Busy weekend

Another great sunny weekend - here are the highlights: not many clouds, but those that appeared were attractive.
Breeding bird survey on the undercliff: 24 fulmar nest sites, a pair of rock pipits, two house martin nests and some jackdaws (one with a wonky foot).

Hoary stocks flowering on the cliffs.

A single early spider orchid, just like last year.

A single early purple orchid on Tolsford Hill.

Lady orchid becoming more feminine, on a return trip to Denge Woods.

One of a handful of Duke of Burgundy butterflies - tiny!

A trip on the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch railway to Dungeness,

where there were plenty of small coppers, but precious little else.

And finally, a short-eared owl at dusk.

Not very lady-like

A pleasant evening was spent at Bonsai Bank in Denge Wood, and at Yockletts Bank. At least four Duke of Burgundy butterflies ('Dukes' to their mates) have already been seen on this bank this year so far, but the evening air was too chilly for them to show. Another trip in the middle of the day will be required, which is no hardship.

These woods are also excellent for orchids - you know the kind of thing.....delicate feminine flowers, of which the lady orchid is a particularly fine example.

Except that when they are in bud, they look anything but lady-like.

There are a number of fine specimens in the sun on Bonsai Bank, that will presumably open in the next few days, while those at Yockletts, below, being in the deep shade of the wood will take a little longer.
Also stirring are good numbers of twayblades...
...and a single early purple orchid.
A group of a dozen or so of these bizarre plants had my reaching for my handbook, as I've certainly never seen anything like them before (a sheltered life) and they turn out to be Herb Paris, or True-Lover's Knot.

Very strange things, which seem to have dispensed with the concept of petals. They do attract some insects (presumably by smell rather than sight) and also propogate by tubers, hence the grouping.

Not only is Denge great for insect and plant life, but also the bird song was lovely.

A tawny owl was hooting away as the sun started to set, green and GS woodpeckers called, a male kestrel swooped down to take a worm or a small slowworm, yellowhammers sat on a barn at the entrance, and marsh tits, blackbirds, a song thrush, blackcaps, willow warblers, chiffchaffs and a nightingale filled the evening air with song.

Racing snakes and slower worms

An all-too-brief lunch-time wander around Fackenden Down reserve in the Darenth valley, with the Green Man as guide, provided much to see but also much that was too quick to be snapped.
Greenie tried to find adders and grass snakes for me, but although we saw three of the former (two males and a female) they quickly slithered away before I could get near. Very sensible of them.

There were, however, plenty of slowworms living up to their name.

Above, a male, a female (with the dark line) and a youngster.

Also slow enough for me to catch were Roman snails, also known as Burgundy or edible snails or indeed escargots, about 2" across. This species is perhaps surprisingly not found in Kent east of Ashford - surprising because there were plenty of Romans in east Kent. Maybe they ate all of them.
Another species not found in the Kingsdown area is crosswort, which coincidentally appears right next to wild madder (see yesterday's post) in my flora bible.

There were a few quicker beasts that I managed to photograph - a tiny common lizard,

grizzled skipper

orange tip

and a strange moth - any ideas anybody?

Many thanks to Greenie for his time, expert assistance, and patience at my clumsy attempts at seeing the beasts that he had carefully found.

A lazy wind goes through you instead of around you

Despite the forecast for excellent weekend weather, this was about the only sight of the sun, as cold north-easterlies blew mist across us. We may not get much rain, but when the wind's in this quarter, we feel it.
A few butterflies had been fooled into emerging by earlier warm days, with small whites most frequent. With spots above; and without, below.For the rest, it was a question of seeking out the small things in life. For one, I've never previously (knowingly) seen glasswort, but a clearing by the sadly-damaged hide at Pegwell is covered in the stuff.
Similarly, I've never noticed wild madder, but there's quite a bit on Samphire Hoe....like a sturdier version of goosegrass. The plant is apparently quite common in the west, but not so further east. Terrible pics, but it was gloomy.
On the chalk-downland, a first showing of milkwort,
...and all along the railway-side path, the first of many early spider orchids.
Early, yes; orchids, undoubtably; but spider....why? A view was expressed that they more closely resemble dung-beetles, but early dung-beetle orchid doesn't seem right.
Bird-wise, there were a few unphotographable bits seen or heard during the weekend, including whimbrel, sandwich tern, nightingale, grasshopper warbler, lesser whitethroat, peregrines, rock pipit, black redstarts and a surprisingly late brambling from my window* - a male in stunning plumage, to which the picture failes to do justice. The photo is only posted to prove that it wasn't a mis-id of a chaffinch.
Perhaps the most pleasing sight of the weekend was of a paitr of kestrels over the undercliff, checking out nest-holes. No kestrels have been seen here since last year's female was found dead in early December.

*Sorry if my poor grammar indicates that all these were seen from my window. Unfortunately not.

West meets East

The names of a number of villages in Kent include the word 'Minnis' - like Ewell Minnis, Rhodes Minnis and Minnis Bay. This refers to the open common land attached to the community, that could freely be used by the commoners for grazing, wood collection and such like. The rights to the minnis have mostly been lost over time, as land is enclosed or built on, or as the villagers lost the need to use them. The village of Stelling Minnis, however, retains the open land, and has set up a charitable trust to manage the common. Its impressive 10-year plan is available for inspection.

One of the most interesting plants on the Minnis is Western Gorse (Ulex gallii) which is at the eastern end of its UK distribution. AS its name suggests, it is usually found in the west country and Wales, as shown on the NBN distribution map here, but for some reason it still grows side by side with common gorse (U. europaeus) on this common.

The Western version flowers only in the autumn (draw your own conclusions on the saying about kissing when gorse is in bloom) and here it's looking a bit straggly, in comparison with the common species which is flowering brightly.

Hasted in his eighteenth century work commented that the minnis formed 'an uncommon and not unpleasant scene, the inhabitants being as rude and wild as the country they live in'. Near the village is a hamlet known as Wheelbarrow Town, for reasons that have been lost in the mists of time.
Elsewhere, the chalk downlands are starting to come into flower, with cowslips and violets being joined by the first rock roses.
On the Bay, a ringtail Hen Harrier has been seen, presumably about to move on to its breeding grounds.

Lovely weather for frogs

The weather was fine throughout the holiday weekend, for us in the blessed east of Kent at least (and apologies to those who were not so fortunate).

Various habitats were visited, and spring was bursting in all of them.The first bluebells are bringing a new tone to the woodlands.....
...butterflies like this peacock, and an orange tip and a holly blue in the garden, are warming in the sun...
...various kinds of catkins are showering their pollen, like this creeping willow....
....birds are arriving all the time and singing....

....in competition with marsh frogs in the reedbeds.

I must acknowledge a great respect for weather forecasters (and not just Kaddy) who with the increased precision of hourly forecasts for small areas of the country, generally get it about right, westerlies excepted perhaps.

It irritates me, however, that so many people seem to think that it is 'always raining' or that we have a bad climate - it's not, the sun shines for far longer than it rains, and the number of times that we as individuals actually get inconvenienced and wet is very small.

A quick bit of research shows that we in the south-east get about 600mm of rain each year, similar to Paris and rather less than Rome. Manchester gets an average of about 900mm. For further comparison, New York and Sydney both get about double this amount.

This message brought to you by the East Kent Tourist Board.