Things that eat slugs in the night...

I’d like to begin this post by saying thank you so much to everyone who read my last bit of writing about The Nature of Grief. I’m so pleased that it struck a chord with so many of you, thank you for all of your kind comments.

Often I forget that I’m allowed to grieve for the loss of my dad, and I try to push through it all so that I can get things done, but nature always reminds me of him and it reminds me that I can slow down and just appreciate the calmness and slowness of the world around me. The fact that I’m surrounded by wildlife all the time really helps to ground me and bring me into the present.

Although sometimes being so immersed in so much wildlife can be a bit extreme. For example, the other night there was a frog sitting by the bathroom door when I got out of the shower! (I think it was waiting it’s turn.) And the alarming thing was that I didn’t even question why there was a frog in my house! I just scooped him up in a jug and had a chat with him whilst we walked back to the pond. This is what happens when you have grown up with Dylan as your dad!

The frog who was waiting outside the bathroom for me!

Now, onto the main reason for this post, the night time happenings in the garden…

I can often be found in my garden at night time, watching the bats circling the house, listening to the tawny owls and foxes that I’m lucky enough to have in and around the garden, and looking up at the moon and stars.

Full moon in Aquarius 29.07.26

Hummingbird hawk-moth

There is something about the night time in nature that brings me a huge sense of comfort. Lots of people I know are scared of the dark, but myself and my children revel in it. I have a lot of fond memories of being out in the wild at night with my dad, watching badgers, camping by fishing lakes, or maybe just walking back from the pub! And my own children love to go out for walks at night, even in the winter.

Our resident garden hedgehog

Over the last few very hot summer days, I’ve been outside at night a lot, and I’ve managed to encounter all sorts of creatures. My most favourite of all is definitely our resident garden hedgehog, who wanders around seemingly unbothered by my presence or my smartphone camera.

This hedgehog has been in my garden for a good few months and is doing an excellent job of keeping the slugs from eating my vegetables. It likes to wander between my garden and my neighbours’ garden, snuffling through the plants, looking for food, and it has been known to wander right up to my feet.

I know that I am extremely lucky to have such a special creature sharing my space and I try to do as much as I can to keep it happy and safe. I have a hedgehog house in the garden that my dad built, but so far it has remained empty apart from the hay that I have filled it with. I need to find a good location for it, and hopefully it will be put to good use in the winter.

I don’t really know much about hedgehogs, so if anyone out there would like to give me any advice, please feel free to do that. We have hedges running the full length of our garden, both sides, and access to water in a pond with shallow, sloping sides. The garden is full of slugs and insects and plenty of hiding places. If there is anything else I could do to keep this hedgehog happy, please do let me know.

There’s not much else to report at the moment, we are all recovering from a busy end to the academic year, and also my sons are playing so many gigs, we are a bit run off our feet. Thankfully the garden always provides us with space to relax and unwind day and night.

So for now I will leave you with the news that this blog has now had over 2 million hits. 2140240 to be precise. That’s over half a million since dad’s final post on Christmas Eve last year.
Benno and I are so proud of all his hard work on this blog, and we are aware of the huge responsibility that writing this blog puts on us. I hope we can do him justice; we will certainly do our best.

 Sarah

The Nature of Grief

I’ve been writing these blog posts, so far, from as neutral and factual a standpoint as I possibly can. I have immersed myself and my children in nature, looking at the world in awe, always remembering the infamous words of my dad about, “no miserable shit!”

Those words have brought me a surprising amount of comfort, but as painful as it is to admit, I am still a daughter who is grieving the very recent loss of her father, and sometimes I can't help but to feel the deep sadness that comes with losing a parent.

Benno and I are extremely lucky that our dad instilled in both of us a great love of, and comfort in, the natural world. From the moment we could toddle, dad would take us walking through ancient woodlands to take plaster of Paris casts of the footprints we found, we would travel this country and beyond to watch rare birds, and we spent incredible holidays off grid in France at a fishing lake, completely surrounded by nature for weeks, and so much more. And I know that all of this has helped us both now immensely, because even on the darkest of days, we have both spent time connecting with nature in our own way.  

Holidays in France were the best!

