Author: martintayler

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We are spending a few days in Essex en route to a week’s holiday in Suffolk Today we visited two nature reserves run by Essex Wildlife Trust.

Old barges on the Blackwater Estuary at Maldon where we are staying at the excellent B&B 32 The Hythe right on the harbour http://www.thehythemaldon.co.uk/

The first was the vast expanse of Abberton Reservoir. We didn’t spend very long here as it was very exposed and very windy but we did have very good views of birds we have not seen this year – swifts and common terns. There were plenty of other birds but they were quite distant and the light wasn’t great for photography.

Common tern at Abberton Reservoir

Tufted ducks at Abberton Reservoir

Egyptian geese at Abberton Reservoir

Greylag  geese at Abberton Reservoir

Pochard at Abberton Reservoir

Cormorant at Abberton Reservoir

Great crested grebe at Abberton Reservoir

The second reserve was Fingringhoe Wick which was more intimate and much more rewarding. As the light wasn’t good throughout the day the standout moment was not visual but aural – a nightingale singing in a bush right at the beginning of our walk.  It is the first time we have heard a nightingale in the UK.

There were lots of hides but the best was one which looked out on to the Colne Estuary, where we saw oystercatchers, black-headed gulls, shelduck, common tern and lots of little egrets.

The excellent Margaret hide looking out on to the Colne Estuary

Oystercatcher at Fingringhoe Wick

Common tern at Fingringhoe Wick

Black-headed gull and delicacy at Fingringhoe Wick

Little egret

On a small pool at the Kingfisher hide we saw a little grebe and a redshank.

Redshank

Little grebe

Shelduck orchestrating a mute swan

We didn’t see swifts here but there were swallows and house martins.

It’s not been the best of weather but we had a great day out.

 

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As I sit here writing this blog (and watching the ICC Cricket World Cup from sunny London) we are having a torrential downpour. Really I shouldn’t be surprised as when editing my photos from our visit this morning to Acton Court, a Tudor manor house near Latteridge in south Gloucestershire, I could see that the weather was quite threatening and the photos rather moody.

In fact we were very lucky to complete our visit to the garden (which was open to the public as part of the National Garden Scheme) in the dry. We really enjoyed the vegetable garden, the wild meadows, the wild flower garden and the old English roses as well as the butterflies and insects.

Meadow brown butterfly

As well as the lovely refreshments (coffee and home made cakes) there were stands from the Hawk and Owl Trust and Owl Occasions  although the few owls on display looked very nervous and, to me, sad.

Great grey owl

Barn owl

Acton Court’s website (https://www.actoncourt.com/) says the following of the history of the manor house:

“In 1535, one of England’s most colourful kings, Henry VIII, came to stay at Acton Court with his second wife, Anne Boleyn, while on his summer Progress around the West Country. The owner of Acton Court, Nicholas Poyntz, wanted to impress his sovereign, so for Henry’s pleasure, he built a magnificent new East Wing on to the existing moated manor house. The new wing was a splendid testament to Nicholas Poyntz’s loyalty to his King. He went to immense trouble and expense to impress Henry, decorating the state apartments lavishly and fashionably. He was well rewarded as it is thought he was knighted during the royal visit.

Today, the East Wing which was built in just nine months comprises most of what remains at Acton Court. It offers a rare example of 16th century royal state apartments and some decorations which are said to be the finest of their kind in England.”

Acton Court is open to the public for three National Garden Scheme Days in June, and three Heritage Open Days in September.

 

What do you do when it’s too wet for golf? – Go bird watching.

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I spent a couple of hours in the rain at Chew Valley Lake in North Somerset without taking a photo and was about to give up and go home when suddenly a Great White Egret flew right in front of me. Encouraged a stayed for a while longer and got some pleasing photographs. The rain stopped and the sun came out for a while. The GWE moved to the back of the lake and I experimented with a bit of digiscoping. I need to put some more effort in to this as I must say I get a better view through my telescope than I do looking through the camera lens.

Great white egret flying in

Bad hair day for the great white egret

Great white egret checking its hair

Great white egret fishing for his lunch

Close up of GWE

GWE and mute swan

Mute swans

Shelduck

Canada geese

Canada geese

These last two photos were my best efforts at digiscoping

 

 

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It was a gloomy evening but I needed to tear myself away from watching the Cricket World Cup on the television and so I strolled across the road to Stoke Park Estate for an hour of nature watching. There was lots to see and enjoy as I hope you can see from my photos.

Duchess Pond in Stoke Park Estate – only a couple of miles from Bristol city centre and less than 5 minutes on foot from home

The grey heron flew in as I arrived

A whitethroat made a lot of noise above the pond

Flowers of so many colours

Insects too

Canada geese

Moorhens young and old

Swallows

Mallards

And the grey heron kept moving around the pond in search of his supper

I even got back in time to see the end of the cricket match.

 

 

 

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On a walk round our local park there was lots to hear (mainly warblers) but not much to see as the foliage on the trees is now very dense. However, there were ducklings, goslings and the chicks (if that’s the right name) of coots on the lake and a dipper on the River Frome.

 

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We had an enjoyable morning at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust centre at Slimbridge visiting the hides which look north out on to the Severn Estuary and taking the “summer walk” down to the edges of the estuary. However, other than shelduck and 3 curlew there wasn’t much to see on the estuary except for the lovely views.

The beautiful meadows and reed beds on the edges of the Severn Estuary

A distant curlew

On the pools we had close up views of mainly shelduck, greylag geese, avocet, gadwall and black-headed gulls but there was a common crane, a pied wagtail with two juveniles, a couple of bathing linnets, an oystercatcher and, in the far distance, a little ringed plover.

