Belted Kingfisher ... should have been a Kingbird.

Not The Fens!!!

Saturday 6th October 2012
Heading West across Ireland as the sun rose behind us.

An eventful ferry crossing (courtesy of a very, very drunk and slightly bonkers Irishman) eventually led to us dashing across Ireland in search of our prize - the Eastern Kingbird, the first ever to be seen this side of the Atlantic. But, for some, there was potentially more bounty to be had as the description of a kingfisher received yesterday seemed bang on for a Belted. I'd seen the famous Shugborough bird in 2005, which did a Friday night flit and was refound later in Aberdeenshire, only to do another Friday night flit leaving many with a big double disappointment.

But, in typical birding fashion, it didn't take long for another mood change, as news filtered through that there was no sign of the Eastern Kingbird on Inishmore Island. But we don't give up that easily, so we carried on to the ferry terminal at Rossaveal where several car loads of birders congregated and discussed plans of action - to go for the Belted Kingfisher and risk not getting on the boat if the Kingbird was found, or to at least give it till 10:30, when the ferry would depart, before giving up on it.
Obviously some were most keen to get to the BK. Others saw it as a very poor consolation prize - amazing to think that such a mega bird as this, a giant kingfisher from all the way across the ocean, could be thought of in such a way.
Eventually a compromise was reached as we managed to arrange that the ferry would do a special run for us later in the day should the Kingbird be refound.

So the secondary twitch was on, across the astoundingly beautiful countryside of Connemara. We arrived at Lough Fee and it wasn't long before someone spotted the Kingfisher perched in a loughside bush near the road. But it was quite a wary bird, raising its crest and cocking its tail, and it soon flew low over the water along the lough and around the corner. But it didn't take long to refind and showed pretty well for a couple of hours, though it was always mobile and we never saw it catch a fish. We did hear its delightful, rattling, Gatling gun call several times, usually uttered as it landed.

Belted Kingfisher - a very rare bird on this side of the Atlantic.
My second, so scant consolation for the missing Kingbird.



The BK favoured this sheltered bay on Lough Fee.
Had it been in England there may have been a few more cars!

Meanwhile, there continued to be negative news of the Kingbird on the nearby Inishmore Island, so we began to make plans to check out the gardens on nearby Slyne Head, just in case any more transatlantic vagrants had been dumped down on the Irish coast. That was until, quite incredibly, the Kingfisher decided enough was enough and flew high south...very high. In fact it flew so high that only two of us managed to track it as it flew over the mountains and became an ever diminishing dot, before suddenly plummeting downwards, seemingly into the next valley.
Mindful that many of the twitchers who had come for the Kingbird would be pretty desperate to catch up with this belted beauty, we decided to at least take a cursory drive into the next valley and check the banks of Kylemore Lough, though chances of relocating the bird would be small.
Now, Kylemore Lough was more a series of loughs and lakes and many of the best looking overhanging trees were unviewable from the road. Eventually we found ourselves on a bridge across the water, a popular place for tourists to stop and photograph the dramatic scenery in which was set the monumental Kylemore Abbey.

The view on one side of the bridge.

and on the other side, Kylemore Abbey.

It was as we stood here that, to our utter amazement, low over the water and right over our heads, came the kingfisher! It continued towards the abbey and, despite us willing it to land again, carried on straight over the end of the lake. From there the map showed a stream or river continuing the last few kilometers back to the coast.
At least we could let the other teams of birders know its last known location, but for us the rest of the day would be spent searching likely spots for any more rarities.

We had no more luck, and the Kingbird never was refound, so there was nothing for it but to head back across Ireland toward the late evening ferry. We did hear on the way that another team of birders had managed to refind the Kingfisher in the vicinity of the abbey, but that it had again flown and eluded everybody else later that day.

I arrived back on the farm in The Fens and set my alarm for sunrise, in 2 hours time!

Can't wait for the next one.

Jays, House Martins and Barn Owls

Friday 5th October 2012

Today Sue came back from closing up the chickens all excited that a Barn Owl had flown  right over her head. Not only that, but it had called and another had flown out of the hollow old Ash tree to join it. It's not often that Sue shares the same excitement about birds as I do!

But that wasn't all the exciting bird news for the day. Today's main job for the morning, though not a glamorous one, was a thorough clean out of all the chicken houses, including moving them onto new ground in readiness for rehoming the various young chicks and chicken families which we have at the moment.
On one occasion I looked up to see NINE Jays flying in with their typical heavy wingbeats, undulating flight and white rumps. They headed straight for the old Ash trees, alighting briefly before continuing their journey. This was an exceptional count of jays for the farm, but not a great surprise as I was already aware of unusually large numbers being observed coming in off the sea along the north Norfolk coast. Presumably they have run out of acorns over in Scandinavia.

