Thursday 24 July 2014

It was good to be out in the cool of the morning in some beautiful sunny skies, but the ''good to be alive'' feeling came to an abrupt halt as I reached the Greenhouse Grounds.

I had noticed a digger turn up at the Greenhouse grounds yesterday afternoon and assumed that some drainage work was going to be done around the Greenhouses, but when I arrived this morning I found that about a third of the wonderful habitat there had been completely obliterated!  Bramble as high as my head, Elder trees laden with fruit, wildflowers and grasses - the lot just totally wiped out  :-( 

I spoke to the guys there, who were sympathetic, but they were only doing what they had been asked to do by the bosses, more space was needed to enlarge the migrant pickers campsite.  I was told that some of the grounds will be left to regenerate, but that could take a couple of years, and wont help any second broods of nesting birds that have just been destroyed  :-(  Another sad day for my patch.

I didn't really have the incentive to carry on the walk today, it may take a while to come to terms with the situation.

Later in the morning I made a trip out to sevenoaks wildfowl reserve to try and cheer myself, the place was alive with pushchairs and buggies being pushed by nattering mothers!  What has this place come to!!

I found a couple of quiet places though, and settle down to take a few Damselfly images, here's my efforts  :-)











This is the Male Banded Demoiselle, I tried experimenting with different backgrounds some work better than others!

I was pleased to come across a few Red Eyed Damselflies, a species i've not got any decent photo's of


















There were hundreds and hundreds of these Common Damsels about too!







7 comments:

Marc Heath said...

That top shot is a peach Warren, super background sets it off well.

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Marc,
You know all about ''peaches of shots'' :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi
Can they cut this time of year anyway given breeding still happening? You'd think they'd know/think before they did this. Why do we see wild areas as disposable? I'm miles away in Bham but visit a reservoir in the city daily and am sickened by the rubbish left by careless people each night just thrown on paths/in the car parks even though there are bins. Hearing news like this compounds my anger at people's mindlessness!!!its no wonder we're losing so many 'common' birds.

Warren Baker said...

Hi PJ1973,
Its very saddening whats happening to our environment. My patch is just a typical piece of kent countryside, and what happens on it is just a snap shot of what goes on everywhere.

We dont need sophisticated radio tags put onto birds, or in depth surveys with graphs and charts to show whats happening to our common birds, its bloody obvious that their decline is because they have nowhere to live or breed !!

Pete Woodruff said...

Truth is, I understand your feelings here as well as anyone else and probably better than most Warren.

The actions you describe here will be on the orders of some halfwit sat in an office in their collar and tie with no window to the outside world to understand what's going on....SAD, TRAGIC even.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Who did the EIA for the destruction? Shouldn't have been done until at least 1st August.
This nonsense is precisely why young school kids need to be able to do a simplified version of a Phase 1 survey, good knowledge of the natural history of their local area and some aspects of the wildlife regulations.
Oh but A level environmental science is about to be scrapped - wonder why!

Don't give up - citizen's arrest next time :-)and we need blogs like yours to highlight how much wonderful wildlife can be found and enjoyed and should be protected in anyone's local area

Cheers

DaveyMan

Warren Baker said...

Thanks for the support, Pete & Davyman.

Wouldn't it be great if if wildlife laws were worth the paper they are written on.