Big Bud on Hazel

The buds of Hazel, Corylus avellana, are sometimes slightly pointed but are still characteristically Hazel, including the slightly fringed scales to the bud.

This bud is infected with Phytoptus avellanae, the Hazel Big Bud Mite, an Eriophyid mite. The highlights in this picture have been darkened a trifle. On the twig I think you can see the two types of hair found on Hazel shoots and petioles, the bases remaining of the silky silvery hairs, together with the stiffer, more bristly, maybe glandular, reddish hairs. The bud still has the silky fringes to the scales characteristic of Hazel. According to Wikipedia, two forms of P. avellanae exist, a gall causer and a vagrant form that has a more complex life-cycle and does not form galls

Cricket bat willows

I think I've found some cricket bat willows on the far side of the River Medway to the South of the parish boundary. There seems to be a short almost avenue (although the tree to the front of the group on the left hand side is actually an oak I think). The trees to the right are what I think to be genuine Cricket Bat Willows, usually referred to as Salix alba var. caerulea (Sm.) also known as a cultivar 'Caerulea', much more upright, with branches soaring upwards at an angle of between about 20 to 40 degrees (narrower than the type) from the more or less vertical trunk (although this particular one has been cleft into two, and would certainly be useless for bat manufacture).

Here is a close-up of some more of the trees on the right, ones with straighter trunks. You can start to get an idea of the ruggedly furrowed bark on the trunks, even at this distance. They are in a fairly typical "willow" environment, with the trees' roots half in and out of the roadside ditch.

This is a closer shot of the bark at about chest height, which is described for Salix alba in the Collins Tree Guide as "dark grey; rugged, criss-crossing ridges". It sort of seems to fit, although any decision on these colours can be a real snare and delusion. In fact this bark looks to me in close-up perhaps to be a mid-brown, but largely covered in grey lichen! If so, my ID here may be at error. However good old Clapham, Tutin and Warburg have the description of the species' bark just as "greyish, not peeling, fissured, the ridges forming a closed network". Wikipedia has the bark as "greyish-brown", even better.

Making cricket bats out of the trees is not so easy, and I doubt any of these trees would be much use. Here is a clear description of how it is done.
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/practical-guides/cricket-bat-willow/

And here is more information on grading clefts for bat production, including the vexed issue of grain number - http://www.middlepeg.com/cricketbatwillow.htm. The trees for commercial bat production have to be grown carefully in a controlled plantation, and are harvested at between 15 and 30 years old:

Clearly at least one thing has gone wrong with this trunk below, resulting in a whole clump of stems springing out of what might be some small bolls on the left hand side, and a definite kink in the trunk. These won't be any good for making cricket bats! Commercially produced trees have to have any small side-shoots growing out from the straight trunk rubbed out - at a very early stage!

It's interesting to make the link between the trees and the finished product, as Milton Keynes Parks Trust have done here: http://www.theparkstrust.com/downloads/plants-and-trees/general/Making%20bats%20from%20cricket%20willow.pdf

In fact almost all trees commercially produced in England are from East Anglia, the majority of which are produced by J. S. Wrights of Great Leighs, Essex. Most of the clefts are exported to the Indian subcontinent where they are turned into bats - only a very small specialist industry of bat manufacture actually remains within the UK as seen in this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRc4QoRJDDo. Presumably then the finished bats are returned to England for sale in local shops, such as Kent Cricket Direct in Southborough.

Going back to the trees growing along the road to Hartlake, the young shoots are reddish-brown, particularly on their tops, but can look greyish in some lights - due to small short hairs covering the surface? Two year old stems are an olivaceous colour, clearly contrasting with the browner younger shoots.

Willows are also probably very useful for wildlife - here you can see what are probably beetle exit holes in the heartwood, exposed in this knotty wound. The surrounding lichens are also interesting!

