947 miles for a Magnolia Dip.

A pager message on Sunday evening temporarily turned my life upside down.

 

***  MEGA  ***

MAGNOLIA WARBLER

Fair Isle

Fair Isle is a remote island between The Shetlands and The Orkneys. And it's not easy to get to, especially when the whole twitching community all wants to get there at the same time. If I had plenty of time I could drive to Aberdeen and get an overnight boat to Lerwick on the Shetlands, then a flight over to Fair Isle if it had seats, or a place on the once weekly boat across, which takes twelve passengers along with its precious cargo which keeps the island alive.
But that wouldn't see me on Fair Isle till Tuesday at the earliest. What chance of the bird sticking around that long? And goodness knows what day I'd be able to get back off and home. I would miss all my other commitments next week.
Flying on to Shetland might speed things up, but since the flights were taken over by Flybe they have become prohibitively expensive. Over £200 one way from Aberdeen, over £400 from Birmingham. Not an option.

To cut a long story short, several phone calls later and I had a place on a private plane from Wick. Several planes had been booked to go from various air fields in England, and the pilots from one company were happy to use their planes to shuttle birders to and from Wick airport, in the far North-East corner of Shetland.
We put together a crew and I prepared for the long drive North. The ever-patient Sue was put in charge of looking after the animals in my absence!

We drove through the most abominable weather until, in the early hours of Monday morning, we found ourselves here...

Monday 24th September 2012
Looking for Crossbills at first light in Speyside, at the foot of the Cairngorms.

All we needed now was a message that the Magnolia Warbler was still there this morning and we could complete the final stage of our drive up to Wick to meet the plane.
Just one problem. About half past 7 we received the news we did not want to hear. No sign of the Magnolia Warbler so far.
This was not good. But there was still a chance it would appear or be found nearby, so we decided to spend our time looking for some of the Scottish speciality birds in the Caledonian pine forest. But we drew a complete blank here too, compounded by the continued news that the Magnolia Warbler had still not been found.



Unfortunately for this one,
someone ignored the sign.
But we did see a couple alive too.



 




Realistically we had a deadline of between 10 and 11 o'clock, otherwise there would not be time to get on the island, so as that time came and went we headed south. Driving down the coast of Northumberland the Easterly winds got stronger and stronger, accompanied by squalls of showers. A White's Thrush was found on the Farne Islands, just a few miles from where we were, but there was no chance of any boats running today. Good job that all in the car had already seen one. The pager messages just kept flooding in. Those howling Eastrlies had predictably lured a queue of birds waiting for the right conditions to cross the North Sea, but they had flown into the face of a storm of torrential rain caused by a weather system heading up through the country. The result, the whole east coast of Britain showered in birds, the rarest of them in the Northern Isles.


We took advantage of low tide to drive onto Holy Island and sought any sheltered spots where birds might take refuge. This brought us to the vicar's garden, right next to the ancient Lindisfarne Priory. A few birds were flitting about in the wind-battered sycamores, but as soon as they attempted to move they were being blown around and would end up hundreds of yards away. But we did manage to see a few Redstarts, a couple of Spotted Flycatchers, a Ring Ouzel, Brambling and, best of all, a Common Rosefinch. And over the beach a couple of young Long-tailed Skuas harassing the local terns before resting on the sand. 

Still no sign of the Magnolia Warbler though, and if it was found now we would have to start the whole quest again tomorrow.

So nothing to do but continue the long drive back to The Fens.

I wonder what birds have taken refuge in the farm hedgerows and trees while I have been away. I will probably never know, unless they're still there in the morning.

Curiosity killed the ... sheep

Guinea fowls in the wet.




Sunday 23rd September 2012

You may have thought I was playing it up a bit yesterday with my "Will the Baillon's Crake be there or not?" line. Well, this morning there was no sign of the bird. We were very lucky not to have had a wasted journey.

Onto today.
On my way to take the sunrise photo, the whole guinea family were up on top of the fence. The babies have been stretching their wings of late. In fact, they are now too big to freely pass into and out of the chicken enclosure through the wire fence, so over the top is the only option. As the parents flew down to feed, the youngsters followed. Not quite totally in control of their flight yet, two made it all the way across the chicken pen and crash-landed into the fence on the other side. One overshot completely and made it over the 6 foot fence! I had to usher it back in through the door.

As I am suffering a severe case of man flu at the moment I went back to bed to sleep it off. It it was a good job that Sue was up and about as I was rudely awoken by her shouts up the stairs to "Come now. The sheep have jumped in with the pigs!"

