Dene Park on the run

Very quickly while doing my three circuits I saw a Green-veined White on the Knights Park track and two Meadow Browns at the main triangle, so was pleased to add these to my BBCS Kent records.

Above Five Oak Green

An overcast afternoon, not particularly warm, but not unpleasant, and a different feel to the countryside. I parked in the village hall car park (care, it may be locked in the evening if the hall is not in use) and walked into the centre of the village, where the footpath runs as a narrow ground-floor passageway between the cottages, a bit difficult to find.

The footpaths here are often fenced in, even when running alongside fields, which seems to me not overly restrictive, and with some advantages. Of course when the fencing isn't present, you get a bit more freedom to wander!

As you come out of the passage, the fenced and hedged path was very shady and ran alongside fruit trees to the East, and gardens to the West, eventually finding itself along a stream, that must feed in to the Alders Stream that leads eventually to the River Medway. After crossing the stream further South, the path finds itself alongside a field to the West, used for sheep grazing.

Then it gets to the small complex of houses at Brook Farm, where the fenced paths lead you very conveniently through the different properties out to the hop gardens between Brook Farm and Reeds Farm.

There was a hornet scraping wood off one of the older posts:

One the other side of the hop garden, there was an old run-down orchard with sheep grazing in it, maintained in its current condition I am sure with a Higher Level Stewardship Grant.

I found a Jay and heard a Green Woodpecker, which revel in old orchards like this one. The habitat is full of little niches, including hollow old branches like the one below.

This old stump has been protected presumably for habitat rather than horticultural reasons.

And this old fallen tree has been left, again for habitat enhancement:

The sheep also seem happy with their grazing habitat:

The autumn flowering plants included Redshank, Persicaria maculosa, aka Polygonum persicaria as I used to know it, 

Whoopee at Cliffe!

2 Curlew Sandpipers in breeding plumage, 2 Bar-tailed Godwits, 11 Dunlin, 13 Ringed Plover, 2 Grey Plover, 700+ Avocets, 100+ Great Black-backed Gulls, 70+ Black-headed Gulls, 3+ Common Gulls, Larus canus, 4 Common Tern, 1 Green Sandpiper, 4 adult and 9 young Shelduck, 20+ Pochard, Tufted Duck, Mallard, 1 male Ruddy Duck, 20+ Redshank, 10+ Greenshank.

The Curlew Sandpipers, Calidris ferruginea, were absolutely fantastic. The most obvious feature was the patchy rusty red chests, against a white background as the wind fluttered the feathers.The next feature seen was the dark eyestripe against the whitish background of the face - the white being the clear pale supercilium above the eye, and the whitish area of the cheek below the darker eyestripe. The back was grey-brown in comparison, and I thought I saw the scalloping type pattern. The birds were not there very long, and when they flew I looked carefully for a wing bar, which I did clearly see, about the same visibility as a Dunlin. I thought I also caught the whitish rump above the darker tail tip, bit I must admit I was concentrating on the wings and should have looked at the rump as well. Overall the bird was slender and stylish, and I compared it in my mind to Audrey Hepburn! When I described what I had seen to a very nice chap scoping the birds a bit further up, he named it as Curlew Sandpiper (we agreed that a Knot was significantly larger and chunkier, with a much shorter bill). When I checked BWP it seemed to fit. It was when I checked the images on the internet and the Collins Guide that I was convinced the ID was correct.

This is one of the Black-headed Gulls in flight, showing the dark underwing:

And here is one of the two or three Common gulls I saw in with the other Black-headed Gulls I saw roosting at the estuary end of Flamingo Pool:

This is the one Greenshank up this end of the reserve. Talk about Audrey Hepburn again!

This is a Little Egret and two Dunlins.

As today's new acquaintance drove off from the barrier at the Meadwall, I caught sight of a smallish wader zigzagging towards me low along the ditch to the right of the track. Very black and some white in appearance. My first impression was actually of a dark hirundine with stiffer wings (the RSPB website says it resembles a House Martin in flight). The old PDH field guide refers to rapid flight with jerky snipe-like wingbeats. It settled and vanished so I got the telescope set up. To my astonishment I quickly got on to it, and saw a sandpiper very dark on top and very pale underneath, not small. The throat and chest were dark (no "white peak" between the wing and throat), and I thought "sandpiper" in general appearance but it wasn't bobbing (although Green Sandpipers do bob) and looked too dark above to be a Common Sandpiper.

Later as Monty put it up again I heard a twit-twit-twit (characteristic three note whistly tone) call and saw a bright white rump - it was a Green Sandpiper, Tringa ochropus! This looked just like the bird I saw about 18 months ago on a nearby ditch and the two I saw nearby two autumns ago but misidentified originally, and I was really happy to feel that the mystery has now been completely solved in my head, with a rather excellent view today. The call was great confirmation and a low zig-zagging flight is also a characteristic of the bird's behaviour. The best estimate of the known UK winter population is about 900 birds, together with an occasional breeding pair, but this seems to be a fairly reliable site for them.

