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!

Hail and Blue Skies

I seem to have a bit of a back log of material for blog posts, mainly because I have been at work the last 3 days and haven't had a chance! Last Thursday I took pup down to Oare Marshes with my Dad. There weren't any people about, which seemed odd at the time. Later on we realised why! Anyway here are a few photos from the walk...

Sedge warbler

Sedge warbler

Linnet

Linnet

Linnet

Black-tailed godwits

 We were enjoying our walk that had already brought quite a few species, when the heavens opened. Not with rain, but indeed with hail. We were transported back to winter in an instant. Freezing cold and soaked. This weather was made slightly more bearable because the swifts and swallows were producing the most fantastic flight display. Hundreds of them. Swooping, gliding, darting, skimming over our heads and over the water. Breath taking!

The storm that we encountered passed on

Beautiful mute swan

After our extremely wet and cold walk, we headed back to my car where I had brought a flask of tea and ginger nut biscuits that Mum had made. Once warmed up, I headed home to dry pup off!

Typically the afternoon's weather was quite the opposite of the morning's. Beautiful sunshine and blue skies!

Goldfinch

Pup looking cute with his garden toy

I wonder if he is thinking 'why is she taking more photos of me, just play with me!'

From the earlier rain, many of the flowers and leaves in the garden had perfectly formed raindrops on them, which in the sun glinted like diamonds.

Symmetrical Valerian

Aquilegia 

Buddleia leaf

Valerian

'Our' pair of blue tits are being fabulous parents, constantly taking food into the nest box for their cheeping and chirping babies! We would love to have a camera in the nest box for next spring, so I will be saving my pennies!! 

Blue tit with the next insecty snack

Bracken had fun playing in the garden as usual so here I will leave you with a photo of him up the wrong way!

On Saturday we left pup at home and drove to Grove Ferry where we walked a circular route via Stodmarsh. Amazing walk!! Look back soon to see why we had such a fabulous walk!!

Delightful Sunday in April

The morning started off with quite a bit of cloud around and the odd drop of rain, however we decided to explore the paths around Victory Wood in Dargate. This is a new plantation which has been created with the hope of linking two existing woods together (Blean and Ellenden). We were serenaded by skylarks for the entire duration of our walk, which was absolutely delightful! I don't think I have ever seen and heard so many before!

We didn't go for this walk specifically to see any particular bird, but I always think this is best because then we never go home disappointed! In fact we went home exceptionally happy today!

In the first few minutes of our walk we watched a flock of small finch like birds, unfortunately it was windy and a bit rainy so neither myself nor my mum got a decent look at them. I did get 2 photos of a bird in this flock but they are heavily cropped so aren't very sharp! I think they were linnets but not sure. If anyone reading this has any better idea, please do comment!! :)

Linnet???

Bracken was getting absolutely filthy and the rain was still spitting at us, which wasn't very kind of it! We took cover in the woods where it looked very autumnal! Bracken raced around with sticks and I found some moss to take a photo of!

We left the woods and walked across the top of the ridge where we were greeted by many more skylarks! I tried to get a decent photo, but they are particularly difficult to capture, in my opinion! Below are a couple of my attempts!

These don't even look like birds! But I am pretty sure they are skylarks!!

Skylark

The trees in the plantation are still pretty twig-like. It will be lovely to see them grow into a beautiful woodland! There was also lots of pussy willow to be seen, and many of the furry catkins were coming into flower.

I only realised this was some sort of fly when I was cropping this photo! Not sure how I didn't notice it before!

This walk also brought us our first 2 swallows of the year! I always used to say that swallows were my favourite bird, but now I find it very difficult to choose a favourite. I now take the view that each and every bird has beautiful qualities. However I will never ever get bored of watching these fantastic creatures!

Beautiful swallows

After about 1 and a half hours we had done a nice circular route and had reached the link sculpture where eventually the 2 original woods will meet. We had earned spectacular views from the top!

Myself and Bracken

On our way back down I thought I heard a chiffchaff amongst the overwhelming skylark song. We made our way towards the brambles and shrubs and managed to locate the little brown bird! This walk was turning into one filled with spring migrants!

Chiffchaff

Our next birdy spot was a kestrel which landed on a fence post and had a nice preen! It was fairly distant so the photos weren't great. I'll include them anyway :)

We then noticed what at first I thought was a blackbird. It was calling slightly differently. I joked with my mum, "Imagine if it was a ring ouzel!" It flew from the distant tree onto a fence post a bit nearer to us. Immediately we noticed a white bib!! I edged a bit nearer to try and get a photo that I could look back at when we got home, just to make sure! A RING OUZEL!! We love seeing new birds which we don't expect to see! That feeling will NEVER grow old! :)

Ring ouzel on the middle post

Ring ouzel (heavily cropped) showing distinctive white bib

This cropped photo shows the white streak down its wing and part of its white bib

This was most definitely the highlight of my day! It was a shame I couldn't get closer before it flew away and that the sun wasn't shining. Sod's law that as soon as we got in the car, the sun came out and the clouds cleared! We watched another 2 swallows dancing in the sunshine before we headed off!

We got home and had some lunch. Pup was knackered and lay in the sun on the patio. My camellia (which two of my friends bought me for my birthday last year) is flowering and so I took the opportunity, while it was sunny, to photograph it.

A blue tit was chirping in a nearby tree as was this rather demonic looking goldfinch!!

How blue is that sky?!

I then said to my mum: "Wouldn't it be lovely if a house martin flew over right now" and about 5 minutes later when we were taking the washing in, what did we spot? Only a blooming house martin! Could this day get any more perfect!! :)

So to wrap things up, today has been a wonderful one! Not only the hottest day of the year so far, but also brought spring migrants and a "lifer".

I hope everyone who reads this also had a lovely day!!