There was quite a lot of other bird movement through the farm too. Swallows are still passing through on their journey southwards, today accompanied by at least three House Martins, the first I've seen pass through the farm this year. Meanwhile, a Chiffchaff spent the whole day calling manically. Probably a different bird was belting out its song first thing. For what reason I don't know. Maybe just practising for next spring.

At half past one I was just carting a delivery of animal food down to the animal pens when my peaceful, industrious day was completely blown out of the water by news of an Eastern Kigbird found on Inishmore, a large slab of rock in the Atlantic just off the west coast of Galway, Southern Ireland. This was the first of this American species ever to make it over to this side of the Atlantic.

The rest of the afternoon was spent finishing off the most urgent farm jobs while making plans to travel on the overnight Holyhead to Dublin ferry. All very stressful. In fact, twitching could sometimes be described as the art of making a slow, relaxed hobby such as birdwatching into a totally stressful experience! But along with that come highs and lows, adrenalin and travel to the most beautiful, wild and far-flung corners of Britain.
I was supposed to be seeing Suggs (of Madness fame) this weekend too, though somewhat fortuitously that was cancelled at the last minute anyway.

The rest of the late afternoon and early evening passed pretty quickly, my mind totally distracted by the presence of this little bird a few hundred miles and a couple of boat journeys away. At half past seven I started the car ready for an overnight journey to see an Eastern Kingbird.

11 kilograms of Pumpkin.

 


This pumpkin outgrew its skin so I picked it early.

 

 

The pumpkin didn't look very big
... until I started chopping it up.
Had a good go at chopping my finger too!























We are approaching the time of year when tons of healthy, nutritious food gets needlessly thrown away. For in this country there is no great tradition of growing and eating pumpkins, except for their novelty value, famous as being the vegetable that grows to huge proportions, and obviously for carving into amusing ghoulish faces in which to place candles on the night of Halloween.

But I have discovered that pumpkin is actually deliciously tasty...which is a good thing. For this pumpkin weighed in at 11kg of flesh, after peeling and scooping out the seedy part. I have at least another dozen of these Pumpkin Hundredweight. I deliberately didn't grow them to huge proportions, letting more than one grow on a plant if it wanted and leaving the leaves on the plants to ramble over the ground. The wonderful thing about pumpkins is that they stay edible for ages, the nutty flesh sealed inside the tough skin where it stays fresh for months. This one had to be harvested a little early as it split its skin, but the flesh cooked up a treat and Sue turned half of it into bacon and pumpkin soup.  

On other matters, it's been a quiet time on the farm, just getting on with things. I should really be clearing veg plots, tidying and cleaning in preparation for winter. I've a couple of crops to start off too - some Autumn planting onion sets and garlic cloves. Many of the animals are close to freezer ready now - the pigs, the fattening lambs and several young cockerels need to go too.

Sun rise is becoming easier to catch, beyond 7 o'clock now, so on work days the animals can be fed at the same time. Autumn's sun rises can be stunning, or grey! Here's the first four to show what I mean.


Monday 1st October 2012
A grey start to the final quarter of the year.



Tuesday 2nd October 2012



Wednesday 3rd October 2012



Thursday 4th October 2012





Three piglets tuck into my prize winning Mangel Wurzel.
Should improve the taste when they go off soon!



The Produce Show

Today was the much awaited Fenland Goatkeepers and Smallholders Club annual produce show. Competition was fierce. Well actually it's all very friendly and rather charming, but I was taking it very seriously!!
In the morning we selected our squashes and pumpkins and I unearthed the biggest mangold wurzel I could find - and it was a show stopper.

Category One of the competition were the cucurbits and it was clear that the rain this year had helped everybody to a pretty good crop. I entered the potimarrons as my own and let Sue enter the acorn-type summer squashes. But when I saw the competition I feared that size would triumph over beauty and perfection.

Size isn't everything!

The winning trio.

For the vegetable categories everybody got to vote for their favourite, so it was quite a shock when the winner was announced.



Sue scooped first prize
ahead of stiff competition.

We had entries in the jams and marmalades too, as well as the chutneys, but sadly they didn't win.

But here's a selection of the other entries from the show.

Category 14 - eggs

Category 4 - Veg grown above the ground

 

 

Category 6 - Beverages

Category 7 - Jams

Category 5 - Fruits

I didn't get photos, but there were categories for recycled objects, crafts, photography and baking too. Next year we'll get our act together and go for some of these too!

Finally came category 20. The Jeff Yates Mangold Wurzel trophy. This was what I had been waiting for. The result was never in question. How could it be? Mine was the only entry!
I seriously reckon that people had seen me come in with my giant and quickly sneaked their entries back into their cars in shame.



