In Pursuit of Miss Austen

To reinterpret, and devastatingly mangle, one of the greatest lines in English literature - "It is a truth universally acknowledged that Wessex_Reiver in possession of a good day off, must be in want of a visit to Hungerford". As so it was last Sunday when I found myself in that lovely Berkshire town surrounded by people dressed in Regency costumes. I, it has to be made known, was not similarly attired.

A week earlier I had found myself idly scrolling through social media. Time occasionally hangs heavy on the newly retired, thus with the devil making idle hands do work, the temptation to regularly check emails, Instagram or Facebook remains all too Luciferian. However while doing so I stumbled across an advertised event namely a Regency Canal Cruise to Kintbury. I read on. We'd join a group for a leisurely cruise down the Kennet & Avon canal to meet the author of Godmersham Park and Miss Austen, Gill Hornby, at her home, inclusive of a cream tea, a snip at £35 each.

Aside from the Regency era being of interest, strictly speaking I'm interested in 1750-1850, I had very much enjoyed the Miss Austen series on television earlier in the year. I almost booked this cruise there and then but something niggled in me, was this a mandatory costumed event? It is a costume I lack. Contacting the organiser I'd heard nothing until two days before the cruise, it transpired he had replied earlier but that had lain in his draft email. James's reply confirmed there were still a couple of places and after a flurry of emails over Friday afternoon we were booked on the cruise. It would turn out to be a long day, unforgettable though.

Our coffee and cake companions - image from James

The owner of the Tutti Pole cafe (in blue) and James. Image from the Tutti Pole.

I caught up with the thirty people on the cruise at the Tutti Pole cafe in Hungerford. Despite not knowing anyone, or indeed not being dressed for the occasion, Mrs Wessex Reiver and I were welcomed with open arms, or should that be open bonnets? Not everyone was in period clothing which calmed my fears immediately. Those who were looked fantastic. Mainly women it has to be said but the four men looked striking. It seemed most of the people knew each other from Regency dancing events which, as I was to discover, are a big thing these days.  Introductory coffee and cake over we had an hour free before meeting by the Rose of Hungerford canal boat for a picnic.

It was fairly surreal to be sitting with so many people in period costume and then looking around at the trappings of the 21st Century, not least mobile phones held in hidden pockets in their muslin dresses. But they were a lovely set of new friends, very interested in how we'd arrived at this event so late, many had booked it weeks ago. Picnic over we were asked to board the boat for the two hour cruise to Kintbury.

I got to know the Kennet & Avon canal reasonably well a few years ago specifically around the Crofton section which was only a short walk from Mrs Wessex Reiver's then home. It is a lovely part of the world and it was lovely to come back to explore it. This time on the canal itself as in all the years walking the towpath we'd never been on a boat.

After three locks and what seemed to take no time at all, Gill's home, the Old Rectory, hovered into view on the southern bank, where we could see Gill waving to us from her garden gate. We'd made good time. Now for the main part of the day. Which did not disappoint.

Gill could not have been more hospitable, talked through what it meant to be living here in the grounds Jane and Cassandra Austen knew - though not the house. The rectory they knew was demolished and replaced with the current one in 1860. Having moved here Gill's interest in Jane Austen had increased she told us, and she kindly let us see a painting of the house as it would have been when the Austen sisters visited. This painting and another which I saw later were found in the church adjacent to the garden only recently and had been restored.

After more information and a lengthy questions and answer session Gill kindly agreed to sign books for those who had them and pose for photographs in her garden. This included me who having bought her latest Austen novel - The Elopement - only in the morning, asked her to sign and date it, which she did. A permanent reminder of meeting her, exploring her garden and a wonderful day, further captured with a group image of the costumed attendees.

We were not finished just yet. A very short walk brought us to St. Mary's church where a group of volunteers explained more about the church, told us about the Rev. Fowle and the village of Kintbury during the Austens' time. We could have spent longer at Kintbury but all too soon the need to return forced us to head back to the canal and a long anticipated cream tea.

image from James

All too soon we returned to modern life, arriving back at Hungerford just before 8pm. What a wonderful day. It gave me so much to think about: meeting new (and friendly) people who had such a wonderfully open and positive outlook on their passion, also being back in that area, which for Mrs Wessex Reiver is home, and idly wondering whether I could ever wear a frock coat and formal hat in public. It intrigued me as in all the years I've read around Regency England I've never thought of costumed re-enactment. I was to discover there are groups all over England, not just dancing but Napoleonic battle groups, parades, costumed presence at shows and special events, in fact it seems,

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good costume, must be in want of a dancing partner".

