Fungi on the way to the Gravel Pits

The last minute fungi dash to reproduce continues to impress! In the field of seedling wheat to the North of the East lock, an impressive cluster of small mushrooms has recently appeared.

By the tall hedge that crossed the footpath in the meadow to the South of the East Lock, a clump of what looked like some Pholiota have shot up - but I soon realised my mistake I forgot to get a spore print of last weeks finds, despite my iSpot promise!

Golden beaches at Pensarn

After a very blowy and not very bird-rich visit to Conwy birds reserve, Monty and I went on to the various coastal viewpoints at Llandulas and Pensarn.

There were some good views of gulls at Pensarn itself, which has the most amazing beach, miles of golden sands below the stony foreshore.

This is a black-headed gull, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, close to the car on the stony higher part of the shore. It's worth expanding this photo, as it's a really smart bird close to, with a very delicate grey on its upperparts, a pure white on its underparts, black on the wings with small white spots, and a red base to the beak and orange-red legs. Notice also the white ring immediately around part of the eye. In winter the brownish head cap is lost to be replaced by these dark vertical stripes on the head, very variable from bird to bird.

The word ridibundus means laughing, in relation to its harsh call. A sociable bird very commonly found inland, migratory or resident in the UK, that takes two years to get to maturity, and may then be very long-lived - for example one bird is said to have lived for 63 years!

Spotted at Cliffe!

As Paula left for work I walked down to the village car park to collect the car, abandoned there after an informal parish heads meeting to consider the Youth Club lease last night. It was a misty morning, dank and drear and definitely off-putting, with little chance of an enjoyable walk, let alone any bird-watching - see the Pittswood blog for an even more depressed view of the day and its bird watching potential in Hadlow. So what to do instead?

Naturally I ended up sitting in an office in the College doing gentle and mundane administrative work. I'd gone in fairly quickly after a couple of simple parish jobs, particularly as it was such a misty day and its really not so stupid to be in College if it keeps me from putting the heating on at home! I may have to find another computer to work on though, as I don't want to outstay my welcome with the horticulture team.

At about 11, I looked out of the window and noticed the sun had just appeared - bird-watching could be on the agenda again! So I went back home, checked the post, did a couple more minor parish things, and set off for Cliffe Pools with Monty.

Only when I arrived did I think to check the tide-tables, to find out I'd missed high tide by about two hours. The first birdwatching couple I met told me how good it had been on Flamingo as the high tide had driven the birds off the river and onto Flamingo and the other pools. If I'd checked the tables first thing this morning I could have had that experience myself! Curses, I said to myself, and Monty and I set off to make the best of a bad job! The weather was still fair, no complaints for the back end of November, but it was no longer sunny and had clouded over with a degree of emphasis - it clearly wasn't going to improve again!

We went fairly directly to my favourite bench overlooking the new beach at Flamingo, and Monty was very good, keeping to the path - more or less. The remaining flowers along the route were looking fairly sorry for themselves, and there were no insects around, with very few passerines. The Pochard and Tufted Duck on Conoco were making a good show however - they are such lovely animals, both of them.

There wasn't a great deal around but there were some lapwings showing well on the far side of the new beach, together with a couple of what turned out to be Golden Plover, and three Common Redshank. It was nice to spend some time thinking of the Golden/Grey differences, and I also had a good luck at the Coots, Mallard, Little Egrets, Lapwings, Golden Plover and other Redshanks over at the far side opposite the bench. In retrospect I realised that I did spend quite a bit of time looking at a rather taller, more delicate, faster moving and actively feeding Redshank. Perhaps it was even more grey than brown as well - but that's hindsight! Once I had seen its red legs I simply asked no more questions!

After a while I thought I'd move on, gathered up everything, slung the 'scope over my shoulder (I've decided its not worth putting the scope into the rucksack at Cliffe), and walked up the path with the beach petering out a short distance away on my right. Just then I noticed two Redshanks together, just on the edge of the beach.

One seemed a bit lighter in colour and more elegant - thinner and taller than the first - they just looked different - but both had orange-red legs! At last I thought of Spotted Redshank as a possible and got the telescope out. The taller one was a bit lighter and perhaps a little speckly, although not convincingly so, seemed to have a distinct white eyestripe and darker legs. This was a definite - maybe - possibility!
And then the possibility vanished somewhere under the nearside bank of the little stream. I didn't see it fly off, but this seemed a likely outcome. The other bird remained and I got the birdguide out - YES - the characters I had noted so far fitted for the absent bird. It could be worth a little patience, so I settled down to wait quietly for a bit - you never know! I started to take some pictures of what I now thought of as likely to be a Common Redshank, Tringa.

This one shows the shortish beak, red at the base, the overall brown-grey, including the quite smudgey breast, and the relative lack of an eyestripe, so that the white eye-ring shows clearly.

Here with the bird looking directly at me a whitish supercilium streak can be seen, but its not very distinct. Looking at the beak from the front and top you can see the reddish tinge to the bill where it joins the face.

The bird was quite actively feeding.

Here, taken another second later, it almost looks as though it is spitting the excess water out!

