Rights of Way

Our access to the countryside is facilitated by an excellent network of Rights of Way, totalling more than 2000 miles, maintained by ESCC.

At the last count they were responsible for (deep breath…): 2655 bridges, 4523 gates, 1046 steps, 6053 stiles and 10040 signposts/waymarks.

Every so often on RXbirdwalks we come across something like this: a distressed stile at Salehurst. Actually, this is by no means the worst: collapsed bridges over deep steams are disappointing, though I hate it most are where a landowner has incorporated the path into their gracious garden, which is also the home of snarling dogs.

However, it’s easy to report deficiencies and abuses online here where you can scroll down to “Report A Problem”. They are generally prompt at dealing with your reports and last autumn kindly sent me an update concerning some impassable stiles at Westfield, with photos showing the nice new ones.

Most areas are pretty good, a few conspicuously lacking and others outstanding. Iden, for instance, is furnished with the very latest in gate technology including dog guillotines.

No photos

…unfortunately. I decided I’d taken enough, and the mist outside promise no better light so I left the camera at home. Big mistake, as I realised when the sun came out  to make the lying snow look wonderful, with delicate blue shadows outlining the Napoleonic defences and the snaky courses of old creeks. My second mistake was to wear my Very Cold Weather jacket, which was too hot once the sun appeared. In fact it was astonishingly warm – during the middle of the day I could walk comfortably without it.

At Toot Rock, dozens of Song Thrushes, Blackbirds and Redwings were feeding along the canal, with further flocks arriving from the west, maybe off the sea. The change in weather was signalled by merry Chaffinch and Dunnock song, whereas yesterday there had been a grim silence. 2 Sparrowhawks skimmed around the Elders and a Water Rail scuttled across the path in front of me.

I met up with James T for a walk along to Castle Water via the canal & Newgate footpath. The birds were similar to yesterday, with a large flock of Brents still on the fields, Dunlin running over the ice, 3 Ruff and a couple of Woodcock but no Skylarks or Meadow Pipits were going over. Later in the day, we saw a pair of Bearded Tits and 3 Pintail at the Pools.

Among gulls, Lapwings and Golden Plovers roosting in front of The Ridge was a single Med Gull, unnoticed till they all flew up at the rumble of shingle trucks passing like a line of elephants (yellow ones, with wheels). I had expected lots more thrushes at the Beach Field but by the time we arrived there the movement had ceased. The songscape here was dominated by Great Tits and Greenfinches. A spectacular drake Goldeneye Showed Well on the Long Pit, with 3 redheads in the background, but we could find no Smew.

As usual, Castle Water was packed with waterbirds, including several Pintails. From the little patch of reeds in front of the hide flew first a Cetti’s Warbler, then a Water Rail and finally a Bittern. A second Bittern flew about in a leisurely way further over a little later as a f Marsh Harrier cruised the reeds behind it. Back along the low-tide beach, we followed foraging groups of Dunlin, Sanderling, Redshank, Grey Plover, Turnstone, Curlew and Oystercatcher, though could see only one Knot and no Ringed Plover. All the same, we found 84 species in 10 miles.

PS: WordPress reminds me that this is my 500th post. They have given up suggesting alternative topics.

Snowing Well

As journalists the country over were dusting off their “Winter Wonderland” templates, I realised that I would not make it to Dungeness for the Wildfowl Walk so set off instead across the untrodden snow of the level.

Although Wrens and Snipe were flushed out of hiding and Dunlins too ran about on the icy ditches and even on the road, there were none of the unusual birds we’ve seen during previous cold snaps. No Jack Snipes for instance, nor Woodlarks, notwithstanding the 120 Skylarks that trilled over southwestwards. Almost 100 Meadow Pipits passed over too and there were one or two Water Pipits Showing Better Than Usual along the Marsham Sewer.

As I drew level with some Greylags at the west end of the canal, a long skein of Brents came growling across the marsh and swirled in over my head. Shame I hadn’t got my camera out, for there were 120 in this group, then another 30 (they were all dark-breasted) a bit further along with c30 Whitefronts. I couldn’t see the Pinkfeet today though.