Lyscombe Nature Reserve : Embryo Project Idea

 "I think we should return to the car, that looks seriously wet"

Those words passed my lips less than a minute after leaving the car. We, that is Mrs Wessex Reiver and myself, had travelled down to visit a Dorset Wildlife Trust site which had been newly added to its portfolio, Lyscombe, around ten miles north east of Dorchester.

May 2025 : The Chapel

I first visited this site in May on a very hot and surprisingly windy day. On that occasion I had left my OS map at home and naively relied on the satellite navigation on my phone. Betty, as I call the disconnected voice who normally aides my wanderings so beautifully, fell silent on that day when the mobile connection helpfully disconnected about five miles out. Despite being in Southern England this is a remote location, and after a number of fruitless wanderings and about turns along narrow lanes near the hamlet of Plush, lanes admittedly offering breath-taking views over huge fields in this rolling chalk and flint landscape, I finally found the small car-park and set off in blistering heat along what it turned out was the wrong track. Actually it was the right track but not for the direction I wished to walk up to the ridge of the horse-shoe of Lyscombe Hill. That first walk found me descending into the valley floor (Lyscombe Bottom) and exploring the ancient chapel there. It felt remote, a silent untouched landscape, one I instantly fell in love with. I was less enamoured by the searing heat and I decided to return and explore the 'horse shoe bowl' when the weather was less intense. 

An enormous field at the start of the walk

It has been a hot and dry year so far, the driest spring for a century or more, drought restrictions littering England, soil so dry the cracks are large enough to push a boiled egg into, if that was ever an meteorological option. The landscape has looked parched and weary for weeks. Imagine then our surprise at the squally rain barreling in from the west to greet our arrival. Welcome for the countryside yes, but a shock to the system now acclimatised to dry weather as the norm.  It was much too warm for waterproofs. Scuttling back to the car we sat watching the landscape disappear behind an opaque wash of the rainfall's brushstroke. It will just be a high temperature shower, it will pass quickly. Half an hour later we set off once more. This time up the correct track and with my OS map.

The footpath we missed

A enormous field on our left offered fantastic unobscured views over to Hardy's Monument way distant on the horizon. The farmer was urgently bringing in baled straw before more rain fell. With that rain the landscape was cooled, subdued, lank, and with harvest well under way it felt more autumnal than July. 

Fifteen minutes steady uphill plodding brought us to what would be our defined mistake. 

On the OS map the footpath is shown gently curving past a building. On the ground the farm track split, left through a disused piggery, right toward what looked (through my binoculars) like a locked gate. We went left, through opened gates and traversed the side of the deserted piggery and joined a meters wide conservation margin alongside a field of beans. This conservation strip was very wet after the rain but alive with butterflies, mostly meadow brown and 'whites'. There was a footpath of sorts, but to be honest just the faintest hint of passing feet through the long grass. The views were stunning but something did not feel right. Maybe it is just because this a new reserve, there was no one around, it is an empty remote spot.  Doggedly we plodded on.

The wide field margin on the wrong path

The rain returned when we'd almost reached the top of the hill, luckily we were by some trees allowing us modest shelter. To our left the views were stunning across rolling farmland. To our right the horseshoe of Lyscombe curved away like a scimitar. Between Lyscombe and us sat proud as punch a brand new metal mesh fence complete with barbed wire on top. The rain eased, but something did not feel right. Doggedly we plodded on. 

I could see where I thought we should be on the OS map, but this small woodland was in the wrong place. Let me rephrase that, the woodland knew exactly where it was, I didn't. Reaching another barbed wire fence blocking our route I knew somewhere, somehow, on the thirty minute trudge up the hill we'd missed a footpath leading off that long farm track. I don't think we were the first visitors to have made that error either as just along the barbed wire fence hands unseen had cut the middle two strands of barbed wire and bent them back. We scrambled through, there was a footpath sign but I knew we were on the wrong path. 

Nothing for it, we retraced our steps back down the hill for ten minutes to the aforementioned metal mesh fence by the wood. Could we climb over it? Neither of us are good at climbing fences and while that thought came into my head a couple walked by on the opposite side, the only people we saw that day. 