This particular tree is probably also quite useful for wildlife:

And I think I may not be the only person (not surprisingly, they are SO interesting) blogging about willows!
http://blueborage.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/willows-and-water.html

Leybourne Lakes

Barden Lake on a muddy drizzly day

Four drake Pochard, and a juvenile Herring Gull today

Pleurotus by Lady Baggot's Drive

Just that I'm afraid. I kept on trying to make it Pleurotus cornucopiae, but I think it was probably just Pleurotus ostreatus.

Found on a trunk lying horizontally near the edge of the woods next to the field margin, above Lady Baggot's Drive near Bontuchel. 

Dunlin feast at Cliffe pools

A few thousand Dunlin roosting at high tide, several hundred Black-tailed Godwit, fifty or so Grey Plover, maybe a dozen Redshank, one or two Avocet, about a hundred Shelduck, nearly a hundred Tufted Duck, a score or two of Teal, half a dozen Goldeneye, Clangula bucephela, a few Gadwall, at least two Little Egret, dozens of Black-Headed Gulls, about a dozen Herring Gulls with two Lesser Black-Backed gulls out on the Thames, three or more flyover Cormorants.

Three Pipits by the Sea Wall.

A great day, I got quite chilled by Flamingo Pool and on on the sea wall

Sunny Whetsted

Treecreeper, blue tit, great tit, reed bunting, chaffinch, robin, a possible snipe, tufted duck (one female with white spot on face) mallard, black-headed gull, common gull, Larus canus, lesser black-backed gull, possibly graellsii, swans, coots, cormorant (one in breeding plumage), great crested grebe, little grebe.

On the way back there were two robins singing from the tops of the poplars by the side of the apple orchard leading to Kelchers Lane. Here is one of them:

Wing patterns of Black-headed Gulls

This Black-headed Gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, clearly shows the white triangle on the far wing. This is supposed to only cover four feathers. However - it does look as though the outer web of P6 (as well as P7) is actually white rather than grey. Most books talk about the white triangle only extending over P10-7, the four feathers stated above. Note however the wide spread of the wing - normally the grey portion of these webs might be hidden? 

This bird also looks as if P6 is at least half white. It doesn't look too rare to me?

Here again the outer half of P6 looks white to me, at least on the right hand wing. And I still haven't understood how the underside of the wing can differ from the upperside:

This bird on the other hand appears to be entirely white on P10-P7, and nothing after that!

Birthday bash at Barden

I managed to get a few more pictures at Barden today, and I was a bit luckier with flying birds. Here is an adult that doesn't seem to have started its head moult at all yet.  The wings are quite blurry - I'm not sure if this is due to a shallow depth of focus, or to the speed of the wing movement:

Here is another, still at roughly the same stage of moult. The bill is also still quite orangey, or at most a medium red, rather than the breeding dark red. There could just be a black line along the outside top of P8, and see the picture a further two down for possible confirmation.

Moving on to another bird now, this one partly through the head moult

This is another bird, at about the same stage of the head moult, but one of the best candidates for a second winter bird that I have seen, with really clear black lines along parts of the edges of P7, P8, P9 and P10:

And here is a first winter bird for comparison - note the almost complete black lines along the edges of the outer primaries, together with the typical patches of brown and sooty black along the coverts. Note the very yellow orangey bill:

This first winter bird below (different to the one above) is showing two white tail feathers, T1 and T2. This can occur, according to Olsen, as an early part of the spring moult to summer plumage, although in this case this would be an early example, and apparently prior to any head moult in this particular individual. Morg of Morgithology mentions seeing something like this in 2010, but was also unsure of a definitive explanation. These particular white feathers look as though they are projecting out further than their dark-tipped neighbours.

Trying out the long lens at Barden

This is a first winter Black-headed Gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus and you can see the typical black lines extending forwards on P10 and P9, and the brown carpal/tertial splodges. 

This is the same bird a moment later, this time at the point of landing a second time, showing incredible wing angles as the bird slows down, as well as the obviously orange bill and legs.

