All posts by Chris Gibson

Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 1 – Harwich & Rotterdam

Britain's Wildlife, Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Our planned holiday to the Netherlands by ferry and train started a day early. Turns out that the first train to reach Harwich International ferryport on a Sunday arrives after the close of the ferry check-in….the only example all week of unjoined-up public transport! So we had to stay the (expensive) night before at the nearby Premier Inn. All very convenient, but costly because it was the weekend of the Harwich Shanty Festival. But that did give us the chance to take around our own little pirate!

When the lure of the shanties, burgers and ice cream waned and all the maritime photos had been taken….

… we headed down to Harwich Beach for a stone-skimming, shell-collecting walk.

On the beach, there was still Sea-holly and Sea Spurge in flower, alongside the increasing non-native Narrow-leaved Ragwort. Increasing, but arguably more valuable than a matter for concern: it seems not to be squeezing out native plants and unlike everything native it is flowering year-round.

And then the fruiting species – the Ragwort again, with Rock-samphire and Japanese Rose, the latter presenting a riot of colour:

Insects were few and far-between, but included a mining-bee, to guess from the date and habitat probably Sea Aster Mining Bee, while snails covered the upper beach. Most were the Striped Snail Cernuella virgata, an Essex Red Data species not previously recorded here according to the Essex Field Club map, but even more special were the hundreds of Pointed Snails Cochlicella acuta. First recorded here some 20 years ago by Jerry Bowdrey, this is still the only Essex locality for this primarily western, coastal species in Essex.

 

And then there was of course the Firebug, expertly, almost nonchalently, identified by Eleanor…

Next morning we were off early, walking down the port approach road, as so often in such localities fringed by adventive plants: Green Amaranth seems to be the flavour of this year. And so onto the ferry, with the sun trying to struggle out:

From the vantage point of the vessel, there were good views of places familiar to both of us, but not normally from this perspective. Less familiar was the sight of the Sir David Attenborough research vessel, although I neglected to take a photo amid the excitement of seeing that which so nearly became ‘Boaty McBoatface’!

On the other side of the river too, from the rolling country of the Shotley Peninsula to the trade hub of Felixstowe Port and the defensive fortifications of Landguard Point:

 

And we were off into open waters, the coast receding steadily. First recognizable waymarker was the Roughs Tower, the ‘Independent Principality of Sealand’, a WW2 gun emplacement:

Then on past the Greater Gabbard windfarm and Gannets, our first birds apart from gulls following the vessel:

 

Around mid-channel, our first and only Harbour Porpoise broke the glassy surface of the water, and several parties of migrating Brent Geese headed to the Essex coast. Migration of smaller birds was also under way, with fly-by Starlings, Redwings and Meadow Pipits going west.

And before too long, signs our journey was coming to an end, with the vast windfarm arrays off the Dutch coast and the remarkably busy shipping channels heading for the ports at Rotterdam and elsewhere:

We docked at the Hook of Holland a little ahead of time after such an easy crossing, and took the Metro into Rotterdam city centre for a lovely comfortable night in the Holiday Inn Express.

Next morning, down to the maritime area, all canals, bridges and former docks, Great Crested Grebes and Coots, and especially in the old harbour, historic vessels, the sort of barges we have in Essex for shallow coastal waters which would have also traded between the two areas.

But all of this wateriness is now in the context of massive modern development, given that the city was essentially flattened by Nazi bombs in 1940. And what wonderful, crazy development, where the imagination of architects has been left to run riot, seemingly the only design parameters being to look completely different to everything else!

And the best example of these are the Cube Houses. Wonderful to look at, like tree-houses clustered around a glade, on the bridge over a main road, on which the sun decided to shine for almost the only time during the whole holiday …

… they are equally bizarre inside (one unit is open for public visiting), with three stories, angled walls and ceilings, and windows facing in all directions (including downwards). I’m sure one gets used to the spatial disorientation given time!

Other ultramodern buildings include the Markthal, a Swiss-roll of flats around an open market space, lined with what has been described as the largest artwork in the world. The blog of our previous visit describes (and illustrates) why this is so important to us!

But, there was history as well. Erasmus’ home is long gone, but celebrated, next to the (sadly closed) Laurenskerk, Gothic but extensively rebuilt after bomb damage:

Nieuwe Delftse Poort by Cor Kraat is a modern reconstruction of the skeleton of one of the old city gates, adorned with original fragments salvaged from its bombing.

And reputedly the only remaining original building by the old harbour is the impressive Art Nouveau White House:

Then, to complete the picture, the wild space, whether deliberate, like grass between the tramtracks, or street trees bringing colour into the grey day, including something we had never seen before – Holly leaves nibbled extensively by (we presume) Vine Weevils….

.. or unplanned, nature fighting back, in the form of pavement plants. Among the usual suspects like Shaggy Soldier there was also a Pokeweed growing out of a crack at the base of a wall, something we have seen previously only as a deliberately cultivated plant, and Death Cap mushrooms thrusting themselves between the paving blocks.

And so after a fine lunch at the Baek restaurant, it was off to Rotterdam Centraal Station to continue our journey. What a remarkable building that is, and indeed what an amazing experience to embark on an intercity journey with only the flash of a plastic card, and to be waiting under a canopy, both letting light flood in but also capturing its power with a full array of solar panels. That’s civilization for you!

Autumnal tranquility in Cockaynes Reserve

Britain's Wildlife, Cockaynes Reserve, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

It was unremittingly dull but unnaturally mild and almost eerily still for my walk at Cockaynes Reserve last week. Barely a sound to break the calm, except when a wisp of breeze dared breathe and every dry-leaf-crackle gently fractured the silence.