Explaining our predicament the lady said "Yes, we are on the footpath up to the view point - there is a footpath by the piggery, it veers off to the right next to a padlocked gate". We'd missed it, I'd seen the locked gate so we walked on via the left-hand track. To add to our despair she added "there used to be a gate where you are standing before this metal mesh fence was put up" before adding cheerily, but with a hint of why are they over there? "there's a lovely bench up the hill if you can ever get back over onto this footpath".

We thanked them and left them to their leisurely walk back downhill to presumably a warm drink and cake in the car. Dejected we took walked downhill on the opposite, the wrong, side of the fence. Moisture from the wet grass began invading our boots, Mrs Wessex Reiver hobbling due to a previous injury (I'd stood on her foot as we'd scrambled through the barbed wire fence), the metal mesh fence, happily excluding us from our destination, our constant companion. Tensions were high, enthusiasm low.

However half way down the hill as my dejection mounted, I noticed a gate on the other side of a hedge. It was open. Miraculously the mesh fence had also ended. Could we get through the hedge maybe? Yes, a bit of a squeeze but we were through. Our spirits lifted, finally after nearly an hour we were on the right footpath.

The correct footpath up the hill

And what a difference. Much as we'd enjoyed the bean field this was more what I'd thought the walk would offer us, up a grassy ridge, trees, wildlife and far reaching views down into the valley below. We were now on our own, almost. There were butterflies everywhere, mostly meadow brown, hundreds of them, a few gatekeeper, speckled wood and large white, unidentified day flying moths too. Dragonflies zoomed erratically overhead and at our feet the grass shimmered with the explosive movement of crickets and grasshoppers jumping hither and yon. Not much birdlife other than a jay letting us know of its disapproval, but it is July, the silent season. That did not matter, we were in heaven.

Not quite there yet....

... but what a view.

We'd reached (almost) the top of the ridge, the OS map showing a nearby trig point of 244 meters, around 800 feet in old money. New metal access gates delineated a meeting of footpaths, the fingerpost showing Thorncombe, Folly, Higher Melcombe. I wandered through and looked at the view north towards the Blackmoor Vale, an area I know so well. In the mid distance the evocatively named Ball Hill, did they play cricket on that slope I wondered? To my right Nettlecombe Tout itself hiding from sight a landmark known as Dorset Gap. We'd made it, well almost. Another ten minutes walk was required before the now infamous bench loomed out the tall grass like a monument to the weary traveller. And what a wonderful bench offering a stunning view looking south across Lyscombe Bottom and on to the Dorset coastline and Purbeck, well worth the hour and a half walking to get here. We sat here for fifteen minutes in total natural silence. What a place.

We made it...

Purchased in 2024 Lyscombe is a new reserve for the Dorset Wildlife Trust and at 335 hectares one of the largest purchases it has ever made. But I'm so glad they did (and erected the bench). Wildlife wise it is already wonderful but much more can be done. Dorset Wildlife Trust are doing an exceptional thing, by doing almost nothing. Of course management is happening. By reducing grazing and managing the reserve primarily for wildlife slowly the farmed landscape will become a natural habitat for many more species. Current management thinking is to do nothing too dramatic just give the wildlife a chance to return under its own steam now the pressure of farming for profit is released. And I applaud that soft touch approach, reading later that barn owls have already returned on their own wing as it were. 

It's given me an idea too. I've been a member of the DWT for many years but mainly (due to work commitments) I've only visited a handful of their 42 nature reserves and 4 wildlife centres. Now I am retired, time hangs on me like an eager puppy wanting to be outside again. This visit, and while walking for two and a half hours and around five miles in total, gave me time to think about a new project. Over the next few years could I visit all 42 reserves and 4 wildlife centres? I'll not set a timescale, mainly as Mrs Wessex Reiver has her own hatching plans, which I'm reliably informed I'm included in, walking long distance routes. Maybe then I'll count this visit to Lyscombe as the first and at the moment half finished of these 42 visits. It is a big reserve and I've areas yet to explore, so I will definitely return.

Though maybe a refresher in map reading would be advisable first.

Silence on the hills

Unusually I am writing this while sitting having my lunch looking at this view. Mostly I would note something of interest while out, then when home write it up. 

The silence however is noticeable. 

