RXwildlife Sightings

The summer migrants are gradually trickling in. Yesterday the first Common Tern had returned to the scrape. This morning a Whitethroat is in song and at least one Blackcap is singing.

Hawfinches are scarce birds in our area, shy treetop-dwellers whose presence is only announced by their metallic ticking contact call. It sounds rather like a Robin, but my rule-of-thumb is that if the call is coming from more than 4m up, it needs investigating.
They are extraordinary looking birds, with stumpy bodies and big powerful bills, capable of cracking open cherry stones and taking painful nicks out of ringers’ fingers. When they fly, a broad translucent wing-bar is revealed.
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The river valleys, which flow from the Lower Weald into the coastal plain, constitute an essential element of the RX landscape.
Not only have they carried soils down into the marsh, but in the past they provided important transport and trade links between the coast and its hinterland.
Now there is a website - click here - which describes and explains the beautiful Brede Valley, whose value became more widely appreciated some years ago when it was threatened by a major road scheme. At that point, Friends of the Brede Valley (FOBV) was formed to defend this exceptional landscape.