That is apart from the bird life: mournful autumnal Robin songs washed through the trees, while half-a-dozen Redpolls trilled over, a band of forty Siskins bounced through the Alder tops, and two Kingfishers flashed over the heath, their calls of an intensity matched only by the declamatory Cetti’s Warbler.

Despite widespread forecasts of a fiery autumn, here it was subtle, the shades of  English pastoral pastel…

… but fruits aplenty, haws waiting for the northern thrushes, Stinking Iris at ground level and Sweet Chestnut husks splitting on the tree.

The fungal season is just starting, but the portents are good, with Fly Agarics nestling at the base of Silver Birches, clumps of Sulphur Tuft, and small orange caps (Rickenella fibula) and discs (Neottiella rutilans) exuding from the heathy carpets of mosses and lichens, the latter including the dog-lichen Peltigera didactyla.

And just a few flowering plants: the last few Common Centaury and Stork’s-bill, Trailing St John’s Wort and superficially similar but much more numerous Least Yellow-sorrel.

Insects and other invertebrates were few, but included a Parent Bug, Velvet Mites and a few crane-flies and hoverflies:

And then of course the galls, on the Oaks in particular, such as these Marble Galls:

Over the years I have examined innumerable Oak leaves at this time of year. There are three common Neuroterus gall-wasp spangle galls: Common Spangle, Silk Button and Smooth Spangle, listed in order of their typical frequency. But this year, here as elsewhere, Smooth Spangles have been as easy to find as Silk Buttons.

And while I have often found two of the three species, in all combinations, on a single leaf, apart from one at the Ingrebourne Marshes in 2021, I have never found all three species together side-by-side. But at Cockaynes last week in just a few minutes on two separate trees I scored hat-tricks. Two leaves showed spatial separation within the leaf, while on the others there was more intermingling.

Endlessly engaging, I have long had a fascination for these galls. Indeed I first wrote about them for the Colchester Natural History Society as long ago as 1986 during my first spell of living in Wivenhoe. Back then I found no hat-trick leaves at all, and my annual observations since then have done no more than reinforced my perception of this pattern. No answers to the question ‘why?’. But what would life be without a little mystery?!

BOOK REVIEW Europe’s Alpine Flowers by Bob Gibbons

Reviews

Europe’s Alpine Flowers, Bob Gibbons (Princeton University Press/WILDGuides, 2025) ISBN: 9780691230788 £25

Reviewed by Dr Chris Gibson 

Europe's Alpine Flowers: A Field Guide - WILDGuides (Paperback)

Bob Gibbons is a name that any naturalist will know: as tour leader, author and especially a remarkable botanical photographer. This book was at an advanced stage of preparation before Bob sadly died in 2024, but thankfully his foray into writing a book to help others identify the Alpine flowers of Europe has now become a reality, expertly guided to fruition by the WILDGuides editorial team, assisted by Peter Marren and Richard Mabey.

There can be few botanists who are not fascinated by alpines, in the broadest sense of montane species and high Arctic plants, ones that grow in extreme habitats, where cold, wind and wet are all too frequent, such that they must have particularly showy flowers to attract the often sparse (or torpid) pollinators. Even those naturalists who never set foot in mountains or the far north have the opportunity to become entranced as alpines are a staple of rock, gravel and scree gardens at all altitudes and latitudes.

At first glance this is a book clearly from the by now tried-and-tested Princeton WILDGuides stable, with sturdy binding and flexicover, relying upon numerous photos with limited text to present information in an authoritative way. It covers some 1,800 species, but wisely doesn’t extend its purview much south of the Alps and the Pyrenees. The alpine regions of southern Europe beyond the geographic scope of this book do share many of the species covered here, but in addition they are a hotbed of endemism, featuring a multiplicity of species that are often restricted to very small areas, often single mountains or even single valleys. To include all of those in what is already quite a hefty book would certainly take it out of the realm of being a guide for use in the field.

Most of the photos used, typically one per species, come from Bob’s collection. For me Bob’s skill as a photographer was to be able to capture the place as well as the plant, and in many of the photos used that is apparent. But in the context of a field guide, it can also be a bit of a problem: to show the plant in its place may mean the plant is actually a rather small image, and the flowers smaller still such that they lose some of their value in identification. I feel there might have been a case to trim the text entries further and utilise any white space to include some close-up flower images in addition to the large image. Of course, the sourcing of additional images might have been more problematic following Bob’s death.

There are some places where there is signposting within the text to aid identification, in the form of the flagging of subdivisions based upon flower form, or leaf form, or even in some cases geographic localisation. Such rudimentary keys that help to restrict the choices in making correct identifications are incredibly useful, and the book would have benefited from more widespread application of this approach.

In a book of this nature, with so many species and photos there are always going to be errors. Thankfully I noticed rather few, although one such is the picture purporting to be Globularia repens on p315 that most certainly isn’t. Sad Stock (p196) is wrongly omitted being found in the Pyrenees. Erodium manescavi (p173) is incorrectly called manescavii and bizarrely given the English name of ‘Stork’s-bill’, surely more appropriate to the genus. And on p456, we find both ‘Bird’s-nest Orchid’ and ‘Violet Birds Nest Orchid’. Punctuation and consistency matter!

And while I am nitpicking, I would like to see more uniformity in the descriptions of geographic range, such that one is not faced with confusion such as on p150 where Dwarf Buckthorn is distributed ‘from the Pyrenees east to Austria and Slovenia’ but the next species Rock Buckthorn is distributed ‘from the Carpathians west to the Pyrenees’. With a little rewording, such directional mismatch could have been easily avoided.