I'm on the Quantock Hills, only three weeks since my last visit. Then at the beginning of May the birdsong was astonishing. Everywhere the orchestra of skylark, stonechat, linnet, wren and meadow pipit provided the avian-symphony. A host of solo artists, pied flycatcher, willow warbler, cuckoo, raven, song thrush and so on, added to the performance. It was incredible. 

Today I've only heard meadow pipit, stonechat and a single swift. No skylark, no whitethroat, no Dartford warbler, even the cuckoo is a distant faint half-call somewhere over the valley. There is plenty of other wildlife to see but the difference those three weeks have made is quite noticeable.

Of course the reason is, I sincerely hope, that territories have been decided, birds paired up and eggs are in the nest or chicks hatched with parents run ragged feeding them. There's no real need to sing loudly if the home is happy and content. 

This exceptionally dry spring will have both brought forward breeding and shortened the breeding phase. It's only a hope that species reliant on insects for their growing chicks find enough of a supply in this dry weather. We will find out in due course when the surveys are collated nationwide.

There's plenty to see and do often course. Day flying moths are plentiful, green hairstreak too. This year is also I think the small heath year, they're everywhere. In some ways the silence in the hills as I write this is a joyous experience, a balm to the extraordinary racket humanity unleashes on the environment, such as the aircraft now passing over at a great height. As long as that is all it is, a temporary cessation of birdsong during breeding I'll sleep well tonight.

Speaking of which I'd best be on my way, a downhill three miles back to the car. The silence will no doubt accompany me. Temporarily I hope.

No Blues, But Plenty Two's

It was on a warm, indeed very warm May Day when I found myself wandering a precipitous hillside in north Dorset. This spring has been most interesting weather wise. Following an unexceptional if mild winter, in southern England at least, we have had a long spell of dry weather, which recently moved up a gear and became quite warm. Anecdotally the average emergent signs of spring are showing around a week ahead. The house martins arrived early April, along with willow warbler, days later I had my first cuckoo and pied flycatcher and I heard my first swift over the house on April 29th  - usually they arrive around the 5th of May. And so, despite it only being May 1st I had already noticed reports of mid-May emerging butterflies on the wing. I got into the car.

An hour and a half after leaving home I arrived at my chosen site near Shaftesbury. It was 10.30am and 19oC on the car thermometer. During the drive over I mulled over the two butterfly species I especially wished to see, marsh fritillary (Euphydryas aurinia) and Glanville fritillary (Melitaea cinxia). Having been to this site before I knew where to look, but knowing where to look is a different proposition to actually finding what I'd be looking for. However I needn't have worried. The walk down the track immediately provided lepidopteran interest, accompanied by an incessant skylark song soundscape.

There were a number of brimstone pairs on the wing, close bonding flights with the male following the female as close as could be. I noticed at least half a dozen during my three hours on the hill. Small heath were everywhere, and in unexpected places. Even along the track dingy and less numerous grizzled skipper were patrolling along with spotted wood and small white flitting in and out of the hedge line, though only one red admiral today. I'd only walked a couple of hundred metres along the track, but now I needed to get onto the chalk hill proper.

Emerging through the hedge the view which always takes my breath away awaited me. Here on the bottom of the slope is a small, but functioning marsh fritillary population. I had the hill to myself other than the skylark song, now joined by a blackcap. 

A cinnabar was a nice find however it was while unsuccessfully trying to take a photograph of a small heath that a marsh fritillary flew slowly by. By flying what I really mean is wafting by, wings horizontal as they glide and flap low over the hill. I find this mesmerising. They are simply patrolling their territory, seeing off any intruders (small heath were given a serious telling off), but somehow that slow lazy flight reminds me of a jazz performer, super cool, unflustered and captivating, but like the words within a jazz lyric, the marsh fritillary means business. As I made my way along the slope a number of fights developed both with other marsh fritillary and other intruders. Spiralling up the pair, sometimes a trio, would twist and turn in rapid flight until it was over when the jazzlike victor would return to his super cool glide and flap quartering of the chalk grassland accompanied by the blackcap backing vocals. I was intruding.

It was getting very warm now so I decided to sit for a while at an area I'd found successful in previous years. This area looks no different to other parts of the hill, a few stunted hawthorn and a sizeable sheltered grassy area, but it is where marsh fritillary have, in the past, stopped and positioned themselves on a prominent plant. As they did on cue.

