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Alexanders: the interloper our countryside needs…

Britain's Wildlife

Almost exactly two years ago, just as we entered the first Covid lockdown, our local wanderings focused our minds on the benefits of Alexanders. We blogged about it at the time (see here), but make no apologies about continuing that theme. Last week on the warm, south-facing slopes of the coast of East Sussex, Alexanders was already coming up to peak flowering, a good week or two ahead of its state here on the Essex coast.

The sun shone and, out of the chill easterlies, temperatures rose. But where were the insects? Well, there was little for them to be feeding on – the windswept coastlands had a little Blackthorn flowering and the first few Dandelions showing in the grass. Nothing else native. Alexanders was filling that gap…

Solitary bees, hoverflies, social wasps and ladybirds among many others were homing in to the musky-scented flowers, almost visibly dripping in nectar. It may not be a native species, but it certainly pays for its keep in the nectar- and pollen-starved British early spring landscape.

And not just on the flowers: picture-winged flies and ensign-flies were using the broad leaves as display arenas, alongside apricating sun-ray catchers like Nursery-web Spiders and more solitary bees and vantage points for predators like Yellow Dung-flies, among the erupting orange pustules of Alexanders Rust-fungus.

At times of climate catastrophe, with many insects emerging early into a barren landscape, it is plants from more southerly climes that will help tide our insects through the bottleneck until such time as native plants can catch up. Millennia on, the imports of our ancestors are still producing the goods for their adopted home.

 

 

#WildEssex walks: the rising tide at Mistley…

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

Thank to all who joined us this week for our inaugural Wild Essex walks in Mistley. Two walks in two days, both timed to see the last two hours before high water, the estuary birds being forced up the Stour before our eyes in the face of that advancing waters. It was a new destination, enjoyed by all, and somewhere we will no doubt visit again. Doing the two walks also showed how different the tide can be between days: presumably a function of air pressure, the exposed mud at Mistley Quay at the same time relative to High Water was only a fraction on the second day of that on the first. The  numbers and variety of birds were perhaps less than had been anticipated, but the recent gales had no doubt forced some to take refuge in more sheltered areas..

We met at Mistley station and it was good that some chose to travel by train (and we shall aim to promote public transport on some of our future events, where practicable). The changeable weather saw high wind gusts, showers of rain, sunny spells and rainbows over Suffolk, all of which added to the experience.

In total 46 species of bird were totted up over the two days (see attached list). No real surprises, but was good to see some of the less well-known ducks on the estuary including Pintails and Goldeneyes.  Swans were everywhere – on the water by the quay and sleeping all over the verges and on the sandy shore. They and indeed all the other birds seem pretty oblivious to human beings and passing traffic – shows how things can become habituated, and why this site is arguably the very best place to see with ease a good selection of the three quarters of a million northerly-breeding water birds that visit the Essex coast every winter.

Two of the most important wading bird populations on this stretch are the Black-tailed Godwits and Avocets. First day, the godwits numbered barely a hundred, but the second there were at 800; conversely some 200 Avocets were feeding along the channel only a couple of hundred meters away on Tuesday, but Wednesday, they (and more) were right across the other side hugging the Suffolk shoreline.

Among the six species of gull that were frequenting the Port was one splendid Mediterranean Gull, a long-stayer in these parts and just coming into breeding plumage. Day 1 it remained stubbornly on the sand-bar, but next day it was on the quayside fence and even taking bread from from the hands of the bird feeders…and fending off the hordes of Black-headed Gulls single-handedly.

Spending a few moments looking over Hopping Bridge to the lake which is part of Mistley Place Park, an animal rescue centre, we listened for woodland birds and heard a selection, all added to our list, along with Moorhens, an Egyptian Goose and one one day only a single Little Egret. Rather surprising the almost lack of egrets, but they could have been displaced by the storms.

Local folklore has it that Matthew Hopkins (infamous Witchfinder General) is buried in the park, but no proof has ever been found. And still on the historical theme, we took a short detour into the graveyard surrounding the two famous Mistley towers Mistley Towers | English Heritage (english-heritage.org.uk) part of the planned re-development of Mistley Thorn as a spa town 350 years ago.

In addition to birds, we noted some spring flowers – crocus, snowdrops (very appropriate in a week that Galanthomania came to the fore Snowdrop bulb sells for a record-busting £1,850 – Gardens Illustrated – pretty things …but…..! ) In addition, Sweet Violets, Stinking Iris fruits, Winter Heliotrope leaves and London Plane tree bark added to the visual feast.

The Wild Side of Essex: day walks on the Essex coast February 2022

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

The wind may have been in the south for yesterday’s #WildSideOfEssex walk at the Naze, but it was needle-sharp and very cold. Still, the welcome respite of the copse provided opportunities to examine lichens and identify trees by bud, here the lovely purple-fringed bud-scales of Sycamore..

Landbirds, very sensibly, were keeping a low profile, though there were some good flocks of Pied Wagtails (with Skylarks and Meadow Pipits) on sheltered fields, Cetti’s Warblers in Song, and an uncommonly static Green Woodpecker on a distant willow, clinging to leeward.