So, will I use the guide the next time I visit one of the areas covered. Most certainly! It is the only field guide of this comprehensiveness currently in print. The only serious competitor is the out-of-print Collins Pocket Guide to Alpine Flowers of Britain and Europe by Grey-Wilson & Blamey, albeit still readily available on the second-hand market. Both books cover approximately the same geographic area, although the Collins guide probably extend a little further east. The species coverage is comparable: I counted the numbers of three popular groups (orchids, gentians and saxifrages) and found the WILDGuide to cover marginally more species. Collins lacks even a rudimentary key, but being illustrated by paintings of course allows flexibility to show both flowers and fruit, even if a single photo could not do so: the benefits of that are clear for example in the Brassicaceae where seed pods are a crucial part of the identification process. One clinching point is weight: 1.1kg for the WILDGuide versus 570g for the paperback second edition of Collins. Weight must be a consideration when climbing mountains, so my answer might be to take both books, but carry Collins around while leaving the WILDGuide in the hotel room for further critical reference.

First published by the British Naturalists’ Association

Autumn on Knettishall Heath

Britain's Wildlife

Five months since my previous visit to Knettishall Heath, and I’m there again to meet BNA Chairman Steve Rutherford. Close to the holiday cottage Steve and Pauline rent regularly, Knettishall is their adopted back yard, home to all manner of wildlife, including many things that don’t make it up to their home in South Yorkshire.

Up on the heath, save for a couple of clumps, the Heather was just about over. And so despite the hot, late-September sunshine, there were not many insects apart from pristine Small Coppers visiting Ragwort flowers and some active plasterer bee nests that probably belonged to Ivy Bees rather than Heather Bees, to judge from their foraging direction. A couple of snatches of Woodlark song  pointed to the increasing bird population hereabouts.

Moving into the birchwoods, Fly Agarics were springing well, despite the near absence of other macrofungi. Nuthatches and Green and Great-spotted Woodpeckers called in the woodland as several Buzzards circled overhead.

Further into the valley, wet woodland has been incorporated into one of Steve’s projects, to provide homes for the tiny residual population of Willow Tits. This means providing them with decaying tree trunks, preferably Silver Birch, in which they can excavate nest holes.

And here is one that is in the process of being checked out, with preliminary, exploratory scrapings on the side. But of the birds themselves, nothing apart from a couple of distant calls.

As usual, the Oak trees had plenty of leaf galls, here Smooth Spangles, and a bonus Philodromus spider. But it was especially exciting to see Andricus gemmaeus bark bud galls,, first found in the UK in 2008, only second time I have seen it, and probably new to the reserve.

And on the very first oak I approached, from a distance of 2m, I spotted my second ever Festoon caterpillar…the benefits of cataract surgery! Just look at the way the purple flecks on the body match the purple vein-scars where they have been nibbled through!

It was further down towards the Little Ouse where the greatest concentration of autumn wildlife was to be found, including a Kingfisher that flashed past silently:

Marginal reeds included cigar galls of the fly Lipara lucens, alongside stately dead stems of Burdock, here harbouring a Hairy Shieldbug.

Black Poplar hosted the characteristic spiral petiole galls of the aphid Pemphigus spyrothecae, along with other miners and munchers:

But richest of all was the sunny, south-facing edge of the hedge and tree line on the south bank of the river. Here, nature’s autumnal mast bounty was evident, with bushes full of red haws and hips and black Buckthorn berries, alongside huge and numerous acorns.

 

There were plenty of baskers including Birch Shieldbug (very well camouflaged against tinting leaves), Footballer Hoverfly, the harvestman Phalangium opilio and Harlequin Ladybirds, which along with 7-spots seemed to be having something of a bumper emergence day.

And there was the Ivy: alluringly musk- scented and shining in the sunlight…

… hosting foraging Ivy Bees in greater densities I think than I have ever seen before.

Several Tachina fera parasite-flies as well, supping the Ivy bounty…

… as well as Hornets, seemingly concentrating on feeding themselves on nectar rather than trawling the vegetation to leap upon any unsuspecting insect, although two that found each other did seem to have less than friendly intentions!

All in all a lovely return to this remarkable Breckland nature reserve!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: a lull before the first storm of autumn…

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

Early October can be such a wonderful time. Still warm enough for shorts, still nature going about its preparations for the coming cold, seemingly with increasing urgency. And the first few days of the month this year were just that in the Beth Chatto Gardens, although with the first named storm of the season, Amy, due in a day or two, things could change rapidly… Thankfully I had the opportunity to make a couple of visits, both unfortunately rather short.

For now, the gardens are looking fruitful, showing some of the stresses of a multi-drought summer, but still in fine fettle. And for the insects there are still all manner of nectar and pollen resources out there to be exploited:

The most obvious visitors are still the butterflies, albeit in reduced numbers and diversity. Red Admirals, Commas and Large Whites were the commonest, with a very few Small Coppers, Small Heaths, Common Blues and Holly Blues, the latter by now probably on its third generation of the year.

Likewise, especially around the ponds, dragonflies and damselflies were still noticeable, basking, hunting and mating: Migrant Hawkers over the water, Common Darters everywhere including egg-laying couples in tandem, and Willow Emeralds, again some in mating formation, in the trees and marginal planting.

In the woodland garden, the leaves are colouring rapidly, especially that harbinger of autumnal glory Amelanchier. 

The Oak leaves bear their customary array of galls, here Spangle Galls although the smaller, darker ones may well indicate they have been hyper-parasitized. ‘Big fleas have little fleas, little fleas have lesser...’ etc comes to mind!

Spangle galls are caused by tiny wasps, but the pustular galls on Alder leaves are caused by even tinier mites, Eriophyes laevis.  And this leaf also has a leaf-mine, the manifestation of someone feeding inside the leaf (but not triggering abnormal growth, hence it is not a gall). Leaf-mines can be caused by a variety of insects, from moths to beetles, but this is made by the larva of a leaf-mining fly Agromyza alnivora. One leaf and two identifications without ever seeing the organism, just their symptoms.