Flocks of Golden Plover were on the pastures or in the air – it was hard to know just how many but at least 200, half of those heading SW in one flock. A single Ruff joined a group of Curlews heading for Old Marsham Farm, 2 Black-tailed Godwits were again with Curlews, this time sheep too up near Newgate and a single Bartail was probing the edge of a ditch near Toot Rock in the company of Dunlin, Snipe and a Curlew.

There was else no-one about – just a cavalcade of 4x4s proving their worth along the road – until I happened upon Roy G at the Pannel Scrape where, as we sat watching not much, a Sparrowhawk dashed and pounced on probably a Snipe. The only other raptors were 3 Marsh Harriers, a Buzzard and a Kestrel.

Over at the Pools, a solid mass of about 1000 Wigeon grazed by 3 Gates and at least 12 Pintail flew up with a load of Teal upset by a MR. Hardline Cootwatchers will be pleased to learn that there were 518 of these charismatic birds.

It has hard to pick out much at all on the brown sea (yet more Wigeon) but Common Gulls were, unusually, the most numerous species on the beach. I guess they had stayed since their usual daytime aunts on the inland pastures were snowed under.

CRbirdwalk at Footland Wood

Target species are rather against the spirit of these walks, ideologically because I think we should just go to a place and see what’s there, taking an interest in everything; pragmatically because if you put all your eggs in one ornithological basket….. I’m not sure how that sentence should finish. The point is that if you don’t see that one species upon which you’ve set your little heart, you’re likely to go home snuffling into your handkerchief.

However and nonetheless, we’ve visited many woods where there are Crossbills but never got a decent look at them. Any look actually. It doesn’t usually get further than me saying, “Listen! Crossbills!! ……… oh, they seem to have cleared off.” So, when nice photo of a cracking and obliging male showing well at Footland appeared on the SOS website the other week, I thought it would be worth a try.

I don’t go there much these days because it attracts a lot of dog-walkers. It’s a very nice place to walk a dog but there can be a lot of barking and the pets can be noisy too. Once upon a time you could watch Nightjars from the car park…

Crossbill showing well (it’s in the top-right quarter). Thanks to Julie Fisher for the photos – I left my camera and my note-book at home.

I have to say that it wasn’t much disturbed this morning AND we quickly came across 4 Crossbills clambering about, stripping cones high in, I think, a Corsican Pine, liberating a storm of twizzling scales into the cold, still air. At least one of these was an orange male and there were a few Siskins to keep them company. One they’d moved off, perhaps in response to the shrill alarm calls of nearby tits, we found lots of dismantled cones on the ground, which led to the question: Which end do the Crossbills start? My guess was at the top – because to me it looks easier. The answer can be found on this informative site.

Over the road, in Barnes Wood, we came across another flock which looked about 20 in flight. They too were in Corsican Pine and again accompanied by Siskins. Is there some kind of interaction going on or do they just favour the same trees and stick together for safety-in-numbers? The air was so still we could hear the busy snipping of twisted beaks and were showered by helicoptering scales. There was also a call I’d never registered before, a deeper single note, a bit like the anxious chup of a Blackbird but a little higher and more metallic. This recording on Xeno-canto is quite like it. Sadly, there was no song.If you want to know more – a lot more – about Crossbill vocalizations, you could read through posts on this Crossbill-fancier’s blog.

One thing he mentions is the importance to CRs of drinking places, both for, er, drinking but also as sites of social interaction. I wondered where they would find water on a frozen day like this, but then recalled we’d followed a flowing steam looking for Woodcock (there weren’t any – blame the dogs).

We didn’t see a great variety of other birds, the usual tits & thrushes (35 Redwings) a few Chaffinches and at least one Redpoll, but the main purpose of the walk was achieved. Everyone saw Crossbills. Next week: something completely different.

East of Iden

Iced-up in Iden

With my face numbed to putty by the NE wind, I’ve been stumbling over frozen ruts through the orchards at Iden to check out the route of next week’s RXbirdwalk.

The landscape is so very different from the High Wealden sites we’ve most often visited: low and vast, facing downstream onto the broad Rother Valley.

Jugendstil bubbles in iced-up puddles.

This one’s a map of Zeeland.

