This is a young female Kestrel who unfortunately has fallen foul of a Sparrowhawk. Very poignantly, I had taken a photo of her earlier that same morning when she herself was out hunting for small mammals:

If an identikit was produced for the prime suspect for this killing it would surely lead us to this bird:

I have managed to get a photo of the Alexandrine Parrot with its diagnostic red wing patches – it has been happily squawking around here for several months now:

In exactly the same way as last year, a pair of Mallards have started visiting the pond early every morning – this means that the female Mallard has started egg laying. An egg is laid every 1-2 days until the clutch is complete with about 12 eggs in the nest. While this process is going on, she is very weakened and the male escorts her everywhere including coming here to the meadows for her daily bath. As soon as she has laid the last egg he goes off to join other males, his job as bodyguard being over, leaving her to sit on the eggs on her own.

You see them at the pond above along with our other regular pond visitor, the Grey Heron. It visited this morning and the trail camera photographed it taking six frogs and two newts and, in fact, this evening as I type it is back in position again.

Despite its relentless and ruthlessly efficient fishing for frogs at this pond over the past few weeks, against all the odds some frog spawn did get laid and this has now hatched into a very large number of tadpoles:

This is good to see.

The mother Badger has moved the cubs again. Here she is moving one at 10.07pm:

Although the photo is blurred, you can see that this cub is much larger now than when she first moved them earlier on in March:

I do not understand why they seem to be being moved from the same place again – perhaps they returned there underground?

 

Then she goes back at 10.22pm:

And returns with the second cub at 10.25pm:

Here is a photo showing Foxes and Badger all getting along very well at the nightly peanuts.

We have had some Red Mason Bee cocoons over-wintering in our fridge that we harvested from the Mason Bee boxes last autumn:

Now is the time to start putting them out, a small batch at a time every few days. In this way, if the weather takes a downturn, we won’t lose all our Bees.

Additionally, our other Mason Bee project, the Mason Bee Guardian Scheme, has sent us bee cocoons and new nesting tunnels so that we can get started with that as well:

We had a bumper Red Mason Bee year last year and sent them back 47 completed tubes.

Hopefully this year will be as good or better.

There has been a lot going on in the wood. We went there this afternoon and boiled some water in our new Kelly Kettle:

This is a very efficient thing. You put some dry sticks and paper in the bottom and light it.  The top part then acts like a chimney – but it is a chimney with cavity walls. You can fill this space in the cavity walls with water which then heats up really quickly and easily and before you know it you are sitting with a mug of tea in your hands.

We dug in a shallow and sloping paint tray near the feeders to introduce a bit of freshwater into the wood. A week ago, we put a trail camera by the tray to see if it was being used. Well, today I had 800 photos of birds using this water. Far and away the most exciting of these was this one:

This is a Tawny Owl and is the first evidence we have of Owls in the wood. It isn’t using the water but is probably catching mice attracted by the feeder.

Here are a few more from the paint tray:

If ever there was a demonstration of how valuable a pond, however small, can be for wildlife, then the 800 photos I went through this afternoon is it.

This next photo is of the two Badgers that live in the wood and they are collecting bedding. The Badgers in the meadows use hay as bedding but there is no grass here in the wood or surrounding fields and so what do they use?  Luckily, they abandoned this pile of bedding and it was still there today as I came to look at the camera.  Therefore, I can tell you that they have been scratching at ferns to pull away the dead leaves from the crowns and it was mainly these along with other general leaf litter from the ground that was making up their bedding.

They might differ from the meadow Badgers in their choice of bedding, but their love of lounging around pressed up together is very similar indeed:

There are vast number of Primroses out in full flower in the regeneration area of the wood. It’s very beautiful:

The Kent County Botanical Recorder who lives nearby went to the wood to see what Violets we had growing there and it appears we have three: Hairy Violet, Common Dog-Violet and the Early Dog-Violet. She made us up an information pack to teach us the differences which was very helpful:

I feel that I can now distinguish between the three with reasonable confidence.

