start, like we had in the nineties? Certainly this high pressure weather with its cool
easterly breezes has given us many frosty nights but beautiful sunny days with flowers
everywhere, birds singing and nesting, many early bumblebees and a brave Comma
butterfly a few days ago. As the Hawthorn bushes come into leaf I tried some young
leafy shoots to eat; older country folk call them 'bread and cheese', but I could find no
resemblance at all. Nettles are coming up fast, and some stung me badly as I leant my
hand on them by mistake as I crossed a steep ditch. The stings from the young leaves
must have been extra powerful, as the stinging sensation lasted two whole days, in spite
of antihistamine cream. Usually I hardly notice a few stings. Meanwhile, friends tell
me this is the time of year to pick them to eat, cooked like spinach. I am sorry, but I lack
the nerve! But summer is just around the corner, and I look forward to that.
A Dengie notebook
Graham Smith 48 The Meads, Ingatestone CM4 OAE
Groom's Farm, North Fambridge is a throw-back to the days of my youth - an odour
rich mishmash of rusting machinery, old wheels, discarded oil drums, ropes, flapping
polythene, rotting hay bales, manure heaps, woodpiles, mounds of top soil, spilt grain
and dumped potatoes, sprouting green. In winter, mud splashes up to your armpits and
the cold air resounds with the stamping feet, bellowing, and hot exhaled breath of penned
cattle in dilapidated cow sheds. To me it is a joy; but I'm not sure that Simon Rampling
- who now farms the land, following the recent death of the previous owner, Gordon
Hooper - would appreciate this description of his farm! During the past few winters,
fellow Field Club member, Anthony Harbott, and myself have been carrying out a Winter
Farmland Bird Survey in the area for the BTO. The object of this survey is to map the
distribution of farmland birds during the winter months in randomly selected tetrads
across the country and to try and establish what the preferred feeding requirements of
our fast declining farmland birds might be. Horses and stable doors spring to mind in
relation to this survey but I have loved walking round farms since my boyhood in the
1950s and am happy to survey birds and other wildlife while doing so. Groom's Farm -
which consists largely of improved (but often damp) cattle pasture, plus a few fields of
cereals - has plenty to offer farmland birds. Gordon Hooper - a keen wildfowler - created
a small brackish marsh on low lying land adjacent to Stow Creek and also rough grassy
areas alongside some of the hedges, encouraging small birds by controlling two of their
major predators - magpies and crows. The hedges contain many mature, wind-bowed
hawthorns which provide a rich crop of berries for thrushes and starlings during the
early winter and over 100 Redwings, 80 Blackbirds, 70 Fieldfares and 10 Song Thrushes
were present on our December visit, mixing their diet of haws with worms from the rain
drenched fields, which they shared with around 300 Starlings. A cattle farm, though,
provides few seeds, other than grasses, for finches and buntings and the small groups of
Greenfinches and Chaffinches present during the winter were largely confined to the
gardens of adjoining houses while the dozen or so resident House Sparrows seldom
6
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 41, May 2003