Wrotham village

Several Fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, my first of the year in The Bull car park, and then again by The Rectory. Blue tits in the trees down St Mary's Road. Blackbirds there and also particularly at dusk along Kemsing Road.

Some lovely houses such as for example Wrotham Place by the East of St Mary's Road, and the old oasthouses at the start of Kemsing Road, Wealden Hall.

Lovely sunset from the hill first of all and later from the eastern side of the playing fields.

Hadlow village

Lovely sound of a Great Tit in song in the birch behind number 7 Maltings Close.

A sunny Leybourne

A nice view of a Goldcrest and a possible Chiff-chaff. A slightly tatty Jay, but good close-up views.

Fungi in the garden

I found three fruiting bodies of White Saddle, Helvella crispa, where there was a lot of leaf litter near the Norway Maple and the corner of the Beech hedge on the front lawn. This is I understand the commonest species of the saddles.

I was glad to see some very clear diagnostic features. The stem thickened upwards, a rather odd feature, and was creamy and stout with deep strong furrows running up the surface. The saddle was a deeper creamy brown, darker on the underside, with undulating lobes. as this fungus can be very common I have no reason to doubt its ID, although it is described in the Collins book as found in broadleaved and mixed woodlands.

A murky morning at Elmley - or five go mad on the marsh!

There was a very nice trip out to Elmley with the excellent Landscape Management group. Here are some photos from Stephen Langford, including this Northern Lapwing, Peewit or Green Plover, Vanellus vanellus. The lapwing names perhaps comes either from its erratic mode of flying, or from its tendency to drag a wing as it distracts predators from its nest.



These birds, like many others in their family, prefer to feed at night by moonlight, eating mainly insects.

Four students and I visited Elmley Marshes this morning. The themes included habitat creation, funding of nature conservation visitor facilities through visitor income, estuaries (internationally important numbers of winter duck), grazing marsh (rare breeding birds, important numbers of wintering ducks and waders), sea walls, brackish ditches (rare plants and associated insects), wader breeding requirements, impact of worming treatments, microhabitat creation by grazing activity.

We saw Wigeon, Teal, Greylags, Mallard, Curlew, Lapwing, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwits, Kestrel, Reed Buntings and a lovely male Stonechat. Also Starlings, Goldfinches, Chaffinches, Blackbirds, Crows.

It would be very tempting to go and stay in one of the Shepherd's Huts - but I wouldn't want to leave Monty for a night! I'll just have to get up early and make my own way there whenever I want to go, perhaps joining the Friends of Elmley" for a cheaper annual fee (I'll be generous with the donations though!

I was particularly interested in the predator gate - does the investment in this sort of protection a major factor in ensuring the breeding success this reserve is famous for? Its part of the new 8km fencing system installed 2012? to keep fox predation down, a system which this year seems to have resulted in excellent breeding results from birds like lapwings!

The monthly updates have been very informative, and helped to bring the picture to fruition.

Waterborne tree surgery at Leybourne Lakes

On the way out I came across what looked to me like half a dozen brackets of the Blushing Bracket, Daedolopsis confragosa, on a fallen Goat Willow log by the bank of the lake at TQ7058260442. Growing on willow certainly fits, it is supposed to be mainly saprophytic and to cause a white rot on willows in particular, and there was a good maze gill pattern on the underside, rather more developed than the descriptions suggested. Other trees it reputedly infects include birch, alder and beech.

The bracket is tough (I had great difficulty removing one from the trunk) and is described either as kidney-shaped or semi-circular. Other features included the rough surface in the middle of the upper side, the light brown zoning towards the outer parts of the upper side, with a thin contrasting whitish rim, at the relatively sharp edge. I didn't notice any purpling on the top surface when collected, but it was very much there.

Apparently the fruiting body has occasionally been used in ornamental paper making.

On the return towards the car park by the Ham Hill works, it seems that the tree surgeons (?) must have taken to the water to do their coppicing!

A little further along, there were two clumps of plants that could have been Japanese Knotweed, Fallopia japonica.

The Battle of Bossenden Wood

Bossenden Wood is a woodland area on the Western side of the Blean Woods complex around Canterbury. It is infamous as the site of the last pitched battles fought on English soil (albeit by small numbers of men on both sides).

In the battle Tom Courtenay (aka Sir William Courtenay) was killed with 8 or 9 others of his activists, together with two government soldiers (1 by "friendly" fire). Tom Courtenay had set himself up as a leader of a local revolt, attracting local fairly desperate malcontents deeply affected by the withdrawal of charitable payments, and the loss of farm-work due to the rapidly increasing mechanisation of farms, and the consequent threat of the workhouse for them and their families. There was no local charitable giving to support them, as the area was extra-parochial, with no church and no school for the children to go to. The judges were relatively lenient with the survivors, expressing a degree of sympathy for their grievous situation.

This is the Crooked Oak, a local landmark at Bossenden Wood. David Shire said that the name probably represents the summit of the hill where a succession of one or several oaks have got wind-damaged over many years. It seemed to be more like Quercus petraea than Quercus robur, purely from the apparently petiolate leaves.

In the picture above you can see the point where the large branch pictured below has been ripped from, apparently quite some considerable time ago.

The general vegetation around appears to be at least in part Sweet Chestnut, Castanea sativa, an Archeaophyte species, commonly  managed as coppice or "spring" (spring is sprung??), known in the Domesday book as "silvia minutia". Coppice may also be written coppy, coppis, coppse, copse, copy.

Along the old woodbank, this tree was considered to be a "stub" or "stubb" perhaps acting as a "cant" or "panel" marker according to David Shire, which it may well be, cut at about waist height. Alternative terms for the "panel" are "sale", "fell" or "barrow". However as far as I can see, with my very limited experience, from reading Rackham, it is just as likely to simply be a boundary marker. This tree is a Hornbeam, a very useful marker species, I could only take a wild guess as to how old it was:

This the same stub, from a different angle, noting some failure of regrowth, perhaps of an older coppice stool, perhaps indicating that the creation of the stub form of the tree came rather later:

The asexual stage of an Ascocoryne sp on a birch stump, possibly Ascocoryne sarcoides.

And here is some Candle-snuff fungus, Xylaria hypoxylon. in general it seems to be very variably branched. These individuals are quite dumpily rounded, but you also get stag's horn shapes or quite narrowly rounded tips. The bodies should release either white conidia (when you tap them?) or black ascospores:

There were very good numbers of fungi across the site, including these pretty dark flesh coloured mushrooms growing amongst the moss on this tree stump (pictures uncropped and cropped):

We also found these, which I think are Sulphur Tuft, Hypholoma fasciculare, or one of its relatives: 

Osiers at Leybourne Lakes

Leybourne really is a magical place, despite the pipeline they are putting in across the site by the "Ocean" lake at the near end, and the new paper recycling mill being constructed at the far end of the lakes by the river.

I was trying to look at the willows more carefully, separating the White and Crack Willow trees, but as I looked, it was becoming much more obvious how much Common Osier, Salix viminalis (L.), there is around the site. These are generally multi-stemmed shrubs or small trees rising to about 3 or 4 times my height, much smaller than the taller other trees of the genus here. There are reasonable numbers at the far end of the Ocean Lake, still with plenty of their long narrow leaves on at the moment, and they seem to be well held very late into the winter. The shrubs all seemed to fit straight Salix viminalis, which is common throughout most of lowland Britain, but it is quite possible that I missed some hybrids, which may be either planted as SRC or rarely found in far-away pockets of the country. Equally, some of the trees near the waters edge had good long leaves over 15 cm long, while other (smaller) trees upslope and amongst grass showed with leaves nearer 8 cm long - just due to competition or what?

The remaining leaves are long and narrow, tapering both at the tip and at the base from a thin stalk, arising from a boat-shaped insertion on the stem over the catkin-bud, linear-lanceolate (to 20 cm long) slightly wavy and almost entirely (untoothed) or completely entire, with an obviously silky hairy covering on the underside, a very obvious soft silver even from a distance, especially when the leaves were dry. The petioles are narrow, very pubescent and often partly or even wholly canaliculate on the upper side. It is difficult to see how this can be distinguished from the matted tomentose nature of Salix elaeagnos without having seen those leaves, but the so-called appressed nature of the hairs may imply they are shorter and smoother as well as being presumably laid flat in their complete coverage over the lower surface.

I couldn't see any hairs on the top of the leaves, there are reputed to be a few scattered there, but it is actually very late in the season. The stipules, when present, were linear, (reputedly often falcate) about 10 mm long. They were not however regularly (or uniformly) caducous, a feature which may just apply to the weaker shoots..

The margins of the leaves were very clearly turned down or revolute along the majority of the length, and this was particularly notable as the leaves dried over the day or two in the house before I got to look at them in detail. The margins were wavy, going up and down in the vertical plane regularly along the edge of the leaves. Some sections of the leaf margins appeared to show slight crimping as though they were showing the early stages of the gall midge attack, Dasineura marginemtorquens. There were wingless aphids commonly, evidence of leafhopper feeding, and willow rust everywhere on the undersides of the leaves.

The most amazing thing about them is that many of the leaves appeared to be twisted around so that they were almost upside down! Following the channel of the leaf base as it emerges from the boat-shaped structure branching out from the stem and almost fully covering the very gorgeously silky catkin-buds, the channel of the proximal side twists over until it is on the positionally "lower" or "outer" side of the leaf, forming a groove over the now "outer" surface of the leaf, which is morphologically the glossier top. The ridge on the distal side away from the stem equally appears on the "upper" silky-white under surface of the leaf which now appears to be held upwards or on the top or "inner" side in relation to the stem!!  This must be about being linear leaves near the stem, and needs to be checked out in the field, in case they have twisted as it dried. After checking it looked as though this was all due to the way the shoots were being held.

The stems are extremely interesting, remaining rather grey-silky until you get far enough back along the stem that the leaves have been lost, and then turning into a rather attractive glabrous and shiny greeny-olive young "multiple epidermis" as the silky hairs are lost. Lower down in the denser parts of the bush I thought this epidermis turned more towards the yellowish-brown hue. In addition you can see the first-formed buds at the base of the shoot appear now to be much more widely separated than the later formed ones near the tip, as well as being much smaller and quite dormant in appearance. Is this due to rapid shoot extension early in the season? The pith inside the shoot is filled with a quite tightly packed fibrous material, the structure of which appears to be pre-adapted to the flexible but still tough nature of the osier wands!

The silky part of the stem is pierced occasionally by beautiful low-lying (i.e. below the level of the surrounding epidermis) chestnut-red lenticels, with a central channel. As the stem matures, the corky cells in the lenticel develop and grow further, pushing the lenticel up above the level of the stem surface now covered in the developing glossy young "multiple epidermis", so that you get a tiny chestnut-red raised welt on the new surface, on which the channel is less obvious. I'd rather not call the glossy surface bark as yet!

I haven't looked at the main branches and trunks as yet. Photos hopefully to follow. The general outline of the shrubs/trees may be narrow, truncate or rounded. Growing osiers for basket making is a very interesting industry! http://www.harpenden-history.org.uk/page_id__125.aspx

It may have been widely planted in the UK, especially in N and E, and may also be an Archaeophyte, despite its widespread distribution, possibly having originated in the river systems of Russia and having been spread westward with man. It may be quite genetically uniform, fitting in with this, but may have several varieties, including one known as var. linearifolia, although this can also be created by neglect or a difficult growing environment.

The calm after the storm at Cliffe

Between about 12 and 4 pm, say 2 hours birdwatching and 2 hours walking.

Found, with help, a female or perhaps more likely an immature Scaup in amongst the many Tufted Duck on Elf Pool. Lots of other duck, with Pintail rather less obvious, and many more Pochard. Over 1200 Teal I was told, and very good numbers of Wigeon. Others included upending Shoveller, Mallard, one definite Gadwall, three Goldeneye, Clangula bucephala. Coot, a couple of Moorhen, perhaps a dozen Snipe seen temporarily flushed, about a dozen Black-tailed Godwit. Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe. Cormorant.

Many more Grey Plover today and I thought many more Dunlin as well - went off as I approached Flamingo. Avocets, Lapwings, a few Redshank, a couple of Curlew. I had seen quite a few Ringed Plover earlier. Great Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Black-headed Gulls. One Grey Heron and Little Egrets.

Possible Redwing, certainly Blackbirds, Long-tailed Tits.

Marsh Harrier, Barn Owl hunting. Possible Sparrowhawk.

Storm force Cliffe

Very blowy with the wind carrying a bite warning of winter to come! Between about 12 noon and 3:30, very occasional raindrops.

On Radar, a lot of Coot, Great Crested and Little Grebes, Mallard, Shoveller, Tufted Duck, Pochard, Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew.

Behind Flamingo, a pair of Marsh Harriers (well, one male, one female) the female being mobbed by a small hawk, a merlin maybe.

On Flamingo 1200 or so Dunlin, 2 Little Stint, 50+ Ringed Plover, 40+ Grey Plover, 1 Golden Plover, 6 Curlew, 2 Knot possibly, 3 Black-tailed Godwit, more Coot, Grebes and a few Black-headed Gulls.

I might have seen half a dozen Redshank over Elf, I couldn't be sure. I missed a Raven over Flamingo, while I was concentrating on the BTO curlew/whimbrel video.