She also found a patch of Moschatel growing:

This is a tiny but exquisite little plant that is also called the Town Hall Clock because of the arrangements of the flowers on its flowerhead.

Finally for today are photos from the wood that I haven’t managed to fit in elsewhere:

 

 

Our Operation Yellowhammer is an attempt to lure Yellowhammers back to these meadows – a long way from the Government’s Operation Yellowhammer for No-Deal Brexit. Yellowhammers are birds in great trouble but each year we did have at least one male Yellowhammer calling along the hedgerow bordering the farmers field. The call is very distinctive and described as ‘A Little Bit of Bread and No Cheese’. The Cheese note is lower and drawn out and is unmistakable once you have heard it.

These are farmland birds and so, although the male Yellowhammer was using our hedgerow, the agricultural field behind the hedgerow was the reason that he was there. Then, in summer 2017, the farmer used something on the field margins that turned all the weedy plant growth a bright, lurid orange. I do not know for certain that this is the reason but, since then, we have had no calling Yellowhammer.

However, a week ago, the bird ringer spotted a male Yellowhammer in that same hedgerow and we have launched our Operation Yellowhammer to try to attract them back. We cannot control what the farmer does but perhaps we ourselves can provide what Yellowhammers need. Last year the area of the meadow shown below was dug with a digger to mimic an agricultural field edge to try to attract Turtle Doves. Now, however, there was little bare earth left still showing and so we brought in a rotivator and operator to redo it and we understand that it was very hard work!

We didn’t attract Turtle Doves or Yellowhammer last year but we intend to try again. Turtle Doves won’t be arriving in the country for another month, so for now we can concentrate on Yellowhammer. I bought a bag of mixed bird seed for finches which apparently Yellowhammers are very fond of:

We are now putting this seed down along the rotivated strip and we shall see what happens.

As we approach the end of March, insects seem to have sprung into action and it is lovely to see them again. This morning I thoroughly enjoyed myself photographing these:

It is not long now until the baby Badgers might make an appearance above ground. We can see that the mother badger has prominent teats. The anticipation is building.

And there have been a few Badger daytime photos which is most rare for these Badgers:

I include this Badger shot just because it makes me smile:

The Heron is only visiting occasionally now but that doesn’t mean that the frogs can let their guard down:

Very pleased to see that the Tawny visited the other night:

The Kestrel was back in her new favourite place today:

And both male and female Sparrowhawk have been around as well:

Nesting is starting in earnest for many of the birds:

Last year a little Wren built her nest in a novelty teapot nest box:

However, unfortunately it was just far too vulnerable to predation by Magpies and sadly that is exactly what happened. Well, this year we have wrapped this nest box in a bubble of chicken wire which we hope would allow a Wren through but keep it all safe from big bully birds:

I agree that it doesn’t look as good but what does that matter?

We have a pair of Grey Partridges back as regular visitors to the seed on the strip. It is a male and a female and so hopefully a breeding pair.

At the wood, we have logged a new species – a Red-Legged Partridge.

This shot of it is not great and so here is an internet photo of it:

Whereas our native Grey Partridge made it across to the UK itself after the last ice age, this species was introduced as a game bird into East Anglia from France in the 1770s. It is difficult to properly assess the wild population of these birds because six million are released each year for sporting purposes. Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, six million is what I read on the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust website (gwct.org.uk is quite a good read for a slightly different view on wildlife).

