May round-up

One of 4 young Magpies fledged from a tall spruce in the garden

Its been a good long spring for wildlife around in and around our garden in Shadoxhurst. Whilst our local Cuckoos and Nightingales are still in full call and song, it won't be long before June brings a summer silence to the garden. Surprisingly, Great spotted woodpeckers can still be heard ocassionally drumming. That's a lot of head -banging, as I remember that the first bird heard drumming was boxing day 08. I know of at least 2 pairs with young birds ready to fledge the nest.

As far as I can see Spring has been a breeding success for our garden birds. Magpies, Blue Tits, Blackbirds, Long tailed tits all have young visiting the garden. Song Thrush young are sadly conspicuous by their absence and their arch enemy the Magpie, has three young birds being feed the garden. Starlings have done well with a large flock feeding in the paddock behind the garden.

Our Blue tits left the box with family in tow about a week ago now. So for this year their seems to be a traditional synchronicity between the green tortex Moth caterpillar peak numbers and the hatching and feeding of the young Blue tits.

My neighbours House Martins started to nest build and repair for just one day and then came to a stop. I'm convinced they will try again in June as there are at 12 feeding over Shadoxhurst field daily. No summer migrant seems to be able to breed later than House Martins.

Our 2 garden camps have shown us just how rich and intense our spring dawn chorus can be. Cuckoo's in particular have been very vocal, although one note of caution is that I have yet to hear a female cuckoo with it's characteristic and loud 'water draining out of the sink call!'

Dragonflies also seem to be having a good year. The first Broad-bodied chaser left the pond mid-month and there are many Azure Damsel flies and Large Red Damselfys breeding to. At night there are many Southern Hawkers nymphs prospecting for reed stalks to depart the water from in the coming weeks. Moths have been low in number on the few occasions we have tried the light trap out.

Good news for Butterflies is that we have had 2 small Tortoiseshells, (thats 2 more than last year) in the garden back in March, and and the wave of Painted Ladies has become a national talking point, such is the enormnity of the migration involved this year. Moths below are Marbled White spot and Elepant Hawk, both present in the garden last week.

Elephant Hawk moth

Marbled White spot

Mammal wise, foxes are visible in the evening trotting across the paddock and Pipistrelle Bats are present in twos and threes hunting up and down the garden lawn. I haven't seen any Hedgehogs yet and that is something I need to check out as nationally, their numbers have dropped disturbingly low.

Overall, its be a fine month with plenty of good weather - the highlight over all will be the day we saw our first garden Red Kite fly over. Here's looking forward to an equally exciting summer happy with the knowledge that spring despite our global warming worries seemed quite normal this year!

Back garden at 7.30 tonight

Meadow Buttercups in the Paddock behind the garden

Cycling around Rye Harbour NR

Yesterday, George and I spent the day at one of our favourite South East reserves. We took our bikes so we could cover the surrounding countryside ride around Camber Castle and then later spend the afternoon at the beach hides. We rode to the accompanying sound of Med Gulls, Turtle Dove, Skylark, Cettis Warblers and piping Oystercatchers. We saw all our favourite summer favourite birds, from Sandwich Tern to Hobby. Oh and we musn't forget the rare Downy Emerld dragonfly briefly glimpsed by one of the shaded ponds.We cycled under a vibrant cyan sky, temperatures kept down though by a brisk onshore breeze. We had a brilliant day, can't wait to go again before the Terns leave in the summer.

SHADOXHURST SCOUT FIELD, WILDLIFE DISASTER

I'm at a loss to explain this. My village is bordered by 30 acres of grassland owned by the Kent Scout Association. As an assistant to the Shadoxhurst cub scout pack we regularly rambled in these fields. On an earlier visit this spring, we were able to show our Cubs scouts, Skylarks and Green Woodpeckers and listen to the song of Nightingales and Cuckoo in the surrounding scrub. The grassland was spectacular for wildflowers and summer butterflies - but not anymore. Because as far as I can see, the whole 30 acres have been sprayed with weedkiller or rather grass killer. This has been carried out as far as I can see in the last week, showing a total disregard for wildlife and ground nesting birds in particular.

I intend to find out if a wildlife crime has been carried out here, and to have an explanation as to why this spraying has been carried. What is depressing about this situation is the fact that the Scout association have allowed this to happen on their land showing total disregard for their local scout group destroying (for this year at least) a valuable asset to our children.

Rather ironically, we had considered camping here this year but that is now out of the question, I will update this post as soon as I have an explanation.

Dungeness cuckoo and sunset

I grabbed a couple of hours at the Hanson ARC pit tonight. There was plenty of cuckoo activity along with good views of all the regulars from this walk. A cold brisk NE wind seemed to be blowing in. This didn't seem to hamper the invasion of Painted Ladies that has been a feature all over Kent today. I watched a Hobby by the car park entrance launch from the roadside fence on many hapless butterflies flying through. Bird migrant wise a flock of 45 Ringed plovers with 4 Dunlin in Summer plumage graced a small island on the lake and 4 Yellow wagtails graced the empty carpark.

Collared Doves displaying

Swifts mating on the wing at Dungeness

There were many swifts feeding over the ARC pits on Saturday morning, I presumed these were birds that were simply moving through heading North. However, as we know, Swifts do everything on the wing eating, sleeping and eh well...judge for yourselves! So, I think we can safely say some of these Swifts were local breeding birds too. These pics were taken quickly with limited time. Looking at the results, I'd like another go to try and add a little more quality to the images.