'Tour de Water Meadows'

Ok no bicycle or mountains or the likely 'Tour de France' winner Nibali But it was hot and I was carrying binos and 2 cameras! No volunteer action this week as both our Dark Knight and 'head Ranger' were on the sick list.

Not much room to land

Barn owls, Sherborne water meadows 

Arty shot of Sherborne buzzard

Red Kite over the Water meadows

After a couple of trips recently to Symonds Yat to see the Peregrines, which provided some great displays but disappointing pictures, I thought a survey of the Sherborne Water  Meadows was in order. I was fully armed with 'kit' which was ok at the beginning, before the sun burnt through the early cloud, but took its toll later on. It was pretty quiet all the way down to the water meadows until I bumped into Sherborne's shepherd and his friendly sheep dog. Enjoyed an interesting conversation which included a view of how well water management is performing {possible scope here for me to get interested & knowledgeable parties together to move things forward} and also the shepherd's 'spot' of otters today {I went to see of they were still around but no luck today}. However on my way towards the 'tin barn' I spotted an adult hare and then two magnificent barn owls which I managed to get a couple of half decent photos of. I left the owls to some peace and quiet as I made my way towards the Windrush and the boundary between Sherborne and Windrush estates.

More wildlife was on show with excellent displays from Red Kites and Buzzards. Wandering alongside the Windrush lots of Peacocks on show with some Red Admirals as well. Joining the butterflies were an assortment of damselflies not all of which I could identify. Not so good was the presence of ragwort which also showed itself at the top end of Picardy. I slowly made my way along the fisherman path by the 'cooling' Windrush with not much wildlife on show.  I eventually reached the bridge at the far end of Birch copse and headed back towards Century wood  & Northfield barn car park. Was pleased to see 50+ lapwing on the main pasture alongside the sheep which were clearly in relaxed mode {lying down} given the heat. So not a bad visit which ended with a quick look around the Broadwater which was fairly quiet with a couple of herons & the swan family on show.

A few surprises mostly good!

Little and large

A leap of faith

Some of the better surprises of the past 2 weeks, with a lull in NT and Wildlife Trust activities, included a brief encounter with an adventurous fox cub on one of the single track lanes near Snowshill plus an enjoyable view of a female greater spotted woodpecker in hawthorn trees early morning on Cleeve Common. This followed by a male greater spotted woodpecker at Snowshill,  kingfishers at Slimbridge, and Peregrines including chicks in the nest at Symonds Yat together with brief sighting of a kingfisher on the Wye {plus unconfirmed distant Goshawk sighting mixed in with buzzards and a raven}.

A brief visit to Sherborne this week confirmed the health of the 3 Broadwater cygnets ignorant of the buzzard overhead being mobbed by rooks. On the way to the water meadows the sheep were being sheared, quite timely in the rising June temperatures. Down by the Windrush  Goldfinches, female Bullfinch, long tailed tits plus a blue flash of yet another Kingfisher which was surveying one of the water ditches feeding into the Windrush. The red kites were also enjoying the weather until they strayed into one of the Lapwing nesting areas which resulted in a pair of lapwing showing their aggressive behaviour in defence of their nest.

Not so good was some surprise & unwelcome visitors to my house late over the bank holiday who fortunately failed in their attempted burglary but resulted in me becoming part of the crime statistics. The type of 'wildlife' I don't like!

Meanwhile back to 'driven' grouse shooting and its impact on wildlife {especially hen harriers}.