All posts by Chris Gibson

#WildEssexWalks – High Summer in Wivenhoe’s Lower Lodge

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Good news! The worries of the past few months have been partially dispelled. Our traditional midsummer Lower Lodge walk performed pretty much up to hopes and expectation in terms of numbers and diversity of insects in this wonderful grassland, scrub and woodland mosaic. Perhaps the Rubicon on the way to ecological calamity has not yet been crossed. Eco-anxiety is such a debilitating condition…

It seems the slow start to the season this year is just that, a slow start. Insect numbers were at last approaching normality, and even if some have been impacted by the extreme weather of the past couple of years, at least they can bounce back just as quickly especially if habitat conditions are suitable. And here is the other bit of very good news: Colchester City Council, whose management of the site over the past few years has been rather erratic, seem to have got on top of the task of ensuring each and every bit of the grassland on Lower Lodge has an autumn cut once every three years, thus preventing life being choked out by the spread of trees. They have thankfully brought it back from the edge of the precipice of such a fate.

It was a  hot and sultry walk, and perhaps the most exciting find came right at the outset with a resplendently metallic Rose Chafer busily chomping on Hogweed flowers. This magnficent beetle is as much a natural icon of the Wivenhoe Area as is the Stag-beetle.

At this very moment, Hogweed is drawing much of the insect life in to its bounteous offerings of nectar and pollen, with for example numerous ladybirds (all Seven-spotted) and a good numbers of Hogweed Bonking Beetles, albeit rather few of them actually living up to the full extent of their name!

The other great nectar and pollen source at the moment is Field Scabious, in fact blooming more profusely and more widespread than I have ever seen it before.

Butterflies were visiting in hordes, Essex and Small Skippers in particular, along with a few of the rare speciality Scabious Longhorn moth, another metallic marvel.

  

But much more as well, from the equally metallic Thick-thighed Beetles, the Gargoyle Fly (our name for Sicus ferrugineus!), green lacewings and various bees, wasps and hoverflies to complete the picture.

Around the meadows generally, but especially along the scrub margins, brown butterflies were also in great abundance. Meadow Browns, now on the wing for the past three weeks, were looking rather worse for wear whereas Gatekeepers, freshly out were more pristine. And the Ringlets so fresh that many were still pumping up their wings after they vacated the pupa in the previous few hours.

Both browns and skippers share one feature – their larval food plants are grasses. And grasses are generally drought tolerant, as anyone who has seen a droughted lawn green up after rain will realise. Perhaps this is why these butterfly groups are doing so well this year, when many others are at a low ebb as a result of last summer’s heatwave?

Other plants in flower included Hedge and Lady’s Bedstraws (white and yellow respectively), Field Bindweed (particularly attractive in their candy-striped form) and the start of the season for Common Knapweed – over the next month this will gradually take over the role of provider of pollen and nectar to a hungry world.

Other plants though are at the end of their season, in particular Goat’s-beard, now forming robust ‘dandelion clocks’. In close up it can be seen how the umbrella-like struts attached above the seed are themselves branched and interlinked, together making a perfect parachute for wind dispersal of the seeds.

Life at every footfall, we saw a couple of grasshopper species and a few other butterflies (here, Small Copper) and moths (including the delightfully euphonious Timothy Tortrix), as well as regular fly-pasts by Brown Hawker dragonflies out a-hunting.

We even paused to examine a few of the galls, with marble and artichoke galls on Oak, caused by wasps, and the lumpy galls of Ribwort Plantain flowers, for which it seems the causal agent has yet to be identified. There is always something to learn in the natural world!

Being so hot, birdsong was only sporadic but included a couple of Yellowhammers, along with a warbling Blackcap and scolding Whitethroats. And it was a present from the avian world which provided a suitable full stop to the morning when one of the group picked up a real treasure, the wing-feather of a Jay.

Of course with all this good news, there is always a bit of bad. and for us that was the lack of any sightings of Common Blue butterflies or burnet moths. Usually regular here, they may yet emerge. Or perhaps, as larval feeders on Bird’s-foot-trefoil, a plant that is badly knocked back by drought, it would not be surprising if this year’s adults are fewer than normal. Neither did we see any sign of the magnificent Purple Emperor I saw holding court during my recce a week ago, nor the White Crab-spider or Hornet Hoverfly I photographed on that occasion.

That is the wonderful thing about the natural world: nothing can be taken for granted, and every foray into it an adventure. All of our previous visits here have had their highlights and lowlights, as you can see from the blogs we have published in the past: see 2021,  2020, 2019, and going right back to the start of #WildEssex 2018.

And talking blogs, this walk was the first with us for one of the group, who told us of her wildlife blog Berie Tree – Nature Spotter! berie tree | Nature spotter! (wordpress.com). Do take a moment to discover it and the lovely observations therein, mixed with poetry and other artistic endeavours. The world cannot have too much of that sort of thing!

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: after a summer soaking….

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

After a June with no rain, good soakings during the first few days of July have brought the garden back to life, made lush and green by that which falls from the sky rather than being reliant on unsustainable, artificial watering.

And the other wildlife too, insects in abundance  – more bees and butterflies than I have seen all summer: the warmth and the recent rain have brought the season back into some semblance of ‘normality’. The plants this week doing the heavy lifting of feeding the hordes of pollinators were Lavandula, Eryngium and Teucrium: good for wildlife, drought-tolerant, beautiful (and therefore good for us) – they tick all the boxes! No words, just let the pictures speak for themselves…

But absolute maestro of our floral show was Buddleia crispa on the side of Beth’s house. Six species of butterfly visiting included four or more lovely, pristine Painted Ladies, one of the welcome stars from the south of any summer garden.

#RewildYourMind and #LetNatureintoyourLife: nowhere better to do that than the Beth Chatto Gardens! Visit Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens for more information.

Brandon Marsh: Life after gravel…

Britain's Wildlife

This last weekend, I had the pleasure of taking part in the British Naturalists’ Association field weekend at Brandon Marsh nature reserve on the outskirts of Coventry.

My first time at the site, Brandon Marsh is a flagship reserve of the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust, with an excellent visitor centre and a fantastic mix of open water, marshland, grassland, scrub and woodland, on remarkably what is almost entirely a brownfield, post-industrial site.

Brownfield sites are simply wonderful, supporting an incredible mix of habitats, plants and animals forming diverse multicultural communities reflecting the past history of the site and the vagaries of nature’s efforts at rewilding itself, the randomness of colonisation. I have written about some such sites before, at Canvey Wick and Swanscombe, and to me Brandon Marsh ranks very highly amongst these.

There are the more long-standing habitat patches, of woodland, grassland and marshland, those bits which survived the abuse of the 20th century, in this case extraction of gravel from the Avon valley river gravel deposits.

Those fragments of survival did so presumably by chance, because they didn’t have economic deposits beneath them, but most of the area has been actively worked until just a few decades ago: it is the intimate mix of habitats, old and new, which really sets this reserve apart.

One of the curses of gravel extraction is that the voids created become valuable real estate for refuse and waste disposal. Fill them up and cap them off, and there is the additional income stream after the gravel has gone. But thankfully most of the pits here have not been subject to that. In just one place, called the Tip, is it like this, but thankfully the tip has been finished off with sand and has left with the passage of time some lovely, parched grassland behind. Plants such as Common Century, Ragwort and Perforate St John’s-wort stand proud from the turf by virtue of their unpalatability to Rabbits, while other plants bloom at ground level or seek refuge from nibbling in the embrace of Brambles.

Non-native plants often form a useful, interesting and benign part of brownfield communities, but here, there are signs of what is an emerging problem nationwide: Alchemilla mollis. The new BSBI plant atlas shows just how widespread this has become in recent years https://plantatlas2020.org/atlas/2cd4p9h.9db. But even it is not all ‘bad’ – its flowers are attractive to flies and small bees, and its leaves are always attractive especially when bedecked with mercurial dewdrops…

Some of the more natural grassland remnants are covered in Yellow Rattle and Eyebright, Lady’s Bedstraw and Common Knapweed, and both Common Spotted- and Great Butterfly-orchids.

Woodland too comes from two eras: Small-leaved Lime coppice is ancient, whereas the willow, Dogwood and Guelder-rose community around all water bodies is newly founded by comparison, from wind-blown and birds-sown seeds.

The damp woodlands have a distinctive ground flora of Enchanter’s-nightshade, Tutsan and Great Horsetail.

And then wetlands themselves: flowing and still, shallow and deep, from rivers to pools, scrapes and lakes:

It is in and around the pools that birds are most apparent with for example Common Terns and Cormorants on the islands, through to Reed Buntings and Cetti’s Warblers singing from the scrubby reedbeds. And here too, a distinctive new suite of native plants, from Meadowsweet to Purple-loosestrife.

It is the incredible intermixture and diversity of habitats that give Brandon Marsh its significance: the range of insects is one its more important features. Ringlets, Small Skippers, Red Admirals and Commas were all in abundance…

… the moth trap we ran a produced a good haul, including such crowd-pleasers Elephant and Poplar Hawk-moths and Buff-tip, along with Pebble Prominent and Minor Shoulder-knot among many others.

Other invertebrates included dragonflies and damselflies, reflecting the local availability of water bodies, with Brown Hawker and Emperor dragonflies, Red-eyed and Common Blue Damselflies and an amazing display of male Banded Demoiselles fluttering around the Brambles provocatively as the ladies looked on. And of course much more, from free-range micromoths to Cinnabar caterpillars and Hogweed Bonking Beetles:

One of the great things about Brandon Marsh is that it is NOT filled with rarities: in reserves with rarities, those tend to overshadow everything else in terms of attention and, all-too-often, resources for management, Rather, it is a “cornucopia of the commonplace”, the sort of place that is admirably suited to teaching and learning, as we were, about all aspects of the natural world.

As well as moth-trapping, we held workshops on everything from microscopy to grass identification (here demonstrating the fringe-ligule of Common Reed) and twilight batting for those able to stay awake. That didn’t include me, sadly, and I missed out on numerous bats flying and feeding and also Glow-worms. Another year!

All-in-all, Brandon Marsh is a wonderfully diverse site, despite (or actually, because of) its industrial origins, a credit to the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. Well worth a visit, it proves how nature can heal itself given the opportunity. And that is a hope that all of us must keep alive as such tumultuous, maybe terminal, times of our species’ tenure on Earth.

To find more about the BNA and what it can offer you, please visit our website British Naturalists’ Association – The National Body for Naturalists (bna-naturalists.org)

Wealden Wanderings: exploring some delights of Sussex

Britain's Wildlife

Last week I had the opportunity to spend time in the Sussex Weald (one of surprisingly few times I have been to the area given I have been in Essex for nearly 40 years and the respective county boundaries are as close as only 30 miles) and to visit sites that have been on my radar for a long time.

First up it had to be Knepp Wildlands, an estate of 1400ha that is now the showpiece in the UK for large-scale nature restoration and rewilding since it was progressively taken out of intensive agricultural management from around the turn of the Millennium. That may have been barely two decades ago, but it felt more like the clock had been set back by centuries as I lost myself in the solitude and tranquility, ‘disturbed’ only by the ever-present birdsong and the bill-clapping greeting ceremonials of While Storks.

With reduced management intervention amounting mostly to low-density free-roaming cattle and deer …

… the hedge-lines and tree clumps from last century have started to creep out to instant effect, both for the landscape and the birds: Whitethroats and Chiffchaffs singing everywhere, with scattered Yellowhammers and Bullfinches,  to a backdrop of Blackbirds and Song Thrushes, ample evidence in itself that this is not the pesticide-drenched wasteland of much of our modern agricultural scene.

Many insects also have considerable powers of dispersal, but unfortunately conditions were not especially amenable during my visit as a very heavy storm had swept through only hours before my arrival. And as I have said many times before, this spring and summer in the south-east at least have been pretty poor for insects, probably largely as a result of the larval-frying temperatures of last year.

But structurally, it is all looking very promising. The signs are clear: let the habitat develop and things will start to appear. And especially when the sun came out in late afternoon, plenty of Meadow Browns were on the wing, along with Marbled Whites and Large Skippers.

Plants of course are often slower to respond, as the dispersal of many species is by smaller increments and always more random than targeted. But again, it is early days, and there are undoubtedly many more flowers, along with  lichens, fungi and all the rest, to be found than there were twenty years ago.

It must be tempting to try and ‘hurry up’ colonisation by active intervention (sowing, translocation, introduction etc) but there is considerable value in letting nature take its own course, not least because that is the cheaper option. But inevitably, it is the one deliberate addition, White Storks, that have raised Knepp’s profile, where pairs are now breeding in this country for the first time in hundreds of years.

They are conservationists’ marmite. Many would dispute the value of a feral population that doesn’t behave ‘normally’ ie it doesn’t migrate south for the winter, while others bemoan the likely effects of a generalist predator on beleaguered amphibian, reptile and insect populations. On the other hand, there were plenty of Toadlets hopping around into the new-formed puddles … and I certainly felt the visceral thrill of seeing, and especially hearing, these birds bill-clapping in the treetops, taking me back to many an encounter in southern and eastern Europe.

In the time I had wandering the Walkers’ routes, I covered only perhaps a fifth of the site. So much more there to get to know, and it can only continue to improve, especially when the Beavers start to transform their landscapes. Wholly inspiring, Knepp just goes to show how nature can and will, at least when we are gone, heal itself, and how we don’t need to wait for apocalypse for that to start – all that is needed is the resources, the land and most important the vision. A message for everyone, however small scale – a renatured lawn may be small, but enough of them can be as important as a Knepp.

Next day, it was Wakehurst Place, the ‘country home’ of Kew Gardens. Similarly huge, at its heart is another great hope for the future. Described as ‘the most biodiverse spot on Earth’. the Millennium Seed Bank keeps in cold storage samples of thousands of plants from all over the world. Sadly all too necessary, this is an Ark for the future, safeguarding the fruits of evolution from the ravages of ‘civilization’.

The plants of the UK are very well represented in this collection, and a good number are displayed growing very conveniently just outside in a series of habitat-themed parterres. Heaven for an inveterate photographer of our country’s special and iconic plants!

There are also extensive geographically-themed beds as one would expect in a true botanic garden, but many of them set within unmown ‘hay-meadow’ or ‘American prairie’ lawns…

… before merging almost imperceptibly into the ‘wildlands’ of this estate: semi-natural woodland, wetlands and grasslands.

The grasslands are especially impressive, with several species of orchid along with Dyer’s Greenweed and Saw-wort:

But what really excited me most was the Rock Walk, a gorge cut into the local sandstone, and colonised by now-ancient Yew trees, their limbs and roots enfolding the rock in such a close embrace, it is impossible to tell where rock becomes Yew, and vice versa.

Sadly, though, once again, despite a proliferation of insect-attracting flowers, there was rather little to see, except for Meadow Browns in the meadows (where else?!), Speckled Woods in the woods (…!), and female Emperor Dragonflies laying eggs in the water gardens, together with a lovely ‘cupcake’ spider Diaea dorsata.

Another fantastic (and this time sunny and hot) day, around a place I shall no doubt return to. How come I never knew about its delights before?

And for the final morning, it was up on to the higher tops of Ashdown Forest, specifically the Old Lodge Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve.  First bird I heard was a singing Willow Warbler from the scrub, the first of many. And the only ones I have heard in this country this year – they have now pretty much been pushed out of the the desert-like Essex coastal region.

Add to those the singing Chiffchaffs, Garden Warblers, Woodlarks and Cuckoos, just to be there was like taking a long, hot, relaxing bath in birdsong, spiced further at the end with a newly-fledged family party of Common Redstarts.

Bell Heather and Cross-leaved Heath were in good flower among the fruiting Gorse and stubbornly-in-bud Common Heather, with Tormentil studding the grassy tracks.

Yet again the insects and other invertebrates were few and far between, with Small Heaths, Meadow Browns and Large Skippers the only butterflies….

… but as if by way of compensation, my early start, mainly to avoid the heat, saw the hairs of heaths and webs of spiders bedecked with the morning dew in a most attractive fashion.

Three sites in three days, all new ones to me, and I am sure not my last visit to the Weald.

 

Midsummer in the Suffolk Sandlings

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks

A two-part #WildEssex trip across the border into the Deben Peninsula started after lunch at Sutton Heath in sweltering sunshine, albeit with a brisk, warm breeze.

After the Spring drought, the heath was looking a bit frazzled, although Sand Spurrey, Sand Sedge and Heath Groundsel were still flowering well in places.

Even as we gathered in the car park, a male Yellowhammer serenaded us atop a tree, and shortly thereafter its place was taken by the first of several singing Woodlarks. But other heathland birds save for a couple of Stonechats were keeping out of the heat, and most sound came from Chaffinches, Chiffchaffs and Goldcrests from within the shade of the woods.

In common with seemingly everywhere else in the south-east this Spring, insects were rather sparse, with just a few Small Heaths and a Red Admiral being the butterfly haul, along with Clouded Buff and Cinnabar moths, both typical day-flyers.

A splendid, shining jewel of a Green Tiger-beetle paused long enough on the path for most to see it …

… while the most impressive insect numbers came from the vast hordes of Sand Wasps, more than I have ever seen at one time before, many carrying paralysed caterpillars back to their nests.

Moving down to the coast at Shingle Street, the hat of the heath ameliorated by a breeze from the sea, the skeletal landscape, more moonscape than habitat, was (as ever) dramatic.

Newer, seaward shingle deposits were colonised by Sea Kale, Yellow Horned-poppy, Sea Beet, Great Lettuce and very heavily droughted, barely flowering Sea Campion …

… while the smorgasbord of botanical edibility was crowned by the best display of flowering Sea Pea I have seen for many a year.

Further inland, on the stabilised shingle, Viper’s Bugloss provided vivid splashes of blue, along with pink Red Valerian, Biting (yellow) and White Stonecrops and purple Nodding Thistle …

… and isolated, wind- and salt-sculpted Wild Privet bushes, now in full, fragrant bloom.

Meadow Pipits scurried around at our feet, and Herring Gulls and Common Terns were around the offshore shingle islands that form the distal tip of Orfordness.

Returning to the Sandling heaths, Upper Hollesley Common is somewhat more diverse botanically  than Sutton Heath, with Bell Heather already flowering among what will become the August glory of Common Heather.

Scrambling through the heathers were the filigree adornments of Climbing Corydalis, and the newly minted stems of Wavy Hair-grass were putting on an almost psychedelic show.

A pair of Mistle Thrushes hopped around one of the clearings, and a few invertebrates among the Elder (in full, late flower, a sign of the season), Holly and Silver Birch included Birch Catkin-bugs and a Cucumber Spider, typically hanging underneath its horizontal web.

Then a couple hours off, before the evening session began in thankfully cooling temperatures, enough to bring at least three Woodlarks into full song.

As dusk started to enfold us, the songs of Dartford Warblers, Chaffinches and a Yellowhammer continued almost until 10PM, this being two days short of the longest day.

Indeed the day songs overlapped with the first tentative churrings from the Nightjars, the main reason for being here, which started at 09.40. But after 10.00 the real display commenced: perhaps a dozen churring males, some very close, spectacular wing cracks, and several excellent flypasts  on moth-like wings. Aside from distant traffic, the only other sound a hooting Tawny Owl, we headed back across the tranquil midsummer heath with just enough light not to need torches.

And finally, just a few snippets from my morning before the walk, to revisit the areas, check the routes, and lose myself in Nature: Yellow-and-Black Longhorn-beetle and Cream-spot Tiger-moth…

… sandy arable fields with rich marginal floras, including Common Cudweed and both Common and Lesser Swinecress (note the different seed-pod shapes) …

… and Ramsholt churchyard, a rich tapestry of colour and life, a haven for the things that make the world go round, and a beacon of what all churches, without exception, should aspire to: ‘God’s Acre’, refuge for Nature as well as the Soul, for All Creatures Great and Small.

The Wild Side of Essex: Hockley Woods – Heath Fritillaries and more…

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

The largest contiguous ancient woodlands in the county, Hockley Woods sit astride the ‘southern Essex Alps’, a ridge of London Clay capped with sands and gravels. They were the focus for the latest Naturetrek day trip, searching especially for Heath Fritillaries. I must admit to being worried – this spring has been especially poor for butterflies and insects in general, a combination of persistent cool north-easterlies over the past two months delaying the season by at least two weeks, and the hangover from last year’s record, larval-frying summer temperatures. Would they be out yet? And more worryingly, would there be any to come out?

In the end all was well, albeit our total count of 80–100 being a fifth of last year’s bonanza. The distribution seems to have consolidated back to the core coppice, rather than the outlying rides, despite healthy populations of Common Cow-wheat, the larval food plant, in most of the rides.

Perhaps I should say ‘the normal larval foodplant’: in one new coppice area, with barely a sprig of Cow-wheat to be seen, it was a patch of Foxgloves (in a suspiciously seed-packet array of shades) that  was the focus of fritillary action. As we conjectured, Foxglove is a near-familial relative of Cow-wheat: could it provide an alternative food source, helping to give the butterfly a greater degree of resilience against environmental stress? And then I read on the Butterfly Conservation website ‘Foxglove can be a secondary foodplant, especially on Exmoor.‘

It has been a long, complex story of neglect, extinction, research and reintroduction but we do now have a thriving population of the fritillaries. And now perhaps evolution is playing a part in ensuring its survival into an uncertain future.

But it is a measure of the season that more than 95% of all the butterflies we saw were fritillaries. Otherwise, there was a handful of Speckled Woods, a small handful of Holly Blues and just a single Meadow Brown. So too with other insects – quality rather than quantity. Some of the highlights included a Red-headed Cardinal-beetle, Large Pied Hoverflies and mating Tiger-craneflies….

… Speckled and Dark Bush-cricket nymphs, click-beetles and dance-flies…

…a Hawthorn Shield-bug and several Dock Bugs, mostly mating, including this orgy…

…and best of all, after a few bits of identity and nomenclatural confusion from yours truly (I blame the increasingly intense heat and humidity, that culminated just before lunch in a big rumble of thunder and a sharp shower), no less than three Horned Treehoppers Centrotus cornutus, a scarce species for which this complex of woods is an Essex stronghold.

Wood Ants’ nests were numerous, and Wood Ants themselves everywhere, including milking the colonies of Black Bean Aphids for their honeydew.

Moths included the attractive, variable Aleimma loeflingiana, and the larval stages of Brown-tail, Common Bagworm and Spindle Ermine…

… while a selection of spiders included Nursery-web and Cucumber Spiders, and a female Neottiura bimaculata with her egg sac suspended under a leaf from a single strand of silk. We concluded this was probably a defence against the marauding swarms of Wood Ants on the leaves above, as when she saw us approaching with cameras, she rapidly hauled the sac up, presumably believing us to be the greater threat.

The woods were full of bird song, apart from in the hottest part of the day, with Robins and Chiffchaffs, Blackbirds and Blackcaps, one of the latter semi-duetting with a Garden Warbler, and family parties of Long-tailed, Great and Blue Tits. First bird we saw was a Treecreeper just as we left the car park (excuse the poor photo – it was very shady), followed by a Stock Dove visiting its nest hole, while another tree hole at the end of the day was the site of a free-range Honeybee nest.

Dead timber and trees provided for fungi, like Birch Bracket and Chicken-of-the-Woods…

… while a seemingly random selection of trees was washed with the orange terrestrial alga Trentepohlia, and a couple of reproducing slime-moulds sat atop cut stumps.

And so to the plants: Hornbeams in abundant fruit, Sweet Chestnut and Honeysuckle just coming into flower, and deep in the shade, the shiny leaves of Woodland Hawthorn:

But most remarkable of all were the carpets of Oak seedlings, covering the woodland floor in vast swathes, testament no doubt to last autumn’s mast and to the low number of Muntjac due to the high number of dogs.

In the rides, there were patches of Bush Vetch and Wood Avens…

… while on the wood edge, with Skylarks singing overhead, a good show of Oxeye Daisies and Hairy Buttercups …

… and in the main fritillary clearing, a trio of Heath plants (Speedwell, Woodrush and Groundsel) that along with Wavy Hair-grass and Wood Sage are as good an indication as any to the  reason for the Heath Fritillary’s English name.

 

All kinds of everything: rich biodiversity in the heart of suburban south Essex. More than 30 years since I notified the woods as an SSSI, I am very happy to see they are now in a better state than when I moved on (even after years of pandemic pressure), thanks to the management work of Rochford District Council.

Over the sea to … Landguard Point!

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

By way of an exploration for a possible #WildEssex trip next summer, we headed over the mouth of Harwich Harbour on the regular foot-ferry to Felixstowe.

Arriving near Landguard Fort, it was a short walk out onto the Point and Common, the southernmost section of the Suffolk shingle coastline, on the receiving end of gravel eroded from cliffs and offshore Ice Age deposits right up into north-east Norfolk.

While, after a month-long  period without rain, much of the Common was brown and droughted, grazed right down by Rabbits, the true shingle flora like Sea Kale and Yellow Horned-poppy so well adapted to the environmental stresses of drought, sun, wind and ground instability, remains green and is coming into flower.

As always, different plants in different places: where the shingle is more sandy, this is picked out by Marram and Sea Spurge being the dominant species.

Moving landwards, the vegetation diversifies, with annuals such as Scarlet Pimpernel, Slender Thistle and Common Stork’s-bill (both pink and white forms) …

… and grassland perennials such Rest-harrow, Bird’s-foot Trefoil, Wild Clary and White Stonecrop – while none of these is obligately coastal, the whole community is indicative of proximity to the sea.

And then there are the plants that are more familiar to us perhaps as being characteristic of sandy agricultural field margins: Bugloss, Viper’s-bugloss and Weld.

In a few patches scrub has grown up, mainly of Wild Privet, Elder and Tamarisk, festooned in White Bryony (both male and female), which provides shelter for breeding Linnets and the few invertebrates we saw on our breezy day, including Endothenia gentianeana.

So close to the docks, there are many opportunities for interesting plants not native in Britain to arrive and get a foothold. The  Rough Dog’s-tail grass is one obvious example, a plant I have seen in this country only a handful of times, mostly down by the Thames Estuary.

The port also of course provides ample opportunities to watch the world come and go. The infrastructure is impressive in its own right, even given the fact that much of that which is imported is unnecessary plastic tat from the Far East. A cathedral to commerce, as impressive in its way as a religious cathedral can be to a non-believer…

Crossing the harbour on the ferry simply adds to the opportunity, to watch the ever-changing seascapes, shipping and wildlife (here a Harbour Seal), and to see familiar landmarks from a different perspective.

And both starting and finishing from Harwich Rail Station, time to explore the historic architecture, the gardens exploding with Giant Viper’s-bugloss and the railway sidings ablaze with Red Valerian and Oxeye Daisy.

A good day out (with an all-day breakfast in the View Point Cafe and  fine pint in The Alma) – we are very likely to be back!

 

 

Marvellous Moths morning at Beth Chatto Gardens – early June

Beth Chatto Gardens, Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

It was the first of our new Marvellous Moth mornings in Beth Chatto Gardens. It was early June, the start of the peak season for moths, in terms of both number and variety. Usually! But this year, the seasons have other ideas. The perfect storm: a cold north-easterly airflow for the last six weeks has delayed Spring by several weeks, on top of last summer’s record high temperatures and drought which fried the larvae of many insects, all coming after eight post-war decades of pesticide profligacy … perhaps it is not surprising that the contents of the moth trap we ran the night previously were very meagre.

Of course there were some, but almost all were at the brown end of the normally diverse moth colour spectrum. Most common was the Treble Lines, followed by Common Swift; other species included Heart & Club, Rustic, Vine’s Rustic, Marbled Minor, Flame Shoulder, Small Fan-footed Wave and Light Emerald. In total, a paltry 13 species, totalling some 30 moths. We tried!

But star of the trap show was the single Cockchafer, a lovely large beetle…

Not wishing to dwell on doom and gloom, there are very good reasons why this event was not hugely productive. And the good news is that with luck and a successful breeding season, insect populations can bounce back very quickly, providing the environment is still there for them. And if the habitats are not there in a garden like Beth Chatto’s, essentially organic with a wide range of plants from all over the world providing nectar, pollen and leaf resources, then the planet is in very dire straits.

The other good news for our band of eight visitors is that a shorter time emptying the trap gave us more time to walk and enjoy free-range insects and other wildlife in the garden, first around the main garden in the solitude of that precious hour before the gates opened, and then later around the Beth Chatto Education Trust’s conservation area, away from the public gaze.

Before the influx of visitors, the birds are much more in evidence, and today included Song and Mistle Thrushes, singing Chiffchaffs and Chaffinches, and a fly-through Kingfisher. Several day-flying moths included the Mint Moth, Nettle Tap and disco-dancing parties of male Gold-barred Longhorn-moths…

… while the butterflies were Holly Blues, three displaying couples of Speckled Woods, and a single, resplendent Green Hairstreak, the very first one we have seen this year of a butterfly that often puts in its first showing as early as late April.

As far as other insects are concerned there were several leaf-beetles and hoverflies, Dock Bugs (and their beautiful golden eggs), Two-spotted Malachite-beetles, three species of damselfly, and a whole host of other bits and pieces, including galls (caused by a microscopic mite) on Lime tree leaves, and the interesting case of a case-bearing moth larva.

 

For other caterpillars we were looking at the Mullein leaves, holes in which are made by the beautiful larvae of the Mullein Moth. While much effort and many poisons are expended in lots of other show gardens to present a vision of leaf perfection to the public, in our garden those holes and the mobile adornments are a badge of honour, a sign that our garden is seeking to work with nature and not against it.

And once again, the highlight of this part of the event was a beetle, this time a confiding Wasp Beetle, a dramatically coloured yellow-and-black wasp-alike, its colours evolved to try and dissuade a hungry predator to try and turn it into a meal.

Otherwise we were looking at the plants that were delivering for bees and other pollinators, chance to plan purchases in the nursery to make our own gardens better places for wildlife: Sicilian Honey-garlic, Peruvian Squill, Rock Crane’s-bill, Giant Fennel, Tassel Hyacinths, foxtail-lilies, spurges and a whole lot more…

Do keep an eye on the Beth Chatto website Courses & Workshops – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens if you might be interested in joining us for one of the Marvellous Moths events we have tentatively planned over the rest of the summer. We cannot promise more moths, but we would be surprised if there were not greater numbers and variety, and irrespective, an insect-themed educational wander round the gardens in the still of the morning before the gates open to the public is always a precious moment.

 

Bavaria by train: the way home – Frankfurt & Brussels

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

There are a few calling points on the ICE trains between Regensburg and Brussels, but we thought for our first trip of this type we would stop over in the largest city, Frankfurt, for a couple of nights. Having travelled down the Rhine then up the Main on the way out, we had already had a snapshot of the riverine views, and once there, the pleasant river walks between lines of hydra-like Plane pollards and cotton-drifting Black Poplars casting some welcome shade gave good views of the economic powerhouse that is the city…

… an urban jungle with canyons of glass and steel which harboured (as expected) Peregrines, along with city-centre-dwelling Buzzards, and surprising densities of House Sparrows, along with hordes of screaming Swifts.

An evening in the ‘old’ city was eye-opening for the attention to detail that has evidently been given to its restoration after the area was flattened during WW2.

And even the cathedral, the red stone and its crisp edges and straight lines the product of its 1950s reconstruction.  Almost a pastiche we thought at first, until we realised this in fact the third church on the site during its venerable 1500 year-old history: nothing stands still, not even buildings.

Then there is the organ, an object of pure architectural beauty, which one imagines will produce sounds to match…

Our day to the north of the city centre in and around the Palmengarten was a hot one! So much so that we were rather pleased one of our intended destinations, the Botanic Garden, was closed (another time maybe…).

Not dissimilar to Kew Gardens, this has  extensive greenhouses coving a whole range of biomes, and a tropical butterfly house.

The outdoor gardens are many and varied, and full of interest to the botanist, even though the labelling  is rather patchy and, sadly, all too often wrong.

One pleasing feature though is the extensive area of long grass, well signposted as being for wildlife (butterflies especially) alongside showier, less naturalistic, but still valuable prairie-style swards.

Around the lakes there were Terrapins, both the native European Pond and North American Red-eared species, while the smaller ornamental pools were full of Edible Frogs, their loud quacking choruses audible from a long range.

What seemed to be lacking, sadly, was insects  not (presumably) as a result of pesticide use, more the weather. But as it warmed up, next door in the Gruneburg Park we found plenty.

Of particular interest were a ladybird Oenopia conglobata , which we have never seen before but is considered as a possible future colonist of the UK, and families of Fieldfares hopping around, something we see only in winter…

… and as seemingly everywhere in both Belgium and Germany, large tracts of recreational grass turned over to nature. What’s more, signposted accordingly!

And so it was back into Brussels, with a clear hour to get in a last Belgian beer in our favourite bar before the Eurostar home!

Bavaria by train: Regensburg and area

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

The filling in our sandwich holiday was spent in and around Regensburg, a small city we have always loved, sitting at the northernmost reach of the Danube, here some 100m wide, its reinforced banks covered in Rue-leaved Saxifrage.

A World Heritage Site by virtue of its historic buildings, not reconstructed as it was little-bombed during the war, the architecture is very attractive: wherever you are, there are the distinctive open-lattice twin steeples of the cathedral.

Regensburg is also home to one of the very best botanic gardens I have ever seen. In its 4.5 hectares it has taxonomic beds, habitat beds, geographic beds, themed beds and greenhouses, so many interesting plants that it draws me back time and again. It is also impeccably labelled – nowhere else have I failed to find an error!

… and, as Spring turns into Summer, it is a super place to see a range of insects and other invertebrates, apart from butterflies, in common with the UK thus far this year.

 

Two particular insects stood out for us: first, the chafer Valgus hemipterus, which is a southern European species, but one which seems to be on the brink of colonising London, and second, the New Forest Shield-bug, a rarity in the UK restricted to that area and the Isle of Wight. Perhaps it is no coincidence that near to the latter we also found a basking Sand Lizard, a species whose UK heartland is also the New Forest and surrounding heaths.

Away from the historic centre of the city, new developments seem to have been well provided with, or integrated into, nature, with hedges of Fly Honeysuckle and hay meadows with Greater Yellow-rattle, among many other interesting species.