Here is a reasonable shot of the suspected Spotted Redshank, Tringa erythropus.

and here is a shot looking directly at me, in which you can see a very clear supercilium stripe on either side of the face, forming a "white eyebrows" effect.

Whetsted Gravel pits in the murk

The heavy mist made conventional bird watching impossible this morning, but there were lots of compensations as I listened as carefully as I could for birdsong.

Monty me several very pleasant dogs on the walk down to the East Lock, where we also ran into Tom and his Labrador, to Monty's great delight.

I edged out towards my vantage point at the first pit and looked for dragonfly cast skins (exuviae) on the right hand posts along the first causeway - absolutely none to be found. I may have cleared some of them a few months ago, but I wonder how long they last on such posts - do they get washed off?

As the mist was showing no sign of dispersing I put Monty on the lead and headed back to the Medway through the sheep field, trying to take care not to spook the animals. I got to the river having gradually shifted the rather large and dignified sheep off my path, and away from a couple of their favourite salt licks.
On the way back along the banks Medway the sun suddenly broke through, so I reconsidered, and changed course to return to the Gravel Pits. As I tacked diagonally South across Poor's Meadow I came to the southern margin of the field and into the shaw along the banks of the stream. Here I looked at a number of fungi, including this moderately small sized one, several of which were found on a horizontal rotting trunk, most likely an Ash, Fraxinus excelsior.

Its worth looking closely at the detail of the cap while its still attached to the trunk and before I touched it. Fairly obvious and apparent was the clearer white of the edge of the cap. It was this that first led me towards a species of Crepidotus, as this last feature was clear in the photograph of Crepidotis mollis (Schaeff.) Staude in Roger Phillips, and on several photos on the web. However there is a difficulty with this most apparently likely species, which is described as an ochre brown, with a grey-brown margin, striate (do they just mean on the margin?), gelatinous, although drying near-white. Although the cap is very white, it does perhaps look striate overall, and the fibres appear as a darker network at the left hand side, as if perhaps it was in the process of darkening further.

The same sort of pattern can be seen in the picture below. Somewhat more reassuring, there is a fuzziness dorsally to the point of attachment. This is also seen in many pictures on the internet that are said to be of C. mollis..

However there is another possible issue. Most species in the genus are characterised by having either no stem, or at most a rudimentary one. The only exception to this is C. applanatus, which appears too small and delicate to be a possibility.

In this specific example I would say there is at least a rudimentary stem, as seen here with the cap turned over. The cap has not been moved far - you can see where the stem was attached to the bare wood from which it was growing out. Personally I do now think (I have persuaded myself?) that this attachment is limited enough to be described as rudimentary, but it all depends on the definition you use! And it is beginning to have quite a Crepidotus look about it! Perhaps even an almost light pinkish colour to the gills, as in the Phillips picture, if not the description, which is cinnamon?

Well, to advance, I'm going to have to follow up! I shall put it up for the I-Spot system to tear my ideas to shreds, and I shall also try to return to the site in a couple of days to check the colour, and perhaps collect material that might produce a spore print.

Rye Harbour at dusk

After spending the bulk of the afternoon strimming the boat spaces at the sailing club, I headed off South into East Sussex to Rye Harbour to have a look at the new Nature Reserve facilities there.

I was able to take Monty out on the shingle paths and he had an absolutely great time rushing about. As the paths have been separated from the bird areas by pig netting, the dogs get their exercise while the birds are protected from grievous trespass by them!

On the other side of the River Rother the visitors were walking along the beach by the sand dunes

This side of the river the bank is almost entirely shingle, always such a beautiful mix of colours

The shingle is covered by last season's Sea Kale,

The area has always had to be guarded against invasion, while its various shorelines have extended gradually out to see. The latest time of trial was the Second World War, and the pill-boxes remain scattered about the nature reserve to the present day.

Eventually Monty and I reached the far hides, and I chose the one with the setting sun behind it, to try to get a few last minute photos. The islands in the scrape were crowded with lapwings, Vanellus vanellus. Later I saw one Redshank, Tringa and a lovely pair of Little Grebes, Podiceps, just under the windows of the hide itself.

Behind them were about a hundred plovers, which I though might have been Golden Plovers, but couldn't be sure. Further back were hundreds of Herring Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls.

Spotted later on in the middle of the photo were a single Shelduck and one Oystercatcher. Can you spot them?

Here is the sunset over the Lower Greensand cliffs by Hastings. What a great hour down by the sea. I really can't understand any more why people need to travel further than the boundaries of the UK - I won't have enough time to see everything that needs to be seen in Kent, let alone the rest of England, let alone the rest of Britain!