Here is a Common Gull, Larus canus, facing up to an adult Black-headed Gull on the left. Intriguingly on the Black-headed Gull, the P7-P5 black wingtips are showing white tips themselves on the upperwing, said to be a feature of fresh feathers, and thus indicating a survival from last autumn's moult. These are rather parallel to the white tips of the corresponding feathers seen in the Common Gull. Behind the adult Black-headed Gull is what MIGHT be a second winter Black-headed Gull, showing the black lines running along the edges of P6 and P7 - unless this is actually an "angle" thing, and maybe even bit of a snare and a delusion.

The bird below is a first winter, with two completely white newly moulted feathers in the middle of the tail (T1) , breaking the juvenile pattern of the brown-black sub-terminal tail bar extending across most of the width of the tail. The central feathers also seem longer - because they are fresh and not worn? Some birds do include these two central tail feathers in the partial moult to first summer plumage (Olsen and Larsson). All the other tail feathers have to wait until the full moult in summer-autumn! You can also see some white on the underside of P7 and P8, and the clearly orange colour of the bill at least.

As in one of the photos above, this Black-headed Gull shows the small white tips to the primaries still showing from last autumn's main moult, despite the very blurry photo. Quite a few birds are still showing these, but this may change over the rest of the year as these feathers wear away slightly, until we reach next year's moult (in July - October).

Here are the white patches within the dark of the underside of primaries again, but I think it would be useful to look at some specimens in the hand to fully understand these colour shifts and the variation within them. The white tips to the feathers from last autumn's moult can also be seen again!

These two adults below are respectively nearly at the end, and nearly at the start of the head moult, which is proceeding rapidly at the moment. You can quite clearly see how the moult starts at the back of the head, as in the bird of the right, and may be nearly complete across 90% of the head before the last areas at the front start to go dark, as in the bird on the left. The white "eyelids" become increasingly prominent of course as the background of the rest of head goes dark.

Two further stages in the head moult! The moult to the summer breeding plumage is a partial moult, only involving the feathers of the head and body.

This is a better shot than some of the above, with an adult showing the upper wing pattern really quite clearly. Note the "ruffle" of possible back-thrust (about to stall?) along the inner shoulder as the bird breaks abruptly to a halt ready to land.

This first winter shows the upper wing pattern beautifully, with the left hand wing sitting neatly over an adult wing just behind it, giving a great comparative shot! See how the first winter wing has a dark trailing edge almost all the way along it, until the wing nearly reaches the body , brown splodging all along the lesser coverts, and sooty markings on the front edge of the wing particularly at the median coverts and greater primary coverts. The dark lines along the outer primaries are also quite clearly visible.

The bird swimming in front (and the bird to the near left?) is also a first winter from the brown on its lesser coverts, and its orange bill.

Here is another view of the upperside of a first year wing, with rather more brown lines along the coverts perhaps - its all very variable of course! Again notice the orange bill. And yes, it is the head and yellow bill of an adult Common Gull in the front of the photo, trying to get into the act.

Barden

Chroicocephalus ridibundus, the Black-headed Gull in flight has such an amazing pattern of black, grey and white on its wing. Here you can see the obvious black on most of the primaries as viewed on the underwing, but the highly contrasting bright white of 90% of the underside of P10 and P9 apart from their jet black tips, with perhaps very small white patches on P8 and P7.

The rest of the underwing is mainly a contrasting dark grey, shading lighter towards the base of the wing, with maybe also a greyer patch nearer the front of the wing, but you generally also see a bright white front line to the front of the wing at the shoulder. 

The last two pictures are of the same bird, and its only in the first of these that you see a suspicion of the white flashes of P8 and P7. This could therefore be the angle of the feathers, with the white from above showing through when the feathers are opened or at a certain angle.

The upperwing is not the same pattern, with a much larger wingtip white triangle for a start, although there are a lot of general similarities.

To learn more, I'd better take lots more, and better, photos! This should enable me to recognise second winter patterns for example.

Here's an old photo from Cliffe - note how the primaries further in from P10 and P9, are both black and white!