Reculver

An inspirational afternoon trip out to Reculver by the Wantsum Channel, on a cold but beautifully sunny day.

About half a dozen Turnstones, a dozen Redshanks, and a score of dark-bellied Brent Geese, Branta bernicla bernicla, over. Several Reed Buntings, one Little Grebe, a dozen Black Headed Gulls with at least one Common Gull, Larus canus. A score of Linnets (one might have had a white flash on its wings), half a dozen Cormorants, one Great Crested Grebe, four Shelduck, one Great Black-backed Gull, half a dozen Herring Gulls.

This is the view across the reclaimed marshland of the Wantsum Channel towards the railway line, and the glasshouses. One of the birders said that he saw a Marsh Marrier in the distance there:

Monty picked up a fish on the path back, and made fairly short work of it, including the head and tail. No ill effects so far.

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.