On this visit plantain and birds-foot trefoil seemed to be the preferred perching plant. I'd not been sitting for long when they appeared and offered a perfect pose for a few images. I don't own one of those huge lenses everyone seems to carry these days. When I'm out I travel light, water, a sandwich, binoculars and my trusty Canon SX50 bridge camera with a very good x 100 optical lens. At ten years old, like me, it is getting on now but it still produces the images I need. Binoculars are also a must while butterfly watching. Putting my camera away I watched the antics of the marsh fritillary through the power of a 12 x 42. So much more can be seen through binoculars, allowing a really in-depth visualisation of the butterfly and it's behaviour. Being this exposed on a chalk hillside however was warming me up a little too well. Time to move, back along the slope to the track where the Glanville awaited I hoped.

I just stumbled down onto the track (it is steep coming down the rickety steps) when I noticed  this pristine newly emerged marsh fritillary. So motionless was it that I thought it had died. The faintest flicker of its wings confirmed all was well. Clinging to the leaf, pumping its wings with blood it allowed me to really focus on the underwing. It all made me think, why so intricate a pattern, which while variable is unique to each species? Underwings are works of art, the combination of light and dark, spots and lines a clever use of the lepidopteran palette to attract a mate.

Interestingly while this marsh fritillary was on the bankside of the track, where the Glanville fritillary are, on the hill earlier I'd noticed a couple of Glanville's floating about. There is a tall raggedy hedge between these two areas, butterfly passage between this boundary is occurring, though the Glanville has somewhat exacting needs.

Initially I didn't see any Glanville's on the wing (actually they were a couple at the base of the hedge). I did however notice a copulating pair. I've never seen this before, not least as Glanville's are rare and not really meant to be here, being an un-licenced introduction it is believed around ten years ago. The most recent Butterfly Conservation report, 2024, states 'the introduced colony appears to be flourishing with several seen including a pair copulating'. Well in 2025 they're definitely copulating. 

Male and female Glanville look the same, however from my own observation the male is subtly 'sharper'. By that I mean the colour is a little brighter. boundary lines a little darker. Thus, if I'm correct, in these images the male is on the right. And of course there's another give away....

Settling down I spent some quality time with this pair. They were reasonably active, circling this hawthorn sapling, slowly it has to be said. Copulation wasn't continuous either. They'd separate and reorganise position before starting again, the male following the female nearly always in a clockwise direction. This pair had already been in embrace when I first saw them and for the next fifteen minutes or so they continued allowing me to really watch what was happening and take a few, well rather a lot of images.

Female left, male right

Male above

Male above

Female with wings open

Suddenly it was all over. One final embrace and then the female dropped to the ground, followed a few seconds later by the male. Which was when the fascinating behaviour occurred. The female clumsily wandered through the vegetation, followed a hairs breadth away by the male. As I watched the female came up to ribwort plantain and (I think, as she was partly obscured) began egg laying with the male watching on. This activity was on a very steep slope and I didn't want to disturb them, or damage the habitat by scrambling up to be closer, I was watching as close as I dared. Maybe I should have checked the underside of the leaf later for confirmation of egg laying, but I didn't as I'm one who prefers to stand back a little to let nature do it's thing unmolested. It is also why I find it frustrating when people wander through habitats, flattening the vegetation, in order to get that perfect image. The needs of the species we are observing should always come first.

Given though this pair were mating, then presumably egg laying on their host plant, ribwort plantain, I can give a good guess as to the outcome. This population of Glanville fritillaries in Dorset may be an un-licenced release, but it seems they're very much flourishing and on this precipitous bankside by a track, with plantains everywhere the future looks bright.

I met a trio of butterfly watchers coming down the track as I headed back to the car. They were interested to know if I'd seen any 'blues' today. They made me think, no not a single blue butterfly. This site is host to holly, small, common and Adonis blue. Despite the warm spring then it is still a little too early for the blues, but the twos are most definitely out in force.

Chasing Dartford Warblers

 

I believe every naturalist must have a modicum of madness running through their veins. If like me you began in short trousers simply observing what is close to home, before too long you now find yourself wearing long trousers venturing far and wide indulging in a sheer obsession. If this strikes a chord then you'll understand what follows. 

