All posts by Chris Gibson

#WildEssex New Year Plant Hunt 2026

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

Each year, the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland organises a New Year Plant Hunt, encouraging botanists and other interested folk out of their midwinter slumber to see what plants are flowering. And traditionally this has been our first #WildEssex event of the year, a walk around Wivenhoe Waterfront on New Year’s Day, except as in 2025 when forecast bad weather dictated otherwise.

All data collected in this citizen science project are fed into the national record of what is flowering at this time: for more information see New Year Plant Hunt 2026. It is important to be part of a bigger project to aid learning about how British and Irish wildflowers are responding to climate change.

New Year’s Day 2026 was certainly more clement than 2025, sunny although pretty cold, barely above freezing, or should we say ‘normally cold’ by the norms we grew up with… Our band of 15 friends accompanied Jude and I and our special helper, scribe, photographer and flowerfinder Eleanor as we wandered round the usual route in the standard hour. It produced a good number of the ‘usual suspects’, shrubs that routinely flower in the depths of winter such as Gorse (apart from the usual Hazel that had been cut back severely) and annuals that flower at any time of year if the previous few weeks have been mild (as they were last autumn), including Annual Mercury, Petty Spurge, Shepherd’s-purse and Annual Meadow-grass.

The few areas of permanent grass on our route had Daisies and Dandelions sparkling sparsely on them, together with Common Knapweed and Oxeye Daisy as a distant memory of the summer long gone, and Sweet Violet, the promise of spring. Along the fringes of the recreation area, Hedgerow Crane’s-bill was a new species for our NYPH list, as was Cut-leaved Dead-nettle, never very common in these parts, and growing alongside its more familiar relative, Red Dead-nettle, with more shallowly divided leaves and larger, darker flowers.

In the heart of the village, the older walls and brickwork supported Mexican Fleabane, Trailing Bellflower, Pellitory-of-the-wall and Ivy-leaved Toadflax, while it was quite a surprise to find Ivy flowers still open in places.

Along the waterfront itself, in the cracks of the block paving, our two specialists of this habitat, Four-leaved Allseed and Jersey Cudweed were both found just in flower along with the undoubted star of today’s show, White Ramping-fumitory. Rather scarce nationally, but  widespread around coastal north Essex, it was in exuberant flower in planters and cracks along the waterfront, untroubled by any frosts so far this winter.

And at the end of the hour we found ourselves at the saltmarsh, where Common Cord-grass with its naughty bits glistening in the sinking sunlight added a final species to our tally:

All in all, 39 species in flower represents a new high for us (see full list here New Year Day PLANT HUNT Year on year) compared with 37 in 2025, 34 in 2024, 23 in 2023, 35 in 2022 and 30 in 2021, although one should fall short of celebrating – many of these plants should not be flowering now, and are doing so only because of the harm we have inflicted upon our climate…

There is of course another way of looking at it. Plants are not the only things responding to climate change: although we saw no insects being active on the day of our walk, it is undeniable that fewer insects are hibernating than used to be the case. And year-round activity needs year-round nectar and pollen resources, so any insect-attracting flowers such as Gorse and dead-nettles are important, even in the context of much richer supplies inside our gardens, as for example the gorgeous, subtly showy blooms of Virgin’s-bower Clematis cirrhosa. Happy New Year!!

These NYPH events are always free to participants, being as much as anything a chance to reconvene with old friends, both botanical and human, after the midwinter lull and start to look forward to the riches of the summer that is surely to come. But this year we did suggest that satisfied customers may like to contribute to the crowd funder to seek justice for the much-loved community oak tree in Wivenhoe, Old King George.

This tree has dominated our lives for the whole of 2025. The first part was covered in my blog of February: Saving Wivenhoe’s Old King George Oak Tree | Chris Gibson Wildlife. In essence, the tree is caught up in the grip of the insurer Aviva and Wivenhoe Town Council. Blaming it for subsidence, a death sentence was issued. This was fended off last winter by peaceful occupation by the Protectors, but the sentence was reaffirmed last month. And still now, as previously, all evidence pertaining to its guilt has been withheld from the public gaze. Despite the fact that the Protectors and their supporters funded and produced an (openly available) independent expert report which challenged the presumption of guilt. And another independent report with similar conclusions to ours was prevented from consideration by the council.

So we have had to take recourse in law. All we are asking for is full transparency: if the guilty verdict is supported by indisputable evidence, we would reluctantly accept it. A few days ago our legal team successfully won an injunction in the High Court to pause its felling which had been planned for early this year. A pause for democracy to be seen to be done.

Of course, this is expensive, hence the launch of our new CrowdJustice funder. Please consider contributing if you can using this link: Save Wivenhoe’s Old King George Oak tree

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: settling in for the winter pause…

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

Mid-December, just a week from the solstice, and I am back in the gardens for my final walk of the year. Yes, the wind has stripped all the leaves from the trees that shed them, but it still feels more like autumn, with above-average temperatures (perhaps the norm nowadays) despite thick grey cloud with just a few glimpses of weak sunshine.

Brown is the dominant colour, a sign that nature is dying back before the renewal to come.

But there are splashes of colour, the berries that will feed our winter thrushes over the colder months, along with untrimmed grasses, their flowerheads still full of seeds for the finches.

And just starting to ripen, the Ivy berries, which will become the main, vital food resource should the later winter period turn cold: they will keep the Woodpigeons, Blackbirds and many others alive when all of the rest of the fruits are gone.

There are still a few insects – bees and hoverflies mainly – on the wing, and they are taking full advantage of the relatively few flowers. There are the hangovers from autumn…

… the typically winter-flowering shrubs and climbers…

… and the first few harbingers of the spring that will surely come.

At the same time, new, fresh leaves are emerging, starting to push aside the brown autumnal carpet. The new year is on the starting blocks! And the birds sense it too, with singing Robins and Song Thrushes filling the still air with joy.

While this may be downtime in the garden, it does give us opportunity to look closely at some of the less showy inhabitants that keep on going whatever: mosses in the paving cracks, including Grimmia pulvinata and Tortula ruralis.

And in the Woodland Garden the Collared Earthstars that made their first ever fruiting appearance for the garden team a couple of weeks ago are still going strong!

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So another year comes to an end in the Beth Chatto Gardens. Time to look back on what has been a quite remarkable year for wildlife. For me, the highlights began in March when a couple of Treecreepers were creeping around the Silent Space, although only briefly – the larger trees of the Water Garden became their summer home. Other bird highlights included the first garden record of a Cetti’s Warbler, in October.

Often a spring highlight but never wholly reliable is one of our most delightful little butterflies, Green Hairstreak. This year was a good year for them, from mid-April into early June.

Insect numbers started to shoot up from June, and there were more Four-spotted Chasers around the ponds, often posing perfectly, than I have seen before. A sawfly (possibly Tenthredo colon) taught me something of which I was previously unaware, that some sawfly adults are predators, this one demolishing an Alderfly.

And our Moth Morning the same month produced excellent numbers of Elephant Hawk-moths and (here) the scarcer Small Elephant Hawk-moth.

June and July produced hitherto unprecedented numbers of Jersey Tiger moths around the garden…

… while early July witnessed the ‘insect blizzard’, a remarkable influx of hoverflies and ladybirds in particular, which cleared the garden of Black Bean Aphids in just a few days before they moved on through. And associated with this influx was rarer fare, including a couple of Long-tailed Blue butterflies, a first for the garden and perhaps only the seventh record for Essex. Ever!