But lots of the hardier shorebirds – hundreds of Brent, dozens of Bar-tailed Godwits and Sanderlings, and many others, including a Purple Sandpiper, always pretty scarce in Essex and nowadays especially so. Offshore, a single Red-throated Diver flypast was just about all the choppy sea could muster.

Gorse, of course, was the main winter flower (but devoid of insects)…though a few Hemlock and Sea Mayweed flowers were showing, and Alexanders is already sprouting its spring greens. Hog’s Fennel, Golden-samphire and even Colt’s-foot (whose flowers should soon be sprouting) were still deep in their winter slumber, recognisable only from dead seed-heads, the scent of crushed foliage or banks of shirivelled leaves.

And of course, immune to the cold, there was the magnificent geology, new Crag fossils on the beach mingling with wrecks of modern Whelks, and London Clay volcanic ash bands revealed as the fruits of this winter’s erosion. An ever changing scene, both over the geological perspective and in real time, from tide-to-tide.

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: Spring steals in…

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

It may be barely mid-February, but such has been our winter (or lack thereof) so far that Spring was already well under way in the Beth Chatto Gardens today. After a frosty start, a day of glorious sunshine warmed the world up and brought out the insects – bumblebees, Honeybees and hoverflies – adding to last week’s tally in similar weather of Peacock and Brimstone butterflies and even a day-flying Pipistrelle Bat! Today’s star attractors were the already fading flowers of Winter Aconite.

But there were plenty of other flowers coming out as well, each adding to Nature’s restaurant, which will keep rolling on through the seasons…

What connects all of the above? The fact that they are not native to Britain, examples of the way that any gardener can ‘improve upon Nature’ by adding nectar and pollen to the menu outside the peak season. But there are a few native plants as well, from planted Spurge-laurel to the guerrilla nectar providers like Red Dead-nettle springing up in more neglected corners.

But it is not all about the flowers! A garden like this benefits from the fruits and tussocks of seasons past, somewhere safe for the insect army of garden helpers to sleep through the winter. If only more gardeners  were able to let go of the sterile idyll of overtidiness …

And then of course the new-sprung leaves, rich in colour and intensified by the low February sunlight …

Such tranquil delights on our doorstep, and the great news is that the gardens awaken from their winter slumber next week and reopen to visitors. Give it a go: let Spring into your life! More details from Entrance – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens

#WildEssex Walks: Trees in Winter – buds and bark

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

Two years ago, in a very different world, we ran our last midwinter tree walks around the KGV. The blog linked here focussed on the buds and twigs, and gives a good idea of the features to look for on a selection of the species to be found. Of course, the identification of trees in winter also uses a further series of characteristics, from fallen leaves, shrivelled fruits and the nature of the bark, elements we brought into our #WildEssex walks this month. Here is a selection (photographed during our recce in much more pleasant weather than the fog of the Saturday walk!).

ASH – in addition to its unmistakeable black buds, mostly in opposite pairs, with flattened twig tips, Ash also has smooth, pale bark, often covered in lichens, and usually has some of the bunches of keys from last summer perched in its boughs.

OAK – the plump, chestnut-coloured buds are clustered at the tips of the twigs that arise from the branches that come from the trunk, covered in deeply ridged bark, the fissures more or less continuous, running down the trunk. Sometimes, in older specimens, the trunk is divided, by coppicing or pollarding, especially on old ownership boundaries where distinctive trees were used to define those boundaries legally, by way of a ‘perambulation’.

BEECH (upper two) and HORNBEAM (lower two) – The elongate, pointed shape of the buds of these two species is similar, but those of Beech are set at an angle to the twig, while those of Hornbeam are curved into the twig.  Beech often has dead leaves still attached in midwinter, and smooth, silvery bark, with raised lines, rounded in profile, running down it. Hornbeam bark is similarly smooth, but the trunk is usually fluted, like a rippling muscle.

And then to three fast-growing, often small species, good at colonising suitable habitats:

WILD CHERRY has clusters of buds borne on short, woody pedestals, and peeling, copper-coloured bark formed into distinct hoops around the trunk…

… while SILVER BIRCH has lovely white bark, delicately drooping branch tips, and often has remnants of last year’s seeding catkins at the same time as the coming summer’s catkins are starting to emerge…

… and ELDER has deeply ridged grey bark, often covered with mosses. It is also the first of our trees to burst into leaf, a true harbinger of Spring.

ELM is often distinguished as much by its dead stems, the victims of Dutch Elm Disease, as by its living features. But on a living trunk, the herringbone branching pattern of the twigs is usually apparent, as often are the main branches clothed in corky wings of bark.

Another tree bedevilled by disease is HORSE CHESTNUT, especially worrying in view of its rarity in its native Caucasus. The big, swollen buds with sticky scales are well known, but the horseshoe-shaped leaf-scars and smooth bark breaking into a patchwork of plates are equally distinctive.

Similar in name, but very different (and completely unrelated), the SWEET CHESTNUT is often noticeable by its halo of dead leaves lying on the ground, as they take several months to decay away. Its plump buds sit on ‘shelves’ on the ridged twigs, and the bark of a small tree is smooth and silvery, in marked contrast to an older tree  where the bark is strongly fissured, twisting around the trunk.

