Author Archives: andrefarrar
Lot’s to see – and a whole year to see them!
I made a slightly rash promise to Jack over the Christmas hols – that we’d try and see 200 birds in 2014! We made our plans for New Year’s Day – only to be confounded by the wind and driving … Continue reading
Posted in 200 in 2014, Connection with nature, Winter
Tagged Broom gravel pits, Grafham water, Holme Fen, Paxton Pits, RSPB The Lodge, Rymes Reedbed
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A tale of two parishes
A good number of my posts on this blog will come from my home range – like a local patch but with very fuzzy edges. It’s the place where I grew up during the 1960s and 70s and the place … Continue reading
Posted in BirdTrack, Godmersham and Crundale, Winter
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Hundreds of shovelers
Back to Dungeness, yesterday, in a sunny, warm and blessedly still period between the incessant Atlantic storms that will define this winter. Great white and little egrets stalked the water’s edge and bitterns were being seen all over the reserve … Continue reading
A calm between the storms
The waterlogged landscape of Kent looked well in Boxing day’s sunshine, the river Stour at Godmersham in spate and filling its floodplain, with the forecast of more rain to come tonight, the floods won’t retreat anytime soon. Jack and I … Continue reading
Posted in Dungeness, Godmersham and Crundale, Winter
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Some branches break off
A day to test the top end of the Beaufort Scale – definitely 9, a strong gale (I saw a branch break off). Being out in today’s weather only has a benefit in being able to remember how horrible it … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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Winter wetlands
The wind and wild rain of the last 24 hours had filled the pools on the flood meadows and plashy floods crept their fingers of reflection across the grass and amongst the tufts of rush. The local mallard flock (all … Continue reading
Posted in BirdTrack, Godmersham and Crundale, Winter
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Colour in autumn’s grey days
Low cloud lives up to its name as it rolls along the tops of the North Downs, shedding a pall of grey across and browning landscape. On such a day it is the detail that can lift the sprits. A … Continue reading
In praise of little notebooks and BirdTrack
No birds, no bees, no flowers, no trees, November Rubbish time of the year to encounter much in the way of nature – dark when not at work and rain on Saturday. Long dark nights are the classic time to … Continue reading
Posted in BirdTrack, Connection with nature
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November’s pale moths
I ran the moth trap last night and up with 44 moths including a new one for the garden – a micro-moth Acleris sparsana that is basically grey and small, and quiet fast as it fled before I could take … Continue reading
Deep into Autumn, sprawlers arrive
I left the outside light on last night, and three sprawlers were sat around it this morning. I’ve always thought this neat moth with its front legs tidily extended in front of it doesn’t really suit its name; it doesn’t … Continue reading
Nature's Unauthorised Biography 