NORTH DOWNS & BEYOND

Red-backed Shrike, Dungeness. This splendid male spent all day long in, and around, the moat. I can just about remember when they regularly bred in the UK. Yes, I know that I don't look old enough... Marsh Frog, Romney Marsh. The ditches and dykes are full of them, and once one starts to 'laugh' it sets them all off. Turtle Dove on Romney Marsh. I cannot think of a better looking (and sounding) dove than this species. 

It was like stepping back forty years. The well vegetated lanes that cross Romney Marsh, close to  Kenardington, were alive with birds. Not just any old birds, but special birds. Six, maybe eight Turtle Doves, singing, displaying, performing beautifully, perching on the branches of dead trees out in the open or half-hidden in the tops of those in leaf. There were also Cuckoos, and Yellowhammers, and a single Nightingale, vying for attention amongst the purring Doves. They were all concentrated along 100m of prime marsh real estate, a reminder that if the habitat is right, the birds will come. And they had. Magical.