Busy Busy Busy

Well both Christmas and New year have passed and I haven't posted in well over a month! I do hope all my regular (and not so regular) readers are well and that 2014 is treating you well so far!!

Due to my absence of late I still have photos from the Christmas period to show you so here are some of them...

Christmas Task with the Monday Volunteer Group!

Wet chalky nose

Lovely goldy munching birch catkins

Hurtling around with his deflated football

My Cousins chasing Bracky - such fun!

Flooded marsh

Bye bye football - Brack was too much of a wus to go and get it. The water was quite deep though!

Looking unimpressed with his Christmas neckerchief on!

Out walking along the Test Way - From Romsey to Mottisfont

LTTs on our friends feeders!

They are lucky enough to have 2 nuthatches visit!

...and cute little coal tits!

Frosty moss

Frosty grass

View out onto the lane

Box Hill

Box Hill

Setting sun from Box Hill

Plane trails and the sun

My Auntie Ruth and Cousin Tom came to stay the first weekend of January and it absolutely poured with rain the whole time. A huge shame because a nice long dog walk would have been perfect. Instead we went into Canterbury and had lunch with my Godmother and then went to Canterbury Cathedral. I hadn't been in since I was quite young, so it was lovely to go into this magnificent cathedral and appreciate it's beauty. So we still had a lovely time :)  

I have now begun my new venture as Volunteer Trainee Water for Wildlife at Kent Wildlife Trust working on the 'Vole Reversal' project. As many people know, our cute little Water Voles are in trouble. With a loss of habitat over the years and additional predation by the invasive, non-native species, the American Mink, some intervention is vital to protect the remaining populations of water voles.

I started my post last Monday and volunteer 3 days a week. I have been planning my training programme, getting to know the other staff and have been out on many site visits. I have already been made to feel like part of the team and it has been interesting to see how funding from various companies is allocated to different projects and how it is managed.

I haven't taken my camera out with me much but when the weather is nicer I will post some relevant photos to the project. I wish I had it last Tuesday though... after we had attended a meeting where Sam talked to local important people about the project, we went down to the marsh and had a fantastic view of a Kingfisher! We also found some water vole droppings which is encouraging. After the tidal surge at Oare Marshes it was uncertain how the water voles had coped, so finding fresh droppings was a very positive sign :)

I love that I am able to spend a considerable amount of time outdoors on the marshes - the best office around in my opinion! 

I'm not really sure how much information I am allowed to disclose about all aspects of the project so won't go into much detail at the moment. Once I have asked what I can and can't say I shall put another post together. I also have some photos from Sevenoaks NR from the weekend so keep an eye out for another post soon!


I'm sure I always apologise for lack of reading others blogs so I will carry on that tradition! When I get some spare time I will try and catch up with you all!