15 lb 14 oz of Wurzel magic!

So we had turned up and scooped the first category and the last. Victorious!

Next year we'll be back to defend our titles and maybe have a serious go at some of the other categories - I fancy the bread and the vegetables grown under the ground.

But in all seriousness, it was just great to see so many familiar and friendly faces and to catch up on how the cider's developing, how the veg has done this year, how the pigs, chickens and lambs are doing and has anyone got any plums this year?

Three quarters through the year.

Sunday 30th September
Three quarters of the way through the year
Sunrise is heading back along the horizon toward the Millenium Copse.

These three girls decided to sleep outside last night,
making a nest from the hay I'd thrown in for them.

These two didn't take long to find a way past my veg patch fortifications today.
Defeated by the new top rope on the fence, they found a weak link further along, via the fenced off edible hedgerow area!
I've abandoned all hope of defending the edible hedgerow - actually it doesn't really matter if the leaves get nibbled at this time of year. And the hedgerow saplings need to be cut back this winter anyway to encourage plenty of thick growth from the base.

 

Sue has a Bee Buddy

Sue inspects the hives with the help of her new bee buddy.



Saturday 29th September 2012

Sausages sold out!
Today we sold out of sausages, only two weeks after the two boys came back from the butchers.
It's making me think about how to get the next three chopped up. I'm thinking that if we've got lots of shoulder joints left, we could get this cut of meat made into sausages next time. If it's what the customers want...


Ram-ifications
I spent much of the day putting a top wire along the fence that was supposed to keep the sheep out of the veg garden. I didn't realise, when I let them in there briefly the other day, what the ram-ifications would be. They have clearly realised that the grass is greener and took great delight in hopping the fence several times today, leading me a right merry dance as they did so. But I don't mind too much, as I know that I'll have the last laugh. They are beginning to fatten up nicely now!!

A Bee Buddy
Event of the day was Sue getting a new bee buddy. I've not mentioned the bees for a while, and that's because we have both been feeling a little out of our depth. You can read as much as you like about keeping bees but nothing quite prepares you for actually being responsible for a colony. We had a little help along the way, when we had emergencies, such as the bees' determination to swarm in the early days. Without this help we would probably have lost our bees, whereas we may now actually have two successful hives.
You will all have heard about the problems our honey bees are going through at the moment. It's hard to pinpoint the reason for this, though I suspect its a combination of pretty obvious factors - much the same factors that have caused a fundamental reduction in levels of wildlife everywhere.
Anyway, responsible bee-keeping is the best friend our honey bees have right now. With this in mind, we dutifully joined the Peterborough branch of the BBKA (British Beekeepers Association) a few months back and heard little more for our thirty odd quid a year.

Back to feeling a little out of our depth.
Plenty of detailed bee information here. It's interesting, but probably only if you keep bees or are thinking about it.
This is a crucial time of year for the bees. They must accumulate enough stored honey to get them through the winter. Many will die of starvation, but enough must make it through to keep the colony going when things warm up next spring.
We nearly missed the time for treating the hives for varroa. This is supposed to be co-ordinated by the local associations so that all beekeepers hit the bug at the same time and in the same way. Unfortunately, nobody told us and it was quite fortuitous that we realised just in the nick of time. So a couple of weeks ago we gave the bees their first dose of Apiguard - a natural remedy. The bees collect the Thymol crystals to remove them from the hive. However, in the process they take them down through the hive to where the varroa mites are lurking. As long as maximum daytime temperatures remain over 15 degrees (hence the urgency!) it will kill a good percentage of the varroa mites. Timing is important as it must be given to the bees after the main flow of honey.

We also realised, just in time, that we should be feeding our bees with a sugar solution so that they could build up their stores. Again, without any experience we had no idea if they had enough honey. But in such a dull year, and with the colony splitting a couple of times, it was always likely that we would need to supplement their feed and resist the temptation to draw off any honey for ourselves.

But still we did not really know the state of our colonies. Should there be more at this time of year or were we OK? Were we too late with the food and varroa treatment. And if so, what should we do now. Did we need to reunite the two colonies? All these questions and more. The most important question - is there anything we are totally unaware of?

And so it was that Sue decided to contact the local  BBKA and seek assistance.
To be more precise, she requested to be assigned a bee buddy. We have never had a bee buddy before, but it really is the best way to learn and avoid disasters along the way. A bee buddy is an experienced local beekeeper who offers their time once in a while to look through your hives and explain what's happening and what steps to take.

The bees were very active today,
probably because they are being fed now.

