Kent: Faversham to Swalecliffe 25/5/2010****

 

From top, goatsbeard, hybrid and salsify     Tankerton

The path up the east bank of Faversham Creek was obscured by boatyards and unsigned, so we had to find our way round vehicles and equipment as best we could.  As we reached more open country there was wasteland packed with hog’s fennel, and this plant continued along this side of the creek, like the west bank, until nearly the end.  Also plentiful along the path were goat’s beard (yellow) and its close relative salsify (purple), both open widely in the early morning, even with a cloudy sky.  With them were a few plants with yellow centres and purple extremities to the petals, hybrids between the two and possibly more beautiful than either.  We rounded Nagden Marshes and finally reached The Swale as it was widening into open sea beyond Sheppey.  The path follows a sea-wall, under which, on the landward side, cut-leaved crane’s-bill was prolific in the shelter, joined here and there by grass vetchling.  Out to sea was a shingle bank, the main part of the South Bank of the Swale Nature Reserve, where we could make out little terns returning to their nests with food.  Other birds here were mainly black-headed gulls, oystercatchers and shelduck.  On the embankment, however, we spotted a bird singing on a hawthorn bush.  Raising the binoculars we found it to be a whitethroat, but just behind it on top of the same bush rested a yellow wagtail.  Several more were seen just afterwards along the path.  We descended to the slight inlet at the beginning of Graveney Marshes.  In the sheltered land below the embankment we found a few butterflies, including brown argus.  Then we were at the Sportsman pub, just opening at 12 noon, so we could get a hot coffee in their warm conservatory as relief from a stiff east wind.  We then proceeded along what was genuine seaside beach at long last, approaching Seasalter.  We were recording shingle plants like sea kale and yellow horned poppy.  In one place with low turf we found several kinds of medick, not just the usual spotted medick, but also the casual tattered medick, the rare bur medick, and lucerne.  We were able to continue in front of Seasalter, despite efforts by some houses to lay claim to the beach as “private”: we had waited long for the seaside and were not going to lose the chance now!  We heard a train pass as the railway came in close to the coast, just above the beach.  It was similar from here to Whitstable, although there was more sea-wall to alleviate walking on shingle.  We rounded the harbour, with its sea-food stalls and the Whitstable Oyster Company before getting back to the beach at the beginning of Tankerton.  Here, under some moored yachts, we found another alien medick, in this case the particularly rare shore medick.  Grassy banks above in one place had a large patch of Bithynian vetch being fed upon by many browntail moth caterpillars.  Further east the grassland got wilder and we suddenly found huge numbers of hog’s fennel again.  A footpath led us inland to Swalecliffe church, over a dyke from which we again heard the croaking of marsh frogs.  From the church a road led down through housing to Chestfield and Swalecliffe Station.  We spent the night at Macknade Manor, with its famed restaurant, Read’s.

Shore medick       Browntail moth caterpillars on Bithynian vetch