Tag Archives: Oystercatcher

Nature Reserves

On the Swale NNR

The Swale National Nature Reserve, seen here looking southwest from Shellness, is an extensive area of brackish saltings, formerly saltmarsh (top right), with a shelly beach and rich mudflats (left) beside the Swale, the channel that separates the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. A Second World War blockhouse is in the distance.

To reach Shellness one has to jolt very slowly along a long, straight, dusty, potholed track, minding out for one’s shock-absorbers. The reward is a magically quiet, spacious realm of … nothingness. Wide mudflats with occasional Shelducks. Wide horizons. Long empty shelly berms above empty windswept beaches. Sea kale. Sea lavender. Sea campion. Sea everything. The song of skylarks over the wind.

A Meadow Pipit chooses a good vantage point on the lichen-covered blockhouse.

The cry of a Black-Tailed Godwit over the marsh draws my attention to an elegant medium-sized wader with its long straight bill and agile flight. On the groynes and mudflats are plenty of cheerful Oystercatchers, resting or foraging in little groups. A Little Egret flaps distinctively past.

Beside the path is a little beach, marked off with a sign, posts and a plastic rope for a “rare” colony of Little Terns. I scan it with binoculars, and am lucky enough to catch one in flight; it lands out on the mudflat, its long wings poking out past its tail, a slender sea-swallow.

Three Oystercatchers feeding on the Swale mudflats

Even as I parked up, some chunky Corn Buntings flitted overhead giving their sharp calls. They were once common in farmland everywhere. A single Swallow flew past.

Sea Campion

Along the mudflats occasional Ringed Plovers went their solitary ways. The telescope showed little groups of Shelducks in quite large numbers — perhaps I saw 50 all told. A few Black-Headed and Herring Gulls, and as always a few Starlings (convinced they were waders) visited the marsh. A sudden flock of a hundred Dunlins, wheeling and sweeping together, made me catch my breath, a glimpse of wild beauty.

Sea Beet, the origin of Spinach Beet, our favourite green leafy vegetable

Over the marsh, Skylarks kept lifting up for their song-flights, pouring out their astonishing, continuous, rich melody until they were almost invisibly high in the sky. It was impossible not to think of Shelley’s poem To a Skylark (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert …”), so marvellously immaterial did they seem in the wind and the bright sky.

At the little headland, bounded by a muddy, marshy creek, a Redshank flew up, piping.

This Yellow Wagtail landed just in front of me at the end of the walk, hawking quietly for flies, mostly on foot.

As I returned, a Yellow Wagtail, seemingly almost tame, walked unconcernedly along the path in front of me. I ate my picnic sitting below the dyke out of the wind, absorbing the space and sunshine, my heart full of birdsong.


Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Nightingales at Northward Hill

Northward Hill, looking over oakwood, scrub, grazing marshes, and river

Well there are some things one just has to do, even if it means braving the traffic. Nightingales, once common all over the south of England, can now only be heard in a few special places, and Northward Hill is one of them. There are some others in the southeast, like Lodge Hill, and guess what, they want to build houses all over it. Better go and enjoy the birdsong while it lasts.

A very shy Wall Brown, now a mainly coastal butterfly, the first I’ve seen for years

I was greeted by the song of blackbird, chaffinch, robin, song thrush, and wren as I walked in. A few ‘whites’ – large white, orange tip, green-veined white – skittered about as I reached the attractively rough scrub of hawthorn in full May blossom, blackthorn, wild pear, wild plum, and wild cherry, topped by the occasional whitethroat singing away scratchily.

Into the woods, with a handsome old cherry orchard on the right. Some of the oaks were straight out of Lord of the Rings, splendidly gnarled, knobbly, with massive trunks and holes to hide a good few goblins in.

Nightingale country: a fine old Oak. It looks to have been pollarded at about 12 feet up some centuries ago, so it was probably cut to that height while smaller wood was coppiced all around it.