The Ruddy Duck on Black Barn Pool 2 was an incredible sight.with a blue bill that looked as if it had just come out of a Dulux Gloss colour catalogue. The bright white face, black cap and rufous body with a long perky tail were like a vision of colour. I only saw the bird for a moment and did not rediscover it despite searching for where it should have been.

Briefly to the Cricket Ground

I set off from Williams Field, checking on the broken hardboard mural that had been taken down, and trying to think what to do with all the spare grass beside the football field.

I had a good look around the area I call the "Community Woodland" at the back of Williams Field and found Gatekeeper and Meadow Brown butterflies (one each). I thought I also saw a Chrysotoxum bicinctum. The trees are developing quite well and providing good habitat. I wonder whether the oak seedlings need thinning?

Behind our developing woodland I had a look along the shady public right of way and found three or more Speckled Wood, Pararge aegeria. They looked only moderately fresh, and I thought this was a good place to find these. The trees just here have apparently been planted by the farmer, but still provide the appropriate micro-climatic options these butterflies seem to like.

Along by Harris Field smallholding there were at least two male Common Blue Butterflies, sunning themselves next to the alfalfa field. I wondered if they were part of the same colony as the Common Blues I saw 150 m. away on the grassy orchard, or perhaps had wandered from there. There were none in the orchard. Another Speckled Wood flickered along the shady part of the path.

You get a great view of Oxenhoath from Steers Place, it is such a lovely house:

There are plenty of other gorgeous houses around here as well, this one up towards the cricket ground, which I believe is called Cricketers Cottage Farm!:

Slow and steady at Cliffe

Lots of Whites, Holly Blues, Gatekeepers, Meadow Browns and a Peacock. Need to go and look for the Small Heaths on the path!

Black-tailed Godwits, Avocets, Redshanks, Greenshanks, Oystercatchers, 2 Grey Plover, 1 possible Snipe, Little Egrets, Black-headed Gulls, Great Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls in flight, Shelduck, Coot, Teal, Pochard, Little Grebes, Great Crested Grebes, Cormorant in flight.

Discussed the various species of Emerald Damselflies with a keen young chap. 

Bourneside Meadows

The landscape down towards Bourneside Meadow does not seem to have benefited from the small amounts of rain so far, and the whole area feels dry and almost devastated. The crop of forage beans have been sprayed with dessicant, and stand with blackened stems that rattle loudly against each other whenever Monty gets into them.

Alongside the crop margins there are lots of Prickly Sowthistle, Sonchus asper, mostly with white woolly seed (really cypsela) heads, and going over rapidly. Some of the old plants are heavily covered with a powdery mildew, and overall therefore even the weeds are struggling. Intriguingly there are young plants from earlier seeds already forming rosettes ready for the winter and flowering next year.

It was nice to see the first of a series of male Common Blue butterflies. Polyommatus icarus, as I turned off the track towards the meadow, and I think I saw a total of about 9 males altogether, with perhaps 3 females as well. This one is a male:

For the whole time I stayed within the meadow I didn't see any Brown Argus butterflies, Aricia agestes. However as I left, I did find four, all together in the very long grass alongside the river bank, trying to roost and settle on the grass stems and leaves being blown about by the wind. This communal roosting is characteristic behaviour of both this species and the Common Blue. The Brown Argus does seem to be give a much more silvery impression overall in flight, as well as perhaps being slightly smaller and narrower.

There were regular overflights from various white butterflies whilst I was at the meadow, and I did get close to one of them, which turned out to be a male Green-veined White, Pieris napi, nectaring on a Mint flowerhead. I know it was a male because it only had one dark spot on the upperside of the forewing, whilst females have two, and tend to have much darker forewings overall. It was nice to check the wing patterning, and the almost blue-greenish white hairs on and around the body. The hairs themselves might be white, but look blue-greenish just against the body.

The hairs extend around the abdomen, although this is not always so easily seen.

This butterfly on the other hand, seen later in the meadow nearer the river, was much more likely to be a male Small White, Pieris rapae, because of the lack of black triangular markings at the ends of the veins on the outer margin, although the overall upper wing pattern is very similar.

It was great to see the substantial clumps of Mint. The rounded terminal flowerheads and projecting stamens suggest that it is probably Water Mint, Mentha aquatica, supporting the generally wet nature of the ground around the large pond. The leaves were very hairy, not obviously petiolate on first glance (but they must have been, and this was confirmed on close examination), rounded with generally forwardly bluntly projecting teeth. The flowers were lilac, and a few mm in length with triangular calyx teeth as described in the books. Standard number of 4 stamens in the genus, with a central style and stigma, together with equal calyx teeth, (corolla and) calyx hairy on the outside in this species.

The Godwits return to Cliffe Pools

Hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits, Avocets and dozens of Great Black-backed Gulls, Black-headed Gulls, Coot, Redshank, 1 Peregrine. The peregrine was standing quietly on the sand spit the other side of Flamingo, not significantly disturbing the other birds close to it as long as it stayed on the ground.

White Butterflies, 4 Gatekeepers, 5 Meadow Browns, 4 Holly Blues, 2 Commas, 1 Small Heath, 1 Small Tortoiseshell, 2 Red Admirals.

Common Blue Dragonflies.