Romney Salts - warm, dry and sunny, W3 - After a bumpy, wet night dawn broke delivering welcome sunshine, lighter winds and the herald song of a Mistle Thrush wafting over from the town park as I sat in the garden having a cuppa. I had to go to Lydd this morning to drop off the car at the garage so decided to walk back home across the Salts due to the pleasant spring-like weather. It`s about a three mile walk, mostly across muddy public footpaths and takes in various ponds, sewers and arable farmland along with stunted clumps of bushes and tree-lined margins bordering the golf course. A large acreage around Belgar Farm is put down to market garden crops (quite unusual for Romney Marsh) so rows and rows of cabbages, leeks, sprouts, carrots, parsnips and the like.
Passerines were few and far between with most feeding in the weedy brassica fields, including 100 Linnets, 50 Chaffinches, 20 Tree Sparrows and most surprising of all 10 Fieldfares, a species that has been almost absent hereabouts this winter. A few singing Skylarks hovered on high to greet the sun, while single figures of Reed Bunting and Yellowhammer were noted beside the Dengemarsh Sewer, plus Dabchick and 20 Shovelers on the water. Bulky birds comprised the usual corvids, gulls, Stock Doves and at least 100 Woodpigeons hammering the sprouts. Also noted during the walk: Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Grey Wagtail, Song Thrush and four Green Woodpeckers.
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