And so, today, Sue met her bee buddy, actually the woman who looks after the hives at the farm where I get my straw and pig potatoes. Small world.

It was great to find out that both our colonies are doing well now. We need to keep on feeding till they stop taking the sugar solution, probably well into October, and Sue was given some fondant to give the bees around Christmas time, to help them get through the coldest days of winter.

Sue put the bees back up to brood-and-a-half. This seems to be the favoured way round here, not something we'd ever heard of in London. It just means that as well as a deep brood box, a super frame is used to give additional brood space. Otherwise the hive can get too crammed in summer, encouraging the overcrowded bees to seek alternative accommodation.

 

 

So, for the moment that's it. We feel much more secure abut keeping bees now that we have somebody to help us. It's a great weight off our minds.

 

Maybe one day we will be experienced enough to be somebody's bee buddy. You never know.

One more cute picture of Elvis and family!

New Chicks on The Block

Friday 28th September 2012

I present you with more unashamedly cute pics of Elvis and her young family. If I remember correctly, I don't actually think we put any of her own eggs under her, but she doesn't know that.

Strangely, though, when we tried to introduce a couple of incubator hatched chicks to her, even though they were exactly the same age, she was having none of it and we had to step in quickly to remove them again. (Remember those blue eggs that took so long to replace after 100% infertility the first time round - well we've got two out of six this time.)



Chicks have a habit of poking their heads out from anywhere.

Chicks available in a right assortment of colours.
They are already getting their wing feathers.
I wonder what they'll look like when they grow up.

Meanwhile, we still have eleven keets (guineafowl chicks), which is absolutely amazing given that we've left them pretty much to be reared naturally. They are now capable of quite sustained flight with controlled landing, even onto the top rail of the fence. This is fortunate as they're now all too big to squeeze through the chicken wire. They are quite independent at times and already have some flank spotting and feather barring.

It may sound very cruel, but by early next year we should be able to pick off some of the males for eating. That is, after all, our main reason for keeping them. That and clearing insects from the veg plots and orchard.

Bounty from The Earth

First exposure to the air for these Arran Pilots.

This year has been a tricky one for many reasons, mainly the weather. To tell the truth, I'm looking forward to putting it behind me and beginning anew next spring.

But there are still plenty of crops out there and today I ventured to dig up a few more potatoes. Believe it or not, I'm still harvesting the Earlies!
Problems early in the year made them difficult to sell and I thought most of them would have rotted away or been devoured by slugs, but I managed to dig a surprising amount from the Sald Blue and Arran Pilot beds today. When you push the fork into the ground, lever up the soil and up pop nutritious, tasty potatoes, well the feeling never changes. All the back-breaking effort earlier in the year is forgotten in an instant.



And there's an added bonus. For the harvesting of the spuds is a great time to clear weed-covered beds. And on my smallholding those weeds have almost become a crop in themselves. First to them were the sheep, who I have discovered will eat just about anything. I even gave them a brief taste of the veg garden today, closely monitored of course.

But the main recipients of the weeds are the pigs, most of all the three girls who will be going off in just over a fortnight. In fact they've been getting all the imperfect potatoes, the stringy runners, the oversize courgettes and everybody's blemished apples of late. And I don't think they suspect a thing!

Ready soon!

 

Thursday 27th September 2012
The weather has settled down now after the storm

Weasel Juice is Pungent

Wednesday 26th September 2012

Weasel Juice is Pungent
I must mention something that's just this very moment happened.
Every now and then I hear a familiar high pitched squeak to announce that Gerry has brought in a vole. Occasionally it's more of a squeal (rabbit).
Well, I was just disturbed from my computer by the most ear-splitting screeching. For one awful moment I had visions of a rat on the loose in the house. But no, Gerry had again caught himself a weasel! At least his third.
I'd rather he didn't, but as I've said before Gerry is needed on the farm for rodent control and I can't exactly teach him to only catch certain species. As long as he doesn't catch too many, the weasel population will probably end up just the same anyway.
Fortunately this time I managed to chase Gerry out of the house and make him drop the young weasel, which bounced around confused for a couple of seconds before heading for cover. I returned to a VERY smelly house - reminded me of when the woman at the table top sale had a ferret with her, except even more pungent.

Elvis has a new family

I thought Elvis was acting a little differently this morning, sitting higher and more alert. When I just went to feed her I found this...

Elvis had moved her new brood away from the old nest,
now just a pile of empty egg shells.

and after a little patience I counted at least seven of these...

Let's hope they all turn out to be hens.

Meanwhile, the last chicks we raised, the two Cream Legbar hens, have made firm friends with the Polands (who they have almost outgrown) and were thoroughly enjoying a mutual dustbath under the chicken house today.