Bog Myrtle & Peat

What with all I’ve had on recently, I haven’t had the chance to get up to the Chayne for the last ten days. Driving up this afternoon, I disturbed a red kite and two corbie crows who were dining out together on a hen pheasant which had been squashed on the road. The past few weeks appear to have brought an explosion of pheasant numbers on the farm, and almost all are hens. The cocks slouch around near the release pens a few miles away, but the hens are apparently far rangier. I even disturbed a french partridge while checking up on some of the trees I planted in March, and I’m now seriously considering putting a feeder in the windbreak.

Out on the moor, the undergrowth is changing again. From a rich, rusty red at the start of the month, the grasses are losing their brilliance and have sunk back into the obscurity of a moderate beige. The ling still has a few gnarled flowers, but these are all crispy and chocolate brown. Far out in the open of the moor, I bent down to examine some cross leaved heather and heard an odd chirrup behind me. As if they had emerged from nowhere, seventy fieldfares steadily buzzed their way overhead, calling and fluttering alternately. Fieldfares, starlings and redwings are all good signs of the changing seasons, and judging by the stinging westerly wind, winter’s on the way.

The heather laboratory is looking very good, with some individual plants showing up to four inches of quality fresh growth over the summer. The enclosure has been totally stockproof since February, so I was surprised to see a small group of three fresh vegetarian droppings beneath a long tuft of grass. They were totally spherical and slightly smaller than maltesers, but they clearly had not come from a deer. Although I’ve never seen one on the Chayne, could it be that there is a hare (or hares) on the premises? I hope so…

Inside the woodcock strip, I had to place my feet carefully amongst the ankle-high carpet of mushrooms and toadstools. Walking down the main ride, I came across some very deliberate scuffling in the needle mat. Looking closely, it was covered in wasps. Closer still, although bearing in mind that there were wasps about, not too close, I found fragments of paper wasp nest scattered across the ride. Something had clearly dug up the nest and taken the heart of it, and the only possible culprit I can imagine would be a badger; the first evidence I have found of one since I began this project.