Cleaning Grattons

This is not the first time I have done a post like this one. Two days ago, I went to Grattons LNR on an evening walk. The summer holidays have just started, and it seemed as if someone had had a party, not cleaning up after themselves. It was in a right state!

So, yesterday I did a habitat clean. I found so many objects in the river. Newspaper, a penny, (I have lost the penny, but I would probably have given it to a charity), a school planner and books, a car tyre, a whole factory worth of tin cans and a lot of clothes. I found a shoe with something special in it, but I will address that crisis later.

On one corner, I found a whole bin bag's worth of rubbish. It took me ten minutes to clear it all up. It was quite steep, with muddy banks leading into one of the deepest parts of the whole river! I managed to not get too wet, but my trousers will never be the same after that!

Picking up cans, photo taken by my dad

We were there for about 75 minutes at the reserve. Two whole big bin bags worth of trash out of our rivers and I have (possibly) found an IUCN red listed species. All in a day's volunteering!

I would recommend doing a litter clean as well. Find a local event, or maybe organize your own. Make a positive impact on the places around us, save the environment, one bottle at a time!

Kingfishers, swallows and some very angry swans...

Today, I went to Warnham LNR in Horsham. I go every other week, and we should have gone yesterday, but an event was on, and you can't see that much wildlife if it is teeming with people! So, we went today. At the meadow, staring at the juvenile terns, I suddenly spotted a single kingfisher, the first one I have seen at Warnham this year! Then, without warning, a second flashed past, heading down the stream that feeds the mill pond.

Heading straight to the kingfisher hide, (or as we call it), we sat quietly. Whilst we were waiting, a group of swallows, five odd, suddenly started to skim the algae infested waters in front of us. It was amazing to see them hunting, mostly perfectly racing against the water line, now and then touching the surface.

Then, a single kingfisher made a curve towards a nearby post. It sat there for five or so minutes, before giving up trying to look through the algae, and flew off. But suddenly it stopped in mid air and started to hover over the clearer, faster flowing part of the river. It was hunting! Unfortunately, it was too far to take a good photo of it, but just the sight of it is incredible!

A mute swan - it was very protective with its four cygnets!

Pulborough phone challenge

Pulborough Brooks is the closest RSPB nature reserve, (with a cafe), to us and on Tuesday, (strike day), I went there, alas not with any of my cameras, but with a phone. The task of taking great photos on a phone is easy with portraits of other people or ourselves, (selfies), but macro shots are hard. It isn't easy getting in close, and a digital zoom can massively reduce the 5 mega pixels quality.

However, the good thing was, my main subject were the sparrows. They are one of the highlights of every trip. They are really tame. Why? Cafe latte Cake. The sparrows are truly addicted to the sweet stuff. Don't believe me? Well, when we were looking at the rabbits and red deer on the field the eating area overlooks, one adventurous female braved the homo sapiens, (us), and took a chunk out of the main wedge of cake! Oi, that's my lunch! :)

The sparrows gave us a great insight into their feeding as they were so tame. You can feed them out of your hand. So, slapping the camera phone on grey-scale, I took some perspective shots of the birds. Here is the photo.

I am pleased with the dramatic result. Now off to the LNR...

Rabbits, rabbits and more rabbits.

At Grattons LNR, there is a large population, (16 odd) of rabbits. I tried to, like the woodpecker, take a video of the rabbits. Here are the results:

This shows the rabbits grazing on the field with the river running through it. I hope to get some videos of the kits.