Clearhedges corner

Last night Richard and I rescued a young sparrowhawk that had hit a car catching a pigeon, and had broken a wing. We took it the vet, but heard this morning that it had had to be put down.

The main part of the morning was spent in sorting out Aaron and Adam who are giving me a hand painting the outside of the house, and chatting to people at Williams Field, the Village Hall and Youth Club. There had been a bit of a kerfuffle and misunderstanding between the Community Payback team, led by the impressive ex-boxer Keith, and some passers-by who weren't happy with the fence clearing operations. Also met a very nice chap, John, from Number 4 Maltings Close, who has a very nice Patterdale Terrier indeed! Monty was definitely impressed!

After a couple of bananas for lunch, it was off to the college for more pre-term admin, its all still at sixes and sevens there at the moment. Finally after a fruitless search for more tins of the correct topcoat in the Tonbridge B & Q, I was free to take Monty out again. Today I tried the Eastern corner of Dene Park, and looked through the small patch of Beeches there, and crossed the road to Clearhedges, where there has been further coppicing since I was last there in the spring, and there were a few Beech trees scattered around this area as well.

In Dene Park the Beech tree in full sun on the edge of the car-park and on the outside of the wood was the one with all the mast - the ones behind seemed to be mainly without mast on them. This is a bit of a mystery as to why there should be so much variation in tree fecundity. A quick close-up search of a number of leaves again showed up the apparently very abundant leaf-miner moth Phyllonoricter maestingella.
There was very little else seen, but there was also just one patch of leaves where the erineum caused by the Eriophyid mite Aceria fagineum was present. This is the most heavily infested leaf I found:

Evidence of the beech leafhopper Fagocyba cruenta, with its white speckling over the leaves, was again found, and careful examination today showed up a few moving nymphs, including this late stage nymph with wingbuds:

There were also some "ghost flies", cast moult skins or parasitised skins. Here are three cast skins of late stage nymphs, again all showing wing-buds. The darker one could I suppose might contain a parasitoid wasp larva?

Turning now to the larger landscape, and crossing the road to Clearhedges Wood, the countryside looks somehow "completed" by the cultivated fields,

and I imagine this may give the houses out here some rather good views:

In most views you can see at least one or two Beech trees, and they are now just starting to turn colour, quite obviously, once you get your eye in:

In the middle of Clearhedges Wood,the newly coppiced area has really opened the view out towards Plaxtol on the Lower Greensand Ridge:

and in the clearing the ground is covered with primrose leaves, and the seed-heads of bluebells,

There were also a few plants of Wall Speedwell, Veronica arvensis, in full flower (Francis Rose has it flowering from March until October!). The flowers are light blue, short-stalked, in an upright terminal raceme

The leaves are clearly downy, and coarsely toothed, overall quite different from the other speedwells I am used to.

So, a short walk but a very pleasant one, to mark the start of autumn!