The resident chef

Whenever I am watching the birds or walking through the woods, I always feel like my dad is with me, and I know that he would derive great pleasure from watching Evelyn empty the moth trap, whilst her little brother watched from a “safe” distance! (He’s not so keen on the moths… yet!)

But aside from all the things that I feel, I also know the actual physical and emotional benefits of being in nature for humans, especially at times when we are experiencing grief and loss. This is because, perhaps unsurprisingly as the daughter of Dylan, I am a qualified eco-therapist, which means that I facilitate people spending time in nature in order to heal, and if you would indulge me for a few minutes, I will explain why we find the natural world so healing and what “nature connectedness” is.

Nature connectedness is more than just time spent outside; it’s about how you spend that time outside developing your relationship with nature. A person who lives in a city and spends 20 minutes a day outside feeding the wildlife and observing the plants growing through the cracks of a wall is more connected to nature than a person who lives in the countryside and goes on long country walks whilst taking business calls on their phone.

Nature connectedness is a measurable, psychological construct, studied by Professor Miles Richardson and his team at the University of Derby. It can vastly improve happiness and wellbeing in humans in a short space of time, and this has knock-on positive effects for nature.

Professor Richardson and his team created five simple pathways to nature connectedness, which are extremely easy to incorporate into everyday life.

The five pathways to nature connectedness are:

Senses: Taking time to tune into nature through the senses

Emotion: How does nature make you feel?

Beauty: Noticing natures beauty

Meaning: Nature brings meaning to our lives

Compassion: Caring for and taking action for nature

The more I studied the art of nature connectedness, the more fascinated I became by this deep, instinctive connection that we have with the natural world around us.

Did you know that listening to birdsong can improve your mood and lessen anxiety, placing your hands on trees lowers cortisol levels in the body, and forest bathing has a positive effect on blood pressure, heart rate and your immune system? These are just a few examples of the huge impact connecting with the natural world has on us.

One of my previous work spaces

Obviously, my dad would have rolled his eyes at this and would have simply said, “we call that going outside, Fanny Anne,” I can hear his voice as I type those words, but I think, whether he believed in the science of nature connectedness or not, he absolutely immersed himself in the natural world, particularly when he was going through hard times, and he certainly felt the benefits of being in nature. It was a place where his soul felt completely at home, and I’m so grateful that he shared his passion for nature with me, because it enables me to feel like I am always connected with him.

Specifically relating to grief, the power of nature is undeniable. Wilshire Wildlife Trust has a page on their website all about nature connectedness and grief and they write:

“For those who are grieving, connectedness in nature can offer many benefits and aid healing:

It can remind us of the continuum of life and that we and our loved one are still part of something greater than ourselves that goes on existing without us.

It provides a place and space to attend to our grief without intrusion from the ongoing demands of work, family and everyday responsibilities.

It can promote mindfulness, allowing the grieving person to anchor themselves in a moment by physically touching, smelling and listening to nature.

It allows us to disconnect from technology and find quiet, solitude and comfort in life rhythms that are natural, soothing and restorative.

It reminds us of the beauty that can be found all around us - even in our grief, it can be comforting to realise that beauty still exists.

The sights and sounds of nature can offer distraction from a cycle of difficult thoughts.”

The healing benefits of nature for people experiencing grief | Wiltshire Wildlife Trust

For me, personally, being in nature reminds me that life goes on; the sun will rise and set, the moon and stars will remain in the sky, the seasons will change, and somehow, in amongst it all, I get to experience the wonder of being alive.

I am grateful that I get to wake up every day and spend time with my children, that I can pick and eat food that we have grown, that I can listen to the dawn chorus each day, and that I got to spend 45 years and 317 days with my dad, even if we didn’t spend as much time together as maybe we could have. He was and is always with me.

I know that I am not the only one who turns to the natural world when I want to feel close to my dad, I’ve had so many messages and photos from people saying that they have just seen a certain bird or walked around a certain nature reserve and seen something that reminded them of my dad. I’m so happy that so many people remember him that way.

If you are grieving the loss of a loved one, I really hope that this blog has helped you a little bit. Even if you can’t go on a wild adventure, simply feeding the birds, looking at plants and animals, or sitting outside for 20 minutes will help you connect with nature, and hopefully help you to feel a little bit better.