A few Ivy plants around the shady areas were, as always, buzzing with life attracted to the vital late-season nectar and pollen source of their flowers.

Hornets were particularly active on the flowers, drinking the nectar for themselves, then flying menacingly through the greenery like  sharks hoping to pounce on an unfortunate insect to kill and take to their nest.

But it is thirsty work being a Hornet! Only males seemed to be visiting this watering-hole.

We don’t have much Ivy in the main part of the gardens, which probably explains why I was able to watch an Ivy Bee feeding on Astrantia. The bees are supposed to feed almost exclusively at Ivy, though in extremis may turn to members of the Daisy and Heather families. Perhaps Astrantia is a good alternative too: after all the Ivy family and Carrot family are closely related, and Hedera and Astrantia share a similar contracted umbel flower form.

By October  the power is draining from the sun’s rays so there are insects to be found basking to warm up. Crane-flies, here Tipula paludosa, seem now to be coming out in reasonable numbers, ungainly fliers and fair game for any insectivorous bird (or dragonfly).

Perhaps this Hairy Shieldbug had selected a sun-warmed bed among the insulating fur of a Cardoon seed-head as its cosy winter refuge?

Otherwise my eyes turned repeatedly to the late-flowering nectar and pollen sources. Honeybees were on a wide range of flowers, especially from the Daisy and Scabious families; bumblebees too, especially Common Carder-bees at the moment, and they can continue flying as it cools, given they have their own fur coats.

And where there’s prey, there are predators, although the success rate of this Flower Crab-spider may well be limited by its choice of backdrop…

It was good to see one of our larger hoverflies, the wasp-mimic Wasp Plumehorn Volucella inanis, an Essex Red Data species that has only infrequently been seen before in the gardens. Until we compile the Beth Chatto biolist I remain at the mercy of my memory, but Google shows me at least one previous example, from August 2023…

Wasp Plumehorn lives as a parasite in the nests of wasps and Hornets. And there are many other parasites that also contribute to keeping natural balance in the garden. One group is the tachinid parasite-flies, such as Tachina fera, whose larvae feed inside lepidopteran  caterpillars.

Then there was another Locust Blowfly Stomorhina lunata. These are scarce immigrants to UK from southerly climes where they breed, their larvae being parasites of locusts. We had one here about eight years ago, and then a small influx in early August this year, so maybe our native grasshoppers and bush-crickets should watch out…

And finally, the real prize of these visits, this gorgeous fly Ectophasia crassipennis, also a parasite, but of shieldbugs. Related to the equally beautiful Phasia hemiptera which was first seen in the garden in late July, when I was otherwise occupied, Ectophasia is even rarer, with only one previous Essex record I know of, and it is the first I’ve seen in this country.

As usual, the Beth Chatto Gardens came up with the wildlife goods. But what was especially remarkable was that my second visit lasted just 15 minutes. And in that short space of time I saw all three of the last-mentioned specialities, AND heard a Cetti’s Warbler singing, another garden first!

 

 

 

Some snapshots of London: Elephant & Castle, Fitzrovia and the Barbican

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Bus, Travel by Rail

For our September short break it was again a one-nighter, another inspiration from the Guardian series Where tourists seldom tread…: the Elephant & Castle in south London.

Vibrant, bus-rich, a mix of Victoriana right through to Erno Goldfinger’s Modernism and bang up-to-date high-rise glass and steel (including our Travelodge in Ceramic Tower), we were successfully navigated around the sights by following one of the walks on GoJauntly.

Sunday afternoon, the skies were clear blue, and the atmosphere buzzing especially in the East Street market, the perfect antidote to an era of disconnect from food, with fast food deliveries and pristine, overpackaged supermarket fare. The Elephant & Castle pub provided the fuel for our walk, supplemented half way by the very best cup of coffee ever from Hermanos, underneath the arches, one outlet for the Colombian community hereabouts. Highly recommended!

Architectural highlights included the Victorian tenements …

… and workhouse (now a cinema museum) with associated water tower:

The old Southwark Town Hall (now called Walworth Town Hall) is another magnificent historic building, with Art Deco features and a wonderfully wild garden fronting the main road:

The tube station itself is also classic, one of the red-tiled originals designed by Leslie Green, now sporting a green wall on its back side:

The delight of this walk is that it doesn’t take in just the recognised highlights, but other points of interest, from the Victoria sewerage stink-pipes, to the ‘memorial’ metal cladding of an electricity substation to celebrate the life of Michael Faraday, and the backdrop to Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ C’mon on Eileen… just the sort of fascinating randomalia that excites us!

And then of course the green spaces that we always seek out. Around the backwoods of the Cinema Museum, it felt like nothing could intrude on the peace and quiet, remarkably just 2km from Charing Cross, the usually stated centrepoint of London. Buddleia was springing from the margins, Shaggy Soldier from the cracks in the pavement, and in one cracked wall, a seepage colony of ferns and Wall Pennywort (or Navelwort). Typically found in the westerly fringes of the UK, just two localities of the latter are shown in Greater London on the NBN Atlas, both north of the river.

In St Mary’s churchyard, the church long gone, it was a delight to see a group of girls at once intrigued and horrified and thrilled as a Common Darter tried to land on their outstretched hands…

In the allotments, signs of micromoths: the leaves of Figs bore the scars of the Fig-leaf Skeletonizer and scrambling Hops with blotches of the Hop Beauty, another species not shown from Greater London on the NBN Atlas:

The street trees too were interesting, including profusely fruiting Pride-of-India Kolreuteria paniculata and Honey Locust Gleditsia triacanthos, with long purple-blotched pods, as well as Norway Maple, its leaves bearing the mines of the micromoth Stigmella aceris: 

Finally, the newest green space of all, Elephant Park, naturalistic planting, exciting hard landscaping using fully interpreted rocks, formed as a series of inviting nooks and spaces for adults and kids alike: sadly we didn’t have Eleanor with us!