There was brilliant, cold, pale light, sharp shadows, the heady scent of fermenting windfalls and the chattering of hundreds of winter thrushes. Though surrounded by fruit trees, I saw only 4 Bullfinches – traditionally a pest in orchards. Wanting to understand more about them, I found this informative article from Birdguides.

Southwards through sleet

On Tuesday four of us caught the 344 (and while Dave & I were waiting at the foot of Chick Hill, a Blackcap was singing!) to Four Oaks, near Beckley, then walked back to Pett. For me, this walk was like threading together a patchwork, of places I know well and visit regularly, places I’ve not been to for years or even decades and a couple of stretches where I’d never previously set foot. It was a bit of a song-line too, playing back a series of blue-plaque memories.

The woods – Bixley, Flatropers and Beckley – were completely still and silent, grey and shadowless; we moved through listening, like a column of wary partisans, distant crow-calls for the most part the only bird sounds. The exceptions were around initial cottage gardens where little birds including Marsh Tits & Nuthatches were drawn to feeders. It was not until we entered a broad new clearing (looks very promising: TQ863222) at the NE end of Beckley Woods that we came across a big number of birds – c100 Redpolls busily feeding on the edge of a stand of birches.

For quite a few years, Beckley Woods has been of decreasing bird interest so my wider explorations of the site took place a long while back. Returning now, I feel disorientated, not so much by the very welcome new vistas opened up by clearance but by the openness of grown-up plantations which I’d formerly thrashed through as dense scrub.

One feature of interest, for many years hidden, is the mediaeval moated site. I notice it is indicated on the 1930s OS map yet not on the modern one, the trees in between time having masked it from map-makers’ consciousness. We had a brief look for the waterfall till I realised I’d confused the various steep-sided ghylls that drain from the wood’s east side.

Emerging into Starvecrows Lane, we came across some Bullfinches, adding a bit of colour to a cold pale landscape as they fed on bright berries of Guelder Rose in one of those mixed-native-species plantations. As we scanned the twigs, we discovered that there were at least 14 birds – a big flock these days. Perhaps even more than that, but they began to move about, making it hard to count.

This plantation seems hardly to have grown over recent years and lacks any kind of understory, the floor beneath having been grazed to velvety moss by rabbits except where wild boar have shovelled up that covering to expose discs of bare earth. Boar digging continued all the way down to Hayes Farm, where we entered the Common Gull World of the Tillingham Valley, whitening with salty snow.

Passing up on the temptation of a stop at the King’s Head, we headed past Udimore church into a patch busy with tits, finches, pigeons and thrushes, down through the orchards into the Brede Valley and the colourful market garden at Snailham Halt where a small group of Skylarks flew up from the cavolo nero.

Up past the Overgrown Orchard to the packing sheds where a flitting little bird turned out to be a wintering Chiffchaff, then out along the 1066 path to the Queen’s Head at Icklesham.

Once we emerged, the weather had lifted and (small) patches of blue showed through. I’d heard from Mike Salmon that, although some of the orchards had been grubbed out, hundreds of Fieldfares were still to be found around Hog Hill, and so it proved – Starlings, Woodpigeons and Carrion Crows too.

Along the Pannel Sewer, there were Snipe, Meadow Pipits and a single Water Pipit. One or two Barn Owls floated over the reeds and Marsh Harriers were congregating to roost. I was watching a couple of these cruising over the Pools when a Bittern suddenly flapped up and flopped down into the reeds again.

Trudging back along the canal toward the lights of Toot Rock, we disturbed a Green Sandpiper and then found the goose flock right on the end field, really close to both track and road. In spite of failing light, the 42 Whitefronts, 4 Pinkfeet and 12 Brents all Showed Well. A final feeble attempt to add a few coastal species in the twilight deservedly failed, so we ended with 70 species – a lot more than I expected – in 10 miles.

Tired but happy etc…. but with sloe gin rather than cocoa (… and not in mugs).

Sunday strollers

During Sunday’s RXbirdwalk we skirted westwards from The Plough at Crowhurst, then downhill towards Ring Wood. From a grass ley to one side of the footpath flew up a flock of maybe 100 Meadow Pipits which had otherwise remained hidden among the vegetation. The other week we came across a smaller group of 40 near Netherfield. Who knows how many hundreds/thousands are tucked away across the county in unpromising farmland, unvisited by bird-watchers?