Thank you for indulging me, normal blog service will resume shortly, I just thought I would share this in case it helps somebody.

Sarah. X 

 

 

 

A nice surprise at Gazen Salts

 

Yesterday marked a momentous day for myself and my family, as it was my youngest son’s last day at Primary School. As you can imagine, it was emotional, but there is also now a sense of relief that we have made it to the end of one of the busiest terms of the year! We are definitely all ready for a break.

To keep myself and my other children occupied as we awaited the end of term school service, we went for a little wander around a local nature reserve in Sandwich, called Gazen Salts. We stopped off at the Co-op to buy some duck food and made our way along The Butts and towards “Gallows Field” (yes it does have as grizzly a history as its name suggests), and along the path into the nature reserve.

 As I think we have now established, I don’t have the same depth of knowledge of the natural world that my dad had, I’m sure he would have seen and heard more than me, but I do my best when I am out to connect with the natural world as much as possible, and this day was no exception.

 

Hungry ducks at Gazen Salts

We wandered down to the wildlife pond to feed the ducks who live there and spent some time watching the hungry birds and a friendly brown rat that kept appearing from the undergrowth! He didn’t seem that bothered by our presence, and he posed nicely for some photos.

 

Fearless!

Evelyn led the way around the nature reserve, and we stopped to listen to the birds and look at the insects that surrounded us in this beautiful environment. We did look for the resident beavers, but we couldn’t find any, however we did hear and/or see all these birds:

 

·        Green Woodpecker

·        Mistle thrush

·        Chiffchaff

·        Blackbird

·        Great tit

·        Long tailed tit

·        Bullfinch

·        Jackdaw

·        Collared- Dove

·        Wood pigeon

·        Magpie

·        Robin

·        Blackcap

As this was only a fleeting visit, we were only there for around 45 minutes, but on the way out, Evelyn took us into a wildflower meadow at the reserve, and as we walked around, we found a mat that had been put down for reptiles to hide under.

Being braver than me, Evelyn lifted the mat whilst I held the camera, only to find two large slow worms laying beneath it. That was a nice surprise and it made our day! I took a couple of photos on my phone and then we carefully replaced the mat and left them in peace, before heading home for some lunch. It was a good end to our spontaneous visit.

Slow worms at Gazen Salts

 

Tales of the Unexpected

Elephant Hawk Moth

As Summer is now in full swing, and Benno has been doing some excellent writing about his fishing adventures, I thought that it was only fair that I upheld my end of the bargain too and did some writing, so I'm going to tell you about what has happened this week with the moth trap.

When dad died, he wanted his moth books, moth trap and all that goes with it to go to Evelyn, my daughter. I found a note for her in his study on top of a pile of moth and butterfly books, and it ruined me for the whole day! 

He used to write a lot of little notes, that must be where I get it from!

We had some opportunity to use the trap earlier in the year and we caught a few moths, but nothing too spectacular, then life became pretty busy and extremely hot, and the moth trap remained in the shed for a while.

So, this week, when Evelyn asked to try again with the moth trap, I thought it was a very good idea. I had done some general reading about moths, and it seems that July is peak season for lots of them, and so on Friday evening Evelyn carefully stacked the egg boxes inside, set up the trap, turned on the bulb and went off to bed.

Sorting the moth trap before bedtime.

At 5am on Saturday morning (I know dad would do it at 3am, but he didn’t need sleep like I do!) I found myself in the garden, turning off the trap and covering it over to stop the birds from getting in and the moths from getting out. I could see that there was definitely an elephant hawk moth in there, with its beautiful pink and green markings, but I had no idea what was waiting for us!

 As Saturday evening crept around Evelyn desperately wanted to empty the trap and see what was inside, so we went to the garden, with paper and pencil in hand to see what we had caught.

It’s been a very long time since I emptied the moth trap, the last time was with dad and may have been in the mid 1990’s, so I am VERY rusty on names of different moths. I thought it was best to photograph all of them and then identify them later. 

I have done my best to identify as many as I can, but please feel free to correct me, those who are in the know! I have shared some photos of some of them, because they are just so beautiful, and I have made a list of species and rough numbers.

This is really our first attempt, but I am planning to make Evelyn a chart, adding moths as we go, so we can remember names and count and record how many of each species we find.