The Elephant & Castle was a great place to spend a sunny Sunday, everywhere the Strata building looking down on us like a benevolent old owl….

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Another blue-sky dawn (unexpectedly so) for our second day, although the breeze delivered an equinoctial chill as we headed out by bus to Oxford Circus to walk the area of Fitzrovia.

In such vibrant light, Broadcasting House was irresistible to the cameras:

Wise words: George Orwell’s should be etched on our hearts as well as the stone. Sadly they are as, if not more, relevant today as when written, but even chalked aphorisms have resonance…

A walk around Fitzrovia and parts of Bloomsbury and Soho took us past many fine photogenic buildings and features …

… but none more iconic of the London skyline than the BT Tower, like the Strata building at Elephant & Castle an old friend peering over our shoulders at almost every step.

When our thoughts turned to food, we made an excellent choice of the Fitzroy Tavern, after which the district was named apparently. Very good food and drink, all in the most sumptuously ornamental surroundings:

 

But the ornamentation of the Fitzroy Tavern paled into insignificance compared with the opulence of the main reason for us visiting the area. The site of the old Middlesex Hospital has now been redeveloped into luxury high-rise, with some attractive public space, but tucked in the middle is the sole survivors from former days, Fitzrovia Chapel, now restored and fairly recently opened to visitors.

Rather unprepossessing from the outside, stepping into that gilded space was like being transported to Italy, without the crowds. Built in the latter years of the 19th century, its Italianate interior is clad with almost Byzantine mosaics and marble, vibrant in the flickering candlelight.

Marble features everywhere, but most remarkably in the wall panels that showcase the inner patterns and colours of the different forms. You can see anything in them, but for me the top two are as different as the fire at the heart of a John Martin dramatic landscape and the Great Wave graphic Japanese art of Hokusai:

A remarkable building and well worth our visit by itself. But surprisingly there was a last delight to come, much more recent in origin. Just outside Tottenham Court Road station we chanced upon the Outernet London experience, immersive spaces of colour and imagery, just as at the Chapel but with added movement and sound. Awe-inspiring in its own digital way, we hadn’t heard of it before, but since it opened in 2022 it claims (on its own website) to be ‘the most visited cultural attraction in the UK’…

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A couple of days later, it was back to London for an afternoon and evening, to see a concert in the Barbican Hall.

The weather was the same as the weekend: sparkling sunshine, producing intense light and shadows: when Brutalism gives its best!

Concrete and sharp edges…

Art …

Historical remnants….

Greenery to soften the lines…

And water to provide life and movement. What’s not to love in the Barbican?

 

The Snails of Jaywick Beach

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

In my four decades in Essex, I have avoided Jaywick on all but a very few occasions. Regularly cited as one of the most left-behind spots of the country, it does little to dispel that image with low-rise housing, much of it wooden, cowering behind the sea wall and now clad in forlornly tattered flags of St George…

And indeed, why would it ever pick itself up? Deep in the flood risk zone (it was very badly affected by the 1953 Great Flood, with 35 villagers dead out of the English total of 305), all it would take is a substantial surge for it all to be washed away. Again. Not a recipe for investing in real estate, the fate of edgelands the world over.

But there have been attempts to address this, with Norwegian stone and dredged sand enhancements to the sea defences repeatedly over the past 20 years, hence most of my previous trips there, advising on the environmental implications thereof. The defences may have been improved, the risk reduced, but without a sign of it coming up in the world to my eye. It seems entrenched by its own self-image and lack of ambition, and arguably the judgemental views of infrequent incomers like me…

So why was I there last week? The sea defences have created some remarkable beach and dune habits, rivalling any such coastal sands in the county. The sand has been colonized by Marram, Sea-holly and Sea Spurge, while the more stable areas are now a thicket of Sea-buckthorn, all the vegetation playing its part in sustaining the defences. Lose the roots, lose the sand and lose the protection: this shouldn’t need saying, but apparently there are those who would strip the beach back to bare, mobile sand because ‘the beach looks scruffy’….

Earlier this year, parts of the beach were found to be supporting vast numbers of snails, in the summer cladding the stems of Sea-holly and Sea-buckthorn: this discovery will be reported in detail by Simon Taylor and David Bain in the next edition of the Essex Naturalist, due in December. Such aestivating aggregations are believed to raise the snails away from the severe heat stress conditions of the sand surface, a phenomenon I am very familiar with from my travels round the Mediterranean, but never here.

So I thought I would go and see for myself. Sadly it was not to be: the previous few days had been wet and cool, and I was met not by the sight of the branches clad in snails but of thousands of snails on the move in the respite from ferocious drought.

But what is most significant is that the commonest snail by far was Theba pisana, the White Snail or Sandhill Snail, often striped brown, and usually with a delicate rose-pink flush around its aperture. There were a few examples of the rather similar Striped Snail Cernuella virgata, smaller and generally lacking the pink, together with the larger, browner Garden Snail Cornu aspersa.

While Cornu is ubiquitous, and Cernuella is common enough in calcareous and coastal regions of England, Theba seems not to have been recorded hitherto in the wild anywhere between Dorset and Northumberland. But with such huge numbers, including juveniles, it seems to be successfully established for the moment, although perhaps at the mercy of severe frosts.

