10 Sunday Nov 2019
Crust fungi are notoriously difficult to identify and I’m not at all sure which this is, though one possibility is Toothed crust (Basidioradulum radula). Despite my uncertainty I thought I would share some photos as its shape and form are wonderfully sculptural and more than a little beautiful, I feel.
09 Saturday Nov 2019
Tags
autumn, autumn at Forest Farm, autumn colour, autumn leaves, autumn trees, Forest Farm Nature Reserve
Here are some of the colours of autumn from my walk around Forest Farm Nature Reserve yesterday. It was magical!
08 Friday Nov 2019
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Forest Farm, Forest Farm Nature Reserve, jackdaw, Jay, Moorhen
Today was a glorious autumn day so I took myself to Forest Farm Nature Reserve for a long walk. I popped in to the hide to see what birds were around but it was very quiet.
Apart from a couple of Moorhens in the pond, the only feathered creatures I saw were these, a Jackdaw and a Jay that had been enticed down on to the grass in front of the hide by the peanuts another birder had thrown out for them.
06 Wednesday Nov 2019
The Equisetums are such wonderfully sculptural plants, living fossils that are so old they once thrived beneath the trees in the Paleozoic era, more than 250 million years ago. The name comes from the Latin equus, meaning horse, and seta, meaning bristle, which is probably why these plants are also known as horsetails.
03 Sunday Nov 2019
A week ago today, during a short break in East Sussex, I enjoyed a superb long walk with two good friends at Cuckmere Haven, and there was a wonderful birding bonus, a Grey phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius).
I knew the bird had been seen in the vicinity but Cuckmere is a huge area and was then much submerged after recent heavy rains so I didn’t expect to spot one small bird amongst the many enjoying all the water. My luck was in though, as this lovely creature was swimming about on a pool of water quite close to the main path down to the beach.
This was only my second ever sighting of a Grey phalarope, as these are birds that breed in the Arctic, spend most of their lives far out at sea, and only usually turn up around the British coast after bad weather.
02 Saturday Nov 2019
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, flock of Starlings, gathering of Starlings, starling, Starlings on church steeple
At this time of year, Starlings start to congregate, at first in small gatherings and then forming the large murmurations that astound all who see them. In the late afternoons / early evenings I am treated to a modest number that rendezvous on the roof of the church opposite my house and vie, noisily, for the prime position of sitting atop the cock on the steeple.
01 Friday Nov 2019
‘Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.’
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus, scene 1
30 Wednesday Oct 2019
It’s that time of year when the Grey squirrels prepare for the colder months both by stashing away as many non-perishable titbits of food as they can and by eating fit to burst, fattening themselves up to help cope with the cold months of winter. If only we could all use that excuse!
29 Tuesday Oct 2019
Tags
I’m not sure what creature had eaten all the holes in this leaf as I couldn’t find the culprit but it certainly must’ve been hungry. I rather like the pretty little artwork it had created.
27 Sunday Oct 2019
Posted in autumn, nature, plants, wildflowers
‘For me, wildflowers are joy-giving. They have enriched my life and fed my soul and given beautiful memories to sustain me.’ ~ Lady Bird Johnson letter in National Wildflower Research Center report ‘The First Ten Years: 1983-1993’
earthstar 
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