Down to East Lock

Walked South this afternoon, after painting bits of the house exterior and part of the garden shed, across the River Medway floodplain to the Whetsted Gravel Pits, crossing the river at East Lock.

As we descended the slope dropping down the river terraces from Golden Green on the path towards the lock, I checked the strip of permanent grass at the bottom of the first field, and it was pretty well covered with cats ear, Hypochaeris radicata, supported by a few plants of dandelion, Taraxacum officinale, hogweed, Heracleum sphondyllium, ragwort, Senecio jacobaea and the occasional hawkbit. Overall it made a pretty picture, but there were relatively few insects, just one or two honey bees on the whole area.

It may well be reaching the end of the season, and we had a lot of rain earlier in September, but the weather has been rather dry for quite a few days now. The oil seed rape seedlings in the second field on the path towards the lock are making very little progress and are now showing at least temporary wilting

Once we reached the lock I had a look around the sheltered plants along the bank-side, but again there was very little about.

In the ditches the only thing still in flower appeared to be the common toadflax, Linaria vulgaris,

The little garden next to the lock cared for in memory of a teenage boy drowned years ago in the river just by here was however blooming

Once we had crossed the river I let Monty free in the meadow pasture which had recently been cleared of sheep (we found them later on a field further to the East on the route back)

Again there wasn't much to be seen on the pasture (I thought back to the early summer before the hay was cut, when the grasses were in flower and the meadow browns were fluttering about) but a fairy ring about 4 m across had appeared in compensation!

Its nice to see the fields cultivated ready for next year's crop, and this is the very heavy clay field just before the gravel pits are reached, with no crop showing yet however.

The ditches around the gravel pits have been cleared, and the excess vegetation removed, allowing more light deep into their channels.

On the way to the gravel pits I saw three hobbies, Falco subbuteo, screeching at each other while dogfighting behind the lines of woods and hedges. Fantastic acrobatic little hawks, it won't be long before they are off to Africa! I have only seen a hobby once before, hunting birds on the college farm, so this was a really exciting sight!

Having reached the gravel pits themselves I didn't really see a great deal except the normal waterfowl and gulls, the standard collection of black-headed, herring and lesser black-backed gulls.

On the causeway across the second pit, there was a quite unusual sight for this area, pretty nearly unique to my knowledge, a sheet of lichen "leaves" with large fruiting golf-tee shaped "podetia". This was almost certainly a species of Cladonia, and I think it was either C. fimbriata or C. humilis. The patch was probably about a metre across and may owe its existence here to the possibly low fertility in this made-up ground - a really interesting find!

and then it was time to head back, past the boats anchored by the riverside for the weekend, their owners enjoying their picnics in the fine evening weather,

until we could see North towards the hills overlooking Hadlow, and the promise of a cup of tea when we get home!