Cliffe pools at low tide, Mid-November

The weather was really rather good again today, with spells of reasonable sunshine and warm and dry whether the sun was shining or not. Common Darter, hoverflies, bee? Lots of LBJs, good numbers of pochard, tufted duck, little grebes, great crested grebes, coot, little egrets, grey herons, redshank, lapwings.
The dredger Antwerpen was off-loading at a rate of knots, and you can see the dredgings being fed from the stern.

and they are then fed up the escalator to be dumped in windrows

Along the seawall, there was a good crop of shaggy inkcaps, Coprinus comatus, of which I took one picture of a youngish head:

On the way back to the car, by one of the access gate-bars, I came across a hoverfly concentrating on a few flowers, which might be a Platycheirus, possibly Platycheirus albimanus. The combination of grey spots and a small dark body points towards the greyer marked species of Platycheirus, and the black shiny thorax with an accompanying black scutellum is a fairly diagnostic cross-check that it really is Platycheirus, characteristics shared only with Melanostoma and Chamaesyrphus. Another nice point is the wing venation, with the long light brown stigma, clearly visible on the front margin of the wing (see further down below).

This sighting, together with another unidentified Syrphid patrolling a territory on the path, was really great as I had thought that the hoverfly season was pretty nearly finished, and I haven't been able to photograph any hoverflies for weeks. I therefore tried to catch this Platycheirus hovering in front of the flower:

It was clearly grey spotted, and a female. The overall shape and pattern looks pretty good for P. albimanus overall. However a word of caution here - the unsettled nature of the taxonomy of this genus, and the overall similarity of the females in general makes this identification a matter of probabilities rather than certainties and therefore somewhat tenuous.

The sternites, overall pattern and face shape seem to fit the pictures on the web - "Wild in Denmark" is a brilliant site for this sort of comparison, with really detailed pictures. The mid and front femora more or less fit available web pictures, but not fully, nor the description in Stubbs & Falk. I would have expected to see a bit more lightness and a clearer orange in these limbs. However this may be partly due to the lateness of the season. If this is a third brood individual, then it may be expected to develop darker shades in the lower temperatures available at the larval and pupal stages.

There are a number of other issues with the identification. The abdomen of this insect is quite swollen, and apparently much contracted in relation to the length of the wings. The wings therefore seem 20% longer than the abdomen. I have seen neither of these features in any of the photographs available on the web. The legs are also proportionately long and spindly. Again I realise what poor photos these are in relation to many others available, and I do wonder whether I should make more use of the tripod in this sort of situation. Incidentally, in the next photo there also seems to be a flea beetle buried head down in the flower:

In the next picture the light brown stigmas are clearly visible, which seem to be seen in most of the web pictures I have seen. Although not in the diagnostic keys, these are useful cross-check features - its always reassuring to find such useful characteristics borne out in practical identification.

17 Celsius at Whetsted Gravel Pits

An amazingly lovely warm day, with dragonflies, a butterfly and other insects on the wing, with small wasps or bees pollinating the resurgent Bristly Oxtongue.

There were a lot of people around enjoying the countryside. There were local dog walkers and strollers on the land, and there were boaters on the water, together with canoeists involved in some long distance race up the river.

and the lock itself was busy

In a more relaxed view, there was a leisure canoeist on the lower stage

and a quiet fisherman by the rushing spillpool

There were also leisure planes and helicopters using the skies

Despite the unseasonal warmth of the day, the seasons were rolling on and the recent rainfall had stimulated at least some late fungal fruiting bodies, even in the arable field of wheat above the Lock

On the way down to the lock there was an unidentified butterfly by the crossing hedge (its nearly the middle of November!) and there were still good numbers of Common Darters Sympetrum striolatum by the gravel pits.

Most of the Darters had found some warm wood to sun themselves on, but others were on dried leaves and vegetation on the ground, like this one on the bank of the Hammer Dyke

They were mainly males (I think I saw about 5), but there were also a couple of females, like this one by the tall hedge between the pits

There were good numbers of small wasps or bees pollinating the Bristly Oxtongue, Picris echioides,

These two close ups show one of the wasps or bees covered in pollen. If pollination is successful, will the seeds have time to form and ripen from these flowers I wonder?

This Common Ragwort, Senecio jacobaea, was also being pollinated, but this time by opportunistic flies

The birds on the gravel pits were generally peaceful (although some disturbance or other drove the cormorants, Phalacrocorax carbo, and lapwings, Vanellus vanellus, from the East pit to the West pit during the course of the visit). Here is a Great Crested Grebe, Podiceps cristatus playing about on the West pit

Total bird list for the day was 1 Canada Goose, Branta canadensis, 90+ Greylag Geeses, Anser anser, 45+ Gadwall, Anas strepera, 18+ Tufted Duck, Aythya fuligula, 16+ Mallard, Anas platyrynchos, 6 Shoveller, Anas clypeata, 5 Great Crested Grebe, Podiceps cristatus, 14 Little Grebe, Tachybaptus ruficollis, 60+ Lapwing, Vanellus vanellus, 4 Common Gull, Larus canus, 110+ Black-Headed Gulls, Chroicocephalus ridibundus, 5 Herring Gull, Larus argentatus, 90+ Coot, Fulica atra, 3 Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea, 16 Cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo, 30 Starling, Sturnus vulgaris, 3+ Carrion Crows, Corvus corone, 8+ Blackbirds, Turdus merula, 14+ Fieldfares, Turdus pilaris, and 1 Grey Wagtail, Motacilla cinerea, by the East Lock.