Sunset in Rye Harbour

Yesterday saw a beautiful sunset in Rye Harbour Nature Reserve:

We'd been having a walk around the lakes and the beach, and timed it just right coming back! The lakes look completely different to a couple of months ago. Back then, they looked like this:

Now, the water level is higher and all the gulls are gone, leaving the lakes to ducks, such as these Mallards:

And also some Little Egrets, which were busy fishing:

It's much quieter now, without the gulls and their chicks - but I'm sure they'll be back next Spring!

Mike

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Ducks in the woods and a new shelter roof

See, I told you the woods were flooded... we have Mallards swimming around now...

Here's a pic of the River Rother from a couple of weeks ago, which gives you an idea of how waterlogged the area around Rye is!

At least one good sign though - bluebell shoots!

The wet and windy winter had also accelerated the decay of parts of our shelter roof in the woods, so we spent some time over the last couple of weekends getting it sorted...

First we fixed some wooden beams across the existing roof:

Then wedged a few bits of wood underneath to stiffen them up - the roof bows a bit, hence the gap in the middle.

To go on top of them we had some sterling board (OSB - Oriented Strand Board), which we'd treated with a preservative, and corrugated panels to go on top of them:

And of course the solar PV to recharge the drill...

Once the sterling boards were on top, it was pretty easy to move around and screw them down:

Then the corrugated panels and the ridge pieces went on top:

They were supplied with some special caps and nails, but we opted to use screws instead of nails. The screw went through the cap:

Was then tightened until it was holding the panel firmly:

Then finally you flip the centre of the cap over and press it down to create a watertight seal:

We spent a good chunk of one day making half of the roof:

Then came back the following weekend with more power tools and got the second half done much quicker!

We went today as well to do some track repair, but no pics of that - not much to see, just mud!

Mike

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Seabirds at Camber Sands

As it was sunny this morning, I took a walk along to the channel the Rother flows along, and then back along the beach to Camber. As the tide was low, there were plenty of seabirds flying along the line of the river but actually below where I was on the sea defences:
allowing me to get some good pictures:
That's a Herring Gull - plenty of them around, usual, here's some more pics:
and it's bigger cousin, the Great Black-backed Gull:
The smaller Black-headed Gull was around too:
and inquisitive as to what I was doing:
The other bird I saw a lot of was the Oyster Catcher:
I know the next one looks the same as the one above, but I like it as it has the bird, its shadow and its reflection all in one photo:
I also saw one Cormorant:
and one Mallard, which was maybe a bit lost?
The sea defences aren't actually in great shape:
but I guess the local council is going to be to broke to fix them any time soon. Hope we don't get a storm surge this winter!

And to finish, a view along Camber Sands, from the Rother end of the beach:
Mike

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