Another influx was of Stomorhina lunata, the Locust Blowfly, a parasite of locusts originating from much further south in Europe, or perhaps even Africa. We have had one previous record of this fly (in 2016) which was only the third in Essex (and perhaps 30 nationally), but in August and September we were seeing them in multiples of ten or more at times, part of a surge of records nationally.

Of concern to rhododendrophiles maybe, but that beautiful creature the Rhododendron Leafhopper put in its long-anticipated first appearance in September. This was to be expected as it seems now to be found on Rhododendron almost throughout Essex, but for some reason had missed us out.

And for me the absolute highlight of highlights (from October) was the appearance of another parasitic fly, this one on shieldbugs, called Ectophasia crassipennis. Another most beautiful insect, this was only the second time it has turned up in Essex, and was the first time I have ever seen it away from the Pyrenees.

In a few days time, the cycle of the year will start to turn again, and we will see the return of the light. I for one look forward to 2026 being just as exciting, if not more so, than 2025.

Midwinter in Thetford & King’s Lynn

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Well, it may have been midwinter, but the weather for our December short break was really rather mild and even warm out of the teeth of the breeze. And once again we didn’t need to travel far to find interest and excitement, first to Thetford and then King’s Lynn.

Thetford we have been to before, but never together, and as always we feel that an overnight stay made for a more relaxing and relaxed visit, allowing time to get under the skin of the place, if only to discover we don’t need (as here) to plan a return visit any time soon! It did however start very pleasingly at the station, in brick and flint, establishing the vernacular architectural form, with signboards about the hybrid bat/swift boxes above as well as extolling more generally the virtues of Breckland wildlife.

It is a town of brick and flint, rivers, millstreams and bridges, all of which sounds delightful. But the idyll is tempered by the litter (mostly from free-range drinkers), the background stream of traffic on the A12, and the very much foreground roar of jet engines from the nearby military bases.

There are plenty of historic buildings to be found as well …

…. including our hotel, the Bell, featuring an ancient clock and bell, and a very comfortable room (even if the bathroom seemed a little on the tired side).

It was midwinter, with no real expectation of much wildlife, save for birds: Siskins, Grey Wagtails and Nuthatches duly performed for us. But the fossil-rich paving stones and street furniture in the town centre were a pleasant surprise, albeit not representative of local geology.

And there is always something interesting to find in unexpected corners, such as Black Spleenwort growing by a leaky downpipe, allowing this fern to survive in what is one of the driest parts of the country:

Then of course there are the Thetford alumni: Captain Mainwaring (Dad’s Army was filmed hereabouts); Duleep Singh, the last Maharajah of the Punjab, the first Sikh to settle in Britain, at nearby Elveden, and whose family bought and gifted to the town several of its ancient buildings; and of course Thomas Paine, who (may have) drafted the US Declaration of Independence and so contributed to the development of the Constitution. His gilding looks recent, presumably to cover up his shame that the nation he helped found is being mutilated and attacked from the inside by the current malignant incumbent of the White House. Revolutionary, liberal, radical, republican, secular humanist, believer in the transformative power of the written word: what’s not to like about local boy Tom Paine?

That just leaves the two most magnificent of the Thetford’s historic attractions, the Castle Mound and the Priory, just east and west of the town centre respectively. The Norman castle mound used to be topped by a wooden castle, now long gone, but is claimed as the second-largest man-made mound earthwork in England (after Silbury Hill), standing some 25 metres tall.

And it feels all of those metres as one ascends and then descends to nearly 100 slightly-too-deep steps – our thigh muscles really felt the strain for some days afterwards, even though we are well used to stairs up to our top-floor flat! But the view was worth it, over the whole of Thetford and into the surrounding forests.

But perhaps even more impressive was the lower but much older fortifications that the castle was plonked upon. These are from the Iron Age, built with rudimentary technology some 1500 years before the castle mound by the Iceni tribe who then ruled the land around, and who of course later produced another iconic revolutionary, Boudicca. The mounds were there to defend the Iron Age travel and trade route, the Icknield Way, from north Norfolk to Wiltshire as its crossing of a then-significant restriction, the River Little Ouse.

In contrast to the Castle Mound, Thetford Priory ruins are firmly behind a fence, so we turned up at the advertised time (10am) to get in and wander around, only to find it still locked. A phone call to English Heritage informed us that due to antisocial behaviour opening times had been changed to 11am, just 20 minutes before our train was due to leave. All very disappointing. It seems that updating the internet with essential information is not a priority in Norfolk – the same had happened the day before when we turned up at the Ancient House an hour before advertised closing time, to find it already shut.

Anyway, back at the Priory, we were just heading away annoyed when we passed a friendly local man, with dog and child, heading in. And so we took the same unconventional (but undamaging) entry route. In lovely sunlight, the ruins (at least those not surrounded by ugly fencing) looked absolutely magnificent:

As in the town, some of the masonry had an interesting flora, again with ferns such as Maidenhair Spleenwort and Wall-rue.

And so back to the station and the lovely train ride, first through the Brecks, then into the Fens, passing Lakenheath Fen, changing at Ely (ideas for another short break there!), and up to King’s Lynn, passing Roe Deer, Marsh Harrier and Red Kite, herds of Whooper Swans and, just before our destination, thousands of Pink-footed Geese on sugar-beet tops.

We immediately felt at home in King’s Lynn, reminding us of Harwich, along with echoes of Antwerp and Leiden, places we have visited over the past couple of years. And as a town it seems to wear its venerable history proudly, with good signage and nonintrusive, low-key interpretation.

First up was The Walks, an 18th century town walk and park, full of people and dogs but still with Muntjacs browsing unconcernedly!

In the park was the Red Mount Chapel, a 15th century staging post on the pilgrimage to Walsingham…

Old walls, water features, and avenues of magnificent trees, Limes and Horse-chestnuts planted alternately, make for a very pleasant walk, especially (as we had) in sunshine. The Limes especially were crowned with some impressive stands of Mistletoe, but sadly the Horse-chestnuts are seemingly dying off, sprouting brackets of a heartwood-decay fungus, possibly a Ganoderma species.

Just across the road is the next impressive sight, the Greyfriars Tower, all that remains of a Franciscan Friary that was established around 1230 and functioned until its dissolution in 1538. The most complete of the three remaining such towers in the country, it assumed a significant role and was therefore retained as a sea-mark: every part of the town is close to the mighty, tidal Great Ouse.

Other religious land- and sea-marks include the Minster. Impressive from the outside, with two towers, one more slender from the 12th century, the wider one from some three centuries later. Both have been topped by spires but those are now long-collapsed.

As befits its role as a sea-mark, the older tower has a unique tidal clock, which displays the phases of the moon and high tide time, all essential information for such a maritime community.

But inside, our instant impression was that it was rather cold and soulless…

.. so it was a pleasure to re-emerge into the light and witness the stonework reacting to the ambient light of the setting sun.

The other major church, St Nicholas’ Chapel was equally impressive, with its towering spire and external decoration.

But sadly, again despite online assurances that it was open, were were unable to get inside to see its most famous feature, a recently restored roof with carved wooden angels. One of the very few disappointments of our time in Kings Lynn. We had to make do with peering into the porch…

But the churchyard at least had plenty to offer…

And so down to the riverside, and its plethora of seaside sights, from sunsets and rooftop gulls, to heavy duty chains and lichens, and statuary: local mariner George Vancouver, who explored and mapped much of the globe, and just happened to discover the island that has the same name as him!

