My walk to work

With the glorious weather seemingly here, on Thanet, for the foreseeable future; I have taken to walking to and from work in line with the government recommendations. What a pillar of society I'm becoming? With Fujifilm SIS furlough planning, I start at 07.30 hrs and finish at 15.10 hrs and will do so for fourteen days (the middle three) of a nine week period which started at the end of April. This morning I took a camera with me, just to capture some shots of "my patch". Concrete and cauliflowers is how most folk perceive Thanet. This is the tiny piece which I call mine. It has been scene to some absolutely outstanding avian encounters over the two decades that Bev and I have lived here. So here's my walk to work!

Just stepped off our drive. This is the view, north, along Vine Close.
Access to the  criss-cross mix of public footpaths is via an alleyway between
 the two furthest bungalows.

This is the field margin which lies directly at the end of Vine Close. The hedgerow on the left is a nice mix of Damson and
wild plum, much of which is covered in Ivy. A great spot for Ring Ouzel in both migration periods.
That small group of trees,on the right hand horizon, is where the Great Grey Shrike favoured during it's
two day stop off. At the end of the hedge I turn left, towards Pyson's Road.

It is a very strange arrangement as the land is farmed by four different landowners. The two who live on site, so to speak, have always been very supportive of my birding activities and for that I am incredibly grateful.

This is the view from the footpath, looking SW across to Arthur Burbridge's farm complex and the
two new schools of Ellington and Foreland Fields. The potato crop, in the foreground
is where the Yellow Wagtail is holding territory.

Getting close to work now. The scrub on view is the remnants of The Old Rose Garden
and presently home to a male Lesser Whitethroat.

There we are. My blog title image, of my shift colleagues and I doing the NHS clap was taken right under the obvious
fire escape steps.

As I walked back home, this afternoon, I thought it would be useful if I took a photo of Nick Ash's farm compound. After all, it is his farm that bears the name Newlands! 

That stand of mature trees is where the Common Buzzards have set up home.
Beyond that skyline is a wonderful mix of paddocks, a huge Kent Peg barn and
the very heart of my Newlands Farm Patch

With this as my back yard, it is very difficult to find anything to complain about during this unprecedented period of lockdown. There are certainly many folk far worse off than I, that's for sure.

Concrete and cauliflowers? I'll take that over concrete and nothing else every time!