29/12/2011

 Waltham Brooks

Clouds so heavy with rain they look as if they could fall from the sky crash past on a bitter winter wind. The kestrel battles to hold his position against the gusting easterly as a solitary short eared owl wheels low over the wind-bent grass.

A mile further along the Arun a second short eared quarters the field by the old canal lock, both fly lower than I had seen before, making their acrobatics all the more spectacular as they twist and turn just above ground height. Does the wind carry the sound of the voles away, so the owl hunts closer to the ground?

The wildfowl pay no attention to hawk and owl, but scold as feet splashing in the grass disturb winter slumbers.

Wet feet force a retreat to waiting warmth.

24.12.2011

Waltham Brooks

The fire still rages behind the Downs, the sky burns the orange of an early winter sunset.

A walk along the flood bank to a further field brings the solitude of a lone tree. Rushes abound on a small island, just south of the canal entrance, and a distraction here spoils a photgraphic opportunity when I rise over the bank to disturb a large male short eared owl with a water vole firmly grasped in his talons.

He rises up and scolds me as he seeks the cover of the shrubs 500 metres west. Clouds cover the sun and the colours change to tired greys.

The trouble with owls is that they are the colour of bark, and hide in trees.

I glass the length of the shrubbery for a  few minutes unsuccessfully before one, then a second, takes to the air. They dogfight over some imagined slight before one retreats, wisely chooing a hawthorn further west as his perch. Battle is spectacular, with twists and turns, screeching and aerobatics; all bluff and bluster, neither wishing to retire hurt on such fertile hunting grounds.

The kestrel keeps his solitary distance, drifting south, and higher, watching all the time.

 
Just before four the sun sets and the winds drag the clouds to the east. The sky burns again, and the fields empty towards homes with mince pies waiting for intrepid explorers.

20.12.2011

Waltham Brooks
 

The sky over the Downs glows, as if some unseen fire rages on the southern side, hidden from view by the grey whaleback slopes.

Waltham is still saturated with the rain of the previous few days and flocks of mallards chatter excitedly from the flooded meadow; here and there a gull swoops in to share the waters. Kicking up the soil near the old canal path reveals the foundations of the long-demolished lock keeper's cottage, the rain and vegetation indicating the rod straight canal locks running away towards the Arun.

The school holidays are here and the footpaths are busier than I am used to. Brightly coloured garb, excited chatter and barking dogs do nothing except drive the owls to the other side of the river. One shifts across by Greatham Bridge, and drops into the grass as a child squeals in excitement. Eventually he rises to a post where he can survey this stranger in his domain.

A kestrel quarters the field, settling on a hover near the brooks before plummeting from sight into the long grass.

Darkness brings a chill.

14.12.2011

Wiggonholt Common

Fingers of smoke and mist creeps between the trees on Wiggonholt Common, which smells of bonfires from where clearance works are taking place in Northpark Wood, just over the road to Greatham.

A trio of great spotted woodpeckers swarm over the rotting corpse of an alder, the slightest noise driving them onto the opposite side of the trunk. A bounding Labrador finally flushes them into the canopy and away. 

Crossbills, brick red against the grey mist, chatter nosily as they acrobatically feed from the cones in the evergreen clump. Here and there a robin announces his presence with his whistling song, a melodic warning to others that this was most definitely his territory. It's struggling to rain, and by the first hour of the afternoon it already felt like dusk was coming. 

Waltham Brooks  is drenched in grey, the rain pools on already soaking watermeadow. This is be no day to see the short eared owls that have recently arrived here, and that I watched just a few days ago. The wind and rain a hinderance to creatures that hunt by sound. This is a grey day, a day to be indoors with a log fire, and a glass of something Scottish.

I edge along the riverbank, dropping down to walk at about halfway up the steep slope, the better to disguise my silhouette. A peregrine watches me from a power line across on the other bank. I glass him, and his head tilts inquisitively as we watch each other; the watcher watched.

Falcons never fly when you're watching them.

I look down momentarily and he's gone, slipping effortlessly away into the steel grey sky, his departure belied by the cloud of starlings he sends up to the south.

A grey heron rises with slow, languid, almost thoughtful flight and puts down again in the reeds on the far bank, only his head peering curiously back at me. His expression one of annoyance as if I had disturbed some long awaited table at Michelin starred restaurant.

I try to use the cover of some autumn-stripped branches to approach, but a crack of a branch and a splosh of a boot in a puddle and he's away again, another 300 yards south, and into deeper reeds. He croaks his sore-throated anger at me, and disappears from view.

I climb back up to the flood bank, where the old canal lock used to allow the barques onto the river, and pick up a kestrel, low behind the leafless shrubs that form the shore of the flooded part of the meadows, he rises, hovers, shifts east then west slightly, drops, hovers then plummets from the sky and I lose sight.

Beneath my feet, a pile of neatly plucked moorhen  feathers and a few bones glisten in the rain. A falcon has fed here recently.

I start to retrace my footsteps, tiring of the rain, and he's there again. I see the peregrine glide into the tree, and turn to watch me. He hops along sideways, then stiffens. I seek a tree to break up my shape and watch, and wait.

He rises, and heads straight for the flood waters, climbing slowly, sending up great clouds of waders and ducks, before circling higher into the slate-grey sky and disappearing. After I while I turn back to glass his tree and he's there; as if he'd run the ducks just for fun. I left him sat there, fluffed up against the rainy..