The finders’ theory is that it was inadvertently introduced with Marram plants imported from Normandy by the Environment Agency: this country is notoriously poor at biosecurity measures, despite the natural advantages of being an island. That being the case, Theba has likely been present for at least 15 years. As good as reason as any to venture out to Jaywick!

A day out in Sudbury…

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

The next in our series of explorations using public transport of the towns that are so near to home that they get overlooked in search of more distant delights, following our day in Needham Market a couple of weeks ago, was to Sudbury. Suffolk but almost Essex, in that part of our walk was south of the River Stour which everywhere but here where Suffolk invades Essex would have placed us firmly in the land of the Saxons.

One of the great things about Sudbury is arrival along the Gainsborough Line, from Marks Tey, up the Colne valley, crossing the Chappel Viaduct. Then over the watershed to the Stour valley, through Bures, then arriving into Sudbury. Stepping out of the station, and in just a few paces we were out onto the water meadows, a gentle and pastoral landscape with willow copses and reed-fringed dykes, and just occasional glimpses of the river at its heart.

Thence onto the old railway line, the vital cross link from Sudbury up to Bury, the closure of which must have helped split East Anglia in half, and of course contributed to the dominance of the motor vehicle, one of the least pleasant aspects of the town. Whatever, the old track which continues apparently at least as far as Long Melford provides a very pleasant, tree-lined walking route, with the metalwork of the bridges  providing a direct link to its previous incarnation.

In the dappled shade when the sun came out, the air was thick with the alluring musk of Ivy, and Ivy Bees were still active. Other invertebrates included scavenging Velvet Mites, sun-basking flies like Phaonia valida, an autumnal species with red-brown legs and scutellum, and a Kidney-spot Ladybird.

Galls were everywhere on the tree leaves, from spangles (caused by the gall-wasp Neuroterus quercus-baccarum) on the Oaks, to hairy Eriophyes similis mite galls along the edges of Blackthorn leaves and those of the gall-midge Hartigiola annulipes especially adjacent to the midrib of Beech leaves.

Lots of other symptoms of other organisms in the leaves as well: Beech had leaf-mines caused by the caterpillars of the micromoth Stigmella hemargyrella, Field Maple hosted the related Stigmella aceris (until recently very rare in East Anglia), and Sycamore leaves were blotched with the fungal Tar-spot Rhytisma acerinum.

While galls, mines and blotches are especially a feature of tree leaves, they are elsewhere too: there were mines of the fly Agromyza reptans (or pseudoreptans, as the mines cannot conclusively be separated) and midge galls of Dasyneura urticae on Stinging Nettles. It was only when I looked at the photo later that I realised there was a photobomber, a tiny parasitic wasp, presumably seeking to parasitize the gall-causer: a food chain in a photo!

Crossing and recrossing the river, on one side were the fringes of Sudbury, on the other the open valley…

Thence to King’s Marsh and the Common Lands, much more open, save for the sloe-laden Blackthorn-lined river.

Glaucous Bulrush and Arrowhead indicated at least reasonable water quality, and the open water was teeming with fish. A Little Egret, its plumes whipped up by the stiff breeze, stalked and stabbed, but its only success was a half-aerial lunge when it grabbed and ate a passing Common Darter dragonfly. The neighbouring Grey Wagtail was, quite sensibly, keeping a respectful distance…

Time for lunch: as we were beside the Mill Hotel, what better? And it was a very fine plate of fish and chips for us on this occasion: not even the ‘feature’ of a mummified cat could put us off!

Returning through the town, it was a wander through history. Starting at St Gregory’s Church, it was closed, but the immense flints in the walls provided the backdrop for several bunches of Firebugs. This is a species that is going places, having first colonized mainland Britain only five or so years ago, then found mainly in warmer, coastal fringes, but now spreading further inland. While the NBN map shows no sites around Sudbury, there seem to be few limits on its East Anglian distribution now. And churchyards are a des. res., often containing both of its foodplants, Mallow and Lime.

Flints also featured in a much more modern building, Gainsborough’s House, along with some artistically laid brickwork, bricks fired from clay being the other local building material, after timber and flint. But neither of us being fans of his art, we didn’t venture inside….

Looking down Market Hill, the hipped roofs show the Flemish influence in its development, the persecuted Huguenots settling here and bringing with them the silk-weaving industry for which the town then became famous.

We passed numerous half-timbered houses, then towards the town centre, historic municipal buildings …

… reaching the centrepiece, the former church/now arts centre. And there we learned of the not always glorious history of the town, including its anonymous caricaturing as a rotten borough by Charles Dickens, and its role in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1391. Simon de Sudbury, then Lord Chancellor of England, pushed the peasants too far by introducing a further poll tax, effectively triggering the revolt, and lost his head in the process, now to be found preserved in St Gregory’s Church, apparently, while the rest of him lies in Canterbury Cathedral with a cannonball in place of the head!.

All that was left then was to settle in the sun by the water outside the Quay Theatre, watching Willow Emeralds in the marginal vegetation, while waiting for the train. A fascinating day out, and only 20 miles from home!

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: autumn plenty

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

I expected the final set of Wildside Walks for the year were going to focus upon nature preparing itself for the season to come. And yes, we looked at that although it all felt a bit superfluous as we were experiencing a short-lived, day-long heatwave, with temperatures around 26º Celsius, full sun and a light breeze, truly a (presumably) last blast of summer.

Chiffchaffs were in good song, a fleeting remembrance of spring, but soon quelled by the mournful, minor-key autumnal song of Robins, the twittering overflight of Swallows and the reedy wheezing of Siskins in the Alders. Down at the Reservoir, the Moorhen broods are growing fast, and the Mallards were joined by a pair of Gadwalls in the Duckweed soup…

Also around the ponds, there were still plenty of dragonflies and damselflies, with Common and Ruddy Darters, Migrant and Southern Hawkers, and most numerously Willow Emeralds, with lots of mating pairs fluttering about.

