Ramblings of a naturalist

Dingy skipper (Erynnis tages) returns

2008-05-12T01:31:00.002+01:00

After a gap of 11 years I have seen the dingy skipper butterfly on the wing in Brede High Woods here in East Sussex.

This is now a national Priority Species because it has been in rapid decline, so this is a good sign.

Spring banks

2008-04-04T21:44:00.004+01:00

Two of the best wildflower banks are by the old sunken lane, now called Reservoir Lane, near Brede. It has a very rich flora, particularly in spring with plants like woodruff that are very uncommon in this area. The flowers in the close up are primrose (Primula vulgaris), early dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana) and wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), all ancient woodland indicators in South East England.

First butterfly of spring

2008-04-01T23:58:00.003+01:00

One of perfect, warm, blue sky days that make one really believe winter is receding fast. At the edge of Brede High Woods, where the cold mud is at its stickiest and wettest, this peacock butterfly floated down and settled a yard or two in front of me. For me the first of the year - gorgeous.

Spring fronds

2008-03-31T22:05:00.005+01:00

One of the freshest and subtlest signs of the rising sap are the new fronds of broad buckler fern (Dryopteris dilatata) seen here above evergreen ivy and last year's dead leaves. The delicate tracery does not stay long and turns into a rather dowdy fern later in the year. The countryside is so full of the grosser manifestations of early spring - wood anemones, primroses, daffodils - that it is easy to overlook these less strident displays. I think the fronds look good enough to eat and, apparently, the plant has been used as an analgesic, against dandruff and for gastrointestinal disturbances. Dryopteris roots have also, I gather, been used to make an alcoholic beverage called "uh" (great name) in Alaska, a practice the indigenous American Indians are said to have learnt from the Russians. As the roots are considered toxic, they might have had rather more of a buzz than they bargained for - 'uh' indeed.

Tree mosses in Killingan Wood

2008-03-21T23:21:00.006Z

Two tree trunk mosses from Killingan Wood, Sedlescombe, East Sussex. The small tuft is the crisped pinchusion (Ulota crispa) and the green dreadlocks the skinny form of, I think, cypress-leaved plait-moss (Hypnum cupressiforme). It could be mammilate plait-moss (H. andoi) but this is normally golden green. Both are growing at about chest height.

Witches butter

2008-03-11T21:52:00.004Z

I think this is the fungus called Exidia plana, but it might be a gross form of Bulgaria inquinans as the two species are similar. Whatever, we have always known this as 'witches butter', though it is said to be inedible despite its bramble jelly appearance. It was growing on a dead oak trunk in one of our local woods.

A spring walk in the wood

2008-03-08T16:11:00.009Z

Today with my seventieth birthday fast approaching I decided I should take a bit more excercise, so I went for a walk in the wood up the road. The hawthorns and a few hornbeams are leafing, the anemones are out (though rather few this year) and the leaves on the early purple orchids are well-advanced. I took a few photos - of a liverwort new to me (but quite common), even scalewort (Radula complanata) growing on an ash trunk in round patches at chest height; I visited the spurge-laurel (Daphne laureola) which seems to be doing rather well this year. I photographed a patch of anemones, a patch of polypody fern, a toppling tree with orange Trentepohlia algae, and I found a small, battered, red plastic hedgehog deep in the litter. It reminded me strongly of 'Wilson', Tom Hanks's volleyball mascot in the film Cast Away. There is a link here. I brought my 'Wilson' home and have installed it in part of my Square Metre project. I am sure it all has a deeper meaning linked to chaos theory.

Tenby daffodils

2008-02-24T20:13:00.004Z

The Tenby daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus ssp. obvallaris) are flowering well in our brambly meadow this year: last year they had scarcely any flowers. I think they are the very best daffodil because of the clear yellow perfection of their flowers. Introduced long ago, they have naturalised themselves near Tenby in South Wales but, although they have been in our garden for many years and increse slowly bulb by bulb, they show no sign of seeding themselves. An alien not likely to become invasive.

Hargate Forest near Tunbridge Wells

2007-12-22T13:07:00.001Z

On 20 December I walked in the frost in Hargate Forest south east of Tunbridge Wells. It is an extensive area of pine, broad-leaved wood and heath with some valley mires, streams and a gill. Well worth a visit at any time of year and free access as it belongs to the Woodland Trust.

The top picture is of a place called 'Butterfly Corner' as grizzled and dingy skippers are found here (in warmer weather).

The moss is blunt-leaved bog moss (Sphagnum palustre), very distinctive in winter due to its dark antheridia like the central boss of a flower. It is one of commonest bog-mosses in the Weald, but less and less of the wet woodland habitat it likes.

Midwinter in Brede High Wood, East Sussex

2007-12-21T22:34:00.000Z

A fitting celebration of Midwinter's Day was a walk round Brede High Wood with two friends and a dog. It remains very cold and there was deep frost everywhere.

