The weather forecast looked reasonable for Thursday, what a fool I am – read on for why, so I decided to visit the comparatively local Arrow valley country park in Redditch where a Tundra Bean Goose of debatable origin was located. Arrow Valley had the added attraction that I’ve never visited before and I do like going to new places.
Arrow Valley is a 30 minute drive from home and with no urgency involved I enjoyed an early morning dog walk before packing the car at 08:30. When I went to the car I found a juvenile Barn Swallow, probably one that recently fledged from our stables, tangled in a bramble. After it was carefully untangled I took it back to the stables and put it on one of the eves next to its nest to recover. It immediately flew off seemingly none the worse for its experience! Having never handled a Barn Swallow before, I’m not in favour of ringing for reasons I’ve discussed previously, I was amazed at how tiny it seemed in hand with its wings folded. It seemed scarcely believable that this fragile looking creature will soon depart on its arduous 6 week migration to Africa, a journey of up to 6,000 miles!
Arriving at Arrow Valley just after 09:00, I parked in the main carpark and started walking around the lake anti-clockwise towards the café. There were large flocks of Greylags and Canada geese to go through but no sign of the Beanie. I messaged my good friend Nick who advised me to look close to the island where he had seen it and after maybe half an hour I spotted in swimming across the lake.
The Bean Goose complex has recently been split into two, Tundra and Taiga. I have seen Tundra Bean Geese on many occasions but the Taiga species only once. This bird was the somewhat more common Tundra one. As their name suggests they breed on wet tundra and pools in remote taiga. They form very large flocks in their wintering grounds of south Sweden and northern continental Europe but are somewhat scarce and decreasing winter visitors to the UK due to global warming.
There has been some debate about the provenance of this bird. Although it is unringed it is definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have seen many wild fowl over the years that should have gone to the far north to breed but have over summered in England, Teal, Widgeon, and Whooper Swan to name but a few. Perhaps these birds were injured at some point or not in peak condition for other reasons and weren’t up to the challenges of migration. Either way I did not need it for any list I keep so wasn’t particularly bothered.
After watching it for a while and rattling off a few pics I decided to walk back to the nice looking café for lunch. At this point the heavens opened and it absolutely poured down with rain. Having stupidly believed the sunny day forecast I had no coat with me so was forced to shelter under a tree for the best part of an hour which brings me nicely to my Met office rant!
I have two bookmarks to two Met office forecast sites that I look at, the main forecast and the rainfall map. You might think that these two must surely agree with each other – how wrong would you be! The main forecast at any particular time often says sunny while the rainfall map shows heavy rain! Given the tens of million we taxpayers fork out to fund the Met office is it unreasonable to expect these two public forecasts to be linked in some way and hence consistent? Far from it! In fact they seem to obey a version of Fermi’s exclusion principle which states that no two Fermions in a closed system can occupy the same quantum state at the same time. Rant over!
I eventually got to the very pleasant café, which I can highly recommend, and had a warming bowl of soup and coffee. While drying out I was firkling around on twitter when I came across this amazing post by the English oak project . Putting our small insignificant presence on planet earth into context, this tree was around when the pyramids were built, was 2000 years old when the romans arrived in Britain and has seen out every queen and king of England. How truly incredible is that!
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| The Crowhurst Yew, St Georges churchyard, Surrey |
Its harvest time in the fruit and veg patch. This is the third growing season for them and the benefits of many tonnes of rotted horse manure are starting to show. The claggy clay soil has opened up into a much more fibrous and plant friendly growing medium. A bumper crop of broad beans and peas has been harvested and laid down in the freezer to keep us going through winter. We have moved onto the second early potatoes which respond well to very rich and fertile soil. The main crop potatoes are growing vigorously and look full of promise. These will be harvested in October and should keep us in potatoes until the spring. I’ve grown a type of onions called Stuttgart giant this year and true to form they are already huge.
It’s been a mixed year in the fruit cage. The Strawberries did not like the cold wet spring and the harvest was smaller both in volume and size compared to previous years. The summer raspberries, which fruit on last year’s growth, have been quite the opposite. They are a variety called Malling Admiral and have produced a bumper crop. On top of the many fresh helpings we have had there are some 5 kilos in the freezer for jam and puddings. The Blueberries on my very old bushes are just ripening and the cultivar Blackberry is absolutely laden with rapidly ripening fruit.
The greenhouse was very slow to get going this year with the cold wet spring impeding growth. I follow the recommended planting routine with peppers starting them in late winter in a heated propagator. They are said to require a long growing season in the UK but I’m starting to doubt this. For the first 5 months they were hardly bigger than seedlings and looked most unpromising. They have now burst into life and are fruiting so vigorously that I have had to thin the baby fruit. We are well into the first batch of salad tomatoes with the second later batch, grown to extend the season , just coming into flower. I also grow a tomato called Roma which is an Italian style plum tomato which we freeze in sauce form and use instead of tin toms with pasta etc. I’ve previously grown these as cordons, i.e one central fruiting stem with side shoots picked out as per the salad toms, but I read that this was not necessary. The result has been growth that a triffid would be proud of!
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| Solanum lycopersicum triffidi |
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| First crop of salad toms |
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| Pepers |
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| Copious Blackberries ripening |
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