Knowing the local nature reserves and areas for watching wildlife like I do I knew that visiting all the places we did today would bring us some close and good encounters with wildlife and by the end of the day we felt quite privileged to be allowed to get close to the creatures we had.

Our first place to visit was Monkton Nature Reserve, somewhere we have been visiting for several years and so know exactly when things will be around and in flower. I knew then I would find the beautiful Southern Marsh Orchids in full flower. I also know it’s a really good place for seeing the curious Man Orchid as they grow in good numbers here on the thin chalky soil. The Nature Reserve itself is a 16 acre site set inside an abandoned chalk quarry on the Isle of Thanet in East Kent. In the years since the quarry was in operation nature has reclaimed it helped by the dedicated people who look after it.

It was one of those days when the sun would disappear behind a cloud every now and then so I just waited until this happened each time I took an orchid picture. This is far easier to do than using the diffuser. I’ve found that pictures taken in bright but cloudy conditions show much more detail in the flowers when viewed on the computer screen.

After getting the pictures of the orchids that I wanted I thought it might just be worth walking around the reserve again to look for some lizards. There are certain logs where, if it’s warm enough, you will almost certainly see a Common Lizard. They usually disappear quickly as you get close but if you sit quietly and wait for a few minutes they will be sure to come back to their favoured spot on the warm log. Sure enough there were a few lizards around. I put on my macro lens and waited for just a very short time until several of the lovely creatures allowed me to get within a few inches of them. What a treat that was. One of them seems to be looking right at me.

Ten days later and I returned to the reserve as I knew the Bee Orchids I’d seen on a previous visit would be flowering so I’ve included them in the album that accompanies this journal as well. I think the Bee Orchid has to be one of the prettiest of all the orchids we have growing in this country and at the reserve they have good numbers of them growing this year.

The next place we visited on this particular day was East Blean Wood to see the Heath Fritillary butterflies, which I knew would almost certainly be there as it’s this time of year that they emerge. Not too far from the main car park is a recently coppiced area of Sweet Chestnut. It’s here that the Common Cow Wheat grows, and this is the larval food plant of the Heath Fritillary.  Sure enough it didn’t take long for us to find a few of them on the newly growing Sweet Chestnut and as soon as the sun shone loads of them would appear and could be seen in flight.

I’m often asked how I get such close up images of butterflies. Most of it takes an awful lot of patience waiting for one to settle, or a degree of luck with an obliging one allowing you to get close. With the Heath Fritillary, however, anyone can get close to them as they are one of the most confiding butterflies you will ever see. If it’s a particularly overcast day and they are not too warm they will happily walk onto your finger allowing for some real close up views of their beautiful markings and hairy little bodies. Do I ever tire of getting pictures of these beautiful butterflies? Not one bit: if a creature allows you to get that close to it I feel it’s a real privilege and I’m always after getting something slightly different than I have before.

I’ve included some images in the gallery of a second visit I made to the wood 10 days later on another visit I made when I must have seen about thirty of the butterflies in the same coppiced area where again several of them allowed me to get very close

Our last place to visit on this day was Reculver to see if we could see the Sand Martins that nest in the sandstone cliffs there. It had been a few years since we had visited at nesting time so I was keen to see if they were indeed there and get a chance to use my new 150-500 lens and hopefully get some fairly close views of these delightful little birds.

We parked at an area close to Bishopstone Glen and walked down onto the beach. We could see a few Sand Martins flying over the grassland catching insects so were really hopeful we might find some of the holes in the cliffs occupied by the nesting birds.

Once down on the beach it was soon obvious where the birds were nesting and I set up the tripod and long lens and got some very close views of the busy little birds. To enable you to capture the very quick moving bird a very fast shutter speed is required which on this sunny late afternoon was fairly easy to achieve. Once I’d taken some pictures here including some lovely views of some babies with open mouths at the edge of their nest hole we decided to walk along the beach towards the towers at Reculver.

The tide was obviously on the way out so we knew this was safe to do. It’s always fascinating to walk along this beach as each time it’s a different walk as the sea erodes the soft sandstone cliffs. Towards the end of the beach we noticed a lot of Sand Martins who had been busy making lots of new holes in an area of sandstone that doesn’t seem to be affected by erosion. The noise was incredible as they busily caught insects and flew back at great speed to the new nesting holes. Occasionally a load of sand would be sent flying out of the holes.

We really were very close to the holes and it allowed me to get some nice close up shots of the birds too. We continued watching the birds for a while then finished our walk by walking back along the top of the cliffs spotting some Meadow Pipets and Skylarks in the long grass.

What a fantastic day it had been. One we will remember for a long time.

 

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