As in the carol there was plenty of holly and ivy and, at one place, we saw "the running of the deer" as half a dozen wine-grey fallow fled through the coppice. In some places there had been much turning over of the brown, fallen leaves and we thought this must have been wild boar looking for acorns where the ground was not hard frozen.

Yesterday the final document was signed and the northern part of the High Wood transferred from Southern Water to The Woodland Trust, a move that should secure a well-managed future.

Over the centuries the wood has been used to fuel the iron furnaces and gunpowder mills; it has been divided up into farms; turned into a reservoir catchment area and planted for commercial forestry. Now it will be managed as a public amenity and for its wildlife - a new career, though there is no going back to the original wildwood, especially as we are not at all sure what this was actually like.

Managing for conservation is an anthropocentric activity and there is tension between the aesthetic and the scientific approaches. It is all far less simple that the commercial and economic imperatives that determined the way in which woods like this were used in the past.

Frost on the sheep pasture

2007-12-20T18:28:00.000Z

For the last week we have had heavier, deeper frosts than, it seems, for a long time and the idea that we will be having generally mild winters looks a bit shaky. The picture above is of the fields east of Sedlescombe church.

Here in Sussex this cold is brought on an easterly breeze from mainland Europe and it does make for some beautifully crisp walking days.

Today I was in Hargate Forest near Tunbridge Wells and the clear, cold air was exhilarating. Somehow I always think that these cold spells are good for invertebrates, but if there is an abundance next year I might simply be ascribing it to the wrong cause.

Holly cow!

2007-12-18T20:48:00.000Z

This evening as the frost drew in again, there was a crashing and snapping in the hedge on the west of the garden. It was one of the bullocks in the next door field pushing through the hazel and thorn to browse on our green holly leaves.

Holly used to be an important fodder crop and there are still a few remaining wood pastures known as 'hollins' dotted about the British Isles, mainly in the north, though the famous holly tops on Holmestone Beach near the Kent/Sussex border may be a hollin.

George Peterken (1981) in his Woodland Conservation and Management says "Holly was once cultivated as a source of winter feed for livestock". He says further "Since wood pasture was fundamentlally a system for reconciling the existence of trees and grazing animals on the same ground, it is legitimate to regard hedges and hedgerow trees and surrounding pasture fields as a form of wood pasture."

As wood pasture is a UK HAP Priority Habitat I shall never look at our front hedge in the same way again.

Of no ecological worth?

2007-09-03T22:14:00.000+01:00

A small piece of Sussex that has been deemed by 'ecologists' to be of no wildlife value and therefore a good place on which to build a few houses.

Well, people do have to live somewhere and I find it difficult to decide where the balance of virtue lies. I suppose I want the best of all possible worlds: people with the homes they want and need and plenty of space for wildlife. Maybe we should all become smaller - a good project for the genetic engineers. Roll on Lilliputia.

Broadwater Warren

2007-07-08T11:09:00.000+01:00

It is July already and it warm among the heaths, pines and bogs of Broadwater Warren near Tunbridge Wells.

One afternoon I found this pine tree embraced by a silver birch: a remarkable instance of a plant's tenacity. I suppose if the pine were felled, and the birch with it, the latter might send up coppice shoots and survive, while the pine would not.

Later I explored the peaty pools near Broadwater Bridge. Black and stagnant with bright green borders of sphagnum moss and areas of tussock sedge (the plant in the picture), they give a feel of what the Weald woodlands might have been like in the past.

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) in flower

2007-05-01T20:33:00.000+01:00

The flowering of the may is, to some pagans, a signal that Beltane has arrived, that summer has started. I like this as starting summer at Midsummer on 21 June seems rather odd.

So I offer you the hawthorn flowers photographed on May Day, 1 May, in Brickwall Deer Park, East Sussex, England.

Wild cherry flowers (Prunus avium)

2007-04-21T10:14:00.000+01:00

The wild cherries are flowering with particular magnificence this year in the Sussex countryside. They seem especially fine probably because it has been warm and sunny and there has been little rain or wind to shatter the blossom.

Their flowering gives the best of excuses to post A E Housman's poem:

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva)

2007-04-08T18:32:00.000+01:00

Today I was sitting in the sunshine in our garden in East Sussex when I noticed a bee visiting the flowers of wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides): a striking contrast between lime green and auburn.

With its bright orange top and black underside it is easily determined as a tawny mining bee, a species I have not seen in the garden before, though it is common enough in England. Sometimes known as the 'lawn bee', the female digs holes like small volcanoes in short grass areas for her brood.

Bear's breeches (Acanthus mollis) in Hastings

2007-03-13T19:49:00.000Z

In Victoria Road in the Ore area of Hastings, East Sussex, I came across this splendid plant of bear's breeches (Acanthus mollis).

The plant appeared to be self-sown and is clearly in abundant health.

Bear's breeches is a Mediterranean plant whose leaves, or that of Acanthus spinosa, are often considered to source of the acanthus leaf designs on architecture and furniture. Although an alien - it looks like an alien too - it is naturalised in parts of the West Country and judging by vigour of the plant above it might be about to start doing well in Sussex.

