Yesterday – three strands

I enjoyed yesterday.

I launched the Nature of Harming ‘award’ and it generated a lot of interest.  Around 250 votes yesterday was pretty good and there was a clear leader at the end of the day.  Lots of varied comments and debate – very interesting.  If you haven’t voted yet then please do so here.  It was interesting to see the reactions.  Lots of people from the farming community moaning about me being anti-farmer and yet, I ask you, read what I wrote and tell me where it is anti-farmer.  I don’t see the NFU as the same as the average farmer and that’s why the NFU are in the Nature of Farming ‘award’.

I was rather pleased with myself for working out how to add in a new page to this website and do the work to add a voting function.  In such little triumphs must we take some solace.

Then, mid-morning, having made sure that my monthly newsblast had fired out into the world (sign up for next month’s free newsblast if you aren’t already) and that votes were accumulating on the Nature of Harming ‘award’, I went for a walk at nearby Stanwick Lakes.

We’ve recently passed Groundhog Day and I was wondering how similar my walk today would be to last Saturday’s at the same time of day, same weather, same route etc.  Would I see exactly the same birds in the same places? It was quite similar actually – and that’s good because Saturday’s visit was very good.  The same range of tits, finches, reed buntings, dunnnocks, robins and blackbirds were at the bird feeders.  The same (?) water rail, an unusual bird here, flew across the river, from right to left, in exactly the same place.  The same (?) snipe flew from the same ditch and flew the same way and called at the same point in its flight.  A bit further on, the same (?) little egret lifted off and flew in the same direction.  The same (I’m pretty sure about this) female smew was on the same patch of open water.   But my sanity, or what’s left of it, was saved by thee not eing the same bittern, or any other bittern, perched in an alder tree and early on in the walk I added a new bird to my Stanwick Lakes list – a female red-breasted merganser. So it wasn’t all the same – and the frozen snow beneath my feet today hadn’t been there on Saturday – but the species list was 52 species yesterday and 56 on Saturday which is pretty similar.

Yesterday evening I watched the BBC2 programme on wild flowers and insects.  It was made more interesting to me because much of it was set in Northants and featured the Creaton village green and local farmer Duncan Farrington.  I wrote one of my typically anti-farmer blogs about Duncan earlier this year (see here).  I first visited Duncan’s farm as a volunteer doing the RSPB Volunteer/Farmer Alliance survey, ie giving my knowledge, experience and time freely to the farming community (but do keep calling me anti-farmer as much as you like), in a project which my RSPB budget paid for, and cost the RSPB over a quarter of million pounds a year, and has lasted for more than a decade (but, farmers, do call me anti-farmer as much as you like).  Duncan is doing a great job on his farm – it’s proper farming and innovative marketing.  When Duncan and I talk I always learn something useful about farming and, I’m guessing here, I think Duncan often learns something about the birds on his farm from me.  We need more farmers like Duncan.  And, now I think of it, I need some more of his delicious Mellow Yellow mayonnaise – I love it.  The one thing I might fall out with Duncan about is…that he didn’t tell me about this long-eared owl until he had let it go!

Not a bad day, all in all.

 

[registration_form]