August 30th At Shellness, the flocks of waders and waterfowl are enjoying the easy pace of the balmy summer. Swallows move along the beach in small flocks; a wheatear forages on the shingle. There is a late summer silence at high tide mainly because the Brent geese have not arrived. Sandwich terns are roosting…
Tag: Peregrine falcon
March light
In March, the grass is growing, gardens and greens are full of daffodils, the budding trees are russet-fringed and willows are in bright leaf. The muted, early spring palette, laced with white and pink cherry blossom, is filled with promise. The old estate at Little Barford near St Neots provides a set of postcards of…
North Kent Marshes
The low sea wall runs through the middle of the Swale National Nature Reserve and maintains the freshwater grazing marsh on the landward side. Seaward, is a wide expanse of flat and featureless salt marsh, beyond which a huge sandbank rises from the Swale estuary decked with an odd assortment of geese, crows and gulls….
A Gloomy Place
Gills Lap on Ashdown Forest is beaten with rain and low cloud hugs the hills; the ground is black, waterlogged and cold. There is no wintering great grey shrike sitting high on a lookout, just a handful of fieldfares laughing in its place then drifting across the heath. A passing peregrine sends the chaffinches into a…