As the trees start to colour up, it’s possible to distinguish different species at a distance. In this photo, looking up the Watermill Stream, you can pick out Oak, Willow, Alder and Field Maple, apart from those conifers up on the hill – I guess the taller ones are Scots Pine but I’m not sure about the dumpier specimens. Those tall deciduous one among them must be Poplars.

While searching in Ring Wood for coy Bullfinch and Treecreeper but crossing paths instead with a company of rattling Long-tailed Tits it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what LT song sounded like. I couldn’t recall ever having heard something from them which might be described as a “song”. Back home, I checked through Xeno-canto, which cited only “calls”. Further searches led to “Wild About Gardens” which assures me: “Their soft, twittering song is seldom heard.” But what “soft, twittering song”? There is a recording however on “British Garden Birds” which sounds new to me. Sounds like a warbler of some sort. But I shall now listen more carefully and report back…

Buck Holt Farm is an intriguing site, with many mysterious lumps and bumps in the ground around it. Buckholt Lane, which directly connects this spur with Sidley Green, running alongside Cole Wood, appears to be an ancient way but it doesn’t seem to be shown on this Jekyll & Gardner map. Instead, the lane turns sharply towards the present Acton’s Fm, then north.

As we walked along Buckholt Lane, a hefty, long-tailed raptor with barred underparts came gliding out overhead – wow!!! – a GOSHAWK!!!!!!! As it flapped with exaggerated slowness over towards the next ridge I began to wonder what my description would look like, and wished some other birds would pass it, to give a clear size comparison. My wish was instantly granted as into the same airspace shot – a male…. Sparrowhawk. And it was only a bit smaller. The slow wing-beats had fooled me – it was not big, but displaying. The pair of them performed some rapturous loops before gliding happily away over the woods.

I’d not previously noticed how much Butcher’s Broom there is along the lane towards Acton’s Farm. Most is in the hedgerows, in one section clearly illustrating its use as an impenetrable barrier, but also persisting as clumps in the adjoining Little Henniker Wood.

There are separate male & female plants – this one the latter. The “leaves” are modified stems.

As we looked down from Acton’s Farm onto the Combe Haven Valley, we were struck by the frequency of groups of walkers. We’re used to seeing no-one, but it was Sunday and some local people were taking advantage of the excellent system of tracks traversing the Pebsham Countryside Park (map here).

The Sunday Factor had struck us within minutes of our arrival at Crowhurst sports Ground, when a field busy with gulls, Woodpigeons, Jackdaws and Mistle Thrushes was abruptly vacated upon the appearance of young footballers and again later, when the tranquil valley was repeatedly disturbed by fusillades from clay-pigeon shooters concealed somewhere behind the stub of the 17 Arches.

So there were NO birds in the valley (“You should have been here last time…”) other than a most surprising lone Brent Goose on a wet field. Quite a few had been moving up-Channel in the last few days (including a pale grey-brown leucistic individual off Winchelsea Beach) but what possessed this bird to deviate from its normal coastal path?

Spring-like sounds

To the existing chorus is now added the wild squealing of Common Gulls on the back field and wheezing of Greenfinches in the front garden. On the marsh, Skylarks are singing and Little Grebes trilling at the Pools. Shelducks are displaying in urgent flights above the pastures and Goldcrests in Toot Rock pines.

What I took to be fox-shooting between the pools had crowded all the birds out to the sides and the geese into a dense pack over towards 3 Gates: 164 Canadas, 119 Greylags, 10 Whitefronts, 4 Pinkfeet, 1 Bar-headed (HD) and the big white one which I’m told is a farmyard goose (the code for which seems to be ZL). While I was counting these, something kept putting up the waders further over, including c20 Golden Plovers & c50 Dunlin. Later, I had a look at the end field where there were 42 Grey Plovers, a Ruff and a Knot with the Dunlin, but no sign by then of the GPs.

The culprit could have been a Sparrowhawk, for otherwise the Kestrel, Buzzard and Marsh Harrier cruising about were unlikely to spread such alarm. Or it could have been the Peregrine which the other day had been patrolling the cliffs past comfortably installed Fulmars.

