The UK experienced its sunniest spring and warmest summer on record in 2025, with challenging multiple heatwaves and high temperatures. East Kent is one of the driest parts of England, but thankfully this year we had just enough rainfall during the summer to keep the ponds ticking over and stop the vegetation from dying back, allowing the invertebrates to complete their lifecycles.

Birds of the Meadows

For several years now, we have been trying to do our bit for swifts and establish a breeding colony here in the meadows. It was a slow start but finally, in 2024, two swift chicks successfully fledged from a box attached to the side of the house. This was wonderful but, when the birds then departed for Africa at the end of July, we were very aware that the situation was precarious – our infant colony depended upon the two adult birds flying 4,000 miles down to equatorial Africa, both surviving the winter and then flying another 4,000 miles back again. What were the chances that we would ever see them again?

At the beginning of May 2025 we were on the south coast of France and spent some time with a group of cool young French people at a lofty watchpoint at Leucate where they were recording the birds arriving across the Mediterranean and into Europe. They were keeping a tally board and we could see that, by 2nd May, 121,931 swifts (Martinet noir) had already flown in over their heads. Some of these should hopefully have been continuing up through France and onwards to England.

When we got back home from France on 5th May, it was an immense relief to discover that our pair of swifts had arrived back before us and were overnighting in the box:

They took some time recovering from their journey and it was not until 22nd May that the first egg was laid, the second following two days later:

The birds then took it in turns to incubate the eggs whilst the other went out to feed. Both always spent the night together in the box though.

Then, on 11th June, just as we were once more leaving home for a holiday in Shetland, a cracked egg indicated that one or both of the chicks had hatched:

We returned on 22nd June and the two youngsters seemed to be doing very well in the box:

However, there was a problem – it quickly became apparent that this was now a single parent family with just one adult bringing them food:

Luckily the weather stayed fair in July which was good for flying insects levels, and the chicks seemed to thrive despite their loss:

On the 20th July one of the young birds was stretching out its wings in the box and preparing to launch:

When I next looked at the camera, it had fledged and just one chick remained in the box:

It took another four days for this second chick to build up the courage to leave the box but, by 7am on 24th July, the box was empty and it was all over for another year.

What will happen next year remains to be seen. We are already one adult down and the four chicks that have fledged from the box over the last two years are still too young to breed. I await next May with some trepidation.

However, there are some other promising leads for the development of our swift colony. The thermal camera showed that another pair of swifts were spending the nights in a neighbouring box. These were probably two year old birds that had chosen a partner and a nest site and, all being well, will be back next year to breed:

The boxes were also visited by swift ‘bangers’ in mid July. These are immature birds that are prospecting for vacant nest sites by banging on the box to see if they get a response:

Finally, we now have two new swift boxes installed in the wildlife tower on the garage. We were playing calls from these boxes in 2025 when the swifts were in the country and this was getting a lot of response with birds often circling the tower:

We haven’t seen one go in yet but we will try again this year.

The kestrels have had a busy year here in the meadows and have had the odd drama themselves.

The female kestrel is the grande dame of the meadows, having been ringed here as a young bird six years ago, and she has been here ever since.

She often gets bothered by the magpies who don’t want her around:

We have seen both her and her mate catch many rodents throughout the year, but particularly in the autumn once the meadows were cut:

She has also caught a variety of other prey such as bumblebees, newts and lizards. In 2025 she seemed to do particularly well with great green bush-crickets:

These bush-crickets are large and must be quite a good meal for her:

In mid August we saw what must surely be a juvenile kestrel. I have always presumed that our pair of kestrels nest in the nearby chalk cliffs and this might well be one of their young:

In October after the meadows were cut, we were seeing so much of the kestrels that Dave decided to try to digiscope them. This was when we realised that our leading lady had something very wrong with her eye:

I have to admit that I thought that this was going to be the end of her because how could she judge distances and effectively hunt with only one eye? But, whatever this was, it was thankfully quite short lived and within the week she was back to normal.

We have often heard both male and female tawny owls calling out in the meadows. This tawny has caught itself a mouse….

….and here is one with a rat:

2024 was a very good year for barn owls in the meadows. We saw less of them in 2025 but they do pose really nicely for the camera:

Another raptor was frequently seen in the autumn:

In my opinion magpies are far too successful here. Three chicks fledged this spring:

They are omnivores with a varied diet and it is always interesting to see what they find to eat. This magpie has two mice in its beak:

And I was surprised at how many wasps they were eating in the autumn:

Crows do well too. There were a pair of chicks this year:

I enjoyed seeing them being fed on the perches:

All sorts of food was going into the mouths of the chicks including seed and spiders.

Like the magpies they also have a wide diet and perhaps this is one of the reasons they both seem to flourish:

I had to also include this photo of a crow wearing a black tutu:

In mid June I was alerted to a tremendous furore outside the open backdoor. On investigation, I saw that a just-fledged blue tit had flown into the lobby by mistake and its anxious family were all calling for it outside:

The remains of the gape were still very evident at the sides of its beak:

I was easily able to gather the sweet little bird up in my hands and return it to its family who were still waiting for it by the door.

A juvenile cuckoo stayed in the meadows for two or three days in mid July on its way south to Africa for the winter. This was one of the absolute bird highlights of the year:

In August a spotty young green woodpecker was pecking around the garden path:

At the beginning of 2025 our meadow bird list stood at 98 species. It had been there, teetering on the brink of its century, since October 2023 when barn owl had been added. In April this year, John and John, the bird ringers, were trying out whoosh netting in the meadows:

While the ringers were the meadows whoosh netting, they heard a Mediterranean gull which went onto the list at 99. Then, when we were in Shetland in June, John saw a male golden oriole fly over the meadows. This was an amazing 100th bird to add to the list although it is a shame we hadn’t seen it ourselves of course.

A male golden oriole on the left, photo by Kookaburra 81 on Wiki Commons CCA-SA 4.0 and a turtle dove, Europe’s only long distance migratory dove, on the right, photo by El Golli Mohamed on Wiki Commons also under CCA-SA 4.0

The meadows used to be part of Operation Turtle Dove, a project set up to address the terrible decline in turtle doves in the UK. But, after three years of supplementary feeding for turtle doves and not having seen one, we didn’t want to spend any more of their money on seed and withdrew from the scheme. So it was therefore an amazing moment when, on 25th June, we finally heard a turtle dove purring in a holm oak by the wild pond. This was the 101st bird species for the meadows. Although I quickly redeployed several trail cameras to the pond in case it came down to drink, we unfortunately didn’t see the bird. It was only here for that one day but maybe it liked what it saw and will return in 2026.

John and John have also been ringing in the meadows using the more traditional method of mist netting. They caught seven species of warbler in just one session on 8th September. Since we were away these are their photos of lesser whitethroat, willow warbler, and chiffchaff and, below, garden warbler, female blackcap and male blackcap. They also caught reed warbler and common whitethroat. All these species will have been about to leave the country for the winter:

In November and December, John ringed seven firecrests in just three sessions. One of them was recaught three weeks later, suggesting that it is overwintering here.

The colourful top of a firecrest’s head:

The amazing firecrest finishes Part One of the annual review for the meadows. I have really enjoyed trawling through my 2025 posts to pull together the most interesting bird photos of the year – and what a year it has been. I will now repeat the process, but for the mammals and invertebrates photos that will make up Part Two, coming soon!