Moulting Marsh Harrier over the garden

 Marsh Harrier, with strong feather moult June 11th

Despite Shadoxhurst's mid-Kent position with the Isle of Sheppey to the North and Romney Marsh to the South, we rarely see Marsh Harriers commuting between the two. In fact it could be 10 years since I last saw one fly over the house. But yesterday's strong and cold North Easterly wind had me just the once pop-out to the garden and luckily spot this large, wafty, scruffy thing coming over from the south criss-crossing the sky in constant pursuit by crows.

At first I thought the bird was an adult female, but if it was, you'd expect it to be nesting with rather plump chicks at this time of year. Adult Marsh Harriers tend to moult in the autumn after the breeding season. On one of the pics it's possible to see some grey feathering appearing on the wings, so I'm hedging a bet that this is a one year old male bird, battling away in the wind eventually making it's way North, perhaps finally kicked off its parents patch.

Insects in the Shadoxhurst woods

Four Spotted Chaser

An afternoon of cycle ride searches for absent Butterflies around Shadoxhurst meant most of the interest seemed to be Dragonflies such as this Four Spotted Chaser (above), and also many Broad Bodied Chasers and the odd Hairy Hawker too.
What Butterflies I could find included several Brimestones, and what I'm sure will be the last of the Grizzled Skippers at Alex Pastures this year. The Speckled wood below was the smartest fly on the wing today.

Speckled Wood on the byway at  Duck Lane

Very few days left for this last remaining Grizzled Skipper a Alex Pastrures

A common Summer Sawfly species

Hedgerow and Roadside Nightingales - all present and correct

Male Nightingale in roadside Hawthorn thicket, Shadoxhurst, 2015

Hearing is easy, but seeing Nightingales is very hard. This is one of the first birds I've seen in the last 5 weeks!

Despite a spring which refuses to settle into any regular weather pattern, (other than cold and windy) and also one of the worst springs many can remember for the late arrival of summer migrants, our local Nightingales have battled through to be present in good numbers.

Going by hearing song only can be difficult, this is especially so when the number of birds in a small area is high, but out in the open countryside it's much easier to calculate and register a Nightingale territory. In Shadoxhurst along towards Woodchurch then returning back to the trails of Orlestone Forest there are presently plenty of Nightingales in song.
Two birds in Packing Wood from 2014 are absent, but apart from these, there are dozens of Nightingales that have returned to established territories in roadside hedges and small isolated woodlands (Pound wood) around Shadoxhurst. The numbers of birds I'm hearing indicates a good healthy and widespread population quite surprising against a national picture of rapid and serious decline.
In Birchet, Long Rope, Stone Wood and Alex Pastures the last week has seen a noticeable number of birds singing at night on the periphery of the prime scrub nesting areas. Some of these Nightingales will be late arrival 'second wave' birds, and may not breed this year, but their singing will continue into mid-June.

Visiting the Orlestone woodlands at night and listening to the dramatic, loud song of such a large number of Nightingales is a highlight for me in spring and one of the joys of living in this small area of Kent. Listening from the back of the garden tonight the Nightingale song is distant and widespread but still a joy to hear. There are as many birds singing as I can ever remember.

Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers - hanging on in Kent.

Male Lesser Spotted Woodpecker at nest site, (600mm lens and a good distance away). 31/5/2015

In the wind and rain a grubby looking male Lesser Spotted woodpecker returns to its nest site

First the bad news, on my Shadoxhurst woodland walks, despite many hours of  looking and listening, I've been unable so far this year to find Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. This is the first year (in fifteen or so) I've drawn a depressing blank, and it fits perfectly the national picture of a bird very much in decline and missing from large swathes of Britain.
Why Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers have gone from being a fairly common bird to such a rarity and threatened with extinction is complex. My belief was that it was something to do with competition from its larger and increasingly common cousin the Great spotted woodpecker, well known for  taking the chicks of other hole nesting birds. However this idea is flawed because this breeding pair of LSW is surrounded by GS woodpecker territories and they also bred at this  same site successfully last year too.

In France, Lesser spotted woodpeckers are fairly common in woodlands. When I'm there, they seem to find me  rather than me find them. Perhaps Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers once spread east to the UK but really their healthiest populations are in a broad range across continental Europe to Asia?

Now for the good news, a big thank you to Ade Jupp at Butterfly conservation -
http://butterfly-conservation.org/?gclid=CMfSwfft68UCFU2WtAodT0sA9Q 
because Ade has found this Kent-based breeding pair for the second year running. So far the chicks are very vocal and the birds are feeding regularly, the signs are good for a successfully fledged family of our rarest woodpecker.

Buzzard - a close encounter

A beautiful late spring morning had me back on the bike early today. I was brushed aside by this hotly pursued Buzzard. More gentle birds included Spotted flycatcher, Turtle Dove, many Nightingales and 2 Cuckoos all in the Shadoxhurst area.

Sparrowhawk?

I saw this distant bird yesterday and first thought it was a shot at Goshawk, but taking all pics into account the feeling is it is a female Sparrowhawk. Hard to believe pics 3 and 4 are the same bird, however all pics were taken in quick succession.

 

First village Red Kites of the Year

It seems along time since I've seen a Red Kite over Shadoxhurst, but today luck was with me, as it seems there's been a mini-invasion of them happening over much of Kent.