Dawn Chorus

Tuesday 19th May

Last Bank Holiday - VE Day celebrations, I decided to get up early for a dawn chorus walk, so Oz and I were out by 5am on a clear morning. It's certainly a good time of day to hear a variety of birdsong and early May is when the Dawn Chorus peaks, however the light is not good for photography, it was pretty chilly and I was bitten by midges!

I have had better views of birds in the daytime, especially this time of year when they are busy collecting food for their young and collecting nesting material.

On the way back, a group of Fallow Deer emerged crashing through the woodland, looking for somewhere to lay up during the daylight hours.

You can make out the antlers beginning to grow on the males (bucks) which will be ready for the rutting season in the autumn. Females will be giving birth to usually one fawn in June and July.

I was hoping to get some pictures of birds early in the morning, however here are some I have prepared earlier!

Firstly, here is a Dartford warbler (Sylvia undata), a small bird specialising in heathland habitat which can be quite showy this time of year, otherwise they flit about in the gorse and although you can hear them they become frustratingly difficult to spot! Not the best picture as it was about 40 metres away an the camera was on full zoom.

Stonechats (Saxicola torquata) become more vocal this time of year, especially if you are near their nest which usually low down in a thick gorse bush.  

 

  Male

      Female

Spotted a common Whitethroat (Sylvia communis) singing away on top of a gorse bush which had been burnt in a large fire last year.

They're quite abundant in the summer and sing throughout the day - a welcome summer visitor and a sound of spring.

I have had lots of Goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis) visit the garden this year and they seem to be be doing very well with numbers increasing generally. Such colourful birds with cheerful song which made them popular caged birds in the past.

Finally, I popped by the Great tit's nestbox that I first mentioned on 20th April and which had 6 eggs in a week later. This time (12th May) there was a clutch of baby birds, although it was difficult to count how many as they all squash down as you open the lid. 

At least 6 I think?

Enjoy these wonderful spring days if you can get out.

Heathland views

Friday 1st May

Here's a pretty little plant you may not have noticed as it likes damp heathlands and grasslands on acid soils. It's just coming into flower and lasts all summer.

It's called Lousewort (Pedicularis sylvatica) and you can often see it in the grass on the ride edges though Ashdown Forest.

The birds are in full voice and breeding out in the heathy areas and Whitethroats (Sylvia communis) have arrived from their winter haunts south of the Sahara and can be heard any time of day, singing from saplings and sometimes rising up and descending in flight displays, singing their little hearts out.

One of our resident birds looks striking in their summer plumage and often sits on top of gorse singing away - the Stonechat (Saxicola torquata). They nest low down in dense gorse bushes and if you venture too close, they will let out an alarm call which some liken to stones being knocked together - hence their name!

I've also seen a few Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria) butterflies flying in woodland glades and often settling close to the ground in a sunny patch. You can see these flying up to October and are quite common, feeding on honeydew from aphid secretions.

And here's a weird thing I came across the other morning which is some sort of fungus. It was pure white and quite soft and slimy to touch and had grown following rain showers after the extended dry spell. Unexpected and unusual but not unattractive!

Take time to observe if you are out and about and enjoy nature in all it's wonderful forms.

All the Bs

Thursday 30 April

We can't let spring go by without celebrating the bluebells which are now out in full bloom on the Forest - may be a bit later than in some more sheltered and lower places. What I can't send you is the wonderful sweet smell that a carpet of bluebells gives you!

And here is a close up with a Brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) feeding and you can just make out the long proboscis, a kind of feeding tube it uses to suck up nectar.

This looks like a male as it has deeper yellow colour than the females. I've seen a lot this year flying over the bluebells.

Another butterly I spotted just emerged from its overwintering chrysalis stage is the Large White (Pieris brassicae) resting on fresh sweet chestnut leaves.

One of my regular walking routes takes me past some old dormouse nesting boxes, many of which are in a poor condition as they are no longer checked I expect. However, this one is still complete and they are often used by members of the tit family as nest boxes. This one contained a Great tit (Parus major).

Note the yellow and green "wool" she has used to adorn her nest. It looks like nylon fibre and may have been collected off a jumper from someone's washing line!

I popped by a week later and she had some eggs.

Great tits can lay between 8-12 eggs and so I expect she'll lay a few more before settling down to incubate them so they hatch all at the same time and in time for the explosion of caterpillars she can collect from the surrounding oaks which have just come into leaf.

I also pass a tall Western hemlock tree (Tsuga heterophylla) and every year some bees nest in a crack about 10ft above the ground. This year I noticed they have found another about 4ft higher.