We are extremely lucky that our garden backs on to woodland and a wildflower meadow. It also has hedges, ponds and lots and lots of flowers and herbs that Evelyn has grown, so plenty of different foods and habitats for local moths.

A Jersey Tiger Moth, Box Tree Moth, Broad Bordered Yellow Underwing and an Early Thorn

Privet Hawk Moth, Rosy Footman, Elephant Hawk Moth and a Ruby Tiger Moth

Black Arches Moth, Small Magpie Moth, Riband Wave and a Meadow Grey?

Black Arches	1
Box Tree Moth	1
Bright-Line -Brown- Eye Moth	1
Comfrey Ermine Moth	1
Common Meadow Grey?	1
Dingy Footman Moth	20+
Dusky Sallow	1
Early Thorn Moth	1
Elephant Hawk Moth	6
Flame Shoulder Moth	1
Geometriade Moth	1
Jersey Tiger Moth	1
Large Yellow Underwing	1
Lesser Yellow Underwing	1
Magpie Moth (Small?)	3
Pale Prominent Moth	1
Powdered Quaker Moth	1
Privet Hawk Moth	1
Rosey Footman Moth	1
Ruby Tiger Moth	6
Riband Wave Moth	1
Silver Y	1
Small Fan Foot Moth	1
Straw Dot Moth	1
Twin spotted quaker	1
Yellow Tailed Swan Moth	1

 

We caught a definite 26 different species of moth in one night, there were some more, but many of them were micro moths, and I really can’t remember much about those yet. I hope we will get more efficient at identifying and recording the moths as we go on, but for now, this is what we caught and we are quite pleased with ourselves. I think that dad would be pleased that we are using his trap, Evelyn really loved it!

Hopefully we can bring you more moth trap escapades soon!

Sarah and Evelyn

Flame Shoulder Moth

A few Rudd and a Turtle Dove

Just thought I'd write a quick update on the fishing in this corner of East Kent recently. I decide to give the syndicate a rest for a while, partly to allow the huge amount of weed floating around to settle somewhere, but mostly just to have a break. The football has had me up late most weekends, so a 3:30 alarm on a Sunday morning doesn't appeal particularly. I have however been to a different venue on our CDAA ticket to try and target the big Rudd. Ive had some success with fish to 1lb 10oz, but not quite managed the 2lb target yet. A 3lb fish is a definite possibility, but a one in a million fish perhaps, so I'll start with a 2.

1lb 8oz of Gold

1lb 10oz of even Golder.

Shortly before Dad passed away, he bought himself a 600mm telephoto lens for his Eos 90D, he was already ill at this stage and never managed to take a single photo with it. I promised him that I would, so here is the beginning of that promise taking shape. I was sat in my flat minding my own business when i heard the unmistakable '"cooing" of a Turtle Dove in the old Oak at the bottom of my garden, thankfully I had the camera stuff nearby. My mum is keen to get out and take some wildlife photos as well, so hopefully we will find some more subjects to photograph.

Hopefully there will be many more chances to photograph these birds, I absolutely love them. 

The syndicate is calling me back, so It wont be long before I go back after the Tench, then the Eels, then it will be Perch time, so some more stuff to blog about!

Tight lines,

Benno.

Fathers Day

 Normally on Fathers Day, dad and I would have met up on the riverbank somewhere before sun rise and then spent the morning fishing and chatting together. Catching a fish was never important, just being there together. Obviously this year that wasn't to be, he definitely wouldn't have wanted me to sit around moping though, he would have wanted me to go and get after those tench again, so that's what I did. I made sure to spend some time reminiscing about the good times we spent together and even took a bottle of (nonalcoholic) beer to raise to the old man.

Cheers dad x

I wasn't going to mess about this time, I went armed with a trio of Greys 2lb barbel rods and Shimano reels loaded with 12lb mainline, no more messing about with perch rigs. Their time will come, it's too weedy to fish light enough for them to work efficiently at the moment. There were only two reasonable spots available to fish in my chosen swim, the same two as last time strangely enough. One in a rare clear spot and one on top of a gravel bar. 10 hours drifted by in the dappled sunlight under the trees before anything happened, a screaming run from the rod fishing the top of the gravel bar took me completely by surprise and resulted in a cracking fish of 7lb 1oz. I had absolutely no confidence in that rod, having never hooked a fish off of one of the bars in this lake. Shows you what i know!

