Local Patch Abroad (Pt 1)

I mentioned previously I'd do a few holiday posts - 
my 'local' patch when I'm away from home. 
This is Part 1 - my parents local patch; 

Part 2 will be my parents-in-laws local area. 

I've mentioned a few times about nature close to homes other than my own. While growing up I've moved around a fair bit, as a result the concept of a 'home' in the sense of a house or even a region which I consider to be 'where I belong' doesn't really work. I've been pretty lucky that many of the different areas I have at some point called home have been beautiful, and provided me with easy access to stunning areas to explore and get to know. 

My parents have now, for the time being at least, settled in Cambridgeshire - the Fens to be precise - and when we visit them there is no shortage of natural distractions to keep me occupied, despite being flat as far as the eye can see from my parents house, the only real elevation change visible from their house is the bank of the Ouse Washes where they rise up to keep the water in during the winter. Its pretty different from where I currently call home in Stoke-on-Trent. They live 1/2 mile outside of a small rural village in an old farm house, surrounded by large, intensively farmed arable fields. This may not sound at first like the ideal area for wildlife but you may be surprised. 

Being so close to the washes they are regularly over-flown by vast clouds of birds - swans, geese, various ducks, Lapwings, occasionally Golden Plovers and so on. They have even had Cranes fly over in the last few years as they have started spreading through East Anglia with the Ouse Washes a regular haunt. The honking and trumpeting around dawn and dusk in the winter as flocks of hundreds commute to and from roosting grounds is a consistent reminder that the vast open fields do provide a resource for something other than British Sugar (sugar beet is a common crop). In the summer the intermittently wet ditches bordering the fields supply hordes of Dragonflies to feast on the hordes of other invertebrates breeding in the ditches.

A Ruddy Darter photographed at WWT Welney, just a few miles away, a few years ago.

Apart from the wetland birds Badgers, Foxes, three species of deer, Hares, Barn and Little Owls, Partridges, Herons, Egrets, all the 'garden birds' you'd expect, along with some you wouldn't, plus their predators - Sparrowhawks, Kestrels, the odd Hobby and Peregrine even; all have graced their 'garden' with a presence, some more regular than others. One particular highlight are the Marsh Harriers which have nested the last few seasons a half mile or so behind the house with both parents and several chicks being a regular sight towards the end of the breeding season. You certainly don't get that from your bedroom window just anywhere! Bats roost in the attic; a Barn Owl regularly roosted in one of the outbuildings last year and this summer Kestrels nested in one of the mature sycamore trees which stand out front.

The inverted commas around 'garden' above are because it's rather atypical - more accurately it is a yard between the house and the outbuildings and then a portion of the field the house backs onto left to grass by the landlord for the use of the tenants. It is, depending on the season, a camp site, overflow car park, vegetable garden, rugby pitch, archery range and on and on. Carpeted with flowers in the summer its a hotbed for butterflies, bees and hover flies. 

A Common Blue butterfly photographed at the Ouse Wash reserve, a few miles the other direction. 

Being that close to the Washes, if the wildlife in the garden isn't satisfying enough, a short jaunt gets you to some of the best wetland bird watching opportunities in the UK during the winter months. Both the RSPB's Ouse Washes reserve and WWT's Welney reserve (if you don't mind paying the entry fee) are minutes away by car, and probably less as the swan flies. My last post listed a brief visit to the Ouse Washes in a stolen few minutes before a meeting. While they are renowned for their winter birds, and the vast flocks are undeniably an inspiring if noisy spectacle, I actually prefer them in the summer. Maybe its my recent fascination with Dragonflies because they are plentiful along the water courses, or maybe its just that with the lower water levels you can actually see the land that makes up the staggering engineering feat which the washes are. If no other landscape demonstrates it then the Washes show that mans influence can be beneficial to wildlife, even if it isn't by design. They are a  fascinating landscape feature, perhaps not unique but certainly unusual, rare and ecologically diverse.

My parents have only lived there a few years to date but this has already produced a few moments that stand out. One was this summer - I was visiting with my daughter and was excitedly told that my little brother had seen a badger behind the house. I'd seen latrines around the field boundaries and a badger had been hit on the road out front the year before, so that there were badgers around was never in doubt. They'd even been spotted on camera trap footage from the 'garden' but never seen in the flesh. When the following evening a cry of "Badger!" went up the stampede to get upstairs to the window overlooking the garden threatened to bring down the ceiling. Sure enough, there was a badger, a smallish one by the look of it, working its way systematically along the un-mown border between the field proper and the 'garden'. Having watched it for a few minutes and noticing its consistent progress along the border I grabbed the camera and dashed downstairs to try and get in front of it so I could snap a picture or two if the light would play ball. My initial plan worked: I belly crawled out across the field and laid up against the un-mown border to keep my outline disguised by the long grass and shadows, what little wind was blowing in my favour and I could just make out the visitor steadily working its way towards me in the almost gone dusk light - I was counting on its poor eyesight and the favourable wind to allow it to get nice and close.

What followed was without doubt my most exciting Badger watching episode to date. It just kept on coming closer and close until it was about 10 yards short of me, at which point it decided that the centre of the field held richer prospects and headed away from shelter into more open areas and walked right past me, just yards away. Turning to follow it I realised that two of my brothers had followed me out and had laid on the other side of the field to join in the close encounter experience. This route also put the badger in a far better place for taking a picture. Although the quality is shocking due to the by this point also non-existent light, it catches the essence of the moment - so close we could hear it chewing. We laid still and let it on its way, once it was a little way past us it caught our scent, the wind which had hidden us now betraying our presence. It looked around, only a little concerned, then ambled back through the border, into the crop and disappeared. Judging by its behaviour and the time of year I suspect it was a young badger from the year before turfed out to find its own way, but its impossible to say for sure. Regardless it was brilliant to watch, a memory which will stick with me and a massive point of jealously for my wife who joined us down there the next day.  

There are probably other instances I could recount but this wasn't intended as exhaustive, simply a snap shot, a reminder that nature is never far away, and a brief reminder to myself of how fortunate I am to have nature so close, so often, regardless of where I am. Another account - Local Patch Abroad (Pt 2) - will follow in the near future describing the areas near my in-laws, which if anything, is even more diverse and interesting ecologically speaking!

Richard