Our son and daughter-in-law visited us recently and brought us a very precious gift – some bunting that they had created along with one of their friends which features some of the animals from this blog. They had made lino cuts and then printed these onto paper – it must have taken them ages and I am totally delighted with it.

Six of the prints feature animals that have captured the headlines of the blog in 2024. Throughout the summer, dormice appeared in excellent numbers in the wood and green woodpeckers fledged three chicks from a hole in an old cherry tree:

Swifts raised two young in a swift box attached to the house and we saw a large and vigorous grass snake in the wood for the first time:

A pair of barn owls hunted in the meadows this autumn and our badgers had three cubs back in the spring:

It’s been another wonderful wildlife year and I am looking forward to reviewing it all properly as December comes to a close.

In the meantime, we have had another exciting first:

Never before have we seen a hedgehog in the garden. Over the past decade there have been very occasional sightings on the trail cameras in the meadows – not even as often as one a year – and never has one been spotted in the wood. It is safe to say that any glimpse of a hedgehog here is a momentous occasion. But when I was a child in Maidenhead in the 60s, they were such a normal sight that we ceased to really notice them. These maps from hedgehogstreet.org aren’t necessarily completely accurate but paint a pretty depressing picture of the UK’s hedgehogs:

However, amongst all that gloom, there is a small sliver of good news. It has been recently reported that, whilst rural hedgehog populations still continue to fall, urban populations may now have stabilised and might even be increasing. By improving connectivity between our gardens, not using harmful chemicals and putting hibernation boxes into our shrubberies, the householders of Britain could perhaps reinforce and improve this small recovery.

This particular householder has now positioned a hedgehog box into the base of a privet hedge just in case it could ever be of any use to our prickly friends:

We have gone round and removed old bird nests from most of the bird boxes in the meadows:

Something catastrophic must have happened with this blue tit nest that sadly got no further than the egg laying stage:

This is a vey cosy nest using all sorts of synthetic fluff, including yellows and pinks from the dog’s balls:

This next nest completely filled the box with the hole facing forwards. I am not completely sure what bird made this nest but the nesting material is quite coarse and my best guess is a house sparrow:

Pleasingly, nearly all of the boxes had a nest in them this year. Even those that didn’t have nests are now making themselves useful as overnight roosts on these cold winter nights:

One evening, it was nearly dark and I was drawing the curtains when I noticed this house sparrow entering a swift box to roost overnight:

Back in February 2021 there was a severe cold snap and Dave spotted a wren roosting in this novelty teapot bird box when he was out with the dog and a torch before bed. We put a camera on the box and discovered that it was going into the teapot at heavy dusk and leaving just before dawn each night:

I only have slim pickings to offer you from the trail cameras this week. A tawny owl, sparrowhawk and kestrel in the meadows…..

And a redpoll and a firecrest in the wood:

We had heard that the RSPB had decided to close the visitor centre and shop at their Dungeness reserve in the new year as a cost cutting measure and we wanted to see it for the last time before things changed. We once saw a pair of bittern flying past us there and this remains one of our most memorable bird sightings of all time.

Everyone we met was talking with sadness about the closure of the visitor centre and, once we got out onto the reserve itself, we found that several of the hides had been replaced with cheaper lookouts as well:

However, there were clear signs that one new hide is about to arrive which was good news – it can get very cold indeed at Dungeness:

Also very cheering was that a great deal of work is ongoing to create new islands in front of two of the remaining hides, Christmas Dell and Dengemarsh:

We noticed that the islands on the reserve are now protected with floating fences:

These fences were designed in Denmark and have been found to be very good at keeping mammals off the islands, thus protecting breeding seabirds. It is a rope with floats attached to make it buoyant and it is anchored in a number of places to keep it from moving. The predator mammal swims up to the rope but is unable to lever itself over it and most will not swim under it. Cheap, simple, unobtrusive and apparently effective.

It was a dull, grey day and we didn’t actually see many birds on our visit this time, other than the thousands of cormorants. We did see a few marsh harriers though:

And a great white egret:

So it is a time of great change at RSPB Dungeness. I completely understand that the charity needs to spend its limited funds wisely and I presume that this is what has motivated its closures. But the new islands and rafts that it has planned should be great once they are established and are a really positive thing. We will certainly return soon to see how things are getting on and, of course, we are forever hopeful of seeing those bittern again..