Winchelsea & Rye Wildlife, Flora & Fauna Various pics from around Winchelsea, Rye and surrounding areas, and the wildlife 'goings on' at the dyke behind Winchelsea Beach Caravan Park!
 
Hello!
Hello my name is Stephanie and I with my partner Gezz own a caravan: 'The Lodge' on Winchelsea Beach Caravan Park.  The Lodge overlooks a dyke, fields and has wonderful views towards Winchelsea Town, Pett Level and Hastings. 

    

Never having been a particular 'wildlife watcher' I am surprised to find that I am quite enthralled with the 'comings & goings' and 'goings on' that happen before our very eyes! and I do mean the local wildlife here and not the other caravan occupants!, as I am sure that would just be 'too wild' for a blog like this!

We have had the caravan about 12 months and now have a whole year experience, of the seasons and weather changes, we hear and see so much, so I thought it would be great to share my comments, observations and pictures with anyone else who might be interested.

I would like to say at this point, that I welcome feedback, and like to know that my blog is being read and enjoyed or not as the case may be, and expect many, many comments to be added!

I hope to make my blog entertaining, useful and will also contain some of my unanswered questions, which of course I would be grateful for any help with!
Published Date:
30/04/2008
Modified Date:
09/06/2008

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7 Beautiful Swan Babies!!!
Wknd 30th May '08 Our beautiful pair of swan lovers have had another gorgeous fluffy brood of 7, they are so sweet, and I just want to reach out and cuddle them... but probably not a good idea, as mummy and daddy are very protective!  The first few days we saw them, they spent alot of time riding on mummy's back, and it is so cute to see them 'riding high' and at one point, 6 of the total 7 were all on her back!  I think mum had enough of that quite soon though, as she got out onto the bank soon after, and most of them slipped out onto the bank!

       

I am always feeding both the parents and the off-spring whenever I get a chance, and mummy waits to take bread from my hand, before even attempting to take any bread from the water!   We are not back to Winchelsea until Thurs 19th June, so I expect the babies will have grown quite a bit when I see them next... just hope they don't miss me too much!


Published Date:
09/06/2008
Modified Date:
09/06/2008

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Swan Song
11th May - Whilst all our other wildlife on the dyke have been busy having babies we are still waiting for the swan pair to reproduce again this year (hopefully anyway!)  Last years babies are fully grown and are nearly completely white, we have seen one of them on the dyke a couple of times(looking a bit like a dirty swan, until I realised he still had a few grey feathers left!) but the others have been chased away to begin their 'single' lives with other 'singletons' s elsewhere, until they pair up (usually for life) and find their own 'spot'  The male of our pair, is quite used to being fed and will take bread from my hand now, which is lovely, I have also managed to get quite a few nice close up pictures.

      
Published Date:
16/05/2008
Modified Date:
09/06/2008

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2 little ducklings :-( and then there were 20!!
If you have read my article below, about the disappearing ducklings, you will understand my surprise and pleasure at finding 20 babies bobbing about in the dyke!  One mother has 4, another 9, and the other one has 7!  They are all at slightly different sizes and it's quite sweet to watch them all muddling up together for the bread we throw out, and then the mothers chasing away all errant babies that don't belong to their own 'brood'.  In one of the photo's you will see the mother of 4 who decided to waddle her way around the camp with babies in tow, exacting titbits from anyone who saw them... perhaps the dyke was getting to crowded!
  
Published Date:
16/05/2008
Modified Date:
09/06/2008

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The lambs they are afrolicking!
Weekend of Apr 25th -The lambs that are in the field adjacent to the dyke are about 3 weeks old now, and it's great fun to watch the frolicking and gamboling about how only lambs can!   In the earlier days they were usually found to be quite close to mum, but now they join up in 'gangs' to race and jump about.  At about 5pm in the evening they seem to get an extra burst of energy and are regularly to be seen racing up and down, up and down and round and round, looking for all their worth like excitable puppies!  It is often, their 'mothers' will be heard 'baahing' for their carvorting youngster or youngsters (many have twins), to see where they are, which occassionally results in a bleat from said youngster/s, but as they are now that bit older and more independent, they carry on regardless, seemingly to ignore mother and carry on enjoying itself (how familiar that sounds!)
It was so different when the lambs were just a week or two old, it was funny to watch various lost lambs and mothers, looking for each other, there was much concerned 'baahing' and pitiful bleeting's going on, with mothers and babies racing back and forth across the fields trying to find each other.   It is actually really sweet to watch, when they eventually find each other, with mother's and babies racing towards each other like something from a love film, kissing and hugging (or in their case, sniffing and snuffling!).
     
Published Date:
01/05/2008
Modified Date:
01/05/2008

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7 Little ducks... and then there were 2 :-(

Apr 08  Last year we saw quite a few baby ducklings at this time, but after a few days we didn't see them any more, we just thought that they had moved onto different pastures, this year however we now have more ducklings, we started with 7, this was 2 weeks ago, 2 days later there were 5, and then last weekend there were only 2 :-( obviously something is eating them, not sure what, foxes, birds?  We haven't seen any foxes, and we are surrounded by sheep, lambs and pesky plant eating rabbits (more about pesky plant eating rabbits in another rant, I mean blog!)  It's such a shame, although I must admit I have seen a huge difference between the ducklings 'upbringing' to the cygnates we had last year (and hopefully again this year, about the middle/end of May by my reckoning).
Both cynate parents were extremely protective of their babies, checking their whereabouts constantly and always letting them feed first when bread was thrown to them.  The ducks however are completely different (or at least these ones are) the male duck snaps at the babies so he can get to any food first, the babies flit all over the place, while mother duck swans about (excuse the pun) almost humming to herself (do ducks hum?) and just expecting the babies to follow her, and if not, well hard luck (or so it seems to me).  So I did wonder whether maybe she'd lost some along the way?

   

Published Date:
30/04/2008
Modified Date:
01/05/2008

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