THE PAIN OF RAIN

The juicy rowan berries in the car park of Cudmore Grove were being weighed down a bit in the early evening of Monday 23rd by lots of rain. Nothing of the scale that has inundated the west country in recent days. It may have been a wet summer here but water levels in the ditches have been falling rapidly in recent weeks.

Several rowan trees have been planted over the years around the park and the juicy berries are a real magnet for the birds during August. Several blackbirds have already started to gather beside the trees in the car park and soon the local mistle thrushes and starlings will join in the feast.

Luckily the soil in the park is sandy and free draining, so this waterlogged path was clear of water by the following morning. In fact all the large puddles in the car park had dried up by the following mid morning.

Whilst walking along this path beside the cliff-top, I heard the distinctive screeching sounds of swifts. I gazed skywards and saw a flock of about 100 birds wheeling round, screeching to each other about 200-300 feet up. I couldn't make out what direction the birds were heading but they seemed to let the wind carry them out to sea. There they drifted in the miserable conditions eastwards over the water to Point Clear. The earlier wheeling and circling by the flock above me might've been the birds plucking up courage before heading out to sea.

In the dull late evening light two of the young sparrowhawks could be seen perching beside the nest. They looked rather bedraggled as they sat still as the rain kept pouring down.

The only bright object at the park pond was the pure white outline of a little egret perched up in the weeping willow. It was all hunched up whilst surveying all the duck activity below. None of the ducks seemed bothered by the rain and the brood of tiny ruddy ducklings continued to perfect their synchronised diving as they went under for food.

Not much to see insect wise although this hedge brown was holding on tight to this grass stem. Elsewhere an Essex skipper rested on a yarrow flower and a meadow brown flew off a bush.

The very sad sight of a young rabbit is on its very last legs as it hopped along in the cold and the rain, thanks to the nasty myxomatosis virus. This virus strikes back every summer here and knocks the rabbit population for six. Rabbits are dropping dead all over the park and many of the dogs think that Xmas has come early when they realise that they can actually catch them for a change. Most years the population is knocked back by a third by late summer so the quicker it passes by, the better for everybody.

The local press came to photograph the avocet chicks for a short item in the Colchester Evening Gazette. The paper obviously agrees that these first ever Mersea avocet chicks is a bit of history. Three of the adults were present on the pool with one adult crouching over a chick to keep it warm, while two other chicks endured the cool weather themselves.

Andy Field visited Reeveshall earlier in the afternoon and saw 2 spotted redshank and 5 green sandpipiers on the pool.