There have been more Tufted Ducks at the Pools than usual – this morning there were 51. And a Water Rail screaming but no sound of Cetti’s Warbler. Most of the Wigeon were once more out at sea where, in fairly good conditions I could make out  several Gannets on the horizon but hardly any GC Grebes until I got back to Cliff End, when I could see a raft of c100 further out as I tracked a flock of 30 Red-throated Divers flying west. A deep croak behind me denoted the passing of a Raven.

I missed quite a few common birds so was quite surprised to discover I’d seen 78 species in 2 and a half hours.

Shoddy time at Salehurst

Never mind the birds – I find I spend more and more time on RXbirdwalks trying to imagine what the countryside might have looked like in the past. What would the Rother have looked like in the middle ages when it was still wide and untamed, yet navigable? It’s hard to conjure up such a vision from the present flat green fields, the river now a narrow stream hidden down a deeply scored gully, the sweeping valley vista blocked by ranks of poplars.

Or much more recently when the valley floor was populated with hops – so many, to judge from the ubiquitous oasts, round or square, brick or sandstone.

I had a very good primary education in the 1950s, in a brand-new, light and spacious Modernist school with humane and humorous teachers, from whom I learnt about all kinds of things including hop-farming, in those days in a headlong decline. That’s how I’d heard about shoddy. When, this morning, we were looking for birds in a Salehurst hop-garden I discovered I was the only one who knew what it was – the dregs of minced-up woollen rags laid down with other noisome yet nutritious waste as fertilizer for the hops. You can read a whole page about it here.

In Googling shoddy I also found a nice memoir from Mr L P Haynes of Bodiam Hop Farms which included this:

Hop-growers have found that hops pay for feeding and thousands of tons of crushed refuse from London boroughs have been composted by Kent growers. Many hop-growers have lost money in fattening cattle in order to feed the hops well on the resulting dung. Shoddy waste from Yorkshire mills, turkey feathers from Ireland, guano, slag, potash and phosphates in various forms, meat and bone meal, hair, hare and rabbit flick and skins cut up, fish heads and guts from fishing ports are all useful. These are now dried, ground and delivered in bags as “manure,” but between 1920 and 1939 they were delivered in all their natural condition.

Some recent comments on Trip Advisor used this word, seemingly unaware of its origins, to describe aspects of services at the Hop Farm, Paddock Wood.

Enough of hopping, what about birds? House Sparrows were hopping, chattering too in healthy numbers at every farm and hamlet we passed. Chaffinches were hopping too beneath the hop-poles, up which a GS Woodpecker was shinning, and perching on the wires. No sign of the Yellowhammers that nest here, however. Maybe they’re busy in game-cover.

No noisy geese on the Park Farm lake, but a pair of Mute Swans, 5 Little Grebes, a Coot, a few Moorhens, 32 slightly suspicious Mallards and 2 Gadwall. Across the lane, the rushy field (where previously, in summer, we’d found nesting Reed Buntings, Reed Warblers and Lapwings) were just a couple of Snipe, but overhead 4 Buzzards and a Kestrel were soaring. (A fifth Buzzard had been over the village.)

Phantasmagoric forms in grown-out hedges along sinuous, ancient wood-banks now engulfed in conifer plantations.

In Wellhead Wood, where wildlife-friendly management has seen rides & glades widened, the formerly numerous Blue & Great Tits switched abruptly to Coal Tits and there were a few Goldcrests but no sign of the Crossbills which had been present a few weeks ago.

Many noisy small birds had been lured into the island of gardens, stables and tall hedges around Robertsbridge Abbey by a largesse of peanuts. Most conspicuous were twittering bands of Goldfinches (c40) and Siskins (c50), large groups for a winter in which they seem scarce elsewhere.

Following a jolly lunch in the popular Salehurst Halt, we spent a few minutes at Feathers, sizing up the birdfood, feeders, binoculars etc before crossing the road to the Nature Area where battalions of Blue Tits had been attracted to large-scale deployments of seeds, this in turn attracting a lightning visit from a male Sparrowhawk.

(Trivia Time contd: tawdry – [C16 tawdry lace, shortened and altered from Seynt Audries lace, finery sold at the fair of St Audrey (Etheldrida), 7th-century queen of Northumbria and patron saint of Ely, Cambridgeshire])