And one of the acclaimed historic fearures of the town, the Custom House dating from 1683, and described by Pevsner as ‘one of the most perfect buildings ever built’.

Across the River Great Ouse lies the village of West Lynn, connected via a foot ferry. So we just had to give it a go, not so much for the other side or the crossing, but to be able to look back to King’s Lynn and really appreciate its distinctive outline, reflecting as much as anything its historic trading links with the Low Countries and Baltic Region through the Hanseatic League.

And of course to give due regard to the local birdlife…

Turning to a bit of culture we visited two of the museums. First there was ‘Stories of Lynn’ in the Trinity Guildhall, Old Gaol House and Town Hall. A magnificent setting, and interesting exhibits on crime and punishment, tales of maritime trade and exploration, and the (faintly ridiculous) opulence of the civic worthies, including robes, regalia and the ‘King John Cup’.

The Lynn Museum, more modestly set in a repurposed Baptist Chapel held a wonderful display of Seahenge, which gave up its secrets from an eroding coast nearby in 1998, with original preserved timbers and an evocative recreation of the in situ original. And rather incongruously alongside a large display of Star Wars memorabilia…

Add to these a whole raft of other monumental historic buildings of varying ages from library, to chapels, cinema and the Corn Exchange and you start to get a feel of just how important this now ‘end-of-the-line’ town used to be:

But even more evocative were the ‘normal’ domestic dwellings and streetscenes, vistas large and small, many benefiting from a substantially pedestrianised town centre.

The town also has two market squares, one for Tuesdays, the other Saturdays. Those markets still operate but on days when they are not operating, it seems they are used for parking. And really the larger Tuesday Market Place when filled with cars detracts hugely from the otherwise exemplary historic ambience.

In fact our hotel, the very comfortable, palatial Duke’s Head Hotel looked onto that square; for once we didn’t feel too aggrieved to realise our room overlooked the bins! Also on the square was the Globe Hotel (perhaps named after the adjacent St George’s Guildhall in which Shakespeare is recorded as having played). Now the Globe, an old coaching inn, is a vast Wetherspoon’s, its deepest corners set charmingly below rustic galleries. And finally, another repurposed historic gem, back on the waterfront, was Marriott’s Warehouse, the lower parts of its walls of stone, not brick, to resist tidal flooding. Now a restaurant with a distinctly seafood flavour, it was there we finished our two day day stay with the very best meal of our holiday!

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This brings to a close our second year of taking a short break of between one and six nights at least once a month, all using public transport only. It has been a wonderful experience, proving to us we can explore remarkable places without killing the planet. It all started as a way of celebrating reaching our respective 65th years. And now? Well, we plan to continue, especially with a whole new stratum of places accessible to us as our bus-passes come into play!

 

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: Winter arrives!

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

My two visits at the end of November could hardly have been more different. The first was a wet day, very wet indeed save for a brief dry hour giving me the chance to savour the winter browns under leaden skies.

Leaf-fall in the previous wind and heavy rain coated every surface of the garden with the dejecta of Swamp Cypress, Dawn Redwood, Ginkgo and others, their groundscapes merging seamlessly into the gloom.

Too cold by far for any insect interest in the remnant flowers…

… and even the berries seemed not to be attracting the birds: the feeding station by the tearoom was the epicentre of activity.

But our oldest garden inhabitant looked magnificent, its grandeur undiminished by the lack of light.

In fact removing all colour from the scene draws attention to the sculptural qualities of its ancient bole:

A week later it was all very different. The intervening days had seen a fair amount of rain, along with a couple of frosts, the first of the season. But the sky was blue, Robins were singing and the sun was warm, although even at lunchtime frost still lingered in the shady corners.

Winter sun coming from a low angle served to intensify every vestige of colour in the landscapes and plantscapes and add drama to the shapes and shadows:

Birds still visited the fast-food joint, but were also active throughout the garden. Large numbers of Blackbirds, with a few Mistle Thrushes and Fieldfares, were devouring berries, with Jays chasing acorns…

… and  Goldfinches, Redpolls and Chaffinches eating seeds high in the Birchtops.

In the Gravel Garden, a fresh flush of Sickle-leaved Hare’s-ear formed a flowery filigree, as Seven-spot Ladybirds carried on resolutely hunting aphids.

But the flower of the moment was Mahonia. In full sunlight and full bloom, its Lily-of-the-valley scent pooled intoxicatingly in the still air and it was teeming with flies, especially Calliphora bluebottles, feeding at the flowers and basking on the leaves. Many might not get excited by such creatures, but we do! They pollinate as well as any bee, they are food for insectivorous birds, and without their maggots we would be knee-deep in unrotted animal carcases…

It is at this time of year, when leaves are off most of the trees and trunks illuminated by winterlight, that thoughts turn to lichens. Just a few from a wander round the car park included two that seem to be pretty scarce in Essex. Ramalina fastigiata, extinct in Essex in the 1970s due the the impacts of air pollution, has shown a slow recolonization since, but mostly in the westernmost fringes of the county – the latest map from the British Lichen Society shows only a single spot in the Tendring Peninsula, around Weeley.

There is a similar dearth of Lecidella elaeochroma records locally, with just two in our neck of the woods, from just west of Clacton and Elmstead Market respectively.

Then there were the commoner species, grey ones such as Physcia adscendens, Physcia tenella, Punctelia subrudecta and Flavoparmelia caperata…

… along with the very common Sunburst Lichen Xanthoria parietina, those in full sunlight more golden than those in partial shade, and one showing the pink spot of the parasitic fungus Illosporiopsis christiansenii, another apparent rarity in Essex with the National Biodiversity Network Atlas showing just one Essex site, near Southend.

Of course, comments about the scarcity of lichens and lichenicolous fungi should always be caveated by the fact that few folk record them, and perhaps their apparent distribution actually reflects the distribution of active naturalists. Nevertheless, despite their lack of popularity, lichens are wonderful structures and form lovely lichenscapes that add interest and splashes of colour to the winter scene. But please don’t feel you have to stay in the car park: the garden has so much more to offer at every time of year!

 

 

 

The Wild Side of Essex: a wintery Colne Estuary

Britain's Wildlife, Cockaynes Reserve, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

It was the day that winter arrived in Wivenhoe. The wind swung round the north overnight, picked up strength and dropped what had been above-average temperatures for weeks to below-average in an instant. But nothing stops Naturetrek, and the select group met up as planned at Wivenhoe Station, well wrapped-up.

Starting upstream, we made a diversion into Wivenhoe Wood, autumn leaves still turning on the branches, others crackling underfoot as we looked at one of the few Butchers’-broom plants in the wood. With careful searching we managed to find one opened flower, a month or two ahead of the expected time.

Robins were singing wistfully, although other woodland birds remained quiet, giving us chance to explore the wonderful world of leaf-mines, with Holly Leafy-miner fly blotches on many a leaf.

Around Ferry Marsh, the reedbeds swished in the wind, a psithurism seemingly designed to hide the contact calls of any reedbed birds. But along the sea wall, there was Blackthorn covered in ripe sloes and a lovely male Stonechat showed well, albeit suffering from the aggressive attentions of a territorial Robin, while Teals dabbled in the shallows among to equally copiously fruiting Sea Asters.