In the borders and beds, Rudbeckia, Verbena and Bistorta were pulling in the butterflies, especially Commas, Red Admirals and Peacocks, along with the ‘cabbage’ whites, and single Brimstone, Painted Lady, Small Heath and Common Blue. Sadly however, the Hummingbird Hawkmoth I had seen a few days previously was nowhere to be seen…

Bees and ladybirds were visiting the ice-plants in particular, always reliable at this time of year…

… and of course Ivy, the autumn pollen and nectar source par excellence. Hornets were everywhere, trawling noisily through insect-attracting flowers and leaping on anything too slow to get out of the way: the wasp in the photo below was despatched in seconds.

As the Sun’s intensity declines, so the importance of sun-basking increases so the insects can go about their business of feeding and breeding without becoming prey themselves. There were tachinid parasite-flies like Tachina fera, various other flies (just look at the covering of pollen!) and parasitic wasps, together with an array of true bugs: Cinnamon Bug, Dock Bug, Hairy and Green Shield-bugs. Plus a long-anticipated new species for the garden: Rhododendron Leafhoppers have been spreading since their arrival in Britain almost a century ago and are found on most local Rhododendron leaves, but not until now within our garden. Rhododendrophiles may hate them as they may help to spread diseases between host plants, but they are undeniably spectacular, while rhododendrons have very limited positive wildlife values. I love the bugs!

At this stage of autumn, our thoughts turn to Oak trees, especially in mast years like this with an abundance of large acorns.

The leaves are starting to look their age, many coated in mildew, nibbled or hosting the internal workings of leaf-mining insects, such as the sinuous galleries of the micromoth Stigmella ruficapitella (or similar).

And then there are the galls, distinctively shaped structures that signify the fact thattiny gall wasps are infecting the tree: Spangle Galls, Smooth Spangles, Oyster Galls, Knopper Galls, Cola Nut Galls and Ramshorn Galls are shown here, the latter also a new record for the garden.

There are of course many other types of gall-causers and leaf-miners, and plant species that exhibit them. The Holly Leaf-miner is a type of fly and the rough, raised galls on Alder leaves are caused by the mite Acalitus brevitarsus.

And searching leaves for galls and mines can also turn up other delights, such as the sputnik-shaped white egg-sacs of a small spider, Paidiscura pallens, again possibly the first time it has been recorded here. Indeed spiders and their webs are always a constant feature of autumn, none more impressive than the common Garden Cross Spider.

And so we come to the end of my Wildside Walks for the year. Thanks to all who joined them, or enjoyed reading about them. I hope they will return next spring: keep an eye on the events page of the Beth Chatto website Courses & Workshops – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens or the page on my own website dedicated to the Beth Chatto Gardens Beth Chatto Gardens – activities and events | Chris Gibson Wildlife.

Autumn in Wivenhoe’s Lower Lodge reserve

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Long gone are the insect-rich days of high summer as Lower Lodge settles into the bounty of autumn. Just a few butterflies were hanging on today in their tatters, including what are likely to be some of our last Common Blues and Meadow Browns of the year (especially after the ferocious squally storm that swept through later in the afternoon).

Common Darters were on duty, as they are likely to be until November, mopping up the last few flying insects. There was also a single Platycheirus albimanus hoverfly, and an Ivy Bee at rest on an oak tree – quite a surprise as there is very little Ivy around the reserve.

With flowering almost done, it was over to the autumnal fruits to provide colour. Hawthorn in particular was radiant with its masses of berries, drawing me in to look more closely at the leaves, with the tent-mines of the micromoth Phyllonorycter corylifoliella, and a harvestman Opilio canestrinii nestling among the ultra-spiny terminal shoots that have been galled by the gall-midge Dasineura crataegi. Although presumably under-recorded, the latter has only one Essex locality (near Dedham) shown on the NBN Atlas.

And so to the Oaks, which occupied most of my walk, demonstrating their prowess as a powerhouse of biodiversity, some sprouting Hen-of-the-woods and most of the saplings at least liberally coated in Oak Powdery Mildew.

So late in the season, the leaves have done their photosynthetic job, so leaf coatings, munchings, mines and galls are probably no problem to the trees. And galls in particular were everywhere, each caused by a near-identical tiny gall-wasp. Now is the time to search under the leaves for spangle-galls, and as usual Common Spangles were easy to find.

Most years, Silk-button Spangles come a close second in abundance, but as we have found elsewhere this year, they seem few and far between. In fact among the hundreds of leaves I examined, I found only four with Silk-buttons, and Smooth Spangles, often quite hard to find, outnumbered them manyfold. The vagaries of the life of a gall-wasp and its interactions with the weather and the tree!

Another species we are seeing much more of this year is the Oyster Gall, erupting from the leaf-veins, whereas Cherry Galls seem fewer than usual:

And then there were the bud-galls: Marble Galls and Artichoke Galls, both rather less frequent than we expect, and Cola-nut Galls, if anything more abundant this year. And only when looking at the galls did I notice the Opilio canestrinii staring back at me…

Spiders were another group I found by searching leaves for galls. There was a Flower Crab-spider, more usually seen sitting on flowers waiting to grab visiting pollinators, a Cucumber Spider and a Bleeding-heart Spider …

… plus the signs of other species, here the web of a Xysticus crab-spider and the Sputnik egg-sac of Paidiscura pallens.

And leaving best until last, I turned over one leaf and found this wonderful creature, my first ever caterpillar of the scarce woodland moth, the Festoon, sitting among presumably its feeding scrapes. Looking like an alien life-form, it was a real thrill to find, and while the adult turns up in many moth traps in the area, to have proof of breeding is always exciting.

