Dave was toppled by covid this week and we had to cancel most of the things that we had in the diary and stay at home. However, he is feeling much better now and has emerged from his bed, got onto his tractor and started cutting paths around the rapidly growing grasses out in the meadows.

By the bank holiday weekend Dave was testing negative and we were able to go with our daughter and her boyfriend on an evening wildlife boat trip up the beautiful River Stour. They really wanted to see wild beavers and it is now thought that there are around 140 of them living in the stretch of the river between Canterbury and the sea.

We did see around seven beavers on the trip, a couple of them even standing out on the bank so that we could see their tails. But, since dark was descending fast, I’m afraid that I didn’t manage to get a decent photograph. I did get a few fuzzy photos, however, when we did the same trip back in September 2022:

As well as beavers, we saw kingfishers, kestrels, a cuckoo and bats skimming the waters for flies. It was well past 10pm by the time we returned to our mooring at Grove Ferry, but we all felt like we’d had a great wildlife experience

Back home in the meadows, if we didn’t have a camera in the nest box we would scarcely be aware that the swifts are here, so quietly are they coming and going. We first saw them on the camera on 17th May. On 22nd May I was surprised to see that they had built a circular nest out of feathers stuck together with their saliva – I wasn’t expecting that at all:

Swifts will fly hundreds of kilometres a day whilst feeding – they eat flying insects and also spiders who, although terrestrial, often disperse by launching themselves into the air to be carried on the breeze

They are parasitised by a flat fly, Crataerina pallida, that lives amongst their feathers and sucks their blood. When I first saw this next photo, I thought this insect was one of these horrible things – but then it flew off, so it was actually just an ordinary fly. Flat flies only move through the air hidden amongst the feathers of a bird and can’t fly on their own:

Back in October 2019, John the bird ringer caught a lot of house martins in his net as they migrated across the meadows. House martins have a similar flat fly, Crataerina hirundinis, living in their feathers and, when the bird stops flying because they are caught in the mist net, the flat flies come out to see what is going on:

Until the eggs are laid, the swifts are gone all day long and only return just before it gets dark. Yesterday, however, we did see them repeatedly going in the box during the afternoon. Perhaps they were collecting more airborne feathers?

Then, this morning, a single egg has been laid. Eventually there should be two or three eggs and incubation will only start once the final one has arrived:

The large semi-detached swift box where the swifts are nesting is attached to the side of the house and they are in the right hand side. There is a smaller, single swift box to the right of the big box:

As usual, house sparrows are nesting in this single box. In fact, we only put it up to stop the sparrows nesting in the larger box, keeping it free for the swifts

We have a clump of red hot pokers, Kniphofia, in the garden:

This bank holiday weekend, we were sitting outside with visitors when I saw a house sparrow eating the seeds from one of the red hot poker flowers. Apparently they are fond of these seeds and systematically collect them once the flowers turn yellow. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera to hand but our daughter took a picture on her phone:

In the autumn, the bird ringers have often seen hobbies over the meadows as they migrate south with the swallows. These birds mostly eat dragonflies in the summer but switch to swallows and even swifts, caught on the wing, once dragonfly season is over. We ourselves had never seen a hobby here until one landed on a perch this week:

There is a nice large patch of sainfoin out in the meadows this year which is being well visited by butterflies and bees:

The diminutive grass vetchling is also having a very good year and we are noticing it scattered like delicate, crimson gemstones through the first meadow:

There are several species of the parasitic broomrape found in this country. This one, Orobanche minor, is parasitic on clover:

This bee has collected so much pollen on her hind legs that she has had to stop for a rest on her way back to her nest:

There is constant humming coming from a large and enthusiastically flowering sage bush in the allotment. It is extremely popular with long-tongued bumblebees:

Azure damselflies taking a rest on a water lily from egg laying:

For the second year on the trot we have seen very few green hairstreaks. These butterflies have the widest range of larval food plants of all British butterflies including bird’s foot trefoil, bramble and dogwood, all of which grow abundantly here. So we are happy that it is not something that we are doing that has caused this decline and perhaps they don’t do so well in wet springs:

This silver Y moth has chosen such a good place amongst the plantain to disappear whilst roosting up. If I hadn’t watched it fly in, I’d never have spotted it:

I am very fond of the Mother Shipton. Apparently these moths were named after a 16th century Yorkshire witch, and you can see her profile with a hooked nose and pointy chin on the moth’s wing:

These mint choc chip-coloured beetles are Polydrusus impressifrons:

Four croissant-shaped banks were made last year from chalk and subsoil dug up during our building works. These are now covered in flowers and insect life and we are thoroughly enjoying strolling around admiring them:

One of our little grandsons visited this weekend and, for the first time, walked most of the way round the meadows on his own.

In the wood, I came across a group of four or five fledgling wrens as I was collecting cameras. They created such a racket about being disturbed:

I am not sure that we have any fox cubs in the meadows this year, but we do have some in the wood:

My last photo this week is of our old friend the THV (Trinity House Vessel) Patricia who anchored alongside us one night this week but is looking rather tatty at the moment, we think.

She is the flagship vessel of Trinity House, a charity incorporated by Royal Charter back in 1514 to ensure the safety of shipping and the wellbeing of seafarers. Amongst other things, the Patricia maintains lighthouses, offshore lightships and buoys and she is often to be seen here because of the notorious Goodwin Sands. In fact I see that she currently has three buoys her deck as part of this work. She used to take twelve fare-paying passengers as she went around the UK carrying out her vital work, and we always thought that we would like to do that one day. But she stopped taking passengers in 2020 and so we now have to content ourselves with her occasional but comforting offshore presence alongside the meadows and we are always inexplicably excited when we see her come in and drop anchor.