But it was clear something was amiss with the tide. There was a lot of water, and it was not moving: it seemed the Wivenhoe Tidal Barrier must have been closed, very surprising given that the predicted high tide has passed, and we were still about five days away from the next round of spring tides… So while the Dabchicks were happy, most of the waders had to hunker down in their saltmarsh roosts, apart from the longer-legged Curlews and Little Egrets.

Along Wivenhoe waterfront, as always when seeing it through the eyes of those who had never been there before, I came to appreciate more fully how lucky we are to live here. This includes the rare plants in the block-paving cracks, especially Four-leaved Allseed and Jersey Cudweed, especially luxuriant beneath the benches away from trampling feet.

Further upstream than I have found it before, we also found Sea Wormwood, giving all the chance to scrunch and sniff the Green Fairy, the essence of absinthe.

The barrier was still closed as we reached it, making me think it must be closed for maintenance. But no, once downstream it was clear that the tide was still fully in. Clearly the weather conditions had produced a tidal surge that had delayed the tidal peak by a couple of hours, and produced a peak much higher than the astronomical prediction. Always a good opportunity to talk about the vulnerability of those living on the edge of the tide, and the arrogance of those who think we can win the fight against Nature.

So onward we went along the sea wall, the tide on the seaward side towering a couple of metres above the level of the grazing marsh to landward. Redshanks and Black-tailed Godwits were still resolutely at roost, while Linnets twittered from the bushes and Meadow Pipits crept silently across the marsh, occasionally erupting  in a flurry of ‘peep‘s.

Into Grange Wood where ancient woodland tumbles down to the tide in a most un-Essex-like manner, and an introduction to the fascinating world of galls, exemplified by both marble- and spangle-galls…

… and by the time we reached our lunch spot, the mudflats were starting to appear, covered in hungry feeding waders (Curlews, Black-tailed Godwits, Grey Plovers, Knots, Redshanks and Dunlins) along with Avocets, Wigeons and Brent Geese in the shallows. In fact the surge had done us a favour, meaning that the water birds were in better light than if we had seen them when we should have.

A quick check of the rain forecast showed a squall heading our way, so we took to the woods and emerged a few minutes later at the top of the Essex Alps as the sun came out to celebrate the passing of the sleety shower.

Magnificent boundary pollards and coppice stools, more galls and basking insects, Sycamore Tar-spot fungus, signs of Dutch Elm Disease and some huge Butchers’-brooms, these with still a few red berries from last winter’s flowers…

… and along Cutthroat Lane, the cold wind having abated with the passage of the rain, and the sparkling sunlight bringing welcome warmth and life to the autumn colours. A very appropriate place to hear the ‘happy peals’ of the Wivenhoe Church bells drifting up from the lowlands maybe 3km away which marked the funeral of our friend Graham….

And it was then into Cockaynes Reserve for more autumnal fare, including Redpolls and Siskins heading to the Alders, and fungi sprouting from the heathland, life after gravel extraction: the orange discs of a Neottiella species among the Reindeer Lichen and a couple of fruit-bodies of the cheesecap Russula nitida, a mycorrhizal species associated with the roots of Silver Birch.

Then in a nod to the spring, which will arrive however long the midwinter gloom lasts: Gorse in fresh flower, a beacon to any passing pollinator.

And all that was left was a wander back along the ridge, past the field of Water Buffalos, and down to Wivenhoe, paying homage to the Old King George Oak whose future is still undecided.

Late Autumn in Derby & Ilkeston

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

Another of our monthly short breaks inspired by a railway TV programme, not this time Michael Portillo’s journeys, but Tim Dunn and his series on railway architecture. It was in the first episode of the series that we saw the Bennerley Viaduct, the ‘Iron Giant’. One of only two remaining wrought iron viaducts left in Britain, we learned of its rescue from dereliction  and opening to pedestrians, and so on a lovely sunny Sunday morning, we were heading there.

First to London (via a stop at the newly opened Beaulieu Park Station), to St Pancras with its wonderful, vast single-span glass roof – although it has to be said the refurbishment 15 years ago was a missed opportunity to capture solar energy, like we saw a month ago in the even more impressive Rotterdam Centraal Station.

Thence to Derby, stopping amongst other places at Market Harborough (the destination for our forthcoming July trip) and East Midlands Parkway, one of the high points of last November’s exploration of the Trent Valley, those iconic cooling towers, a memorial to a hopefully receding age of fossil fuels…

Into Derby just after lunchtime, our first stop of course was for a drink, in Waterfall, imposing but sadly lacking atmosphere, in the 1892 Midland Railway Institute, one feature of a remarkable triangle of railway buildings. Built as a cultural and social centre for Derby’s rail workers, it once housed a large library and a ballroom with a stage and seating for 500 people.

The railway cottages themselves date back half a century previously to the arrival of the railway network into Derby, and are considered to be the first and one of the finest examples of such a purpose-built development to house the workers. Threatened with demolition in the 1960s, the estate is now restored and listed. On one of the other angles of the triangle is the Brunswick Inn which formed a neat bookend to our trip.

All the buildings are brick, from presumably local clay, a lovely rich red in colour, matching perfectly the colours of autumn strewn across the pavements:

From there, we followed the green corridor along the River Derwent among the autumn leafscapes and groundscapes, with a few fungi and galls, especially on Lime.

And before we expected (we hadn’t appreciated just how compact the city is), we were at our hotel, on the edge of the city centre. Holiday Inn – Derby Riverlights may be very modern but it is a rather striking design, with good views of the city, very comfortable and good value. The food was good as well, including breakfast (overcooked eggs aside) at which the presence of paper carrier bags made one feel very comfortable taking things from the breakfast buffet for consumption later in the day!

Neither had we realised just how many impressive historic buildings there are. The mid-19th century Market Hall, reopened after refurbishment only six months ago, is one such, both inside and out although the inside seems not yet to have attracted sufficient traders to drive out the feeling of it being a cold, empty void.

But the Cathedral was a much more welcoming presence, except for the annoyingly over-repeated recorded bell peals (which later on in our stay started to emanate from a completely different church!)…

Although rather modest from the outside, it was lovely and airy inside, flooded with light from the largely clear glass windows, the walls and ceilings relatively free of intrusive ornamentation; some organ practice was a delightful added bonus.

 

This made for much easier appreciation of the artistic features of the church – effigies (including Bess of Hardwick), two stunning modern stained glass windows and decorative wrought ironwork everywhere…

… and then the Derby Plank, a lovely painted bit of wood whose symbolism and function is shrouded in history and mystery, but probably dates from around 1600, give or take a decade or two.

Around the city centre, there were many other historic buildings, some of which we saved for our last day. The Standing Order Wetherspoons pub, a repurposed bank, was worth a visit for its secular interior décor, and then there was the rather strange structure in the market square. Memorial or urinal, you decide?! In fact it seems once to have been a piece of public art with water flowing over the top in a pleasing waterfall, but the costs of maintenance fell foul of local authority cash constraints in 2016 and since then simply gathers pigeon poo.

A look at the weather forecast next morning showed us a clear slot of some three hours up to lunchtime before cloud and rain that was coming in for the rest of our stay. So we mobilised quickly and headed out by bus for Ilkeston and the Bennerley Viaduct, the main reason for our visit: oh, the joys of a proper, modern, comprehensive bus station. Colchester could usefully take note!!