Now there is intelligent curiosity and there is darn right stupid curiosity. The sheep come somewhere in between. For a few days they have clearly been interested in the pigs, standing up on the fence to watch them, but when one went a bit too far and ended up toppling over into the pig pen, the other just followed, as you do if you're a sheep.

The pigs were equally curious, but their approaches worried the sheep who couldn't work out a plan of escape. Fortunately Sue was there to sort things out. I didn't dare take pictures. It wouldn't have been the right thing to do at the time.

My plan for today had been to rest up and then harvest some more potatoes and pull some more sow thistles in the afternoon. As it was the weather closed in so I spent the whole day resting and napping. Should hopefully help me to get better sooner and be ready for action again.

A Baillon's Crake brings in the Autumn Equinox.

Where was I this morning?

Thirteen years ago I spent ten hours trying to see a Baillon's Crake in Kent. I saw it for maybe half a second as it darted across a gap in some dense rushes. Luckily it was spring time and the sun was shining.
I did return three days later, in the evening, and had it walking around at the base of my feet.

But this secretive and diminutive member of the crake family has been almost impossible to catch up with in this country since then.

But this year something extraordinary happened. An influx of Baillon's Crakes into the near continent coincided with a national night-time survey of Spotted Crakes. The males of both these species sing (if that's the right word) at night. Spotted Crake is a rare breeder in large areas of reedbed, Baillon's Crake is a very rare visitor to these shores at all and has only bred once to anyone's knowledge.

Well, it's a bit of a long story, but all those pairs of trained ears out in those marshes at night time eventually revealed the presence of at least NINE singing male Baillon's Crakes in the country. This was remarkable news. But still this didn't make it easy to see one. The Conservation bodies kept stum. The most determined got to see one in controversial circumstances in Wales. There was belated news of another walking around in full view of the car park on another Welsh nature reserve. One was close to me, over the border in Cambridgeshire, but even the chance to hear it singing was only open to the select few.
But then, just as I was preparing for my mammoth drive to South Uist two weeks ago, the pager mega'd with news of a juvenile bird in front of one of the hides at Rainham Marshes RSPB on the shores of The Thames. It was very elusive, but did tend to be seen just after dawn each day.

This was sure to be a popular bird and so it was.
So this morning I was finally tempted to make the pilgrimage down to London and pay homage to the bird. I met my old friend who had driven down from Scotland at four in the morning and by quarter to six we were near the front of a line of cars waiting for the gates of the reserve to open. Two weeks after its discovery, this bird could still attract a decent crowd of birders at six in the morning, many returning after unsuccessful previous attempts.
A twenty minute yomp to the Shooting Butts Hide (I didn't name it!) and we waited for the bird to duly appear. I waited for the sunrise too.



Saturday 22nd September 2012
Autumn Equinox
Sunrise over Rainham Marshes

This Water Rail put in an appearance early on.

Of course, this bird wouldn't stay on this reserve for ever and last night was the coldest of the autumn so far. The change in overnight temperatures recently would be activating its instincts to move on. And there was an amazingly clear sky last night, perfect for navigating by the stars.
But we needn't have worried. We didn't have to wait for too long before somebody at the left hand end of the hide caught sight of the bird working its way through and along the waterside vegetation. But could I get on the bird? I kept following the directions - "above the right hand coot" - "down from the third pylon" - "right at the top of the reeds". What they should have said was "Right where the sun is rising so brightly that you can't see a thing from where you're sitting!"

Anyway, after a slightly anxious minute or so I could see the bird picking its way along a line of flattened vegetation. It was tiny, but a real character, reaching its long neck up occasinally to feed and treading along the stems with its long legs and giant feet. Luckily it stayed out in the open for most of the time we were there and after quite a while we were very happy with our views. News of a Yellow-browed Warbler at the other end of the reserve was our excuse to leave, though we never did see it.

By 11 o'clock I was back on the farm in Lincolnshire feeling more than ready for another trip. At this time of year I get very twitchy, as they say.

An Edible Hedge, A Carrot and some Cross Eggs

Friday 21st September 2012

The first really wet day for a while, so just a few odds and sods events to catch up on.

Cross Eggs
I was re-reading one of my books on keeping chickens the other night when I came across a really simple idea to solve a problem I've been having.  For Priscilla, as you know, is sitting on a clutch of eggs which will hopefully all hatch into fine hens for me. But there has been a problem - other chickens laying eggs next to her which she then carefully rolls across the straw and under her feathers. Trouble is, they'll never hatch as they'll be adandoned once the main clutch have hatched. Meanwhile, she is leaving me with too few eggs to sell. But this problem stops today. For each egg under Priscilla now has a large pencil cross on it. I can't believe I didn't think of it myself. From now on, all newly laid eggs will be easy to identify.



The edible hedgerow,
fenced off from marauding sheep.

The Edible Hedgerow
Last winter I planted an edible hedgerow, composed of hazels, elders, sloes, blackberries, crab apples, dog rose, wild pear, cherry plum and hawthorn. In a few year's time I'll hopefully be able to potter around in the garden and return with baskets full of wild hedgerow fruits to turn into jams and wines.
However, Number Ten and Number Eighteen (The Lambs) have completely misinterpreted the term edible hedgerow and, since they have been moved to a new area of grazing, have been trying to eat the whole hedge! Nothing that a bit of temporary fencing couldn't sort out though.









And finally, remember those rows and rows of carrots that I sowed earlier in the year to no avail? Well, I'd pretty much forgotten about them and left the beds to the flowering annuals I'd planted to confuse the carrot fly. But just look what I came across the other day! No prizes for beauty, but it may find its way onto the bench at the smallholders' produce show next weekend.

Pugnacious corvids

Thursday 20th September 2012

Today was a corvid day. That's not an adjective I've just made up, but the collective term for members of the crow family. It started with 3 Magpies mobbing a Barn Owl over Don's newly cut hay field at first doors.

Then a couple of Jackdaws were picking their way through the pig pen. Apart from briefly alighting in the old ash trees a couple of times, I think this is the first time that Jackdaws have actually dropped in on the farm, rather than just passing overhead calling loudly.

Later a Sparrowhawk was mobbed by Swallows, which were feeding low over the fields on their way South. No sooner had the Swallows moved on than the poor Sparrowhawk was well and truly set upon by three of the local Carrion Crow population.

Even a Common Buzzard came in for a bit of grief. Two young birds, in pristine plumage, have been taking advantage of the wheat harvesting in one of the back fields, hovering laboriously above the throng of gulls, presumably waiting to pick off any rodent fleeing the deafening noise and whirring blades of the giant combine harvester.

Finally, later in the evening, the kestrel which often hunts our land late in the day, came under attack.

Courgette wine it will have to be then!

Sue with a couple of oversize courgettes

 



Tuesday 18th September 2012

 

Wednesday 19th September 2012












Yesterday evening we went into the Lincolnshire Wolds to pick up 19 demijohns. That should tide us through for a while. At 4lbs of courgettes for 1 gallon of wine, the 32lbs that I picked today should use about 8 demijohns!

 

Yes, that's right. 32 lbs! To Sue's delight I presented her with another three baskets of courgettes in their various shapes and colours. Some ridiculously overgrown as a couple of downpours recently have brought on a fresh spate of logarhithmic growth!

The varieties of courgette which I have grown this year came from the Mr Fothergill's Courgettes and Summer Squashes Collection.

Black Beauty, Grisette de Provence, Di Nizza, Patty Pan, Golden Zucchini and Yellow Scallop.

The most prolific have been the Grisette de Provence, though they tend to grow fat and quickly reach a large size. However, the flesh stays firm and it's easy enough to scoop out the middle so that, even overgrown, they are great for stuffing like marrows. They've a good taste too. Similar are the Di Nizzas. A couple of these have attained the size of a medium pumpkin! The Black Beauties have cropped more modestly, but they are a very good looking courgette (though mine are not so dark, having a pleasing dappled, striped appearance.) The Golden Zucchinis (a pretty generic name for yellow courgettes) cropped very heavily early on and have a good, sweet taste along with a firm texture and a crunch to them. They are still cropping, but much more slowly now. Finally the Patty Pans have just started to produce fruits. They took me a bit by surprise so a few have reached the size of mini flying saucers! We'll see what the flesh is like in due course.

 

Some of the smaller pumpkins are ready now too. Fortunately these can stay on the plant much longer, as they just reach their full size then slowly ripen. But today I decided to pick a few of the dozens which are growing, just to see what they taste like and how ripe they are. Besides, they make a very colourful and exotic addition to the vegetable display in the Secret Shop.

 





Pumpkins and Squashes
are always fun to grow and harvest.



Ye secret shoppe.

 

The Potimarrons have grown and fruited profusely. They were the first to produce fruits and some have now ripened to a deep orangey red colour. They are a very convenient size for a meal for two and have a lovely, nutty taste.

The Jack-be-Little pumpkins were much slower to produce fruits, but each plant looks as if it will yield a hatful of fruits (and a big hat at that!).

 

Anyhow, back to that wine I was talking about. The recipe is at www.courgetterecipes.co.uk.



