| Environment news | All the latest news, and recent sightings. |
| Out and About | Photos and commentary |
| Geography and Habitat | The Village in terms of Geography, Geology, Climate, and Habitat |
| Creatures Great and Small | What you may see around Chidham and Hambrook |
| The Garden Environment | Gardens provide a wealth of variety and are an important habitat for many wild creatures. |
| Country Diary | Monthly record of the changing seasons, farming activities and wildlife sightings. |
| Improving the Environment | Your ideas for improving the village environment |
| Photo Library | Photos taken in the village. (Best with Broadband) |
| Nicky Clark found this colourful frog in her strawberry patch - apparently more interested in the strawberries than the slugs to be found in the nearby vegetable patch. | |
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| Boats waiting in the lock to enter Port Solent have to wait untill the water levels have equalised. This doesn't apply to Swans who clearly want to be first out of the lock, even if this means swimming up hill. For a cygnet this may be a bit daunting, so its good to have your parents show you how. | |
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Pictures from a bird table Thanks to Philip Creechan I have just spent a couple of wet days at Canute Cottages,and despite the rain,managed to get a few photos of birds at the feeders outside the cottages. I enjoy looking at your website, and thought I would share some of the pictures with you. Thanks, Philip. Brilliant photos! |
 Great Spotted Woodpecker |
 Greenfinch |
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 Great Tit |
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21 May Adorable Duckilings just hatched in a garden backing on to the Ham Brook on Priors Leaze Lane. Thanks to Lorraine Banks |
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| Hoopoe spotted in Chidham | (Thanks to Diana Beale) |
 someone else's photo |
An exotic visitor has been spotted in South Chidham On Monday morning, May 14th, Tom Edom was driving up the Cobnor lane on his way to work when he saw a hoopoe fly in front of his car! |
| As far as we know, this is the first time this wonderfully showy Mediterranean bird has been seen in this neck of the woods. Does anyone know of any other sightings, recently or in the past? It is a striking and unmistakeable bird - even the bird book says it can't be confused with any other species, with its pink Mohican crest and black and white barred wings and tail. Keep a look out... Another bird from the Med is the pure white little egret, which started visiting. and then settling, in Chichester Harbour in the sixties, obviously encouraged by the gradual trend to warmer winters. Now they are a common sight and have started to breed here. Could the hoopoe be next? | |
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Mistle Thrushes are sometimes called Storm Cocks because of their habit of singing from the tops of very tall trees in strong winds. Birds are hardly ever easy to photograph - this Mistle Thrush was at the top of a tall conifer and so at extreme range for my camera. I haven't seen all that many thrushes in recent years Fieldfares and Redwings are not so common in winter as they once were, and sadly the Song Thrush has also declined, so it was nice to see this Mistle Thrush singing his heart out. more about the Mistle Thrush |
Where are they going? |
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Did you know we have three sorts of Shrew in Chidham and Hambrook? Common Shrews, Pygmy Shrews and Water Shrews. You will be lucky if you see a Water Shrew - they are not so common. I took the photo on our doorstep, after rescuing this large black feisty Water Shrew from our cat. As far as I could make out he was unharmed - he scuttled away as soon as I had taken the photo. Water Shrews have toxic saliva and don't taste or smell good to cats but they are preyed on by owls, foxes etc. More info on Water Shrews |
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| Snowdrops pictured on Jan 14th. by the side of the Main Road in Chidham. | |
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Please send in your photos of early signs of spring. |
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| Are the days getting longer? Imperceptibly, but nevertheless spring will come. |
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| Stunning bluebells in the wood as you approach Kingsley Vale Car Park (from last year) photo contributed by Bob Ashwood |
| Buzzards over Chidham Garage (and the local crows weren't happy.) November 1st, a lovely bright cold day, with a bit of a northerly wind, there were a pair of buzzards circling over Chidham, slowly moving south. Learn more about Buzzards |
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| October Mushrooms If you can make an accurate identification they make good eating. But identifying them is not always easy - so if in doubt, play safe. |
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This fine heron was on the Chidham catchpond on the morning of October 17th. It's always worth stopping to have a look. |
Learn more about the Grey Heron |
| A Garden Visitor you may have mixed feelings about. | |
This handsome sparrowhawk visited my garden recently, and sat on a branch not too far from the birdfeeder. A bit like waiting for Waitrose to open, you could say. On this occasion after a while he/she departed empty handed. All part of the rich diversity of nature. I am not quite sure if it is a male or female - female I think. If you know, drop me an e mail. |
Learn more about Sparrowhawks  |
| Thanks to Mollie Clark for the photo of a grass snake found in the backgarden in Hambrook. It is about a foot long, so probably a juvenile. Are there grass snakes south of the Main Road? | This is also a juvenile grass snake, not photographed locally Learn more about Grass snakes |
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| Is it a wasp or a spider? |
 This picture was taken by Rosa Taylor Beale (age 11) in the garden of Cobnor House where a rather scary but beautiful wasp spider has taken up residence. Incidentally, the myrtle bush which holds the web and "nest" was originally grown on from a sprig in the bridal bouquet of Margaret and Sydney Beale, who were married in 1914 and bought Cobnor House and farm in an auction in 1918. Rosa is their great grand-daughter. Learn more about the wasp spider |
| Goslings after four and a half weeks. (Thanks to Lynda Hughes)  |
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The harvest is underway |
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A common site around the village - a tractor takes the crop to bulk storage. |
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These aren't brilliant, deer are notoriously difficult to photograph, but caught these two in the pea field by the churchyard, you can see the manor house wall behind one of them, at 6.00pm today (Thursday 6th). JB will be probably be glad I frightened them off his peas! Thanks to Lynda Hughes |
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 Day by day the fields turn more and more golden and pale as the cereal crops ripen. This is a field of wheat that still has touches of green in it - but not for long.....
