Saturday was a grand tour of some of Kent’s finest places. The day was bright and breezy and confirmed that May, the month of many weathers, is the best month of the year for wildlife (and possibly gardens). Sissinghurst We checked the plant species in the cottage garden where the colours are always burning hot…
Tag: Reed bed
Minsmere’s old retainer
The early morning at Minsmere is warm and humid under a blue sky. The view from the Island Mere Hide is a huge reedbed enclosing a long shallow waterbody where mute swans and great crested grebes idle on the water and cormorants and common terns perch on horizontal wooden poles. Male terns catch small fish…
Postcard from the Suffolk Coast
On a fine day, the narrow, shingle edge that shelters the great reed bed in the wide valley between the villages of Dunwich and Walberswick is one of the great coastal walks. There is a distant view of Southwold to the north across the bay. To the south, beyond the pretty houses and abbey ruins of…
Stodmarsh
In the late afternoon, the warm wind blows from the west and the sun shines over the wide, grazing marshes and rare, reed bed remnant of the Stour valley. The mere at the east end near Grove Ferry is full of moulting teal and shoveler and lapwings, gulls and starlings. Some of the ducks splash and dive into…