 

The Colne Estuary as autumn approaches…

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Meteorological autumn may have started with the advent of September, but in today’s lovely sunshine it felt like a welcome return to summer after the unsettled spell of the past week.

Along the seawall past Barrier Marsh, the scrub is again getting a foothold among the anthills, home to Goldfinches and Linnets, while Hornets, Migrant Hawkers and both Common and Ruddy Darters hunted for their increasingly scarce insect prey. A few overhead Swallows and Meadow Pipits represented respectively the departing summer and coming winter.

Looking seaward it was high tide, so few signs of returning autumn waterbirds, at least close up; over in the distance, hiding in the heat haze and the sun-twinkled water, as the tide dropped away there were Black-tailed Godwits, Redshanks and Grey Plovers, identifiable by their distant calls.

By the Sailing Club, Strawberry Clover is having a good season, seemingly spreading, and at this time of the year in flower and fruit:

The saltmarshes are assuming the purplish wash of their autumn colours, with Annual Seablite especially turning into a visual feast, from fresh green to deep purple and every shade in-between, while the Glassworts have not yet picked up the cue of the advancing year:

And fringing the sea wall, the Shrubby Seablite too is rapidly assuming its autumnal glow:

At Grange Wood, fungi were showing, in the form of Birch Bracket and Ergot (on the flowers of Sea Couch), but too early yet to see whether the recent rains will trigger widespread fungal fruiting following our hot, droughty summer.

But no such shyness among the fruits of  the hedgerows. Everything seems to be producing in abundance, from Dog Rose and Blackthorn to large and numerous acorns:

And now of course is time to look closely at the Oak leaves. There were a few insects to be found, including this Caliroa species, one of the oak slug-sawflies…

… and most obvious of all, galls everywhere. Common Spangle galls, normally the most abundant, seemed pushed into second place by Smooth Spangles, in a range of colours from white to deep red, but seemingly, at least not in the stretches we walked, no Silk-buttons, normally the second most frequent oak leaf gall…

… while other leaf galls included Oyster galls, and the woody, bud galls included Marble and Cola-nut galls.

So much to see in just a couple of hours, boding well for a productive autumn in #WildWivenhoe!

Sunbury & Surbiton

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Dipping our toes back into our world of monthly short breaks by public transport, we headed out to Sunbury-on-Thames. For no other reason than Jude had seen an embroidery museum that interested her … and there are pubs, a hotel and of course the river Thames. All we need for a couple of days away!

So we headed there, with the prospect of glorious summer weather changing for the worse. Sunbury Park looked interesting, but it was remarkably dry. Like the Serengeti when we arrived, deluged the following night, and no doubt within a very few days it will be greening up.

In the park is the very well preserved walled garden. Not my idea of a good garden in its over-regimented formality, but there were a few interesting plants including Trumpet-vine in flower and Carolina Silverbell in fruit.

And of course the café, and refuge from the first of the sharp showers that came our way. Right next to it was the embroidery exhibition, featuring the Sunbury Millennium Embroidery, a remarkably detailed piece of work highlighting the important features of the local community, including its historic buildings and abundant Thames-side wildlife. While perhaps most meaningful to locals and not worth the travel from afar just to see it, as part of a wider interest visit as ours was it certainly passed a good few minutes. And kept us dry!

And so down to the River Thames. Not the easiest of access, because too many long stretches of what should be a public asset have been privatised by wealth. But wherever access is possible the views of the river are very attractive, encompassing a well-wooded southern shore, islands, moorings, locks and weirs.

And as always, green space and natural margins provides for wildlife, including Harlequin Ladybirds and a Green Shieldbug; a distinctively marked Gelis ichneumon wasp (possibly G. areator) and a wax-secreting aphid; as well as several galls including the sawfly Euura bridgmanii on broad-leaved willows and the mite Eriophyes pyri on Rowan.

Perhaps the best view of all, from the Magpie pub with its riverfront terrace. As we discovered, the umbrellas are pretty water-resistant, and as the afternoon showers merged into heavy rain, the open, dry terrace seemed a good place to linger for the duration. Lots of time to appreciate the local birds, from Red Kites and Rose-ringed Parakeets, to Mute Swan families and Egyptian Geese, and even a couple of Kingfishers. Ripples in the river, stirred up by the freshening breeze and sprinkled with raindrops, made for photographic opportunities that lasted for a good pint or two! Indeed, it was so welcoming that we returned there for our evening meal.

Lower Sunbury had plenty of other interesting buildings as well, including our very comfortable accommodation, the Flower Pot.

And, after a very rainy night, an excellent breakfast. A bus drivers’ strike thwarted our plans to move on by bus, but it did give us the opportunity in the morning to look at and into St Mary’s Church. Some interesting-looking lichens in the churchyard were completely eclipsed by the interior glass and decor, in pre-Raphaelite/Eastern Orthodox style. Very impressive indeed!

And then it was off by train to our final, much anticipated destination, the Art Deco masterpiece that is Surbiton station.

And as an added bonus, once inside we found it is now the home to the restored William Blake-inspired mosaic panels of art and poetry that we had last seen several years ago in a rather battered state underneath the arches near Waterloo Station.

So far as the rest of Surbiton is concerned, it felt a whole lot more real than Sunbury, populated by real people living normal lives. Sadly St. Andrew’s Church that looked so  dramatic inside online was closed. But then there was always Wetherspoons, a converted early 20th century lecture hall. However we eschewed the charms of the cheap for the lovely atmosphere, good beer and great value lunch at the independent Elm Tree pub, complete with Guinness mural. A fine way to round off our return to the world of short breaks!