Sunday, July 31, 2011
A Kentish weekend
We stayed with Terry and Dorn, who live in a village near Dover.
On Saturday we had a walk across Samphire Hoe, with the best bird a green sandpiper flying over calling.
Terry then suggested a cuppa at the Clifftop Cafe, Capel-le-Ferne. Below the terrace, a path threads down through the bushes to a footbridge over the railway. Terry told us that a cross-channel ferry once got grounded on the concrete apron just in view, and also recalled climbing the path from the beach many years ago with their son Peter (then aged three) on his shoulders. Peter's now grown up with a little boy of his own.
It was enchanting enough just to be sitting there on a sunny day, enjoying good company and a delicious cream tea, and glimpsing a hobby far below.....
.....I couldn't know that I was also about to have one of the most sensational bird sightings of my life!
Looking towards Folkestone Harbour, I saw what I thought was a buzzard having a dispute with a large gull high above the beach; but a glance through the bins showed me something with a longer tail, and a more languid flight, than a common buzzard; something altogether special!
"I think it's a honey buzzard," I said, grabbing the camera. Greger looked sceptical - but he also looked through the bins! And he agreed that it didn't look like a common buzzard. I found it difficult to hold the camera still through excitement, but there is no doubt that these hugely cropped shots show a honey buzzard.
The dispute with the gull over, the honey buzzard turned towards us and headed north (when I got these pics), flying back inland until it was lost to sight.
How do you follow that?! Well, you go a little further along the coast road and call in at the atmospheric Battle of Britain Memorial, with its wall of names and its evocative stone airman, sitting in the centre of a three-bladed propellor and gazing, dreaming, out to sea.
Today we visited Chartwell, Sir Winston Churchill's family home; a lovely old house with gorgeous grounds and fabulous views over the Kentish Weald. I tried not to do too much bird-watching but couldn't help noticing that there were loads of house martin nests under the eaves, presumably still containing young as the adult birds were constantly swooping into them.
It was a lovely day and a great weekend. Thanks Dorn and Terry!This southern hawker was in the garden at home on 28th July.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Summer days
This dragonfly sunned itself on the Skimmia this morning for about an hour. It didn't move even when I noisily racheted up the clothes dryer right next to it and hung washing out.
This is probably a Southern Hawker, the bands (rather than spots) of paler colour on abdominal segments 9 and 10 being diagnostic. The "waisted" or pinched-in abdomen denotes a male.
Shorts bursts of churring from our "lawn" alerted me to the presence of what I think is a Common Green Grasshopper. It does have both antennae; one is pointing towards the camera and is out of focus.
A walk to the weir yesterday morning brought a warbler sunning itself on a post. There were lots of young chiffchaffs around so I guess this is one. I'm still not good on chiff/willow separation though, and here the extent of the primary projection is somewhat obscured.
However, a very sleek yellow bird nearby was certainly a willow warbler - confirmed when it gave a brief outpouring of song. Also present were sedge warblers, whitethroats, lesser whitethroats and a chattering Cetti's warbler.Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday
Having spent the rainy morning doing housework, I drove down mid-afternoon to the forest and heath. I set off in dry weather and hoped it would stay that way.
There was nothing to stop me walking through it all but I would have felt a bit of a fool, so I did something I wouldn't normally do. I struggled across the lowest part of the heath with its tussocky grass and hidden peaty pools to get to the main track through the heather. My legs and feet were soaked in no time. There were no birds' nests to worry about - there weren't even any blooming birds! There were no other walkers. Just rain, bogs, the army and me.
And back in the forest, apart from a juvenile blackcap and loads of yellow-cheeked tits, I saw nothing of note.
Garden: The impressive Banded (Hornet) Hoverfly (which started my interest in insects) appeared as usual when the hebe came into flower.
They're not uncommon; I saw one recently in brambles in the hedgerow bordering Dorney Common - where there was also a lesser whitethroat.Saturday, July 09, 2011
Proof that you can move around in a crop without leaving a track....
.....for those who believe crop circles are made by little green men. Silly-billies! They're obviously made by deer.
The annoying thing today was that we did a 12-kilometre walk across the West Berks/Oxfordshire downs only to find the best wildlife at the end, within a kilometre of the car park.
I suppose I'd look this cross if I were trying to lay eggs and some daft woman was taking pictures of me......
.....trouble was, I didn't have my glasses; and I thought it was some sort of hawk-moth with a bright green tail. When I got home and enlarged the pictures on the computer I nearly fell off the chair with shock. It's my first Hummingbird Hawk-moth, laying batches of eggs along the margin of a wheat-field.
Meanwhile quails were singing from the wheat, and further out there were at least two yellow wagtails.
.....trouble was, I didn't have my glasses; and I thought it was some sort of hawk-moth with a bright green tail. When I got home and enlarged the pictures on the computer I nearly fell off the chair with shock. It's my first Hummingbird Hawk-moth, laying batches of eggs along the margin of a wheat-field. 
Meanwhile quails were singing from the wheat, and further out there were at least two yellow wagtails.Wednesday, July 06, 2011
It's still summer!
A walk on Dorney Wetlands brought a fledgling blackcap, the lesser whitethroat family and three grey wagtails at the weir. Swifts were on the wing.
A yellow wagtail family was vocal and active near the car park.
Yesterday at home, a Marbled White very briefly visited the ivy.
We see these butterflies when we're walking up on the downs, but it's the first time I've spotted one in the garden.Monday, July 04, 2011
Sunday 3rd July
We drove to Pagham Harbour. Greger had forgotten to bring the coffee from home, so he filled the flask with boiling water in the hotel room and bought a small jar of Gold Blend when we stopped to buy sandwiches.
Sidlesham Ferry Pool held black-tailed godwits, redshanks and a couple of avocets.
Sandwich terns were active and vocal round the Church Norton spit area.
Otherwise it seemed fairly quiet bird-wise. We sat on the beach and had lunch, and Greger got the flask and the biscuits out. Rummaging around in his rucksack for an age, he finally emerged and admitted that he'd left the new jar of coffee in the car. Well, why wouldn't he? Leaving things behind was obviously the theme for the weekend.
Other people were spreadeagled, sunbathing. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the pebbly beach and I took as much off as was decently possible while Greger went to sleep. (I'm not sure if those two things are linked.) Anyway, luckily we'd remembered the sun-tan lotion. Just a few years ago I would have gone in for a swim; but today I wasn't even tempted.
Wandering back along the bank, Greger pointed out this fish in the ferry channel near to the sluice gates. In fact there were two; they were blooming big blighters and we've yet to find out what they were. (For some reason this photo won't click up. Blast.)
Finally we paid an evening visit to Farlington Marshes, but the tide was out and the only bird of note was a far-off little tern. A lovely weekend.
Saturday 2nd July
Old-age blues having set in, I wondered if we could go to the sea. We could and did. Eventually. Five minutes into the drive Greger realised he hadn't packed his jeans. As he drew up outside the house again, I handily recalled the cold flask of Ribena I'd made the night before and left in the fridge. This put us on an even footing in the telling-off stakes.
"Good job I remembered," I chortled. "Just the thing for a walk on a hot day." I would remember this later.
After a pleasant drive down, we started our walk at the Beachy Head triangulation pillar.
I recently decided to start "collecting" benchmark numbers (apparently they're only called flush brackets when they're fixed to a wall or building as opposed to a free-standing pillar); but as I'd already done loads of walking by then and hardly given trig points a glance, it seems a pretty futile exercise. After all, I've missed loads of 'em. However, they often make a pleasing picture from an aesthetic point of view; and this one is easily baggable being a few metres from the road.
Greger pointed out the little group of people who'd gathered just beyond the "Cliff edge" warning with its graphic representation of a figure toppling into empty space, and we shook our heads in disapproval. Then we went over and did exactly the same.
There were plenty of people on the cliff walk, some clearly doing the whole South Downs Way (they're the ones with big rucksacks and unhappy expressions), but it never felt crowded.
We saw one stonechat family and I had a glimpse of a cuckoo. Meadow pipits were singing and displaying everywhere, but I think this might be a young rock pipit.
Birling Gap was busy as usual. Erosion of the chalk cliffs happens much more rapidly here than at Beachy Head, apparently. One of the coastguard cottages (on the right-hand end of the row) was demolished in the 1970s, and the National Trust has decided to lose them all to the encroaching sea rather than take any defensive measures to save them. The residents are not happy, but it's difficult to see exactly what the NT could do. 
All along the cliff-tops we had the company of gulls and fulmars. The fulmars would come up from below and be past you before you could get the camera out, zooming along the cliff-edge before dropping to plane stiff-winged across the chalk face.
After Birling Gap we had lunch. "You've got the Ribena, haven't you?" said Greger confidently as he unwrapped a chicken leg.
Nope. After forgetting it, then remembering it, at home, I'd now left it in the boot of the car. So instead of a nice cool fruity drink we had to make do with lukewarm water.
Never mind - look at the geology. Flint bands make dark dotted lines across the white chalk. I've simplified the information I found on earthhistory.org.uk (with www. prefix). The flint was formed from siliceous organisms such as a kind of plankton. The bands have probably formed at regular intervals because the plankton blooms were seasonal. (Greger says he's not sure about this as it would put the seasons rather far apart.)
From the seventh of the Seven Sisters we looked over the lovely Cuckmere Haven to Seaford Head. Continuing the theme of forgetfulness, I neglected to photograph (or even see) the trig point indicated on the map.
We made our way down into the view, and behind the shingle bank at the top of the beach a wheatearof a rather pied appearance was seen perching on top of a bush.
Shame I couldn't manage a better photo as it flew over to the shingle, but the picture gives some idea of its contrasty colouration and the white "stitching" in the corner of the tail.
I was happy with the sighting. "You and your wheatears," said Greger. Yeah, well. But I've always said: "The day I'm tired of wheatears will be the day I hang up my bins."
A flock of twenty-five curlews flying calling towards the sea was the last significant bird sighting of the day before we emerged onto the road at Exceat and caught the bus back to Beachy Head.