A modern kitchen, complete with laptop displaying recipe.

First, chop up lots of courgettes.

Then boil them in big pans.

Strain the juice into a very big bucket, along with other bits and pieces (see recipe)

As far as I remember, it stays about a week in the bucket then goes into demijohns, where it stays for about a year. By which time there will be plenty more courgettes to deal with!!

 

Dejected in the Meadow

Monday 17th September 2012
More fine weather

Well, I like to think of it as a meadow, but its really just ungrazed grassland and this year it's been taken over by sow thistles. Initially growing in clear lines, which I've since learned are a sign of ancient ridges, it has slowly spread, encouraged by this year's mega conditions for weeds.

One day it will be a meadow, but at the moment it's the last part of my 5 acre plot which remains slightly untamed.
Last year Don cut back the long grass for me early in the year and it was alive with bees and butterflies during the summer. So my plan was to get it cut and under control, then to keep it short, cutting a few times during the year, for the next year or two to get rid of the taller weeds and encourage a thicker sward.

So it was with some excitement and a great sense of anticipation that I climbed up into the tractor this fine Monday morning and went for a spin around the tracks in the meadow. The Fod, as my tractor is known, is very heavy on the steering but I basically had this great, chugging machine under control most of the time!

This was the first time I'd driven the tractor on my own.

Buoyed up by this, I continued with my plan and, with a lot of help from Don, hitched up his cutter to the tractor and began to scythe my way through the jungle of overgrown grass and thistles. In a few hours time it would all be chopped down and a big job would be out of the way. I had a real sense of achievement. My fear of machinery would be one step closer to being overcome and I would be confident and independent enough to manage my meadow on my own.

Until...


As I looked at the machinery behind me, I noticed smoke! Quite a bit of it.
Basically the sow thistle stems had jammed up in the machinery. Don came over to extricate them and I carried on, in slightly wiggledy lines but still crudely getting the job done. A couple of times I had to stop and pull out more sow thistle stems, but if I could just get it done the once and keep on top of it then things could only get easier in the future.

But then, while cutting a fairly straightforward strip of grass, more smoke. This didn't seem quite right and when I lifted the cutter, there, hanging out, was a broken rubber belt.

One broken piece of machinery.

 

My heart sank there and then. Not only would I not get the job done now, but I had broken Don's machinery and I felt awful about it. I sheepishly towed the rig back and knocked on Don's door, broken belt in hand. He could not have been nicer about it, but I still felt totally dejected.

Just as I was really starting to feel like I was getting on top of everything for the first time, this goes and happens.
Just two more hours and the job would have been done. Now I would be faced with a whole autumn and winter of pulling oversized weeds before I could have another bash at the grass in the spring.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, Don had had his meadow
cut and baled by a local farmer.
This is what mine should be looking like.

I'm normally pretty optimistic about things and don't shirk a job, however big. But right now was one of those moments when I felt totally deflated. There's been a good few of them in our couple of years here, but they've been more than compensated for by other things and I'm stoical enough to remember this when things go wrong.

Anyway, thank you for indulging me this one miserable post. Tomorrow I'll bounce back. I always do.

One lucky pig

Read on to find out why this has got to be one of the luckiest pigs around right now.

 

Sunday 16th September 2012

Today the barrier of doom was raised and three unsuspecting pigs entered the lair.

 

The barrier of doom is actually a ramshackle old wooden door which separates the two pig areas. When I need to separate the pigs, such as at weaning time, I simply unscrew it, lure the pigs to where I want them with food (always works), and screw back again.

The barrier of doom.
Three pigs have passed through.

Well, today the purpose of separating the pigs was because three will be going off on a little journey in four weeks time. I am not just being remarkably well prepared, but these three pigs will also get all the best food for the next few weeks, all the titbits, all the extra vegetables from the garden. For I reckon that in this last few weeks whatever they eat will affect what we intend to eat in the future.

 

To be totally fair about it, I decided to open up the gate, throw in a load of old potatoes and sweetcorn husks and to close the gate when the first three piglets had gone through. No favourites.





I found these old Pink Fir Apple potatoes in the store today.
You could say they've chitted!
But they proved an excellent lure for the piglets.

The plan went well until piglets three and four ran through together. So a little food was thrown on the other side and, eventually, one very lucky piglet went back through to earn a fortunate stay of execution, ensuring that it will make it to Christmas and get to see a New Year in.

 

So that's it. The next three lined up, just as today we made our first sale from the last two.

And yes! I do have a favourite. She has a patch over one eye and is always the first to come up to me.

