Winter 2009 DecemberDemeter is weeping for her daughter Persephone. The days become shorter as the countryside prepares for sleep.
High winds and torrential rain filled the last days of November, driving December before it like a sailing ship. The winds now have an icy, cutting quality, the rain soaks into the soil instead of running off the surface. The weather changes hour by hour, at one time bright sunshine with fluffy white clouds, the next instant a hail storm with navy skies, a thunderstorm violently tearing at the trees, or rain falling like a curtain. The grateful ground is spongy, the paths like mud slides.
The birds have changed shifts. Swallows have gone, Bewick’s and Whooper swans have arrived. In the bare branches of trees and shrubs, we become aware of flurries of birds checking to see if last year’s feeders are worth revisiting. Flying insects are laying low, unable to make much progress in the gales. Many find sheltered corners to wait the winter out.
Windswept fields are trimmed with the black lace frills of bare hedgerows. Dead tree stumps display fungi as soft and velvety as fondu, curling like the ruffles on a Caribbean pirate’s shirt.
Seagulls stand on the fields. The pickings are easier here now than in the jagged grey seas. Worms have a tough time as the soil becomes soft enough to be pierced by probing beaks. The eager noses of badgers search out the juicy worms and grubs. Badger droppings become greyer now that their diet is dressed in mud sauce.
The sun rises without the fanfare of colours of last month, slinking in shrouded by a chiffon veil of grey or black cloud so that dawn becomes a gradual thing, a mood play rather than a carnival.
In the woods, harts’ tongue ferns glisten in the damp air like emeralds among the muted browns and greys.
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![Rain [stair rods]](/images/wildlife/gd4.jpg "Rain [stair rods]")
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Text and photos by Geraldine Aldridge.
4th And my first trek out for the month over to the Deer Park, not cold and the sun was shining. Good view of some fallow deer and one solitary stag, I moved slowly towards them to get some better shots but they started to get up so I left them in peace.
Over at the small lake there was only a moorhen and a few mallards, no sign of the heron.
As I made my way back a buzzard flew over being harried by a carrion crow, if it had come over a little later I would have got some good close up shots!
Quite a few pheasants around, these two had just come out of the ferns, saw me and flew back towards some trees where I lost them.
Further down the track where it turns to the left there is a very old oak tree, a good few hundred years old I should think. Most of the original branches were gone but had a good number of recent ones so still lots of life in it yet. Most of the trunk is hollow with a verity of exposed wood, the photo here shows an area that is about six inches across with an interesting texture that I think was caused by lots of small branches.
On the way back I saw more pheasants in fields by the lane which had a lot of water running down it from the surrounding fields, we have had a lot of rain recently and November was supposed to be one of the wettest for some time.
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8th Went over to Capel and walked along the cliff top towards Dover. As you walk along you get glimpses of Samphire Ho under the cliffs, this is the nature reserve established on the area where they deposited the chalk from the Channel Tunnel.
Great black back gulls glided past and at one point a male kestrel came over looking splendid and spotted a male stonechat perched on a fence post.
Flowering gorse bushes flanked the path in places, giving a splash of colour.
Lovely views of the sea over to France, the only down point was the noise of the traffic on the bypass to Dover.
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10th Visited a lake at Singleton on the outskirts of Ashford for the first time, had a few houses on one side but quite wild non the less.
On the lake were a few canada geese, a full grown young great-crested grebe, mute swans, coots and black-headed gulls. By the side of the lake flowed a substantial stream and some passers-by said they had seen kingfishers there.
Back at the car park there were some large logs with fungi growing on them, the one I show here is I think a Trametes versicolor don't forget fungi can be very poisonous so leave them alone.
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20th A trip out along Elham Valy which is just out side Folkestone for a walk in the first snow of the winter. Very Christmasy but quiet, a glimpse of a female chaffinch and we came across some ram Jacobs sheep looking splendid with there curved horns.
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22nd Over to West Hythe, weather still cold with the canal partly frozen. There were rooks back at the rookery but not involved with nest building, good to see them back and hearing them one of my favourite sounds of the country side.
Spotted two herons, one immature standing on top of the bank and another which was pointed out to me by another walker standing on part of the weir.
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