We could not have timed the break in the weather better. Calm, sunny, glorious autumnal weather for our walk along the Erewash Canal was perfect, the distant lock gates reminding Jude of giant dragonflies at rest, and the ambience ruined only by the ugly spraypaint handiwork of local ‘patriots’…

And before long the viaduct appeared, almost twenty metres in the sky, spanning the valley, over the railway line, the county boundary and River Erewash, a name that seems to spring straight from the realms of Tolkein’s Middle Earth.

The wrought iron structure was a bespoke solution when it was built in 1876 arising from the need to keep the weight of the viaduct down, given that the underlying ground is riddled with poorly mapped coal-mines. The line was closed to rail traffic in 1968, and much of the railway infrastructure removed, but fortunately the viaduct remained intact, a beacon of Victorian ingenuity.

But only just. Time has taken its toll, and there have been several plans to demolish it, though its wrought iron construction meant that it would have to have been demolished bit-by-bit, the reverse of its original construction, which always proved prohibitively expensive. And so the resources were found to make it safe, and open it to pedestrian and cycle traffic in 2022, although as yet the eastern access ramp is not finished.

No matter, walking there and back across the 400 metre span without the risk of being mown down was simply delightful, with lofty views southwards over the green valley towards the high ground of Ilkeston and the Trent Valley beyond.

And looking north a completely different picture, a developing nature area based on a brownfield site, with Silver Birch and Aspen trees turning golden in the low sunlight.

The autumn colours complemented perfectly the rusting structure in mutual recognition of the passage of time…

It was a great vantage point for birdwatching, with more Redpolls than I have seen in a long time, plus Goldfinches, Fieldfares and Ravens. Feral Pigeons have adopted the structure as if it were a cliff, and the south-facing brick and stone piers at either end proved attractive to basking insects and other invertebrates: the micromoth Blastobasis adustella, Stable Fly Stomoxys calcitrans, the woodlouse Porcellio scaber and the spider Platnickina tincta.

Back on terra firma we walked through a section of developing woodland between canal and railway line, finding a few fungi including Jelly-ear, luxurious aerial mosses, the micromoth leaf-mines of Stigmella microtheriella in Hazel and a dew-dropped Hawthorn Shieldbug.

Particularly under Wild Cherry trees, the groundscapes were spectacular, as were the raindrops hanging below Alder cones, the colour of black tea, presumably stained by tannins leached out from the woody cones.

As we walked back into Ilkeston, the weather closed in and the forecast rain started to fall heavily. But what a lovely little town, with a real high street, a market square, Art Deco commercial buildings, and an historic cinema dating back to 1913…

And a hole. Look on the Web for tourist attractions in Ilkeston and it isn’t long before you find the ‘Nat West Hole’, apparently created to reassure uses of the ATM ‘hole in the wall’ that the wall isn’t hiding ne’er-do-wells. As impressive in the rain as at any other time I guess, and it did get me photographing analogous structures, for example in the back of the Costa chairs!

And that’s not all. A walk through town took us past the General Havelock pub. Right time, right place: it was raining! Also very welcoming: being ‘Muffin Monday’ we were treated to a free, huge, delicious blueberry muffin with our drinks.

Ilkeston seems to do ‘big’: the Iron Giant, the giant muffin and at our final stop, the Ilkeston Giant. Just down the road was Stanton Road Cemetery, the last resting place of Samuel Taylor who died aged 59 in 1875; at 7 feet 4 inches (224 cm) tall, he became a local celebrity and earned a good living performing in travelling fairs and freak shows.

By now the rain had really set in so it was back on the Ilkeston Flyer to the comfort of our hotel room, before venturing out later to sample very well prepared food from all four corners of the culinary world at Cosmo World Buffet, making good use of a retired cinema.

Our third and final day dawned dull and cool, though the promised rain never materialised. Not that it would have mattered too much: we had planned a museums and pubs sort of day. First it was Derby Museum & Art Gallery, with collections of local porcelain, art of Joseph Wright, natural history and much more. But for us, the highlights were the visiting exhibition Human Natures, exploring our place in the natural world and presenting strong messages, and the remarkable surrealist art of Marion Adnams.

Then we were down to the Museum of Making in the former Derby Silk Mill that forms the downstream end of the 25 km-long Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site that runs all the way to Matlock Bath. The site encompasses a series of 18th- and 19th-century cotton and silk mills, considered to be of high historical and technological interest as being the place where the modern factory system was developed and established. It was in effect the birthplace of the industrial revolution, which like it or not cannot overestimated in respect of its importance of it in shaping the world we now know. And reading about it made us think we should visit the whole site on another occasion, as all are conveniently linked by rail – one perhaps for 2027?

Opened just last year, the museum is housed partly in the restored silk mill, itself a rebuild from the early 20th century, on the site of the original. At the entrance are the Grade 1-listed Bakewell Gates, designed by master ironmaker Robert Bakewell, which have graced the front of the silk mill in Derby since 1725.

There is lots more too, including the temporary exhibition EarthBound, the Story of Connected Life through Rock, Earth and Community, including outstanding photography of close-up nature and black-and-white people portraits. And the utterly bewitching complexity of the dissected Rolls Royce jet engine. Again for good or bad, the ingenuity of designing and building something like that which can keep an airliner aloft is simply staggering.

Just next door, the Old Silk Mill pub provided an excellent lunch, before our walk back by the Derwent, reinforcing again the compact nature of Derby’s delights. Back among the railway cottages, there was just time for a farewell drink in the very traditional surroundings of the Brunswick Inn, the whole building adapted to fit into the sharp end of the triangle of streets before heading across the road to the station just before dark. And home four hours later!

#WildEssexWalks: fungi, fruits and foliage in Wivenhoe Park

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

Our first #WildEssex walk after an enforced break of more than four months took us up to Wivenhoe Park with a large bunch of friends. This is a semi-regular autumnal walk venue for us, hoping to find fungi, fruits and foliage colours to usher us into winter.

Best laid plans! So much of what we hoped for is dependent upon preceding weather conditions, the sort of thing that is becoming less predictable as we continue in our arrogance to push our world inexorably beyond the agreed +1.5°C safe threshold.

It is always good when nature contradicts our assumptions. A hot, droughty summer followed by autumn rains and no sign yet of frost, I would have thought, seems a perfect recipe for a spectacular emergence of fungi. But it was not to be: even the ‘little brown jobs’ were few and far-between, and larger fungi even more so. There were Common Earthballs, some intact and others rupturing to liberate spores, together with a patch of Honey Fungus, and  Aniseed Funnel  and Deer Shield. But nothing compared with the rich array of some years.

Bracket fungi are usually more reliable, so it was not a surprise to see Birch Brackets, the nemesis of many a Birch tree, and Beefsteak Fungus, the latter growing from the buried roots of a veteran Oak.

But the most common fungus, covering the leaves of almost every sapling Oak was Oak Mildew. This at least seems to have found this summer’s weather to its liking.

For most trees and shrubs, the summer has produced copious fruiting, a so-called ‘mast year’, except bizarrely for Beech, the tree whose seeds are called ‘mast’.

Not that copious fruiting is necessarily a good sign. It way well be a response to stress, for example caused by the past three-drought summer. Although of course those things that eat the fruits are in for a bonanza: winter thrushes arriving in this country will be very happy to find an abundance of berries, here on Hawthorn and Cockspur Thorn.