Why the plant is called 'bear's breech' I have been unable to discover: others may be able to enlighten me.

Ants (Formica rufa) gathering sunshine

2007-02-18T13:11:00.000Z

I was in Broadwater Forest, just south of Tunbridge Wells (and just in East Sussex) on a beautiful spring-like day earlier this week. One very striking feature was the huge wood ants (Formica rufa) nests that are common along most of the rides.

The warm sunshine had brought the ants out into the open but, instead of running allover the nest and everywhere else as they usually do, they were clustered tightly together in dark patches around the nest entrances. As they were not engaged in any food gathering activity, it would seem this behaviour was simply to warm themselves up before going back into the dark. Maybe they take a little heat indoors with them; maybe, like some humans, they enjoy sunbathing; or maybe they are unaware that the sunlight if February is likely to be of short duration.

John Pontin in his excellent book The Ants of Surrey (2005) says the insulation provided by the nests "retains the metabolic heat of the ants' activity", so perhaps they are gathering sunshine.

Maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes)

2007-02-15T21:17:00.000Z

Walking up Battle Road in Hastings the other day I came across a brick wall with many ferns in the mortar. There was the one above, maidenhair spleenwort, as well as hart's-tongue and black spleenwort.

Ferns like this are not all that common in walls beside busy roads in urban areas and I suspect there is something very fern-friendly in the mortar of this particular wall. Often it is that the cement is lime mortar rather than modern cement, but this wall does not really look old enough.

Anyway, long may they flourish.

Two galls (Andricus aries and A. lignicola)

2007-02-04T21:54:00.000Z

Today I found two galls, the cola nut gall (Andricus lignicola) and the ram's horn gall (Andricus aries) on the same oak twig on the Pestalozzi Estate here in Sedlescombe. The ram's horn gall (fairly obviously) is the upper one.

The ram's horn was first recorded in Britain from Parliament Hill, London in 1998 and has since been seen in Kent, Surrey, Essex and Berkshire, so it appears to be spreading rapidly. It was first found in Sussex (so far as I know) in 2001. Elsewhere it occurs in mainland Europe, but does not seem all that common.

Cola nut galls (Andricus lignicola)

2007-01-14T16:41:00.000Z

In a scrubby field in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex I found these cola nut galls (Andricus lignicola) yesterday growing on some young oak trees. The trees were most probably the hybrid (Quercus x rosacea) between pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) and sessile oak (Quercus petraea), not that I think this is of any significance so far as the galls are concerned.

They are caused by a small wasp and chemicals injected by the female at egg-laying time induce the galls to form, thus providing food for the larvae. The cola nut is a plant from tropical Africa and there is only a very superficial resemblance between it and these galls.

Although described as widespread and common, I have been unable to find any earlier Sussex records and, though seemingly not so frequent as the marble gall, I am sure it is overlooked rather than rare.

Wall screw-moss (Tortula muralis) in Hastings

2007-01-02T19:41:00.000Z

I came across this small desert on top of the wall of the bridge that carries Linton Road across Braybrooke Terrace (where the cars below are parked) in Hastings today.

I have watched plants like this colonise bare stone. Often they start as the tiniest pieces along a seam or crack that retains a little more water than areas nearby, then spread out over a few years to form small cushions. Eventually they may join up and make a thin layer of soil where vascular plants can get a foothold and in no time at all you have a forest.

The cushions even at the stage they are at in the picture are often well populated with fauna such as springtails, nematodes, black fungus gnat larvae and the larvae of the parthenogenetic midge Bryophaenocladius furcatus. All these must be able to withstand long periods of desiccation when the moss cushions dry up in summer.

I have been reading Animate Earth by Stephan Harding (2006) and the following passage on life during interglacial periods seemed to be illustrated by these mosses: "Plants grow well in the new high carbon dioxide atmosphere. They send their roots deep in search of nutrients, cracking open rocks with sheer brute force and with the subtle but relentless dissolving powers of their acidic chemical exudations. One can almost hear the gentle grinding noise of the increased weathering as plants all over the planet pummel and pulverize the rock, releasing nutrients on a scale unknown during the time of ice. Myriads of phosphorus, iron, silicon, calcium atoms are captured by plant roots to be sucked up into the growing green biosphere which, in its heedles growth, draws out more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

Wrinkled crust fungus, Phlebia radiata

2006-12-23T19:28:00.000Z

I found this Martian landscape of a fungus when I was collecting firewood in the garden today. Usually it grows on oak, but this was on dead rowan branches.

A deer in sheep's clothing

2006-12-18T20:08:00.000Z

In the fields of the Dudwell Valley east of Heathfield in East Sussex there are many fallow deer and, from time to time, they like to graze with the sheep.

This is classic Rudyard Kipling country of the High Weald opposite Pook's Hill where Puck resides.