Cats' ears on the way to East Lock

I had to drop Simon off at Tonbridge station relatively early for him to get to his London interview with the Institute of Engineering for an industry grant. Then I found myself doing a fair bit of catch-up College administration, and checking on Aaron and Adam painting the house outside, and soon, before I knew it, it was lunchtime and it was time that I collected Simon from the station again to get him back home.

In the afternoon I walked South from Golden Green over the fields towards East Lock on the River Medway in miserable windy weather with lots of rainy squalls. The tractors were moving bulk bins around the orchard as the pickers carefully picked the apples to be taken directly to the pack-house for delivery to the supermarkets, or to be held in cold store for later sale. Next to the upper field the grassy corner meadow was in flower again, having recovered from the close cutting a month ago.

In the lower field the ground had been disc-ploughed, harrowed and sown with next year's oil-seed rape crop,

with the little seedlings subject to attack from flea-beetles, caterpillars and pigeons.

There wasn't a great deal to be seen in the bad weather, and little reason to hang about, but Monty had a great time and lots of exercise!

There were quite a few Asteraceae on the sides of the tracks and on the grassy corner meadow, and the cat's ear Hypochaeris radicata was prominent, with its heads raised on branching stalks up to about 40 cm above ground level. It's fairly obvious how it gets its name, as the leaves are covered in rough silky (and, critically, unbranched) hairs:

The inflorescence stalks however are generally hairless, with occasional small, purple-tipped bracts,

The inflorescences themselves are surrounded by purple-tipped bracts, again generally hairless, except for a few spines on the midrib (tips?)

The inflorescences open out into bright yellow clusters of strap-shaped florets, with the characteristic Y-shaped styles poking out in between. Broken apart there should be scales between the florets, although I didn't know to look for these - another day I will!

It may be that the scales are visible here, at a later stage, in the "clock-heads". However these pappuses (or pappi) don't look as if they still contain the central branched hairs described in Francis Rose, only the simple outer ones - further observations will obviously be necessary,

One critical character is that although the inflorescence itself narrows suddenly into the stalk, the stalk itself tends to widen out towards its top as in this picture (it certainly isn't always very clear in my view, as here),

The outer florets are greyish underneath, and in this particular picture the stalk widening is, I think, quite convincing

The inflorescences seem to be quite popular with bees, and a few, including this one, were out pollinating even in these conditions,

There were also some Bumblebees around, and I think this one is a well coloured Buff-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus terrestris,

Perhaps this one, on the other hand, is a White-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus terrestris,

This one is a little bit more of a puzzle, and I wonder whether it might actually be a cuckoo-bee, and not a true bumblebee at all,

Barden Lake

The rain poured down today, but five hardy souls still turned up for Joan's U3A amble in the wet at Tudeley Woods, and I opened and closed the car park for them. The roads were a bit treacherous and I was nearly side-swiped by a youngster who had completely lost control of his car on Three Elm Lane - he lost the back end of the car totally, and swerved from side to side across the road towards me, brakes screeching, but in the end missed me by at least a foot as I swerved left!

After all that excitement I was looking for somewhere not too muddy underfoot to walk Monty in the wind and rain, so after visiting the bank and dropping an exams letter off at The Judd I chose Barden Lake a mile further on, not expecting anything too dramatic! This excellent Green Flag Country Park has well-gravelled paths and the possibility of a few ducks, so I kept Monty on the lead as I got closer to the lake.

Many of the trees are suddenly beginning to turn, and the path was covered in acorns - do they squeeze themselves out of their cups I wonder, or do they just start to fall, and in either case, what breaks the seal between acorn and cup?

As I reached the lake about two hundred and fifty Canada Geese, Branta canadensis, flew in with a tremendous honking and settled down just off the shore in front of me. What a fantastic flock! These or Greylag Geese can often be seen in the autumn flying in their V-shaped formations, honking loudly, all over the local area as they form their social groups for the winter, and move on and off their daily feeding grounds to their watery roosts at night. This morning I had suddenly been surprised by a small echelon of about a dozen Canadas who flew over me literally at tree top height as I was leaving the car-park at Tudeley - maybe they were looking for an isolated field to feed in, their main food at this time of year is grass or cereal leaves.

In amongst the flock were many young birds, several still clearly in juvenile plumage, more brownish and less clearly marked overall, with brown not white cheeks and still largely orange bills,

In amongst this huge crowd of Canadas were seven or more Greylag Geese, Anser anser, a little bit smaller and overall greyish at a distance. This is an adult bird, with a touch of white just behind its bill.

While below is a juvenile bird, less than about three years old, without the white just behind the bill, a less furrowed neck (the feathers here are shorter and less prominent than in the adult) and slightly less well marked, but still with a remarkably pretty pattern of markings when looked at close-up, matching the ripples on the water around the bird quite neatly:

There was also one very pale bird in the crowd, which could have been a white-fronted goose from its white forehead, Anser albifrons, if it wasn't an aberrant partly albino Greylag, possibly showing crossing somewhere in its parentage with a white farmyard duck. In either case, this bird could well be one that has escaped from a collection and is surviving in the wild, a "feral" bird. A "whitefront" record if it had been a wild bird would be quite something and very, very, unlikely for this inland water and so early in the season, so I really must exclude that tantalising possibility I think!

Even more exciting was the fantastic view of a Barnacle goose, Branta leucopsis, small, compact and neat in amongst the Canadas and Greylags. This may well be the same bird seen close to Hadlow a couple of weeks ago, and even if possibly feral, its still a great bird to see!

Other birds seen on the lake were female and male mallard ducks, Anas platyrhynchos, most of the males still being largely in their "eclipse" plumages as they recover from their moult. This pair was typical, with the male the closer of the two birds, with its yellowish bill,

However one or two males are already nearly in their full winter finery, as with this handsome individual in the front of this trio, who shows up quite well despite the blurriness of the photo,

Other birds seen included these Tufted Ducks, Aythya fuligula, which are definitely still in the moult. Male on the left with his crest, female on the right. Four birds were seen altogether.

These two Great Crested Grebe, Podiceps cristatus, away in the distance, one bird in winter plumage on the left, a slow-coach still in breeding plumage on the right,

Several dozen coot, Fulica atra, including this individual in the characteristic "humpback" stance often seen when the birds are on shore. note the dark legs and feet, and the white bill and forehead of the adult

Moorhens, Gallinula chloropus, again well into double figures, note the yellow-green legs and feet, the white wing flashes and undertail and the red and yellow on the beak, visible despite the blur,

I didn't get photos of the half dozen black-headed gulls or the many migrating house martins and (fewer) swallows skimming and turning about over the water and along the tree lines, feeding as fast as they could for the rigours ahead (another day!) but I was lucky with a grey heron, Ardea cinerea, so here is a sequence to finish off the bird photos of the day!

The park itself is also much used by human fishermen, even in this very poor weather,

and its also a great place for dog-walkers, runners, cyclists and the general public, very well organised and run (ex-Hadlow manager of course) - some of the benches are really imaginative - this one might be a Roesel's Bush Cricket!

its on part of the national cycle network, as a section of the popular leisure cycle route between Tonbridge and Penshurst, Regional Route 12

and of course its in a lovely setting, fairly typical of the Low Weald, whilst only being a mile away from the Judd School!

Dene Park Beech Trees

Today I started off with organising painting the exterior of the house and some Parish office work. I got free at about two p.m. so finally got Monty out of the house for his walk, although too late for the best of the weather. Following up on the Beech story from yesterday, there are several compartments of Beech planted up at Dene Park that must be about 40 - 50 years old (actually the stock map shows that these were planted in 1953, so the trees are 58 years "old" from planting as maidens), so I was able to compare these with the mixed age woodland at Bitchett Common I looked at yesterday.

Looking at the ID features first, the trees in both locations are pretty much the same. One of the things to note about the Beech leaves in both locations are the silky hairs along the veins and particularly in the vein axils on the underside of the leaves:

On the other hand, there was one difference, the trees along the track at Dene Park in compartment two (known to the Forestry Commission 5302c) do seem to have much more beech mast than the trees at Bitchett Common, and this is ripening up fast:

The invertebrate population looked quite similar on both sites, with the lepidopteran Phyllonorycter maestingella leaf mines and the gall midge Hartigiola annulipes galls quite easy to find, as yesterday.

The nearer leafmine is the classic Phyllonorycter, but the one behind could either be an old "released" Phyllonorycter, or perhaps another leaf mining insect altogether. Today I found the Phyllonorycter pupae, so I am hoping to rear some adult micro-moths out of them at home!

The other species that was very common today was the upper leaf rolling gall mite (Eriophyid mite) Aceria (Acelitus?) stenaspis, which is not easy to notice unless you know what you are looking for and are specifically searching from it. However once you get your eye in, its quite easy to see. The edge is narrowly rolled and may be crimped or thickened, and is usually a different green or yellow colour in comparison to the rest of the leaf surface. I didn't see any yesterday but I wasn't looking for it so it may well have been as widespread at Bitchett as it was today at Dene Park.

In addition I was able to find patches of an erineum (felting) on the underside of some leaves caused by another Eriophyid mite, in this case said to be Aceria fagineum. This may very well have been on the underside of the leaves at Bitchett Common as well, but I didn't really look at the leaf undersides yesterday. Distribution today was quite patchy, but there was definitely a concentration on one tree in compartment one, known to the Forestry Commission as "5306b".

Of course it is also important to be aware of galls that are not found, and there are still several serpentine mines, lepidopteran or dipteran, a leaf-eating weevil and the gall midge Mikiola fagi that I have yet to discover on beech leaves. This last is quite beautiful, but I have never seen it.


This folding over of whole leaf sections is not really a gall but a Tortricoid caterpillar that creates this shelter for itself, from which it can feed on the leaf (the holes close-by). How on earth does this tiny caterpillar manage this?

So yet another fascinating walk today, even if only on the relatively small canvas of the inhabitants of Beech leaves!

Bitchett Common and One Tree Hill Beech Trees

After doing the shopping and being treated to a pub lunch at the Bell in Golden Green by Olive, and after the rain had stopped, I got out to some rather special woodland on the scarp of the Lower Greensand Ridge on the Knole Estate just East of Sevenoaks.

Bitchett and Fawke Commons are both Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) because of their sessile oak and beech woodland habitat, which is actually very rare in Kent. The two commons are now woodland, interconnected to the woodland on the National Trust property of One Tree Hill overlooking great views of the Weald to the South. One Tree Hill was mapped as arable and pasture prior to 1911, very different to its tree-covered appearance now. Today I walked mainly in Bitchett Common, finishing off in One Tree Hill. Not many birds about, but at the Northern end of Bitchett Common the peace was broken by three sparrowhawks (I think) "mobbing" and screaming at a buzzard wheeling directly above me - what a fantastic sight (and sound)!

The paths were very slushy after the earlier rain, especially where they had been poached by horses, mainly consisting of composted leaf mulch as much as mud. The slopes were steep and the going a bit tough in places, but at least the rain was holding off now after the earlier downpour. The woods themselves were very dark under the grey cloud of late afternoon, although it did brighten up at about 5:30 to compensate for the sun dropping in the West.

The main tree of interest today was the Beech Tree, Fagus sylvatica, one of the most interesting trees in the UK flora. It requires a lot of warmth in order to produce a good seed crop, and it is said to have arrived late in the colonisation of the UK landmass, and to have only just made it into the UK before the land bridge was cut by the Channel.

Said to be a slow spreader in part due to its large seeds being spread primarily by animals, Beech is thought to be a truly native tree only in the South of England and Wales. It is presumed to be much planted elsewhere, perhaps using continental seed, for example in the famous Beech woods planted to support the furniture trade in the Chilterns - a manufactured landscape if ever there was one.

One of the first things to notice about Beech trees is their smooth thin grey bark, often on very large trunks. Reputed in the arboricultural trade to be a bit fragile and treacherous, losing large branches and falling over far too early, the trees can still be magnificent to look at. There were several examples of both fine upstanding trees and also fallen trees and broken-off main branches to be seen here today. Note the split trunk of the tree on the left, darker than the typically silvery-grey bark of the tree on the right, due to rain-drip or algae I think. However the bark characteristics and the size of the trees alone should normally be diagnostic.

Here is another trunk, again with wet patches and/or lichen I think darkening the bark in patches. Note the slug climbing the trunk about 1.5 m off the ground!

Looking closely at the leaves, which by this time of year look quite tough and dark glossy green, one important ID point to look at is the number of vein pairs - there should be less than 10, or you could be getting confused with hornbeam, Carpinus betulus. If you look at this leaf, you will see 8 leaf vein pairs, so this is well within the Fagus sylvatica specification. Another feature is the relative prominence of the veins at the edge of the leaf. You can also see two infection foci, which might be the start of two fungal infections, or probably more likely, two Eriophyid mite colonies, which should be Eriophyes ?. More of these later.
Although it seemed to be quite widespread here, I haven't seen too much of these mite infestations on our domestic beech hedge or indeed elsewhere, so I don't know whether this is just my inattention, or actually a genuine distribution pattern.

The leaves look very different in spring, when they are a softer much more delicate texture and a much lighter matt green, with long sparse silky hairs, retained through to maturity at the margins. Knowing the leaf vein number will however always keep you on the straight and narrow as far as identification is concerned, and prevent confusion with the otherwise quite similar oval leaves of hornbeam.

Another ID point is the buds, which are red-brown, long and sharp pointed, often called cigar-shaped (again in contrast to hornbeam's shorter stubbier ones in particular). These buds are already well developed now, as with most trees, ready for leaf fall and the long winter. The buds will remain clearly visible through the period of marchaissance or retention of the dead leaves on the juvenile wood at the base of the trees (all the wood in trimmed hedges remains juvenile) over the winter (hornbeam and oak have a similar characteristic) but of course are not available as an ID characteristic over the growing season until next year's buds are laid down again.

Beech is late to burst out of its buds in the spring, one of the latest of the common UK trees, and when it does, the bud scales remnants are often retained, hanging beneath the twigs all season in wind-sheltered areas, as in the lower branches in these dense woods:

A final ID point to look out for from today is the twig appearance with its white raised warts against a notably smooth olive green background:

There are very few other Fagus species around, none in nature in the UK of course, but a few exotic species have been introduced into gardens. A classic example would be the Chinese Beech, Fagus engleri, which can be seen at Sheffield Park, the excellent acid tree and shrub garden in East Sussex. There are however a very large number of cultivars of Fagus sylvatica itself, such as the ubiquitous (over-planted?) "copper" beech cultivars (I like the one that is purple underneath and green on top of the leaves), and the rather rarer cut-leaved form 'Asplenifolia', that I have seen in the arboretum at Westonbirt in Gloucester many years ago, and not since.

Moving onto the invertebrates that can be found on beech, the first to note is the presumed Eriophyid mite colonies noted earlier. Here they are, rather better developed, with the raised brick-red pimples clearly visible over the yellow patches of infested leaf tissue, on a leaf growing out over a track. There is nothing in the literature about these, so I may be mis-identifying the cause of these distortions - and they could be atypical (degraded?) Hartigiola annulipes galls instead:

This may be a different species, with a single isolated colony, yellower and hairier. Or this one at least should be being caused by the common gall midge, Hartigiola annulipes.

This distortion to the leaf is caused by a leafminer, a Lepidopteran I think, that causes this raised pucker gall along the veins, concealing a larva hidden in the leaf tissue beneath. I think this was most likely to be caused by Phyllonorycter maestingella, described on this website and this site as well. When I opened a couple, in each case I only found some slightly sticky frass concentrated in a mass at one end, exactly as predicted, so presumably the pupa had already emerged and the micro-moth departed. I'll need to keep looking, there's maybe a couple of weeks left this year for me to find a late larva or pupa!

This is another leaf blotch leafminer, I think, or possibly a fungal infection!

There were also signs of leafhopper damage, the fine white speckling feeding marks of the nymphs and adults sucking away at groups of leaf mesophyll cells from the lower leaf surface,

This particular leaf looks like it has got a fungal infection, with acervuli dotting each infected area,

With so much to see here I was quite jealous of people who can own houses in the very middle of the woodland - here is the wonderfully named Starvecrow House, entirely isolated in this haven, only reached by a track through the trees: