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#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

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!