‘No Mow May’, as in Belgium, seems to be taking off as an idea (whether for the ecology or for saving money really isn’t important) but in the small village in which we stayed, there seems to be a clear majority in favour of ‘(over)tidy’. Fortunately my sister is not one of those, and her garden was simply teeming with wildlife.

The Drumming Spider (trying hard to beat a rhythm on a chair) and Rose Chafers were two of the highlights, photos of the latter being a near-casualty when it plunged into the pond, until rescued by Jude. They show two poses, and how the colour can change markedly with the angle of the light.

The pond is an absolute centrepiece to this garden, with all manner of life living in, on and around it, including both Smooth and Alpine Newts which didn’t want to be photographed.

Walking around the village was a sheer delight, especially when the weather eventually warmed up …

… while the surrounding Beech woods were home to Black Woodpeckers, Bird’s-nest Orchids and Hepatica…

… with clearings home to Burning Bush, Bastard Balm and Columbine,  plus Orange Tips and a whole load of other insects.

The whole region has limestone underfoot, and even in the village bounds there are fragments of species-rich limestone grassland, with a huge diversity of plants and invertebrates alike:

But away from the settlements the limestone grassland is even more extensive, and richer, with Swallowtails and Common Blues, Yellowhammers and Skylarks, Burnt and Green-winged Orchids, Spring Gentians and Pasqueflowers, Juniper scrub,  many other plants and insects ….

… and the undoubted natural highlight of our entire trip, a male Ladybird Spider, an almost-heart stopping sighting, in what is one of very few few localities in the whole of the country. Indeed, just as in Britain, this is a Red Data species in Germany, and although we didn’t know it at the time, we stumbled upon it in its main remaining locality. And on our wedding anniversary too!

 

 

Bavaria by train: the way there – Brussels & Cologne

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Just before the pandemic, we had our first long-distance overseas train holiday of more than a couple of days, to Switzerland. The success of that, together with the delight of clear blue, unsullied skies during Covid, made us resolve to continue with the 6% club as our preferred mode of travel, and so for our return to Europe, we spent 10 days visiting family in Bavaria travelling by train.

The great thing about train travel, apart for the lower emissions, is that you can see the landscape slipping by and change as you get further from home, and that you can extend your holiday by exploring intermediate destinations. For us, heading out, that involved Brussels. Just a couple of hours out of St Pancras we were living the life, eating moules frites and drinking Belgian beers under blue skies (which sadly largely disappeared for the next few days behind the grey cloud we have become used to at home this Spring).

Over the next couple of days we got to know the city well: the architecture, from the extravagances of the Baroque to the naturalistic curves of Art Nouveau to the edges and reflections of modern times…

… the monumental art …

…. to the street art, of all kinds.

And of course, even on the mean street of Brussels there was wildlife, from the mini-forests of moss sporophytes atop the walls, to the Black Redstarts in crackling song from many a rooftop, and the (unsprayed!) planting pockets for boulevard trees extensively colonised by Little Robin (rare in the UK) and other delightful pavement plants.

There was also more formal greenspace and there the noisy battalions of Monk Parakeets, seemingly more keen on feeding on the ground than the Rose-ringed Parakeets we are more familiar with in London and elsewhere, together with (wherever there were Lime trees) the ubiquitous Firebugs.

Next day we explored further, taking the Metro out to the Atomium, the wonderful Modernist structure built as the centrepiece of the 1958 Expo (and actually designed to be standing for only six months!). It still feels futuristic now, so its impact 65 years ago is unimaginable… Wherever you have a view of the skyline, throughout the city, the Atomium is there.

It is sited on the edge of a vast royal park, much of which has open access, around the lakes, grasslands and through the extensive Beech woods, where the flowers were pretty much as in British equivalents, with the addition of Yellow Strawberry.

Statues, monuments and a magnificent avenue of Copper Beeches that casted an almost autumnal light were all indiciations of past and present human use, but the pair of Goshawks displaying high overhead clearly don’t mind!

As with the flowers, invertebrates were mainly those we might expect to see in a London park (including a range of ladybirds and Beech Woolly Aphid), with the exception of the huge Roman Snail.

An excellent couple of days, in a city we would like to see more of, in a country we would love to eat more of the food of and drink more of the beer of! From a nature perspective, it was good to see the apparent steps towards sustainability, from the spray-free street tree planting pockets, to the swathes of longer grass in the greenspaces with wildlife-friendly native and non-native plants allowed to flower, and the mini-wildlife sites in the heart of the city proudly labelled as parts of the Nature Network. On top of that, while we were there it was Eurovision, and in a commercial break on Belgian TV, a prime-time ad for their equivalent of No Mow May!

 

And so, after a fun-filled couple of days, and with rain in the forecast and the cold north-easterlies re-establishing, it was back on the train and heading to Bavaria, with just a couple of hours in Cologne to stretch the legs and have breakfast, and wonder anew (see here for our last trip there) at the vast, scary monster, the apogee of gothickry, that is Cologne Cathedral…