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 And this is barley, with its long whiskers. Beautiful, and with a lovely scent in the evening. It ripens earler than the wheat |
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The black and white one that looks like a goat is one of the Jacob's sheep at Cobnor after shearing. All the ewes and the ram were shorn by David and Kirsty, who came to Cobnor with their mobile shearing gear at the end of June. The sheep were delighted to shed their immense thick fleeces in time for the heat wave that followed just after! The ewe's lambs are the sooty-coloured ones in the picture. They are born coal-black, then gradually turn browner and paler. Their coats are still quite short and don't need shearing at this stage. |
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This is Olga, with her sheepdogs, Lynn and Wispa. Olga is very well-known around Chidham, but not everyone will know that Olga comes to Cobnor every day to walk her dogs and to help keep an eye on the sheep. Sheep must be checked daily, and the more experienced eyes to check them the better. There are all sorts of things to watch out for: lameness, fly problems, getting caught in brambles, lying on their backs and not being able to get up, and signs of the innumerable diseases that sheep can suffer from!
By the way, Olga also bakes the cookies and shortbread that are ready to welcome the guests as they arrive for their holidays at Canute Cottages, the self-catering cottages at Cobnor Farm. Delicious!
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We took a day off to cycle the new Salterns Way to West Wittering, taking the bikes across to Itchenor on the little ferry run by Andy (and his labrador!). It's a lovely route. At Wittering we met Mr Loader from Southbourne with sacks full of cockles that he'd collected from the mud. Here he is showing us his "mud-shoes" for walking across the mud. If any of you are fans of the "Swallows and Amazons" books by Arthur Ransome, you will know them as "splatchers". In Chidham we used to see old chaps with their bikes coming back from the mudflats by Manor Farm with their sacks of winkles. If any of you remember them, let us know when you last saw them and who it was. |
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The summer is here and the sailing season is in full swing. Here is the Bosham channel, seen from the Cobnor wheelchair path - always a great sight, whatever the season or weather |
| Thanks to Diana Beale | |
The view across a sea of golden barley, looking from Cobnor towards Bosham.  |
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| On the left hand side of the road, wheat, coming on, but not yet fully ripe. Barley on the right hand side. | |
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| The cygnets from the swan's nest on the Chidham Catchpond have hatched. June 17th There are five cygnets, and they have been out and about on the water already. Thanks to Diana Beale for the photographs |
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| And Dad does a celebratory fly past! |  |
| The Catchpond, Chidham Lane, on 31st May | |
Can you see them? Take a closer look.    Ah! now you see them. |
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And now you see them doing what ducklings normally like to do.  |
The Swans have a nest on the island  |
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This Heron caught a large fish just after this photo |
Egret Extravaganza! And if I had only looked at the Catchpond, I would have missed this Little Egret who was hunting in the harbour just the other side of the road from the Catchpond.  |
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 In the end he flew away |
 What are these? |
OAK APPLE GALLS These are seen between May and June. They are home to the larvae of the oak apple gall wasp (Biorhiza pallida). The female lays her eggs in the leaf bud causing the oak tree to produce this apple-like growth It is about 4cms in diameter, and inside there are around thirty chambers each containing one wasp larvae. The 29th of May is traditionally 'Oak Apple Day' in Britain , which celebrates Charles II's return to England in May 1660. |
Seasonal images
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| Cobnor Sheep and House |
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Brent Geese at Cobnor |
| Spot the difference! |
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Hedgehog spotted by Rosa in the garden at Cobnor House, 17 Dec - still not hibernating! |
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| This hedgehog was out, rooting around on my front lawn (Main Road, Chidham) at midday on December 3rd. |
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Cobnor sheep - frosted fleece |