And yes, sure enough, a nightingale obliged by singing its hesitant but amazingly rich and varied song from the thick cover. A little further, another; and a cuckoo kindly sang its unmistakable song from an oak almost in front of me, then with a ‘gok’ call flew, sparrowhawk-like, from the tree, a special sight.

Down to the hide overlooking the pool in the top photo; I wasn’t expecting more than a coot and maybe a mallard, but there were breeding lapwings chasing off the crows; breeding oystercatchers, and an avocet sitting with them; and a couple of solitary little egrets, stalking and stabbing at small fish or frogs. A redshank gave its wild teuk-teuk-teuk call and flashed its wingbar briefly.

Little Egret Stalking

Overhead a few swallows flitted about, and three swifts raced over the marsh.

The Hoo Peninsula is still a wild, spacious, lonely place, even with the swelling villages. You can see the Shard and Canary Wharf in the distance (some 30 miles); the river with its cranes and giant ships is ever-present; but the North Kent Marshes are special, as is Northward Hill with its fine old woods, still unspoilt for birds. Go and see it while you can.

 

 

Natural History

Sussex Wildlife

Fish and Chips to Take Away, with watchful Herring Gull Customer, Hastings

Fish Stall, netted against Herring Gulls, Hastings. The stallholder reported that they had lost a Dover Sole and a Plaice to gulls in the past few days, so the netting is anything but purely decorative. Customers choose through the netting, and then pay and collect through the quickly closed door!

A fine Plaice … stainless steel sculpture, Hastings. The rainbow coloration is created by the heat of welding the spots on to the skin, forming thin layers of oxide which interfere with light (structural coloration).

Rowan in leaf, flower and fruit, Wakehurst Place

Golden-Ringed Dragonfly, Wakehurst Place

Wheatear, below Pett cliffs, which are inhabited by Fulmars; the gulls were accompanied by noisy Oystercatchers, and a Little Egret

Tiny hemispherical Jurassic shark tooth, Pett cliffs

Not illustrated are the family of three Spotted Flycatchers and the Redstart surprisingly seen in a Sussex hedge! At this time of year they could easily be migrants from somewhere further north, of course. The Peregrine falcon that had a go at a Rook, however, was probably a local.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Glorious Spring Morning at the Wetland Centre

Starling foraging by reedbed ... why do they think they're waders?
Starling foraging by reedbed … why do they think they’re waders?

One of the abiding mysteries of London’s natural history is why Starlings act as if they believe they are wading birds. At the Wetland Centre, the flock of Lapwings is constantly accompanied by Starlings, whether in the air or on small muddy islands.

Today, a few starlings were rootling about in front of a reedbed, their handsomely starry plumage giving back the warm sunshiine with green iridescence that for once the camera has managed to catch. They really are beautiful birds in fresh plumage; quite unlike their ‘worn’ plumage, where they just look dark grey-brown and scruffy.

Six warblers today – an early Sedge Warbler squeaking and rasping out its complex rhythms with funky discordant notes a few feet away from the path; some invisible Cetti’s as usual; Blackcaps and surprisingly Whitethroats all about, singing away; a Chiffchaff or two; and a Garden Warbler too.

Out in the pools and on the grazing marsh, a good number of Redshank with their graceful calls, and plenty of activity from Lapwings and Common Terns – these being harassed by Black-Headed Gulls; and overhead an early Hobby, circling like a small dark Peregrine with long wings, high in the sky.

Not many butterflies about – Orange Tip, a very worn Peacock, Brimstone, Small White; and several Bee Flies, like a miniature hummingbird moth with a furry body and a long straight proboscis; but while they keep up the wing action in front of a flower, actually 4 out of 6 legs perch on it! One of the bee flies was hovering over some low vegetation with no flowers, darting down rapidly and repeatedly, at once coming back up, like a damselfly laying eggs: that might be what it was doing.