 

It will be interesting to see how long they nest here for this year so I'll keep an eye on it. 

Favourite Trees

Friday 17th April

I have a few favourite trees which I pass on my walks and have known them for years and enjoy watching them change through the seasons.

This old Beech (Fagus sylvatica) has so much character and lots of interesting features. It looks like it has been pollarded - cut high leaving a truck from which numerous new trunks grow upwards towards the light. This used to be common practice to allow cows to graze underneath in a wood pasture and where the new shoots of the tree were safe above the browsing line. This was a great way of producing wood sustainably so it could be harvested many times and beech wood is great for turning and making furniture.

At the bottom of the main trunk is a huge canker where the tree has reacted to a wound or pathogen and created a growth of bark to protect itself.

Walking round the back of the tree is a hole where a branch has fallen off many years ago and the tissue around it has grown to heal the wound. The remaining wood has rotted away and created a hole and a valuable veteran tree feature to exploited by birds, insects and maybe even bats.

I love the texture of the bark here too.

Beech trees often fuse their branches where they touch creating some wonderful living bridges and buttresses  - a feature seen in this other tree which I regularly pass and which is another favourite.

Another favourite is a multi-stemmed Apple which seems to have grown exceptionally tall in a fairly young oak plantation. Usually these are scrubby individuals and so it's rare to find one so tall. Maybe when they planted the oak, they found the apple and left it as in Celtic folklore it is celebrated and signifies fruitfulness and immortality. It probably grew tall as it was in a race for light with its neighbours. For years it had a crystal pyramid nestling in its lower branches but has now sadly disappeared - maybe it was part of a wassailing ceremony!

It has some wonderful blossom too, although short-lived in wind and rain.

Love the trees!

Snakes Alive!

Thursday 16th April

I have a few sparrow nest boxes up around the house and both male and female House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) are fully occupied with nest building now - they have stripped next door's pampas grass (I knew it was useful for something!) and have also taken some the young leaves of a Rowan I have in the garden. It's good to see them back in numbers now as a few years ago they were quite scarce garden visitors.

I was really pleased to see a male adder (Vipera berus)on the Forest yesterday afternoon basking on a sunny bank under some Gorse. This is an ideal spot for them and I have been looking for some since it starts to warm up in March and they get active.

Not the best of pictures as I just managed to snap him before he disappeared in the dry grass. If you can zoom in you can just spot his red eye. If it had been a female I might have missed her as she is brown in colour and much better camouflaged against a dead grass background.

I haven't seen one for years and maybe this is not too surprising as they are sensitive to movement and vibration, so being preceded most of the time on my walks by a 40kg hound blundering through the undergrowth (hardly stealthy) I count myself lucky to see any wildlife at all! 

The crab apple (Malus sylvestris) in the wood is now in full flower, so here's a nice flower picture to finish with.

Blackcaps and Broom

Wednesday 15th April

I'm starting to hear Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) in full song in the woods and scrub areas. This summer visitor is one of the warblers and has one of the finest songs - rich and melodious which has earned it a reputation as "northern nightingale". This is because its range extends further north than nightingales which are also summer visitors from South Africa.

Last year I found a dead female outside my back door and can only assume it flew into the window as it was otherwise unmarked. The females have a brown cap as opposed to the black of the males and hence its name.

I also spotted a female palemate newt just below the pond surface and amongst some algae and she was curling her tail back next to her abdomen and quivering it, as if in a signal. She may have been trying to lay eggs although I couldn't see any nearby in the weed. They usually wrap them between leaves and the eggs stay attached until they hatch.

Plant of the day is Broom (Cystus scoparius) which is another member of the pea family, like Gorse which was featured earlier. A shrub with flowers that look very similar in colour and shape although the stem has 5 angles, no spikes and generally flowers in May and June.

Finally, it is of course blossom time and here is a lovely Cherry (Prunus avium) which I pass on my daily walk and is now in full flower!

Flowers and Stones

Tuesday 14th April

The glorious weather over Easter encouraged more flowers to come into bloom and birds to sing. I heard my first Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) on Sunday morning and heard him again this morning, after his long flight from Sub-saharan Africa. The BTO track some Cuckoos on their migrations to and from the UK and you can read about where they get to at this link https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/cuckoo-tracking-project . If you hear one whilst you are out, you can submit a sighting record from this link https://www2.habitas.org.uk/records/submit-cuckoo-record and it helps researchers understand why numbers are currently declining.

Here's a few common flowers I spotted over the last few days.

As if on cue, this delicate Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) has come into flower and is also known as Lady's-smock or Milk-maids. It seems to have timed it's opening to perfection for its namesake!

This other common spring flower Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea) has just started to come out on the hedge-banks and verges and usually forms little carpets of white.

By ponds and streams the vibrant Marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris) has come into flower and its bright yellow petals really seem to reflect the sunlight.

Sometimes we walk down by where 2 streams meet in a valley and I have seem stone columns here before but not on this scale! Someone with a very light touch and patience has created something magical which was a real bonus to find and I was glad I came across it before the blustery cold easterlies of Monday as I fear little may be left now.

Lichen liking

Thursday 9th April

I found this striking looking Lichen with its antler shaped branches on the path a few days ago.

It's called (Evernia prunastri) and was attached to an oak twig and is quite common and you might find it also attached to rocks, walls and fences. In France it's called Mousse de Chene (Oak Moss) although it's not a moss!

Lichens are not classed as plants as they consist of a fungus growing in a symbiotic relationship with an alga or cyanobacteria which can photosynthesise like plants and produce carbohydrates which the fungus feeds off.

There are about 1400 species in the UK alone!

This one is called Parmelia subrudecta which also attaches to trees in flat greenish-grey patches. It has some moss intertwined with it - possibly Hypnum cupressiforme.

I found this one on a rock in the garden.

This Cup Lichen (Cladonia pyxidata) which produce broad cups from which spores are generated. This a close up so you need to get quite near to see these little rows of coronets.

Remind you of anything?! Enjoy the sunshine if you can and stay safe.

Waterside

Wednesday 8th April

Another member of the Bryophyte group often found by streams and damp flushes are the liverworts and these very simple plants have stems and leaves but no real roots. You can find them clinging to  damp streamside banks by means of modified stems (rhizoids) and form a dense mat of broad fleshy leaves, resembling the lobes of the liver, hence their name. Fossils of these plants have been found dating back 470 million years and provide the earliest evidence of plants colonising land.

Their life cycles resemble that of mosses, producing spores although they can reproduce vegetatively too. Here's a closeup of Lunilaria cruciata.

Continuing with the damp and shady places, ferns are common although part of a different group. 

This one is Herd Fern (Blechnum spicant) and is very common in woods with their fish backbone appearance.

To add a bit of colour, I spotted this in a man made pool the other day which is called Round-leaved Crowfoot (Ranunculus omiophyllus) and spread over the surface of the water. Just coming into flower with pretty little white flowers with yellow bases to the petals - like a watery buttercup.

Finally I was pleased to come across this fresh looking Peacock butterfly (Aglais io) which was resting on the path in front of me and enjoying the warm spring sunshine. A strong flyer and common throughout Britain, it certainly adds a bit of colour to a walk.

Happy Easter everyone and stay safe.

Mini forests

Tuesday 7th April

Often overlooked but no less beautiful are the so called lower plants or Bryophytes. These consist of mosses and liverworts which can be quite spectacular when you get up close - usually on your hands and knees!

It's like a little forest fairy kingdom which you will generally find in wet or damp places as water plays a big part in completing their life cycles.

There are many different species and usually a number of different types can be found in the same community, on top of a old tree stump or occupying a sheltered bank.

What you are seeing in most instances is the sexual phase of the life cycle or gametophyte from which a sporophyte grows once fertilisation has taken place. These tall structures produce spores which are then released to grow into the next generation.

These are the sporophytes of Polytrichium moss  - fine filaments emerging from the "forest"below.

Here's a close up:

I don't think these are fully mature yet and will develop further to produce their spores ready for release to the wind.

Next time you come across some, it's worth a closer look even though it might look like you are saying a little prayer! 

First Bluebell

Monday 6 April

Spotted my first bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) of the season on Saturday. I realise I may be behind some in this respect as in more sheltered spots they have a better chance of coming onto flower earlier, however in a couple of weeks time there should be carpets of them!

The badger set is still very active and huge excavations seem to be taking place as more fresh sandy soil mounds are appearing outside a number of holes. I had a closer look and discovered some claw marks on a holly trunk which was lying parallel to the ground. I can only assume they were made by badgers sharpening their claws and maybe removing all that mud from between them.

Further down the path and in a damp depression which was under water a few weeks ago, this colourful little plant had come into flower.

Forming a green and yellow mat over damp mud, as if to emphasise it's resilience, this is Opposite-leaved Golden-saxifrage (Chrysosplenium oppositifolium) and can be quite common in woods by streams. Another of our ancient woodland indicator species which means they inhabit woodlands which have been established for many years, perhaps centuries.

Finally, a gratuitous picture of a Primrose (Primula vulgaris)

After all, who doesn't love a Primrose!