While half an hours drive from home, I now consider the Quantock Hills (or Natural Landscape to give it its new and now correct title) one of my local patches. Visiting two or three times a month throughout the year I've got to know this special landscape well. There is however, to be truthful, an awful lot more to learn about this magical area. 

Last summer at around midnight I met a chap out walking his dog. I'd been watching nightjars with my wife and we were just thinking of heading home, when this chap emerged out of the darkness with his labrador. He was from nearby Williton.  We chatted about the nightjar routes, he mentioned where the males lek, which valleys they move between at different times of the night and then just casually threw into the conversation, "come earlier in the day and you can watch the Dartford warblers just over there before heading off to view the nightjar at dusk." With those words he and his dog disappeared into the night, leaving me in a thoughtful mood.

I'd wandered this landscape for years but had never seen a Dartford warbler, and to confirm my ignorance had not realised they were here. I'd seen Dartford warblers many times in Dorset, but never here. A mental note was lodged in my mind and returning to the car we drove home.

Moving the story on by a few months, having retired in March this year I have what can be described as a need to focus on regular activity to maintain my identity and self worth. In other words I've a lot of time to fill so don't waste it. As any lifelong naturalist will tell you, we rarely do.

The sun was up, I had an empty day, and recalling the area pointed out to me last summer, what better then than popping to the Quantocks and look for a Dartford warbler. 

This was at the end of March. On that first visit I saw, absolutely nothing. Plenty of other birds, skylark were everywhere, linnet, wren, meadow pipit, and stonechats and dunnock seemingly performing on every gorse bush. Which proved a problem. These latter two species while not sounding or looking like a Dartford warbler, were providing me with a lot of distant activity to check as they flitted between gorse bushes or sang a sub song which made me think "What's that?" After three hours walking nearly five miles in ever decreasing circles I gave up. It had been a brilliant day, but one tinged with an empty feeling.

The following week I returned. In the mean times some internet research had revealed that after suffering a bit in the 2010, 2011 winters and the Beast from the East in 2018, the recent mild winters have bolstered the population to 68 pairs in 2024. Given the Quantocks only covers about 100 square kilometres, they'll be easy to find. Won't they? On this second visit I headed to a more mature stand of gorse I'd seen the previous week thinking it looked a likely habitat. The sun was hidden, and the wind was up, both added to the sense of isolation up there, a feeling heightened as after spending nearly four hours on the hill I saw no-one. I didn't see a Dartford warbler either. This was proving difficult. Actually this exemplifies what a lot of nature watching is like, hard slog if you don't have local up-to-date knowledge. But in many ways that's half the fun, the quest.

By now the sun was emerging so I sat for a while on a fallen tree with a mug of tea from my flask. My mind cannoned thoughts across its now retiree neurological network. I know the Dartford warblers are here, the habitat is right, the landscape is perfect, the other indicator species, stonechat, linnet even wren are here in good numbers, but no Dartford warblers. Plan B - and an option I don't normally use. I came home and scoured social media. One account I have followed for a long while popped up "my best ever Dartford warbler image last weekend on the Quantocks". In one of the replies to that posting a specific location was mentioned. I knew exactly where it was. If you read this, thank you Carl Bovis.

Three days later I found myself on the hills again, this time with my secret weapon, Mrs Wessex Reiver, who is very good at spotting things. We tramped up hill and down dale, criss-crossing this area mentioned in the Instagram post. A malady and depression was beginning to grip me when Mrs Wessex Reiver shouted, "Is that it?" Bingo! A dark miniature lollipop sped away from me in an undulating flight and into a dense stand of gorse. No mistaking that outline, no mistaking that flight. And then it called. 

Collins Bird Guide describes the call as 'distinctive' - a drawn out harsh chaihhrr sometimes with an extra note chaihhrr-chr. Which is tremendous. I agree it is distinctive but has for me the quality of someone quickly scratching their fingernails down a chalkboard whilst dancing a tango. Once my ear hears it I remember it, but to attempt to describe the call is fraught with interpretation misdemeanours especially alongside the aforementioned stonechat song, linnet song and now the whitethroat are also back. The calling ceased and that was it. However I'd seen one for all of two seconds, thanks to Mrs Wessex Reiver, who while chatting to a local on the way back, had it confirmed to both of us we were in the right place, but they were flighty at the moment. 