On Yew as well, although strictly speaking those are not berries as the flesh doesn’t entirely envelop the (very poisonous) seed. Botanically, the Yew ‘berry’ is termed an aril.

Foliage colour is of course the epitome of autumn. But it is variable between years, again dependent on preceding weather. We had been hoping after the heat of summer for an autumn palette of shocking reds, but again ’twas not to be. The lack of any frost yet means that native trees are mostly turning yellow: here English Oak, Hornbeam, Field Maple, Beech and Aspen.

And even planted trees are not firing up as much as they can: Red Oak has just gone brown, although Tulip-tree has a bit more body to it, and Dawn Redwood is the most subtle peach just before the needles fall.

As always at this time of year, galls were numerous. On the leaves of Beech, there was the Hairy Beech Gall caused by the fly Hartigiola annulipes, a gall recorded from only about half a dozen other sites in Essex.

Some of the leaves also bore the signs of leaf-miners. This is the larval mine of Stigmella tityrella, a micromoth: the larva has exuded a chemical that delayed the senescence of its part of the leaf, giving time in the ‘green island’ to complete development.

Galls are caused by many different types of organism. The lumpy upward pouches on the delightfully scented leaves of Walnut are caused by and make a home for vast numbers of microscopic mites, Aceria erinea.

Very familiar under the leaves of English Oak are Common Spangle Galls, caused by the tiny gall-wasp Neuroterus quercusbaccarum. But other oaks are available. And there were similar galls under the giant leaves of the Far Eastern Daimyo Oak Quercus dentata. Similar but not quite the same, being more blobby and rounded rather than a flattened disc. Perhaps this is the shape of galls caused by the interaction with a relatively novel host plant: certainly this is the opinion of Essex Gall Recorder Jerry Bowdrey, who informs us it was first recorded on this host in a survey of Kew Gardens at the end of the 19th century, and that he  has also found it more recently at Marks Hall.

Also living on Daimyo Oak leaves was a Green Shieldbug , while a Hairy Shieldbug was also found.

A Red Admiral was spotted by some of the group, and one of the day’s highlights was expertly spotted by Jude, a Feathered Thorn moth wonderfully camouflaged against a brown Red Oak leaf. Autumnal moths are often shades of brown, yellow or russet for camouflage. But this one has additional darker lines that match the veins of the dying leaf.

It was a lovely walk in lovely weather: it is good to be back!

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: wildlife among a visual feast of foliage, fruits and flowers

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

During late October, I made two visits to the Gardens, both in great weather, but very different. For the first I was alone with my camera and thoughts, basking in the fiery glow of autumn, but the second, a few days later, was with a throng of up to 30 excited kids and parents on a bug hunt. It was absolutely delightful to be among such an array of sharp eyes, able to spot the teeniest morsel, and to see them enthralled by ladybirds, spiders and bugs. Such infectious enthusiasm for exploring their world boosts my motivation to want to protect it for their futures. And the joy on the face of one little girl when a dragonfly landed on her jumper will last a lifetime, mine and hopefully hers!

Late season butterflies, especially Red Admirals and Commas feeding up before hibernation, were still on the wing with a surprisingly late, newly emerged Small Copper, nectaring especially on Verbena bonariensis.

Likewise the late dragonflies and damselflies, basking, hawking and mating in a last gasp of summer before the cooler weather brings this generation to a close. Most numerous were Common Darters, some looking rather battered by the month end…

…along with Willow Emeralds. Which of these species will take the honours of being the last one of the year?

And sharing the aquatic immature stage of dragons and damsels, although as larvae instead of nymphs, a caddis-fly found camouflage among the browning poolside vegetation. These are tricky to identify, but this is one of the many, quite similar, Limnephilus species.

A few bumblebees, especially Common Carders, were still active, along with plenty of Common Wasps and a few Hornets, all of which apart from the queens are destined to perish shortly:

The most numerous insect group around the garden was the flies, whether groups of midgey minutiae dancing in the fading sunlight, or larger ones basking on sunlit leaves and wooden benches, or feeding at the fading flowers.

Hoverflies included Drone-flies and Grey-spotted Sedgesitter….

… but the specific identity of tachinid parasite-flies is more difficult to be sure of. The large ones with orange sides ‘used to be’ Tachina fera, but another pretty much identical species T. magnicornis has arrived recently in the UK, so we cannot now be so certain.

And the two below can only be assigned to genus, Linnaemya sp. and Siphona sp.

A final fly, strikingly orange with smoky wings, was Thricops diaphanus, from the housefly family. The Essex Field Club map shows only eleven previous records for the county, all in the western half.

Ladybirds, the kids’ favourites were to be found everywhere, mostly Seven-spots with a few Harlequins, but they are now starting to congeal into what will become their overwintering aggregations:

But perhaps the most remarkable insect feature of these walks were the true bugs, more than I have seen all summer. Most numerous were Hairy Shieldbugs along with Green Shieldbugs, some still sporting summer green but others browning into winter camouflage:

Gorse Shieldbugs too, also changing colour but always with the distinctive pale rim: remarkably, these are only the second and third garden records, and neither was on their traditional foodplant of Gorse…

Cinnamon Bugs were especially obvious during the first walk, while a single Bishop’s-mitre (again with only a couple of previous records here) was expertly spotted by one of the kids:

Moving to ‘other invertebrates’ Zebra Jumping-spiders and the harvestman Opilio canestrinii are both found regularly in the garden…

… but a Nigma walckenaeri, nestling under its horizontal web, and a Wrinkled Snail Xeroplexa intersecta were both new.

Amid all this invertebrate enthusiasm and abundance, it was easy to overlook the remaining flowers lighting up and providing a much-needed insect resource in the gardens, beauty made even more dramatic when bejewelled with droplets from the previous nights’ rains:

While the fruits and fungi speak of autumn, the Snowdrops (probably Galanthus regina-olgae, which typically flowers in late autumn) at least provide a hint of assurance that the dark days will pass!

Together with the birds – Redpolls and a Kingfisher during the first walk, and overhead Skylarks and a noticeable increase in presumably immigrant Blackbirds, Song Thrushes and Robins on the second – such was the bounty of this autumn, that I almost forgot to enjoy the kaleidoscope of colours. Almost, but not quite… so here is a final flourish of the gardens at their seasonal peak!

 

Another half-term break in London

Britain's Wildlife, Eleanor's photos, Travel by Rail, WildEssex

In what now seems to be becoming a bit of an autumn half-term tradition (see last year’s trip here) we headed to London for a couple of days with Eleanor. The weather was fine, if somewhat breezy, so we all had fun, as well as helping provide her with material for her school project about Rivers.

Emerging from Liverpool Station into a forest of high-rise is always a bit of a culture shock …

… but the shock is tempered with interesting sculpture and art.

First stop was Finsbury Circus for a picnic lunch among the pigeons and squirrels. Some interesting planting among the magnificent London Plane trees gave us all chance to indulge in a bit of photography, and Fatsia japonica in full flower was, just like its relative Ivy, drawing in all manner of insects from Honeybees to hoverflies and social wasps.

Thence to the SkyGarden, seen peeping round other buildings long before we reached it.