The wood, too, has come alive with insects:

Other photos from the wood:

The last photos for today are taken within an hour of each other at the wild pond back at the meadows and seem to be the perfect pair of pairs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our reptiles have woken up. Here are two juvenile Slow worms basking under a reptile sampling square:

Also, this fully grown one:

Lizards are  now warming themselves up in the mornings under these squares as well:

The reptile reawakening is a real mark of spring having sprung. Other signs are the carpets of Sweet Violet that are dotted around the meadows at the moment:

These intensely purple little flowers  are acting as an early nectar source for the queen Bumblebees that have overwintered and now need urgent refuelling as they search for nest sites. Here is a Red-tailed queen:

In previous Marches, we have had large flocks of Starlings which gather on the Kent coast ready to start back across to Eastern Europe and Scandanavia for the summer. They have spent the winter in the UK, amazing us all with their murmurations at dusk over reed beds, but are now going back to breed. We probably missed them gathering this year  because we were away, but we did have a small flock yesterday captured by the camera up on the strip.

A female Kestrel was balancing on an improbably slender twig yesterday. Since as usual I had the wrong lens on my camera, I tried to edge a little closer from behind to get a better picture. But this photo captures the moment she sussed me and then she was off:

Here is another regular bird of prey around here: the male Sparrowhawk in his favourite lurking place on the gate:

And I cannot leave any roundup of bird activity in the meadows without mentioning this one:

I do like this photo taken by a trail camera because it really emphasises the sheer size of a Heron. It takes a lot of frogs to keep that thing fed. The frequency that this bird is visiting has really dropped thank goodness – perhaps down every other day.

The bird ringer came today now that the winds have dropped. His target bird was Linnet again since so little is known of their movements and there is still much to find out. Well, we were all pleased that he caught eight of them (he is spending his morning coming here to ring birds and we feel a certain responsibility to provide some for him) and even more pleased that two of them had been previously ringed. One he himself had ringed last year, but the other was ringed elsewhere. He will now report the details on this bird’s leg ring to the BTO and they will let him know where it had been originally ringed.  We await this information….

Here are the three female Badgers:

and for some reason one of them was out and about in the daylight yesterday morning:

In the regeneration area of the wood, the wild Primroses are coming up in abundance:

There are confirmed at least two Badgers associated with the single-hole sett that we have within the wood:

There was no freshwater in the wood until we dug a cheap and cheerful plastic bath into the ground soon after buying the wood as a stop gap measure whilst we decided on where to build a proper pond. However, it continues to attract many visitors:

Perhaps this makeshift pond all looks a bit of a ramshackle eyesore to us, but it is great to see that it is being used and appreciated by its target audience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have been away for a couple of weeks. Whilst it is exciting to go and see the wildlife of another part of the world, it is certainly always lovely to be back home again.

Of course we left plenty of trail cameras quietly monitoring the goings on in the meadows and the wood in our absence. In fact there is quite a photographic backlog to work our way through.

We are yet to visit the wood to see what we have there, but here are the highlights from the meadows.

Although it is another month before the Badger cubs might be expected to come above ground, we are thrilled to get a sneak preview of them when their mother decided to move them to a new sett:

These two photos are about six minutes apart and so it is probably safe to assume that these are two separate cubs being moved.

Here are a couple of daytime photos of lovely healthy foxes:

And Green Woodpeckers always do things a little bit differently from other birds:

The female Sparrowhawk has been photographed at the pond:

In these photos above, you will notice the defences that we put down in the wild pond in an attempt to provide some protection to the frogs who were being eaten in vast numbers by a Grey Heron. Well, the Heron continued to visit while we were away although much less regularly now that the spawn laying frenzy is over for another year:

 

 

We see that it also visited the hide pond and helped itself to some frogs there as well:

It would be great to see a bit less of this bird.

Finally, the Parakeet that has been flying around the meadows for a few months has now been confirmed as an Alexandrine Parakeet – the bird ringer managed to get some photos of it and so we now know for sure. Although the shot of it below doesn’t show the diagnostic red patches on its wings, it does show the much heftier bill and wide black marking on its neck. It is also a much larger bird that the Ring-Necked Parakeet:

We have returned to the meadows to find that glorious spring has arrived. Looking forward now to going to the wood to see what has been going on there…