 

I haven't looked yet to see which side of the fence she is on.

 

Does this lucky survivor wear a patch?

 

Meanwhile, Daisy is looking decidedly preggers. A pig's gestation period is 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days and the day that Gerald did the deed is easy to remember. Friday 13th of July. So she should be due in about 7 weeks time.

 

Then it all starts again!



Priscilla, Queen of the Nestbox



Saturday 15th September 2012
Hopefully the start of a fine weekend.

The newly named Priscilla.

Chick of Elvis has been renamed. This is because she has now developed her own personality and should not live in the shadow of her surrogate mother any more. However, inspired by real life, Elvis' daughter has been named Priscilla! And she takes after her mum (anyone new to this blog needs to know that Elvis is a hen).





Elvis, broody again.

For quite some time Elvis herself has been reluctant to give up her eggs, or to move from her chosen nestbox, so a few days ago I placed ten eggs into one of the coops and moved Elvis into it. There she has stayed.



But like surrogate mother like daughter.



 

For Priscilla has also been spending most of her time sat in a nest box and has been defending her egg every day. So two days ago I put ten eggs into her coop. Even as I added extra hay and formed a depression for the first two eggs, Priscilla was looking on and clucking. By the time I had carefully put four eggs in, Priscilla was on them, nestling down contentedly and shifting the eggs into place delicately with her beak.  Every extra egg I gave her was received with evident gratitude and maternal delight.

I have placed under the two hens a mix of eggs - some their own, some from other hens and some purchased from local outlets. If these are fertile they will help vary the genetics of my flock and there were some lovely white and some chocolate brown eggs in the boxes too.

The downside to this is that these two hens were providing the vast majority of our eggs. Only one other is laying regularly, plus maybe an egg a day from the others. I am hopeful that a couple of the new hens will come into lay very soon too.
But for the moment that means that we cannot keep up with demand from our three regular customers. Hopefully they will understand and by early next spring our efforts at increasing our egg-laying flock will be bringing some success.

Priscilla's ever-expanding egg collection.

Anyway, Priscilla has decided that she wants to be some sort of rival to the guineafowl! Today, as she left the nest for a short while to stretch her legs, I counted fourteen eggs under her. She has again taken to snaffling all other eggs that are laid in the box next to hers. We may have to close the door on her and only let her out in the evening, when the other chickens have already laid elsewhere.

Sweet, sweet sweetcorn

Sue will thank me for publishing this photo!

Well, the liver was lovely last night - always a treat when a piglet comes back all bagged up from the butchers. But it was not the star of the show.

Friday 14th September 2012

For this morning Sue harvested some of the sweetcorn which has been growing in amongst the pumpkins. I've only grown sweetcorn once before, but I did everything too late and ended up not harvesting it. However, this time I was prepared. I waited till the time was right before planting my Sweetcorn Lark seeds (an Xtra tender type from Vegetableseeds.net) in modules in the greenhouse. I had 98% germination and they grew quickly and were ready to go out just as the soil had sufficiently warmed up. Maybe the early water helped them - I don't know, but they settled in quickly outside and were soon putting on new growth.

I had planted them in groups of four, spaced at the corners of a 9 inch square. In between the planting stations were squashes, courgettes and pumpkins, and at the base of each corn plant a climbing bean seed was planted.

At the risk of repetition, the beans completely failed, torn to shreds by slugs, and a second sowing of plants raised in the glasshouse came to the same fate. But the little sweetcorn plants escaped the slugs and continued to grow, their bases gradually given shade by the encroaching pumpkin and courgette plants with their giant leaves. Their feathery heads towered above all this and, in the crooks of their elbows, the cobs began to swell.

Patiently I waited, oh so patiently, even leaving them past the point when Don next door had harvested his. I decided that every little drop of this late summer sunshine was going to go into my corn. 

 

So when Sue bought in a basket full of cobs it was a tense moment as she peeld back the outer sheathers of leaves. Would they reveal a grid of unswollen, pale seeds or a honeycomb of sweet, golden nougats?

 

To my amazement and great pride, the latter! Only two had failed to ripen sufficiently and one had proved a temptation for the mice - a good reason to collect in our harvest and process it for the freezer. All we do is peel of all the outer leaves then parboil the whole cobs before putting them in the freezer.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have had home-grown sweetcorn before which has been average to disappointing, but not this time. The sweetcorn was deliciously juicy and sweet, outshining the rest of the meal. Replacement seeds are already on my shopping list for next year. At £1.25 for 25 seeds that works out at about 3 to 4p per cob, of course, not including my labour.