Adult pied wagtail

Juvenile pied wagtail

Linnet

Oystercatcher

Avocet

Shelduck with  ducklings

Shelduck

Common crane

Barnacle geese

Greylag goose

Mute swan

Gadwall

 

 

 

 

 

We are very pleased to see that at least one of the blue tit chicks in our garden has fledged.

We put up a nest box last year, more in hope than anything as our garden is so tiny we  couldn’t really see a suitable spot which would afford birds plenty of cover. However, on the 19th April this year I took the following photo of a blue tit, clearly preparing a nest.

Over the last couple of weeks we have seen plenty of action with the blue tits coming and going.

… and voilà today I encountered this young fellow:

 

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Slideshow of blue tit fledgling.

Encouraged, we’ve now added two more nest boxes and are looking at other ways of attracting wildlife to our garden – no matter how small.

 

 

 

As my wife Wendy was doing a sewing workshop in Somerset I went a little further in to the county and spent the day at one of my favourite bird reserves at RSPB Ham Wall on the Somerset levels.

My time was very much taken up watching just 4 species of bird: Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great White Egret, Marsh Harrier and Great Crested Grebe although I did see a Grey Heron, a Little Egret,  a male Gadwall, Garganey and Common Pochard.

There were a few damselflies and dragonflies but only small numbers and so that’s probably why I didn’t see any Hobbies. I did hear a cuckoo but it sounded quite distant.

Slideshow of today’s photos

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Great Spotted Woodpecker with chick

Great White Egret

Great Crested Grebe with chicks (on her back)

Female pochard

Marsh harrier

Little egret

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Sldeshow of the gardens at Mottisfont

We broke our journey back home from the New Forest by stopping at Mottisfont, a romantic house and gallery set in beautiful riverside gardens in the Test Valley in Hampshire, which is run by the National Trust.

We didn’t have time to visit the 18th-century house with its 20th-century art collection and major exhibitions in the top-floor gallery (the National Trust continues the artistic traditions of Maud Russell who made Mottisfont her home in the 1930s, bringing artists there to relax and create works inspired by Mottisfont’s past). I’m sure we will return here another time for a fuller visit and to discover the  local area, including the nearby market town of Stockbridge, Stockbridge Down and Marsh, and Curbridge Nature Reserve (more a note for myself).

In the time we had we did enjoy the gardens and, in particular, the stunning walled gardens. Mottisfont has a world-famous collection of old-fashioned roses and, although we were a little early for most of them, there were enough in bloom to show the beauty of the collection; and certainly worthy of inclusion in my nature blog.

Mottisfont

Riverside walk along the River Test

Fish were easy to spot in the shallow river bed

The shepherd’s hut among some of the splendid trees (by all accounts there are more than 35 species of trees).

Some of the roses in the walled garden

Irises are a main feature at this time of the year.

It’s not all roses

Still room for birds (which I found difficult to photograph with a wide angle lens)

Mottisfont in the spring sunshine

 

 

 

 

 

 

RSPB Arne situated on Poole Harbour on the south coast of England  is one of the few places where all six of the UK’s native reptiles can be found but today it seemed much too cold to look for reptiles (both for us and them). However, we enjoyed the walks on the heathland and in the ancient oak woodland and saw some interesting birds.

We were staying near to Corfe Castle on our way to a Golden Wedding anniversary in the New Forest and as we looked down on Corfe Castle from our accommodation we could see how gloomy a day it was to be.

The visit started promisingly when on our approach to Arne we saw a kestrel sitting in a tree.

 

 

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As we did the second part of our walk we went down to the estuary where there were Canada and Brent geese, shelduck, plenty of gulls, little egrets. oystercatchers and cormorants.

The previous evening we had gone down to the pretty seaside resort of Swanage and saw the beautiful white cliffs in the distance and close-up views of black-headed gulls.

 

With a group of “senior” members from the Old Colstonian Society (the association of the alumni of Colston’s School in Bristol, UK) we visited The Savill Garden, an amazing garden in Windsor Great Park near London which describes itself as Britain’s finest ornamental garden.

Windsor Great Park with Windsor Castle in the background

The start of the tour

The Savill Garden is an enclosed part of Windsor Great Park, created by Sir Eric Savill in the 1930s. It is managed by the Crown Estate. The garden includes woodland, ornamental areas and a pond. However, at this spring time the speciality was the exotic azaleas, rhododendrons and magnolias.

Eric Savill (1895–1980) was the grandson of Alfred Savill the founder of a large firm of estate agents and was involved in managing Windsor Great Park from 1930 to 1970, being Director of Gardens from 1962 to 1970. He opened the Savill Garden to the public in 1951 and left it as a heritage to the nation.

There were a few birds which you would expect to see in gardens and woodland (such as blackbird, robin, jackdaw, Canada goose, pheasant) and a few surprising ones (such as a red kite, a parakeet and a family of Egyptian Geese). We even heard a cuckoo.

European robin

Family of Egyptian geese

Pheasant

Jackdaw

Jackdaw

Female blackbird

A very out-of-focus photo of red kite (which surprised me as it flew very close overhead)

Parakeet (now quite common in London)

The whole experience was enhanced by the superb modern visitors’ centre with  restaurant, café and even retail opportunities.

The modern visitors’ centre

But today was not really about the birds, it was the flora which was truly magnificent in the beautiful sunshine.

 

 

 

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Well I know it’s not the most obvious of bird blogs but I felt I had to publish the “nature” photos of this morning’s visit to The Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden in St Ives which was truly memorable. I hope my photos do it some justice.

A few of my favourites: