Feeling confident

Sunday looks good, Monday even better and I'm on early shift all next week so will be able to take advantage if it feels right! The local, BBC, weather predictions are such that I'm already defrosting blueys and particle mix in order to get some pre-baiting started. I have a cunning plan to use a double pronged approach, which might well include an outing for the Mk IV? I have a couple of swims in mind - both on the same drain system, which should give me a chance of another January eel and also, as a long shot, a wild carp?
There's shed-loads of stuff going on in my little world, at present, but this next fortnight might get quite exciting? Work is hectic - play will be just as intense! I have formulated a loose plan of how I want things to unfold - not always a good strategy; there is so much that can go wrong! However, everything that I will be doing is aimed at culminating over the weekend of 6/7th Feb and my pre-baiting is about getting it right, as best I can. What's so special about those dates? I've got a 48 hour window available to me and I'm going to give it my all - it could see the February part of my eel challenge completed and that would be reward enough! Better still is that I've secured permission for a few sessions on that "flight pond" - proper exciting stuff. I will have just five days, from Monday 1st Feb, to get some particle mix introduced, prior to my first visit. It's a lot of effort, I have to walk, as I don't own a Land Rover, but should be worth it?

Looking ahead

I don't always see future planning as a good thing, it's like you're wishing your life away. My philosophy is very much biased towards taking each day as it comes - grasp every opportunity as it arises, so to speak. Yet this is not a practical way to live and obviously there has to be a degree of planning to maintain some sort of order amidst the random chaos.
I'm keeping a close eye on the weather predictions for East Kent and, if they are to be trusted, this cold snap ends today and it's all up-hill from here. It looks like Sunday afternoon might just provide an eel angling session, I'll know more closer to the weekend. Plus; given the projected rise in temperatures, there might well be scope for some carp fishing? I've got a cupboard full of dried particles, awaiting preparation, prior to a sustained period of pre-baiting. I have heard rumour of some decent fish being present in a small flight pond, out on the marsh. With the duck shooting season over (away from the foreshore) on Jan 31st, I should be able to tap up the land owner and get a couple of sessions in before the pool needs to be rested for the breeding season (duck's that is - not fish!) It's a situation ideally suited to using the Mk IV - so here's hoping.
One of the consequences of having a larder full of dried seeds is the occurrence of pesky micros who's larva feed on the stored fruits. I got home last night to discover an Indian Meal Moth (Plodia interpunctella) flying around the kitchen light. Quickly potted up and placed in the fridge - I grabbed a few shots this morning, the first live one I've seen and number one on the 2016 Dumpton moth list!

The start of another year's mothing!

Now there's a challenge?

My cyber mate, Steve Gale, has thrown down the gauntlet - a Dylan post on the subject of plants (flowers). I'd posted something on his comments facility, yet viewed his reply as a direct challenge. I'll see what I can come up with? This offering is not it!
I make no secret of the fact that plants don't do it for me. God, if you believe there is one (?), created them so to stop mankind getting their shoes muddy! Top bloke and very considerate. Guys, like Steve & co, who go "botanising", will strongly disagree with my simplistic opinion and offer a well reasoned, and valid, alternative view. I am able to recognise the importance of plants in the overall ecosystem - they provide the oxygen I require to breathe whilst removing/converting the carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. They provide food for caterpillars - therefore I am forever in their debt for the moths that grace my garden MV. Plants make my world a "green and pleasant place" and I'm unable to argue otherwise - they also ensure vegans are not forced to eat bacon, but can't alter the fact that bacon tastes better than lettuce and lentils! Plants provide the very life blood of our existence - hops, grapes and grain! Can't make beer or wine (or bread!) without them, therefore they play a vital, and under-pinning, role in the modern world? So yeah, plants are critical building blocks in all our daily lives - still doesn't make them particularly exciting to me.

Possibly an example of Tall Broomrape ? - I discovered a group of twenty-four spikes
in an overgrown corner of a car parking area, in Ramsgate, last summer.

I am going to deliberately keep a lookout for anything semi-interesting, probably along a water course rather than besides the tracks of Newland's, but you never know? If I find it, then there is a very good chance that it is a common and abundant species - widespread across the whole UK. That won't particularly matter - it will be the first time I've ever looked at it, camera to hand in order to capture the splendour and the moment. You've been warned!

A beautiful day

I had a fantastic morning out on "The Levels" catching a small jack for my troubles but, it was about so much more than fishing today. Despite a steady W-NW breeze, there were three Barn Owls hunting around the marsh and a couple of Marsh Harriers put on a good show; a precursor to setting up territory perhaps? For the first time the water felt cold, handling my dead baits made me realise just how much conditions have changed since last Sunday.
I managed to add two more birds to my annual tally - Stock Dove and Raven made their presence known by flying into my binocular view, the Raven calling loudly as it passed by. Water Rails squealed, Little Grebes "whinnied" and Lapwing cavorted in the skies; I can think of many less desirable ways of spending a Saturday morning. The intense cold didn't spoil the glorious sunshine which is such a welcome change from the dreariness of late. There were a lot of Song Thrushes around the area which is a very welcome sign, plus small groups of Chaffinches were flitting around in the field margins. A few Reed Buntings were feeding in the reeds adjacent to my swim and one deigned to pose long enough for a photo!

Away just after 10.30 hrs - I had to nip in to check up on my Dad, then back home so that Bev could get out with her friends. No great shakes - but it sure beats going to work!

This feels right for pike

At last, in our little corner of the UK, we are experiencing some, more typical, seasonal temperatures. The forecast snow failed to materialise, but the thermometer has registered night-time figures around 0C. What with clear skies and a blasting wind; the wind-chill factor has it feeling like -7C; so proper pike fishing weather. I have an idea to fish a very intimate drain, out on The Ash Levels, where I have seen a couple of small pike whilst I've been eel chasing. There are a few isolated reed patches which grow in the margins and look, for all the world, to be classic holding features. The depths don't exceed four feet, the vast majority of the system being under three feet deep. In its' favour is the fact that it is neglected and overgrown - to quote Jim Gibbinson "Pike thrive on neglect!"
It will be proper Marco Polo stuff - but if you don't try you'll never learn, so that's my motivation. There's also a chance of a few new birds, for the 2016 year list, the adjacent farmland habitat being different from that where I've spent the majority of my time recently. My plan is to use the classic "leap frogging" approach which was so successful, when employed, up on the Cambridgeshire Fens during the 1980's. A bait in a swim for 45 mins before moving along the drain and dropping in on another spot. This has a two fold benefit. Firstly I am covering the maximum amount of water, in my given time slot, and secondly, I always have something to do, so should be actively combating the cold.

I'm not expecting to catch anything like this from the local drains.
Any old excuse to use an image from that box of delights!

I am not expecting to encounter any large pike, a double would be a right result. However, in these untapped venues, anything is possible. I should, perhaps, give the Mk IV an outing? Yet have got it in my head that I want to catch a carp first, because that is why Dick designed the rod, before I take that particular project forward.
A pike, tomorrow, will be a result. Whatever the outcome, you can bet you'll see it here first!

Back for more

Another short session at Ramsgate Harbour in the company of the immature Great Northern Diver provided me with much better photo opportunities, although the light remained grey and flat. The bird was frequenting the area directly behind the Maritime Museum and seemed very much at ease with my presence. I watched it catch a couple of crabs - all very pleasant as I clicked away merrily. The Steve Ashton's of this world would be able to capture some fantastic detail, although I'm not unhappy with my own results. The list crept up to 70 with the addition of Dark-bellied Brent Goose - a skein of 40 - ish flying past Ramsgate Main Beach en route to their roost in Pegwell Bay to the west. There was a biting W-SW wind, gusting over 40 mph at times - man that felt cold. Just goes to show how mild we've had it, the car display registered 5C and didn't I know it - the first time I've got really cold all winter.

A fringe birder

My bird watching has taken, very much, the back seat since 2011 and a return to speccy hunting. It's not that birds have become less important - just fish have become more so and there is only so much time in a week/ month/ year to go round. I've some sort of plan to level the playing field, in 2016, and have made a deliberate attempt at a return to year-listing as a way of keeping my eye in.
Quite obviously my Newland's patch remains central to my avian observations, yet I hanker after something more. I can't ever see a return to the lunacy that was Kent "twitching" in the late 1990's - but cannot deny the great excitement that period provided. I am looking for the middle ground, a space where birds provide interest without obsession. Is it possible such a place exists? Surely; it's all down to me!

13.01.2016 - An after work stroll, down to Ramsgate Harbour, produced some superb views of  the
immature Great Northern Diver which has been present for a couple of weeks now.
Hardly "twitching" - yet by definition; exactly what it was!

It's January 13th 2016, I've added five new species today, and yet still my list total only stands at a paltry 69. I need to get a grip and focus some effort into my birding - or do I? The year is 366 days (it's a Leap Year!) and the list is a marathon, not a sprint. I have plenty of time - it will be all about how I use this precious commodity to best effect. I've caught my January eel, the local pike fishing is pants and I have no other angling targets - maybe I'll go birding, not fishing, this weekend?
Living in East Kent allows a great deal of scope for birding and potential target species - it shouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for me to get my list to 105 on Saturday morning - given a little good fortune. It probably won't happen - 105 by the end of February will be fine. Let's not forget that my list is a year list - not a Kent, UK or Newland's effort - it will consist of what species I have confidently id'd in 2016 - wherever I have been.

Garden Warbler along the Nature Trail at Stodmarsh NNR. The only way I'm going to see one in 2016
is by deliberately getting off my arse and going birding.

So  what if I screw up an id? The only one to be affected is me - so it matters not a jot! If I can lie to myself - the problem is mine, and mine alone; it will require a doctor, not a rarities committee, to sort that type of issue out. Purity listing is now where my birding has gotten to - what species I can find and identify for myself. In 1999 I managed 223, in Kent, out of a county year total of 263 - manic and obsessional times. If, in 2016, I can discover somewhere around 200 species (on my travels around the UK and Europe) for myself, I'll be very satisfied.

I couldn't give a monkey's toss if there was a Hoopoe in Ramsgate Cemetery tomorrow - I
wouldn't be concerned about rushing over to see it. Bev and I are already booked to return to
Kefalonia, later in the year, and I know that I'll have plenty of opportunities to see
these superb creatures then. If I'd never seen one previously - the reaction might be a little different?

Just as I require a bait in the water to stand any chance of catching my desired fish, I need to get outside with my binoculars around my neck in order to maximise my birding opportunities. Will I have the resolve to focus my efforts toward specific targets or, as is my usual failing, become distracted by some other projects?