My fourth visit occurred three days later. The sun was up and a strong wind was carrying sound across the landscape. In those intervening three days many trees had greened up and hawthorn blossom was beginning to bud up. Once again I was up here on my own in my own world. Two kestrel flew along a ridge, a pair of buzzard spiralled in the wind. Everywhere stonechat and wren called and I heard the rustling of dry grass. It seemed to be coming from just meters away from me, until I realised on the other side of a combe a large herd of red deer were slowly moving through last years vegetation. Mostly hinds and young there were a couple of young stags, one with an antler missing making his head lopsided. It made for a magical sight and I counted over thirty while watching them head down the combe and over onto the next hill. So engrossed was I that I'd forgotten about the Dartford warblers.

Eventually the deer disappeared and I resumed by quest and only moments into walking along a ridge path I heard what I'd come to see. Initially I couldn't locate it until it flew off into the distance before perching on a mature gorse. Through the binoculars I had the most glorious view, for at least two seconds before it flew back and down over the ridge. I could hear it calling but to see it was impossible. I was in the right place yet again. 

Yesterday I had my fifth, and in many ways, my most successful day. Mrs Wessex Reiver was with me but went for a walk, leaving me to my birdwatching.  In all I spent eight hours on the hill, and saw some amazing wildlife as I sat for hours observing. Merlin and peregrine hunting over the moor, my first cuckoo of the year. Two common lizards fighting next to me. The whitethroats had now arrived in numbers, their calls were everywhere. Skylark, stonechat, linnet, meadow pipit, wren and dunnock. A red kite drifted over, still a fairly uncommon sight in Somerset. And three Dartford warblers.

One Dartford warbler flew right in front of me, perched then disappeared over the hill. In another location a pair flew between gorse and out of sight, only their calling revealing they were still in the area. I did a little mental arithmetic, with the three today and those seen earlier in the month I'd seen five individuals, possibly six. However none of them stayed still long enough to allow for an image.

I'll leave you then with a terrible photograph of a whitethroat, in the same habitat the Dartford warblers were. I wonder if I'll ever photograph a Dartford warbler?  Does it matter if I never do? Probably not, but in this world of social media imagery, a picture counts for more than a thousand words. More likes of course.

It seems the chap Mrs Wessex Reiver chatted to a couple of days ago was correct in his summation "they're flighty - best to come when they're feeding the young then you'll have a reference point to observe where the nest is". Sound words of advice there. I'll be back. But will they be here to see?

The Spring Equinox Rooks

 In a non scientific way I have counted the rook nests in the village for a number of years now. In previous years my count took place in late February or early March, after which a couple more nests invariably appeared. This year I delayed my count slightly and waited until the spring equinox, not just because it was the warmest day so far in 2025, but also the first day of my retirement. Until this moment I'd been too busy finishing my career, and work, at the BBC.

The afternoon was warm. The thermometer in the greenhouse nudged 40oC, outside it was around half this, not bad for the 20th of March. With little wind and visually perfect blue skies I set off walking the half mile or so to the village to make my count.

First the site I refer to as the bend in the lane. This is interesting. In previous years there have been one or two nests in the far right tree. This year there are nine spreading across all four trees, themselves around a quarter of a mile from the main rookery. Why the expansion here I can't say, but I hope this is a sign of a healthy population expanding their territory.  

Walking further towards the village, the two core trees as I like to think of them, on the left have, as in previous years, hosted the bulk of the nests in the village, nineteen in total this year in the main tree and five in an adjacent one. The trees to the left (and below) at Cypress Farm, have increased nest numbers too, with nine this year, quite interesting to see poplars being used.

I spent a little time near to and under the main core trees. I've mentioned this before but it never ceases to surprise me that they nest over the lane, now covered with sticks. They're safe in the trees of course but this is a busy commuter short cut from Weston Super Mare to a major road, plus a busy agricultural area with thunderous tractors passing through. Not a quiet spot then but as it is host every year to the core rookery structures, they must like this spot.

Not far from the core area, three nests have appeared in what I can loosely term a new site by the holiday cottages, only a sticks-throw from the core. Three nests here, but room for more.

That's a good total then, 9 on the bend, 9 at Cypress Farm, 19 plus 5 in the two core trees and 3 at the holiday cottage = 45 if my sums are correct. That's two more nests than in 2024. 

Not a bad way to spend the first day of my retirement, messing about in warm sunshine watching the behaviour of rooks in the village.