This is one of the amazing free attractions of London (although online booking is required). Our first visit there a few years ago was in very different circumstances with no queuing, but the half-term crowds this time meant we didn’t get in until about 45 minutes after our booked slot. Still, not as bad as Disneyland in February! And once up the lift to floor 35, the view was of course remarkable, for Eleanor especially looking down on the Thames, the famous sights and the tiny people.

The garden itself was certainly lush, although there wasn’t all that much in flower, as might be expected in an essentially non-seasonal garden: plants flower as and when rather than all coming out during particular times of the year.

The clocks had changed the day previously so twilight came quickly and it was well under way by the time we reached our Ibis hotel by Barking Creek, the last rays of sunset just lighting up the tide-mill at more-or-less full tide. Why Barking? It is an interesting area, well connected to central London but far enough out to be affordable. And she loved the bunk bed!

Another sunny morning on our second day, so it was a lovely opportunity to walk down Barking Creek, and across the complex barrier that marks the start of the transition from tidal creek to the freshwater River Roding.

This time it was low tide, and the gulls, Coots and Mallards gathered argumentatively (as always!), while Cormorants rested on the wrecks and piers. A Kingfisher flew out of a patch of bankside reeds, and both Pied and Grey Wagtails trotted around the margins.

Through Barking Abbey grounds, the Ivy was covered in pollinators including a Red Admiral and a brief Hornet Hoverfly. And the Grey Squirrels, dozens of them, were busy provisioning for winter and making a little girl very happy. Where would London be without its squirrels, pigeons and parakeets?

Our route to the Young V&A involved a quarter of an hour walk from Stepney Green, as Mile End station was closed by an incident. But even the walk was interesting, the damp, dripping, seeping rail underpass providing a home for ferns, specifically the non-native Cyrtomium falcatum, now starting to colonise such niches by spore dispersal from cultivation but not reported from anywhere in east London on the NBN Atlas. And then right next to the railway bridge there was a Buddleja showing leaf-mines. We have never seen these before in this host, and despite their very different appearance, both galleries and blotches, it appears they are from the same mining fly Amauromyza verbasci. Again there are no records of this species from east London, or indeed from most of the south-east of England. Under-reporting surely but always interesting. The other fascinating thing is the fact that ‘verbasci‘ relates to its other main host Verbascum – and DNA sequencing has only just recently made us realise that mulleins and buddleia should be placed in the same plant family.

Then it was an hour at the museum, before all heading home tired but happy.

Eleanor, as she often does, took many photos, and some of our favourites are included below. It always surprises and thrills me to see the world as she sees it, a world witnessed through protective bars and fences, a world of giant trees and a world where leaf patterns are just as important as showy flowers. We can all learn a lot from that!

 

Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 3 – Den Haag, Scheveningen & Leiden

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Just an hour from Amersfoort on the intercity train brought us to Den Haag, The Hague, clearly a booming city, to judge from the skyline of cranes and high-rise glass and steel, especially around the station.

 

But the charm of the old city is only a block away, embracing more modern fare like the former US Embassy, built in 1959 and now one of its many art galleries. And water and greenspace (with some fine displays of Honey Fugus) are never too far beyond that, in which the noise of Parakeets is rivalled by that of the Jackdaws.

Our hotel, the Townhouse, proved another good choice, in terms of location and comfort, although let down by the lack of atmosphere in the bistro, something to do with the lack of food, apart from rather good fruit pies and (free) soup! And it provided shelter from the showers,  watching earnest people of all nations  coming and going, perhaps related to Den Haag being at the epicentre of international jurisprudence.

And there was no shortage of real food just a couple of minutes’ walk away around the main square next to the government buildings; indeed here, in Leopold’s, we had the best meal of the holiday on our first evening. The second evening was less successful  though as the eateries were crammed: perhaps Thursday is the new Friday in a country that is on its way to embracing the four-day week.

Art is everywhere, including homage on the hoarding, behind which the former Ministry of Justice is being converted into a museum, to MC Escher. Fittingly so as Escher’s prints feature in an excellent museum nearby, a former Royal Palace:

There we spent a very happy morning exploring his work,  from the early, technically superb but hardly ground-breaking realism…

… to distorted and unexpected perspectives …

… through geometrical shapings and  fascinating, morphing tessellations…

…to his most famous, mind-bending impossibilities.

The inspiration for the impossible staircases was clear from a photo of his school in Arnhem: if that is ever opened to the public we could well be tempted to visit.

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There is probably much, much more to Den Haag than we found on this, our first visit, given that we spent much of our time using it as a centre to travel out from.

One such trip was by tram to the coastal resort of Scheveningen, complete with requisite pier, grand hotel and broad sandy beach. Where better to eat mussels than in a beach bar with the smell of the salt and sound of the distant lapping waves?

This is a place that would be worth revisiting at other seasons. The dunes had Marram and Lyme Grass, , thickets of fruiting Sea Buckthorn, and a few plants like Sea Rocket, Dwarf Mallow and Narrow-leaved Ragwort in flower. How much more would there to be found in summer in the vast dune field that stretches north from the town?

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Den Haag was also the ideal stepping stone from which to visit Leiden, just ten minutes away by train. A small city, it wasn’t really on our radar until we noticed an advertisement (and voucher for reduced price entry!) for the botanic garden Hortus botanicus, but much of a day visiting there was time very well spent.

Of all the places we visited it was the one most reminiscent of home, especially of Harwich and the Dutch Quarter of Colchester, due to its geographic similarity and the commonality of architecture and boat design, indicating strong cultural links. Little did we realise the commonality until we saw the name ‘Mayflower’ appearing regularly: yes, the Mayflower that sailed from Harwich in 1620 collected some of its Pilgrim Fathers from Leiden (to which they had exiled themselves following persecution for contravening religious orthodoxy back in England) in Southampton.

The waterways were flanked by old brick-built houses, many with a familiar stepped profile: one of these, the former carpenters’ house was a gallery and open to look around, revealing an interior tiled with Delft tiles.

   

Old, attractive buildings everywhere, including two windmills:

The larger canals and rivers, branches of the former Rijn (Rhine) delta, had numerous historic trading boats, as well as those for modern tourism, all of which provided a very pleasing backdrop to our al fresco lunch on the floating Vlot Grand Café.

 

Another name to put Leiden on the map is Rembrandt, who was born there in 1606:

Leiden is also prestigious academically, home to the country’s oldest university, founded in 1575. Hence its equally prestigious botanic garden (I had forgotten I knew that!) whose origins date back to 1590, making it one of the oldest in the world. And its collections have been built up by a veritable Who’s Who of botany through the 16th to 19th centuries, including Clusius, Linnaeus and Siebold.

Despite the season there were plenty of interesting flowers in the garden…

… with autumnal colours and fruits from many others.

Add in the fungi, including a honey-fungus (probably Armillaria ostoyae on account of its scaly cap),  the bracket-fungus Ganoderma lipsiense and The Prince Agaricus augustus…

…and a scattering of invertebrates, such as Dogwood Aphid, adult Syrphus ribesii hoverflies along with their tartan-clad larvae, some well marked Common Carder-bees and a Clubiona sac-spider.

And of course the birds: Great Crested Grebes on the canal, and Ring-necked Parakeets everywhere, competing with the acorn-foraging Jays for the label ‘noisiest birds’.

The glasshouses too were impressive with all sorts of frost-sensitive and therefore unfamiliar blooms.

And in the warmer greenhouses, it suddenly became clear the trilling sounds came not from a speaker but from living frogs. Poison dart frogs at that, in which their skin can contain a chemical hundreds of times as strong as morphine. Perhaps fortunately, the toxins are in part derived from the plants growing around them, so if the environment is controlled, so too can be the risk of visitor poisoning!

Clearly an impressive botanic garden and one that would repay visits at different times of year.

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And so our holiday finally drew to a close with a last example of the efficiency of public transport. Our intended train was going to stop short of our destination due to weekend rail works, but we were able easily to change plans and get back to the Hook of Holland by metro instead, in the same length of time.

Onto the ferry for a comfortable, calm overnight crossing, we were back in the UK as dawn broke, under the same leaden skies as when we departed a week previously. There was still not a stirring of breeze, as though autumn had held its breath for the whole of our trip, a holiday that left us wanting more so I suspect we will be back before too long!

Holidaying across the North Sea: Part 2 – Utrecht & Amersfoort

Overseas Tours - other, Travel by Rail

Just forty minutes out of Rotterdam on the Intercity train brought us to Utrecht, our destination for the next two nights. The journey was almost all across flat, drained, agricultural former marshland, and the upper deck of the train made for good viewing. Half a dozen Great White Egrets and a Kingfisher were the most exciting sightings amongst the Coots, Mallards and Canada Geese.

And from one futuristic station to another: the entrance to Utrecht Centraal is overtopped by a massive honeycomb canopy.

The old city itself is contained within, and presumably formerly defended by, a perimeter canal, alongside which we needed to walk to get to our hotel. But the newer parts of the city, outside the canal, had some pleasant surprises including the massive hulk of the headquarters of ProRail, responsible for the railway network infrastructure of the Netherlands. This is the largest brick building in the country, dating from 1921, Art Deco in style and made of more than 22 million bricks. Put that into perspective: our iconic equivalent Battersea Power Station in its current restored state contains 7.6 million!

And what of the flying saucer on top? Well that is not original – it was part of a Millennium art festival, and has somehow survived, giving the hulk a very distinctive profile.

Right next door, and going back an era architecturally is the Art Nouveau building of the former Hygenic Laboratory, a reminder of Utrecht’s historically prestigious university. The façade of the building is decorated with memorials to some of the important scientists of the time, some of whom like Davy, Bunsen and Priestley are still household names today.

The canal too is fascinating. It seemed timeless, but we learned that in fact once the city walls were demolished in 1830, its defensive function faded and it fell into disrepair. In 1973 it was drained and in part converted into a sunken motorway, but from 2010 the motorway has been removed and the canal restored as part of a general pedestrianisation of the old city. And importantly most of it now is flanked by greenspace, good for people but also for wildlife. There are now some splendid trees, dead wood is celebrated, fungi (like Shaggy Ink-caps) were springing up and there were even a few flowers for autumnal nectar, including Duke of Argyll’s Teatree and Shaggy Soldier, the latter seemingly everywhere in the urban parts of the country, perhaps an indication of what will happen in the UK.

And right next to the canal the Muze hotel, our very pleasant home for two nights in stylish surroundings, our room being themed on the nearby Centraal Museuem. On the first evening we stayed local, found Piero’s, the local Italian restaurant, and had one of the best meals of our whole trip.

For much of the following day we also stayed close by, visiting places just across the canal. We had intended to go out to see the iconic Rietveld Schröder House, built in 1924 at the very dawn of Modernist architectural design. but the Centraal Museum was so good we spent much longer there than we had expected to. A very good excuse for a return visit!

The museum was eclectic and well laid-out, exhibits ranging from the tenth-century Utrecht ship (more than 17m long and hollowed out of a single oak trunk) in the basement to a reconstruction in the attic of the studio of the graphic artist Dick Bruna, creator of the Miffy character, who lived and worked in the city.

Between the two were numerous other delights, including chairs by Rietveld (designer of the Modernist house), ladies’ fashion, a full-sized papier-mâché horse stripped down to its internal anatomical details and art from across the ages. Of course there were Mondriaans (he hailed from nearby Amersfoort), although not the abstract forms most associated with his name now, but what struck me most was a 1923 drawing of trees by Dick van Luijn, the perfect natural model for the Cube Houses we had seen in Rotterdam the day previously.

 

There were also cyanotypes of local ‘pavement plants’ and a 1913 Tourism Club poster discouraging littering: worthy messages all round and to judge from our experience the anti-littering message seems very largely to have worked.

The museum is housed in a former monastery, and its associated church was worth a visit, especially for some lovely stained glass:

Just around the corner for the museum is the Oude Hortus, the historic former university botanic garden (the main botanic garden is on the outskirts of the city, beyond the Rietveld Schröder House, and so must await a return visit). Although quite small, it packs in a lot of features:

Autumn colours were starting to blaze through the foliage…

… and special trees included a vast, ancient Ginkgo, a fruiting Medlar (showing blatantly the reason for its French name ‘cul de chien’) and a Paper Mulberry with its distinctive orange fruit clusters.

Among the herbaceous plants out in the garden were Pokeweed, Deadly Nightshade and Castor-oil Plant. All are deadly poisonous to us, but the latter two species at least hosted the sap-sucking Southern Green Shieldbug, seemingly oblivious to the toxins. And not just surviving but thriving to judge from the clusters of multicoloured nymphs, quite a contrast to the green adults.

Other invertebrates included both Roman and Banded Snails, and a few fungi around the garden included the ink-cap Coprinus micaceus.

And then there were the glasshouses, with the less hardy and often showy plants:

Of course none more showy than the centrepiece Giant Water-lilies. Interestingly one old leaf had been laid out in the dry but upside down, showing well the struts that support such a vast leaf and the fearsome prickles that presumably give it protection from aquatic herbivores.

Later in the day and on the next morning we walked up into the centre of the old city, along the attractive canals that run through as well as around the centre, forming watery threads among the many historic buildings.

But pride of place among the historic buildings must go to the fourteenth-century Dom Tower, centrepiece of the city and visible from almost everywhere, at 112.5m the tallest church tower in the country.

The cathedral that was intended to accompany the tower was never completed, and a portion of it stands across the square as the Domkerk. It may be only a portion, but it is a towering space inside, and again features some impressive stained glass.

All this in one day, followed by an al fresco dinner (with excellent local beer) under the watchful gaze of the Dom Tower…

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Next day it was back on the train, first to Amersfoort, just 15 minutes’ east, a journey which took us through some rather different countryside, of dry, sandy lowland heath and woodland.

A small city, Amersfoort comes with the seemingly de rigeur modernised railway station, and as the home of Mondriaan, his artwork (or copies thereof) are everywhere. It was also one of the few places we noticed unofficial graffiti, and even that was really quite charming in its simplicty!

Like Utrecht writ small, the old city is surrounded by a canal, with further waterways running through it, including the Eem (or Amer) river which lends its name to the town.

The watery entrances to the old city are fortified, most impressively the Koppelpoort, completed about 1425.

 

And of course there is also the huge tower in the centre, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwetoren, more than 98m tall, the third tallest church tower in the Netherlands.

Its associated church was destroyed by a historic gunpowder explosion, but that has left us with a pleasant open square with good food and drink outlets, and a very helpful Tourist Information Centre that kindly looked after our bags while we did our walk around the city. All very pleasant, and clearly on the tourist trail, but after a couple of hours we were happy to be back to the station, to head off for the next stage of our holiday, a couple of nights in Den Haag…

 

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

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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!