Magic.

This place has got right under my skin

All in all a wonderful way to spend a day reminiscing about the old man and a cracking fish to finish things off as well. Take your kids fishing if you can, they will remember those times for all of their lives. I know I do. 

Tight Lines,

Benno.

Thoughts on ledgering for Perch

I am well aware that the title of this post has no relevance to the tench fishing project in which I am currently involved, it is however faintly connected. As promised, a visit to the syndicate on Sunday morning was called for, armed with my two newly refurbished glass fibre MKiv's, it took me a good couple of hours to locate a some spots on which to present a bait properly, although the whole place is like a giant egg box of gravel bars, the fish don't seem to venture to the tops of the bars, they like grubbing around in the silt and the thick weed either side of the gravel. The fish finder is invaluable in this situation as you can cast it around without causing too much disturbance to the water and roughly locate the weed-free areas before fine tuning the distances with a marker float. One absolute screamer of a take at 07:30am resulted in a very old fishing rod being bent double whilst trying to stop a fairly small tench from completely burying itself in the weed, the fish was eventually landed successfully but a lesson was well learned, theres a time and a place for vintage fishing gear, and that time and place is not in a weed choked gravel pit with the potential of hooking an 11lb tench (or a 55lb carp for that matter!)

5lb 8oz. I was lucky to get this fish in on those old elastic bands.

 As I was fishing with lobworms coupled with small pva bags of chopped worm dried out in krill ground bait, I was more than half expecting a visit from a perch or two, it took until 2pm before they found me, but find me they did. Three perfect perch bites, beautiful slow rise on the long drop swingers, all three missed. Did they feel the resistance of the rig, or perhaps the line drag or even the weight of the swingers? Were they just small perch? Could I have done anything better? This may well be a problem familiar to some. I imagine anyone who has fished a place where live baits are banned or lure fishing feels futile in the vast emptiness of a 44 acre pit will have probably missed as many perch bites as they have connected with. I am genuinely interested to hear from anyone who feels like they have come up with a method of long range ledger fishing for perch which has a better than 50/50 hook-rate without deep hooking the fish. The obvious answer otherwise is just to make the hook links two feet long, but this means that the fish can swallow the bait before you ever get so much as a bleep from the alarms. People will often say things to me like "it’s the change in resistance that puts them off, not the actual resistance", now this sounds good in theory, but in my opinion, I’m not convinced. A perch knows what a natural bait feels like when it picks it up from the bottom of a lake and is more than happy to drop anything that doesn’t feel quite right. Last season I played around with using light braided mainline with two meters of light fluorocarbon as a leader, free running rigs and a 12" hook length, the braid helped a lot because it wants to float, as opposed to mono which lays on the bottom and creates a lot more drag, this coupled with a tinfoil swinger did start to notice an increase in hook-ups, but not consistent enough to be satisfying. All of the writing on the subject seems to say the same thing, perch hate resistance and will drop a bait if it doesn’t feel right, so just use live-baits and they will smash in to them with enthusiasm... believe me, if I was allowed to, that’s exactly what I’d be doing too, but the rules are the rules and I shall enjoy the challenge of trying to solve the puzzle in front of me. 

My PB at 3:14, caught from our local river in a big flood 

 As far as I'm aware, theres never been a genuine 4lb perch caught from the syndicate, theres been rumours, but no photos or evidence. My good friend Andy Larkins has definitely caught a 3:14 and my very first fish on trying for them was 3:11, followed by a number of other 3s and big 2s, so a 4 is a realistic target, especially seeing as Andy and I are the only two people silly enough to try and target them.

The biggest I’ve managed from the syndicate so far at 3:11 

 Please leave me a comment if you have any thoughts on baits, rigs or indication for the Perch, or anything else that I might have missed for that matter. I did give prawns a go, thinking that the heavier bait would negate some of the unnatural weight of the rig, but they didn’t seem to be interested in them. I wont be targeting perch specifically until the autumn, but that doesn't stop my brain from thinking about them all of the time. 

 Tight lines, 

 Benno.