7th May – Spring Fair at Belmont House & Gardens 11:00 – 16:00

This event is the perfect way to spend a Spring day, browsing the variety of plants on sale and gathering great ideas for your garden for the coming season. It is also a great opportunity to get some advice on how to get the very best out of the plants you buy. With a superb collection of local crafters and artisans, you can expect to find some unique, quality hand-made gifts for friends, family and maybe yourself. Local food and drink will be available as well as our ‘pop up’ tea room serving delicious home-made cakes and tray bakes. £3.00 per person including garden entry and free for children under 16. www.belmont-house.org

12th & 13th May – Faversham Transport Weekend

The Faversham Transport Weekend, held each year in Faversham’s historic and beautiful town centre, is a delight for all the family – and it’s a free event. Vintage vehicles offer a glimpse of travel through time, and you can enjoy delicious food and drink, radio-controlled vehicles, a funfair and live music. Saturday is a celebration of the big and beautiful, showcasing buses with FREE vintage bus rides and majestic commercial vehicles lining the historical streets of Faversham, a vibrant market, independent shops, cafes and entertainment for the children, a great day out not to missed. Sunday the town plays hosts to over 350 cars and motorcycles through the ages. The vehicles fill the town centre and offer an interesting insight into travel through time. Take a nostalgic stroll around the town, talk to the proud owners and share stories whilst enjoying the sights and sounds of this wonderful event. Visit: www. favershamtransportweekend.com

Turtle Doves returned in 2016

Wonderful news, 2016 again saw some Turtle Doves back and purring! We are hoping they will return in 2017 and have an acre of Turtle Dove seed mix. Did you know that we are one of the few places in the British Isles where you can still see and hear Turtle Doves.

Buzzards around Palace Farm

Buzzards are still here, on warmer sunny days they can be seen or heard with their distinctive mewing call. Come and watch their graceful flight, at low level they look huge! A good place to watch birds is on The Isle of Sheppey at the Elmley National Nature Reserve, just a short drive from Palace Farm, or maybe at The Oare Marshes Reserve on the mainland near Faversham.The Swale Estuary is one of the best areas for seeing overwintering Raptors in the UK.

Tawny Owls are still very vocal

Tawny Owls are still very vocal. Around dusk they usually wake up and start calling to their family, these are really wonderful calls, not just the Toowhit Toohoo, but a wide range of quieter more plaintive and slightly squeaky calls some sounding to me like those party whistles that uncoil as you blow into them. Occasionally they seem to be fighting making some strange almost growling sounds, you really need to know what you are listening to to believe it.

Little Owls

Our little Owls are still around, we didn’t see much of them last summer, but we have realised that the tree they nested in has fallen over, In September 2015 I took delivery of two Little Owl nest boxes and within days of putting them in their place they were visited by an owl. Another first, in 2015 we had a pair of Swallows nest in the Hostel Courtyard and they returned this last year, we really are hoping they will return you may notice our new logo features Swallows. Remember the old saying “One Swallow doesn’t make a summer”?