

2008-09-07T20:55:00.004+01:00

For the last two days I have been visiting Grain and looking for any migrants that might come my way. When I used to live in Hoo St. Werburgh, this site was only 6 miles up the road but at the time I was birding with a crew who were concentrating on the north Kent coast at Reculver and generally having a good time of it. Now Grain is 20 miles away from Longfield and the closest bit of good coastal scrub within easy reach so I may end up going there a few more times during the autumn. Wandering around I reminded myself just how good the remaining habitat looks and with it so close to the estuary it is with little wonder that a few good birds have been seen in the past. One thing that did occur to me as I wandered about was that I didn't meet any other birders. Surely if this had been the north Norfolk coast as opposed to the north Kent coast I would have bumped into maybe half a dozen other people out looking for birds. So it got me thinking (and not for the first time), does Kent just have less birders than Norfolk? If not where are they and what are they doing, with habitat this good there must be something to see and find? When myself and crew birded the Reculver area we were so competitive that 'ridiculously' we matched our patch against anywhere else in the country, including the Scillies and Fair Isle, whilst being a laugh it kept us going and kept us out in the field longer as we always felt that there might be just something to look at if we took anther last scan or just stayed that extra 5 minutes.
Anyway, over the two days, just what did I see. Well to be honest not that many birds. A smattering of migrants including 2 wheaters and a couple lesser whitethroats also a couple of small groups of whitethroats which were probably local birds. Over the past two days though a hobby has been flying around the more mature scrub area feeding on the abundance of dragonflies, both migrant hawkers and common darters.

This is the moat area, a heavily overgrown ditch just oozing with migrant potential. Look how close it is to the shore. In past years I believe that both dusky and bonellis warblers have been seen here.

Behind the moat you have this area of scrub.

Then looking south into the Medway you start to get some more mature trees and more scrub. This was the area that the hobby was feeding in and in the past has been good for yellow-browed and pallas's warblers.

Well, i'll be trying to visit Grain during September and October. I cannot really call it a patch but definitely a good place to wander about in at this time of year as you never know just what might turn up.

Isle Of Grain

2008-09-05T18:00:00.006+01:00

There just had to be some bird migration going on today, south/south easterly winds and rain. I headed of to Grain in the north west of Kent and bordering onto the Thames estuary, in the hope that I might bump into something. The area has changed a bit since I was last there, much more work going on in the power station compounds and they seem to have cleared a lot of the scrub and replaced it with gas towers! Still I headed off to the area where the sand extraction works was only to find it had gone but there was a digger working in the area so I couldn't investigate further. However the north facing beach area still looked good for migrants and this was where I saw 3 wheatears feeding amongst the WWII dragons teeth, tank traps.

There were also a couple of whitethroats in amongst the scrubby areas and 3 blackcaps near where the old sand extraction works used to be. In the past that area has been good for grass snakes but not on a day like today. The tide was well out but there was a pleasing group of 12 black-tailed godwits in-close that seemed content and remained there during my visit. A few showers started and then the rain became heavier so I changed tactics and started to pick some blackberries. Here is hoping for some good crumble over the weekend!

Longfield - Moths

2008-08-29T08:38:00.008+01:00

An interesting night in the moth trap but probably not if you are a moth. On opening up the trap this morning there must have been around 1000 small brown beetles in amongst all the egg boxes. Not sure what species they are but as I started to empty the trap they started to fly off and disperse. A good catch of moths as well both in and around the trap. White point 4, angle shades 2m brimstone 1, small emerald 1, rustic 2, mouse 3, large yellow underwing 10, lesser broad-bordered yellow underwing 3, lesser yellow underwing 2, square spot rustic 2, old lady 2, pale mottled willow 2, setaceaous hebrew character 1, thistle ermine 1, swallow prominent 1, the snout 1, cabbage moth 1, vines rustic 1 and tawny barred angle 1.

Thistle Ermine, a member of the Pyralid family and micro group of moths.

A couple of the many small beetles that had been attracted to the light trap overnight.

Weevils look amazing and very alien, this little chap was on the rim of the trap.

Another non moth caught in the trap overnight was this lovely wasp of the Ichneumon family

You have to look all around the trap to try and find those creatures that have been attracted but never quite made it by going inside. This morning I found two moths in my pond both of which I fished out and i'm happy to say are alive and well and the most beautiful moth of the night the swallow prominent was lurking in the shadows amongst the ivy behind my trap and almost got missed, clever thing. Very pleased with the 4 white points, hopefully this means that migration is well underway not only for moths but also for birds.

Longfield - Moths

2008-08-25T18:00:00.004+01:00

In the moth trap last night were lesser broad bordered yellow underwing 12, square spot rustic 4, ruby tiger 1, spectacle 1, brimstone 1, flame shoulder 1, common rustic 2, lesser yellow underwing 1, garden carpet 1, rustic 2, large yellow underwing 6, staw underwing 1, white point 1, pale mottled willow 1. setaceous hebrew character 1, old lady 1 and an angle shades.
I then headed off down to Reculver for a wander where I heard that one of the local birders had caught 2 convolvulus hawk moths overnight, very nice, maybe in my garden one day.

Ruby Tiger

White Point, an immigrant and possible local breeder in the south of the UK. A good catch for my inland garden site.

Shorne Marshes

2008-08-23T17:39:00.010+01:00

Apparently it's Thames marine mammal watch weekend although I cannot say it is the most heavily advertised event, I only knew because Lisa my wife caught a brief announcement on the London news on Friday. So it had to be a good time to see harbour porpoise on the Thames especially as there is not that much wind today. I'm pleased to announce that this trip to Shorne marshes has managed to maintain my 100% dip rate on trying to see any marine mammals from the fort shoreline. Still i'm not that downhearted, i'll keep trying as you never know. I only walked down the tarred road from the business park east of Shorne to the fort and back but had some nice wildlife encounters and a bit of photography fun.
A few marsh frogs were in evidence, mostly keeping quiet except when I went too close to the dyke edges and then they leapt from the bank into the ditch making some great plop! sounds.

I then managed to see 2 grass snakes in the water of one ditch, the first I have managed to catch up with this year, too quick for any photos though.
In my few visits to Shorne I had never noticed just quite how many pylons there were in the vicinity of the marshes.

A few butterflies were managing to make the most of the odd sunny spell, including red admiral, small white, gatekeeper, common blue, comma and this holly blue. When I first saw it sheltering on a bramble I fired off a couple of photos with my 300mm x 1.4 lens and then thought just how close could I go maybe with my 60mm macro. As the sun was behind some clouds I don't think it wanted to fly as I managed to get so close I couldn't focus.....

I think the holly blue had the last laugh though as I must have been a bit of an odd site to any passer by (and a few people did) with my head stuck into the adjoining prickly hawthorn bush.

You know autumn migration is happening when you start to see birds out of habitat and this 1st year reed warbler was no exception, looking for food amongst the branches of a hawthorn. A nice fresh individual.

KWT - Sevenoaks Reserve

2008-08-22T16:51:00.005+01:00

A friend of mine informed me that some of my photos are on display at the reserve centre and as this was news to me I wanted to go and take a look. Unfortunately the centre is shut on a Friday so I went for a wander around as I hadn't visited the site before. What a great place, loads of little nooks and crannies crammed with dragonflies and damselflies, chiffs and willow warblers calling, blackcaps tacking some lovely great crested grebes and at least 5 kingfishers. Couldn't resist the following piccies.
Came across a group of 4 kingfishers one of which posed long enough for a lucky shot. This is a male due to the all black bill, the females have a red base.

There were some great spots for dragonflies and damselflies and I tried in vain to get some flight shots but managed to find this resting brown hawker.

There were a number of young great crested grebes around at various ages all with attentive parents. I just love the way this youngster is hitching a ride from mum/dad, just so cute.

Longfield - Moths

2008-08-22T09:01:00.010+01:00

A surprisingly good night in the moth trap with brimstone 2, mouse moth 1, lesser broad-bordered yellow underwing 12, scarce footman 1, straw underwing 4, Agriphila geniculea 2, common rustic 1, willow beauty 1, large yellow underwing 5, garden carpet 2, square-spot rustuc 1, rustic 1, flame shoulder 1, turnip moth 1, lesser yellow underwing 1, orange swift 1 and pale mottled willow 1.
Square-spot Rustic

Orange Swift

Garden Carpet

Scarce Footman

Actually not that scarce but more a coastal speciality so I'm really pleased to have caught this in Longfield. It holds its wings tightly to its body curving them around its abdomen, another good feature is the broad pale line across the end of the forewing. For comparison I caught a common footman on the 20th June, if you check out the blog for that day.

Longfield - Moths

2008-08-15T18:06:00.003+01:00

I've been out of the county a little bit recently. First across the Bay of Biscay guiding for the Company of Whales and it was a bit rough in fact gusting force 7 with a 4 metre swell which made it hard to find whales and dolphins. Over 3 days and with perseverance we managed to see 8 species of cetacean which was great including 3 breaching beaked whales. Then over to Essex to lead some wildlife walks for the Forestry Commission and Thames Chase at a place called Davey Down which went very well and I find good fun to do, especially when the weather is good.
So it was good to get back to Kent and get the moth trap running on Friday. An overnight effort with the mv trap produced straw dot 1, lesser broad-bordered yellow underwing 2, bright-line brown eye 1, pale mottled willow 2, straw underwing 2 and brimstone 1.

Straw Dot, this is a macro moth but could be mistaken for a pyralid type at first glance.

Straw Underwing

Trosley Country Park

2008-08-02T19:05:00.002+01:00

A mid afternoon wander around Trosley C.P. in the initially overcast conditions turned into a very pleasant stroll as the sun finally came through and blue sky appeared. Along the top ride a single migrant hawker checked us both out whilst the odd small white and meadow brown were in evidence. We also had a single slow worm under one of the corrugated sheets. Tried as a I could violet helleborine eluded me so giving up my search we went down the slope in the sunshine in the hope of a few butterflies. At the base of the slope plenty of marjoram was in flower and I must say that the numbers of butterflies was good to see. Meadow browns, common blues, chalkhill blues and small whites along with many bumblebees and hoverflies all seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and display of flowers. The climb back up to the wood had to be speedy so as not to get too wet in a passing shower. Then walking back to the car I suddenly noticed two violet helleborines. One is about 18 inches high and has at least 30 flowers ready to open up in around a week or so, the other was almost the opposite in stature only have two flowers ready to open. I was very pleased and rounded off the trip with a celebratory cuppa at the cafe.

Longfield - Moths

2008-07-26T09:03:00.006+01:00

For me there is always a risk of catching the same moths again running the trap on consecutive nights but with such hot weather I had to try so I waited until a little later in the night before switching the lamp on and managed to get a few different species this time.
Brown tail 1, riband wave 4, brimstone 3, Endotrichia flammealis 1, dark arches 3, bright-line brown eye 1, brown line bright eye 1, marbled beauty 1, garden carpet 1, common rustic 1, least carpet 1, uncertain 1, the coronet 1, square-spot rustic 1.

Brown-line Bright Eye, not to be confused with Bright-line Brown Eye!

Marbled Beauty

The Coronet

Queendown Warren

2008-07-25T14:24:00.011+01:00

It had warmed up quite a bit when I arrived at Queendown Warren this morning. There were good numbers of butterflies in evidence mainly meadow browns and gatekeepers, they seemed to be everywhere. A quick look for adders revealed none in the usual spots but given the heat I was being optimistic but you never know. The top ride in Potters Wood had a good display of wild flowers and the couple of buddleia bushes there had around 10 peacocks feeding on them along with commas and more meadow browns. At the base of the beech trees you can find another orchid species called broad-leaved helleborine which does have very attractive flowers.
Broad-leaved Helleborine

Ride through Potters Wood with mullein sp. which I should have taken more notice of because I cannot identify it.

Thanks to Greenie, i've taken a little more time to check my other photos and have come to the conclusion that it is twiggy mullein an introduced species, mainly as the flowers are in clusters.

Loads of butterflies on the main chalk bank including the odd Essex skipper.

A couple of chalkhill blues were zooming around and also plenty of marbled whites and I couldn't resist this one on knapweed.
Marbled White