We have returned from ten days away to find Spring bursting out all around. It was a lovely holiday but I was relieved not to have missed the big newt event of the year when male smooth newts display to the females and try to wow them. I attempt to photograph this every year with varying degrees of success.

Sitting by the pond with my camera one late morning, it was only the males that were loafing around in the open water. They are in their breeding finery at this time of year and are certainly looking pretty spectacular. Every so often newts need to come to the surface to take a gulp of air, which gave me a chance to get a clearer photo:

But it’s difficult to do them justice photographically when they are in the pond.

In 2020 we briefly fished two males out so that we could get a better look at them:

They are very impressive animals. There can be a big difference in coloration, though. These newts below are both adult male smooth newts:

In this sunny late morning by the pond, the females were lurking under cover and trying not to attract any attention to themselves:

But when I returned to the pond at around 4.30pm, things had changed and what Dave very aptly dubbed ‘the cocktail hour’ was underway. The females were now out in the open and the males were pursuing them. What they were trying to do was to get in front of a female and then bend in half to wag their tails at them. They wanted to catch her eye and be the one chosen to fertilise her eggs.

The badgers have also been preparing themselves for spring. There has been a lot of old bedding pulled out:

And many loads of fresh bedding have been dragged in:

The tunnel entrance on the steep cliff has been busy with badger comings and goings:

I was excited to see this photo because the female’s tummy looks like she is suckling young:

Then, finally, there was unequivocal evidence that there is indeed a cub this year. The camera that looks along the path at the top of the cliff took a video of a cub being carried from one burrow to another:

This cub will officially be allowed above ground in mid April and we will get a chance to have a proper look at it then.

Throughout last year a buzzard regularly hunted in the meadows. In fact, in the autumn, it was here most days:

But then, in mid November, I was driving home along the busy A258 towards Deal and was about a mile from the meadows when I saw that the cars coming towards me were all queued up behind a shiny black hearse that had come to a standstill in the road. As I got closer, I realised that the hearse had stopped because a buzzard had just been run over in front of it and it was waiting for an opportunity to go round the enormous dead bird rather than over it. I had a horrible gut feeling that this was our buzzard, and indeed it surely was because the bird has not been seen in the meadows since.

It is estimated that thousands of buzzards are killed or injured on the UK roads every year, but at least this is from a population of around 70,000 pairs of birds. The situation is so much worse for barn owls – the Barn Owl Trust estimates that there are 4,000 pairs of barn owls in Britain, producing 12,000 young each year. However, it is horrifying to hear that 3,000 to 5,000 of these young birds are then killed on our major roads. I found this page on the Trust’s website very interesting: https://www.barnowltrust.org.uk/hazards-solutions/barn-owls-major-roads/. They advocate planting screens of trees at the sides of major road black spots to force the owls to fly higher.

I was so sorry to lose our buzzard late last year but, on one sunny spring morning, I saw two buzzards soaring in circles over the meadows and ran for my camera:

They were being mobbed by our resident crows and they weren’t around for long, but they represented the hope that perhaps one day there might be a buzzard back on our perches once more.

There have been signs of spring all around. A male stock dove displays to his female:

Both song thrushes and blackbirds have been singing heartily, and collecting wet leaves for their nests from this tiny pond:

And crows have been flying around with sticks:

This fox is clearly feeding cubs:

And it’s so good to see butterflies fluttering around in the sunshine once more. We’ve just seen peacocks and brimstones so far – both of which overwinter as adults and so can react more quickly to the warmer weather:

The buff-tailed bumblebee queens that have survived the winter are now looking for nest sites to start their family and visiting spring flowers to keep their energy up:

This particular bee was carrying some hitch-hiking mites, harmless to the bee but hoping to be transported to her new nest where they will clear up detritus for her:

There are so many things to eagerly anticipate in spring. But I absolutely do not look forward to the alexanders once more raising their heads above the parapet:

The whole of the coastal area here in East Kent has a bit of a problem with abundant alexander growth at this time of the year. They are big, vigorous plants that just do too well at the expense of many other things. Pollinators love them but they can’t be trusted to stay under control. For several years now we have been operating a zero tolerance policy of any alexander that is brave enough to try to flower here. There are far too many plants to dig them all up in one go, and so our approach is dig those up that start to flower. In this way every year we are digging a proportion of them up whilst never getting any new ones because no seed is spread.

What a difference five years has made. These next two photos are taken from the same place in March 2020 and March 2025. We have recently let a stand of blackthorn grow up which is blocking the view to the gate, but it’s very gratifying to see such an improvement in the alexander situation:

A few other photos from the meadows this week:

Over in the wood, another vixen is feeding cubs:

We may have lost the buzzard from the meadows but we do still see them in the wood. A buzzard sat on this branch for a while, and the squirrels that are nesting in the tawny owl box were wise enough to keep a very low profile whilst it was around:

We have positioned a camera to once more monitor the hole in a cherry tree where green woodpeckers nested last year. So far there have been several prospective tenants: nuthatch, great tits, green woodpecker and great-spotted woodpecker…

…but so far no one has fully committed themselves.

And finally this week I will hand over to a couple of my meadow friends to bid you farewell: