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!

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!