A sunny start just to fool us!

On the 1st day of April we were graced with some much needed sunshine! There was still a very chilly wind so we thought we would take pup for his first trip to the woods! We went to Blean woods, on the outskirts of Canterbury which is partly owned by the RSPB. There were quite a few other people who had obviously had the same idea! Bracken LOVES other people and dogs and is very excitable so it was an... interesting walk!

Still looking rather autumnal

Little drink from the stream

Contemplating whether or not to have another drink

I love old trees that have been coppiced, they make brilliant shapes!

I thought this looked like a perfect little hole for a birdy to nest in!

It was a lovely walk, but we were amazed that we didn't see any birds! We heard the odd corvid squawking and great tit calling but nothing much else other than a grey squirrel which Bracken missed! Then about 10 metres from the car we saw a jay which saved the day! We don't get many down our way so it was quite nice to see one :)

A lovely sunny walk indeed, but was April fools day fooling us into thinking that spring may be just around the corner?!


Well we thought not, as the next day we opened our curtains and there it was again... vast expanses of blue sky and ... the sun!! We had another delightful walk in the afternoon.

I love this tree!

Go on.. throw the ball

I'm still waiting...

Getting bored of waiting now...

 So after a couple of sunny days, did the weather last? Well you guessed it, no! Back to freezing biting winds, snow, hail and rain again. I don't think I was fooled!

Although I can't wait to see swallows and house martins and swifts swooping around once again, I really hope they hold off a bit longer as I think they will be in for a bit of a shock if they do return to our cold wet country any time soon!

Wildwood, goldfinches, wet dog and RSPB campaign championing!

Well, it seems I am not doing very well at keeping to my new year's resolution - to post more... nearly a month! Not acceptable really, but anyway I think I now have a fair amount to write about.

At the end of January my mum and I took a trip to Wildwood Trust (a wildlife park near us) to see how much it had changed since I last went there when I was about 10. They still continue to enthuse the general public on our native mammals and birds alike. They have expanded their collection of mammals which are involved in their conservation programmes, and it was a delight to see some of their usually elusive creatures such as the red squirrel. These kinds of places are essential for educating our younger generations about the importance of looking after our British mammals and birds, but also for instilling a keen interest in the work carried out there.

Anyway here are a few of the photos I managed to take...

Wild Horse (Konik Pony)

Fallow deer

Tufted duck

Red-crested pochard

February started off rather slowly, not too much to say about it really, other than the goldfinches finally taking an interest in the nyger seed we started putting out. They are now daily visitors, as is our GSW which did disappear for a while.

Goldfinch

We had a lovely spell of warm weather a couple of weeks ago, what a treat to not have to wear wellies and a big coat! We went for a few nice walks with pup, he does his best to scare away any birds we may see! He got his comeuppance for this... Instead of using the bridge over the pondweed covered water in the ditch, he jumped straight in! This was his first swim, so I chucked my camera to mum just in case he couldn't get out. Luckily for me he clambered out and I was saved from a chilly dip! He was covered in green smelly pondweed and he went a bit mad after this!

Another day, another walk.

..and his new hobby is Litter picking!

Enough puppy pictures, he is such a poser!


The weekend just gone brought very cold weather, so walks, as necessary as they are, aren't quite as enjoyable as usual.

So, I left mum to take Bracken to his puppy class and walk him and I spent the day in London at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) where I attended the RSPB Campaign Champions Training Day. It was a well spent day, with talks from Martin Abrams, Paul Outhwaite and Laura MacKenzie, and activities to get us (the volunteers) to think about what a good campaign entails. We learnt more about how we can use Letter writing, social media, traditional media and Face to Face Lobbying to inform our local MPs about what we think they should be doing to help our campaign. These activities were great, and got everyone sharing their opinions. It was nice to meet like minded people, who had similar interests and views I do. I was also happy that there were some more people of a similar age to me at this event, as the last campaign workshop I went to, I think I was the youngest volunteer. It is nice to know that I'm not the only person of my age to care about nature, birds and the future of our wildlife! Lots of issues were discussed including he badger cull, the Thames Estuary Airport and the RSPB's current campaign - Stepping up for Nature! All in all the day was a success, learning how to campaign and making new friends!

Hopefully my next post will be a bit sooner and will include more birding activities!

Big Garden Birdwatch and a Trip to Elmley Marshes

It was rather a lovely weekend. Despite the forecast of rain on both Saturday and Sunday we were lucky enough to miss it on both days!

We went for a nice walk on Saturday morning with blue skies and that bright thing we hadn't seen for a while, the sun I think they call it! There were quite a few fieldfares around, as well as possible mistle thrush or two, however flew off before we could confirm.

We had a bit of a job getting the puppy clean and dry as he likes to play with the towel. Once settled kept an eye on the garden so could start the hour of birding for the RSPB big garden birdwatch. Let the pup into the garden and heard Long tailed tits, so quickly called him in so he didn't disturb them then started my hour! 9 LTT turned up along with a great tit and chaffinch, a blue tit which visited 3 or 4 times in the hour. A few house sparrows visited the nut feeder, a couple of blackbirds hopped about, the resident pair of collard doves and a little robin all adding to the total. Not sure where the 10 or so starlings which usually visit disappeared to, and shame the wren didn't make an appearance and the great spotted woodpecker which made his début last week. In the front garden there were 8 or so sparrows at one time, along with a dunnock that fed on the ground. All in all 9 species and 29 birds in total!

Long tailed tit

Robin

Blue tit

Yesterday we headed over to the Isle of Sheppey, to visit the RSPB reserve Elmley Marshes. On our way over we saw 2 buzzards and then we had just entered the reserve and a kestrel landed in a tree in front of us. As we drove, or rather crawled, along the winding country road to the car park area, we saw hundreds of lapwings, a large flock of curlew. A lone skylark fluttered along in front of the car, twittering away! When we got walking we saw a few teal and widgeon down on the flooded marshes. Again lots of curlew and probably dunlin and knot. We also noted a solitary little egret and a couple of shelduck flying over. We just turned to head back as it was rather chilly and I spotted a hare! First one of the year! Luckily it was close enough to get a few photos! Could have stopped and watched it all afternoon but pup was restless, he isn't such a keen twitcher! We also saw the usual suspects, marsh harriers, always a pleasure to watch.

Kestrel

Lapwing

Curlew

 

 

 

 

Pup got bored of waiting for us to watch birds and lay down in the grass...

And now for the star of the show...

No, not the sheep!

How do you do

On our way back along the lane there were lots of cars pulled up, presumably something interesting had been spotted. We could see a number of knot and also probably a fair few ruff or maybe they were redshank, but maybe they weren't and we missed out on a fabulously rare bird!

Here are a couple of blurry photos, any comments on idenification would be welcomed!

Anyway pretty good weekend all in all! Hope everyone else did too!