As an ecologist and biodiversity researcher and recorder, the author visits a wide range of rural and urban habitats mainly close to his home in Sedlescombe near Hastings, East Sussex, UK. The weblog covers the full spectrum of wildlife, from mammals to microbes. As well as details of encounters with England’s flora and fauna, information on where to see species of interest is often given.
Mr. Richardson was our part-time gardener when we lived at the Green Walk in Chingford, north London in the 1940s. He used to come round a couple of times a week for an afternoon’s jobbing work. As a small boy I would often ‘help’ him with his rather set routine. He would cut the large back lawn with a huge push mower that purred over the grass leaving it beautifully striped with silvery and…
My first trip to Scotland was when I was sixteen. At the end of the summer term I was asked not to return to Lancing College, my boarding school, as I was deemed ineducable. My parents didn’t really know what to do with me but, somehow, my mother learnt of adventure training courses run by the Scottish Council of Physical Education (now Sport scotland) at Glenmore Lodge a Highland centre near…
For details of varieties I am growing see end of this post Ribes is the scientific name for plants of the currant and gooseberry family. Ever since I was a child I have had an interest in these plants. It started at The Green Walk in Chingford (north east London) where my grandparents lived and to which I was a frequent visitor, staying there for much longer periods after my father went into the…
I tottered round our dank and droopy garden this Boxing Day. In the summer we grew, quite successfully all sorts of vegetables on old hay bales. Any remaining were recently covered in snow. The line oif leaves is garlic - Donetsk Red from the Ukraine and I think they should survive the winter well enough. Under the snow in front of them is a line of very hardy corn salad (or lamb's lettuce) which…
1 May 2022. I normally take a walk every day ranging through field, wood, lanes and footpaths within about half a kilometre of home (TQ782188). I always take the camera and usually find something to photograph. Here I thought I might try a sort of daily picture diary. Germander speedwell (below) in flower is now quite abundant. The name 'germander' comes from ancient Greek, via Old French and Old…
April this year has been very dry (the forecasters say we have only had about one third of the expected amount) and some of the plants locally have been showing signs of stress due to lack of water. Insects have been scarce, though I have seen the usual spring butterfly species: red admiral, brimstone, large white, orange tip, peacock, speckled wood and comma (below). Some other interesting…
1 March 2022 It has been a generally rather cold and drab start to the month with the mood not being helped by Russia's war on Ukraine. I am lucky in having a small area of wood, lane and field to enjoy away from the news. In his speech to the Commons on 8th March Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his people would fight in the fields, the forests and on the riversides perhaps indicating…
9 February 2022 . Although the daytime temperature has been hovering between 9 and 12 degrees, I managed today to do some useful work in the garden. Quite suddenly snowdrops have appeared on the far side of our lane and there are several lesser periwinkle flowers by the pond. I pottered about in the Square Metre, propping up the Cotoneaster franchetii and pruning hazels, oak, holly and hornbeam…
31 January 2022 The end of a cold, dry month though with few frosts, all of them light. The lack of any significant rain for many days is, I think, affecting wildlife locally. Hazel catkins seem slower to expand, I have seen no celandine flowers, fallen leaves remain on the woodland floor like a fluffy, dry eiderdown. Still, there have been plenty of things to see and record. We have several…
It is warm but a thin mist hangs over the countryside on this last day of March. The forecasters say it is partly composed of dust from the Sahara desert. Here is the view from Churchland Wood across the plough to the distant Fairlight ridge buttressing against the sea. Birds are now very active nest building and, as I sit at my lap top, I can see the magpies coming and going from their nest in a…
In an obscure corner of the garden the light caught a small conifer maybe 5cm tall. An adventurous seedling that is probably a yew, but possibly something else . The leaves go all round the central stalk, though I expect this is just a characteristic of a seedling. In Bean's Trees and Shrubs it says of the mature plant "l eaves spirally attached to the twigs, but by the twisting of the stalks…
Tana put some scraps out on a log just outside our back door the other day and it was not long before they attracted the attention of a vole, a bank vole, Microtus glareolus, kindly identified by British mammal expert Dr Mark Hows (It is not easy to distinguish them from field voles, Myodes agrestis.) It was a very nervous animal but I was just able to take a snap of it through the rather smudgy…
