Goudhurst (Kent)

[Ruby]

Hi Guys,

Just thought I'd tell you about a long weekend we spent down in Goudhurst, which is few miles south of Maidstone in Kent over the Whitsun bank holiday in May this year. It wasn't specifically a bird-watching hol, but we did spent most of our time out and about in the local countryside and hey, you always carry your bins, right!

There has been a fair bit of talk in recent times wondering where all of the house-sparrows and starlings have gone. I am now in a position to solve this particular mystery - they've all moved to Goudhurst.

We saw LOADS of each (particularly sparrows)

We were staying in a campsite and the noise at approx 03:00 each morning was deafening and woke us up every morning without fail. The campsite was on a farm with quite a few old & semi-derelict farm buildings, which all seemed to be packed to the rafters with sparrows with insomnia.

Coincidently or not, we saw nothing like as much of other birds as you might expect - the number of sightings of blue tits, robins, chaffinches, greenfinches etc could be counted on 1 hand!

Anyone who has been following my thread 'Kingfisher??' in the bird id forum will not be suprised to hear that I did spot a Kingfisher on the river Medway though - so that was good.

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who knows this area well and could comment on whether my experience is typical.


Rgds... Ruby:t:

[robinm]

Nice one, Ruby. Goudhurst is such a lovely village. I'm not a particular expert on the Medway, but I have had good views of kingfisher recently all over Kent.

[Nina P]

Sounds like you really were on a working farm, where they farm in a somewhat more old fashioned way, there was a report on the local TV news last week about Wakehurst in Kent and the return to old farming methods causing the almost extint Stone Curlew, to raise three young on the site, and they showed them running after the parent birds, and they are trying to save other less common birds, like they have increased the numbers of lapwing too! I found the whole endeavour thoroughly interesting and the fact that they followed this throughout the week made a delightful viewing. Nina.