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