Still a windy day but quite pleasant, though cool, in the sunshine. I noted several 'heralds of spring ' in flower today - lady's smock (below), alexanders and, above, early dog violets ( Viola reichenbachiana ). Tana saw some wood anemones while on a walk. Our colony of Tenby daffodils continues to look in good condition and, unlike other daffodils locally, have been unaffected by the recent…
There is some hopeful anticipation that the current boisterous weather will win the next storm name on the 2021 list - 'Evert' (a short form of the German name Eberhard most frequently used in Sweden and The Netherlands). Here the wind came in strong gusts overnight and during the following day, with heavy rain showers. Sitting down the garden in the middle of the day, I was surprised that I could…
Underneath a large wild cherry tree ( Prunus avium ), in a small open area enclosed by protruding roots, I found a large horde of cherry stones. Each one had a hole chewed in the top. These holes had been made by a wood mouse, or mice, ( Apodemus sylvaticus ) to extract the kernel within. In summer the ground beneath this tree is strewn with fallen fruit and I wondered if the mice had collected…
In February and March 2021 I read The Sea View Has Me Again. Uwe Johnson in Sheerness , a large book (733 pages) by Patrick Wright that plaits the life of the eminent German writer Uwe Johnson with a description of the past and present of the Isle of Sheppey in general and Sheerness, one of its main towns, in particular. Uwe Johnson was born in Kammin on the Baltic coast in German Pomerania, (now…
The old sallow tree in the middle of the garden died last summer and is now sporting a fine crop of Daedaleopsis confragosa the thin walled maze polypore or blushing bracket , the second name referring to the pores (botanically described as 'daedaloid') on the underside that 'blush' pinkish if they are pressed with a finger. The fungus is often found on willows and sallows ( Salix spp.) but also…
Enchanter's nightshade ( Circaea lutetiana ) is once again flowering here and there in our garden and local woods. It is a small and modest plant with delicate pink and white flowers followed by small burrs, each containing a seed, which cling to one's trouser legs. It appears to have very few virtues as an edible or medicinal plant but most people wonder how it came by its mysterious English…
I seem to have been doing well with hornbeam leaves this year, especially as they do not normally seem to produce anything very exciting. My first discovery was the tiny galls of the mite Aceria tenellus in the axils of veins in several leaves of the hornbeam cordon in my Square Metre, as well as on the edge of Killingan Wood up the lane. There are only a few records of this species from Sussex…
Part of our garden is carpeted with creeping comfrey , Symphytum grandiflorum . The white, tubular flowers are very attractive to bumblebees and must be nectar rich. This picture was taken on 5th April and the plant had been in flower for well over a month, helping the bumbles to get off to a good start. Most species of comfrey have had many medical applications in the past, but these are best…
One of the most delicately beautiful phenomenon of this rising spring are these arching leaves of wild onion ( Allium vineale ). It seems to me an uncommon shape in our British flora. These are just outside my Square Metre project and I think they may produce heads of bulbils this year. The first wild onions appeared under the medlar tree a short distance away many years ago where their bulbils…
Churchland is roughly the area I can reach on foot from my home. Further details will follow but my general intent is to make it a series of searchable notes on the small part of the High Weald lying to the north of Sedlescombe Street. My house, South View, is close to the centre of a rough pentagon of tarmac roads at OS grid reference TQ782188. It is on Churchland Lane which runs as a unmade road…
The photo below shows many of the features in the Second Meadow that are mention in this post. The stone row just to the left of centre is Cynthia's Ridge. Travelling clockwise the flat area to the right is the Dust Bowl. The dark circle at 3 o'clock is Second Meadow Pond. Just below this is the singled Eastern Dandelion just above the ragwort plant both growing in what I call Conservation Lawn.…
Despite the dry weather the fungus season seems to be starting with species like this petticoat mottlegill Panaeolus papilionaceus (the pair on the right) popping up in Churchland Fields, Sedlescombe (TQ7818). It has been an exceptionally good year for flowers on the gladdon (aka stinking iris ) Iris foetidissima that is becoming increasingly abundant in our garden. Such a rich flowering should…
13 June 2019 I found a bud on the small-flowered sweet briar , Rosa micrantha . I had not expected it to have any flowers this year and it is very late. 14 June 2019 The more westerly of the two dandelion plants consists of two rosettes. Myathropa flora rested on vegetation in the shadowy back of Submespilus Assart. This sometimes known as the Batman hoverfly because of the pattern on the thorax…