Two of our most distinctive winter trees are WHITE POPLAR, with its graceful, upswept branches, whitish twigs and buds, and hoops of large, diamond-shaped lenticels on its bark….

… and the smooth, grey bark, large, turgid buds, almost fit to burst, and beautiful bud-scales,  edged in maroon and fringed in white, of SYCAMORE.

Finally, mention must be made of the evergreens, historic adornments to the grounds of the former Wivenhoe Hall. The red-boughed SCOTS’ PINE (top) is one of only three native conifers in Britain, CEDAR-OF-LEBANON (middle) is another species threatened in its native Middle Eastern home, and HOLM OAK (bottom), native to the Mediterranean basin. But the presence of leaves or needles doesn’t necessarily make identification easier: it is always worth getting to know their distinctive fruits, tree shapes and bark. No rest for the botanist, even in midwinter!

 

#WildEssex New Year Plant Hunt 2022

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 in a walk lasting between one and three hours. This year, we (the newly branded #WildEssex) made our contribution around the Wivenhoe Waterfront…

It is a very simple survey, an example of citizen science. But based on the principle that enough monkeys with enough typewriters and enough time will produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare, then enough bleary-eyed plant hunters producing enough lists will eventually produce statistically valid results. And important results, linked to the serious issues for the natural world (and us!) around climate collapse, helping to shape local, national and international efforts to reducing the human footprint on our planet.

First up, and one of the most interesting, if diminutive flowering plants: Early Meadow-grass. Until a few years ago, this was known only from the extreme south coast of Britain, but presumably under the influence of climate change, it has spread right through the Essex coast, and now Suffolk and Norfolk.

Neatly bookending our walk, the final new species we found, Jersey Cudweed, has a very similar recent history, colonising the block paving of Wivenhoe within the last decade.

In total we found 35 species in flower, slightly more than last year’s total of 30. One cannot read too much into the difference: this winter has been exceptionally mild (indeed we were walking on the warmest New Year’s Day in recorded history, itself a worrying statistic) but there were a dozen pairs of keen eyes, whereas last year under Covid restrictions we were only two…

Most of the species were of course wholly to be expected, including annual plants of disturbed areas (aka, rather perjoratively, ‘weeds’) such as Common Field Speedwell, Petty Spurge, Annual Mercury, Groundsel and Red Dead-nettle.

Also expected were the flowers of Gorse: ‘when Gorse is in flower, kissing is in season‘ – it flowers all year round, fortunately for us but especially for the bees that were actively seeking sustenance in preparation for the next cold snap.

But there were also totally out-of-season flowers. Ragwort, on the sea wall, and Sea Aster with Common Cord-grass on the salt marsh were especially notable, together with Ox-eye Daisy, Yorkshire Fog and Wild Carrot in two of Wivenhoe’s new no-mow, no-sow greenspaces, alongside the more expected Daisy and Dandelion, the insect-sustaining plants that no-mow May is made for.

Another small group of flowering species was those which habitually use sheltered environments such as walls: Trailing Bellflower, Greater Periwinkle and Ivy-leaved Toadflax, three examples of plant refugees from more southern montane zones.

Finally, there was a notable concentration of plants with geographical names indicating their origins from other parts of the world: Jersey Cudweed and Mexican, Guernsey and Canadian Fleabanes. All very expected in an urban locality with plants from all over the world grown in gardens around us, but in the context of our survey, perhaps a clarion call that all the world must work together to tackle the problems on our planet.

Naturally, although a botanical trip, we didn’t overlook other wildlife. Our massed sharp eyes found the scarce fungus Cord-grass Ergot, a large caterpillar on Sea Beet that we think might be the larva of the Small Square Spot moth, and brightest of all, a huge number of Rosemary Beetles, the mobile jewels that adorn many a garden Rosemary or Lavender, mostly paired and in the process of making more beetles. All a very hopeful sign for a wildlife-filled 2022!

#BirdsByBarge on the Stour Estuary in midwinter…

Britain's Wildlife

 

All aboard the magnificent Sailing Barge Victor, under the expert and Covid-safe handling by skipper Wes and his team….

Being ‘twixtmas, good weather is never guaranteed, and we certainly experienced the elements today. Departing the Ha’penny Pier at Harwich in a spell of reluctant sunshine, the next four hours, motoring up-estuary to Mistley and back, threw everything at us, from squally showers, to drizzle, to sea-spray, sometimes restricted visibility, rainbows, and always the wind. But at least being south-westerly, and continuing the theme of Christmas 2021, it was relatively warm. The rather inclement conditions are the reason for the low number of photos in the blog: words will have to largely suffice!

Before we even left the mooring, the first good bird (indeed almost the first bird) popped up beside the boat, a Shag. A rather scarce species along the Essex coast, there are usually a few in the Stour in midwinter and we saw at least another two or three as we motored upriver, along with the always more common Cormorants.

Ever impressive, if only by virtue of their scale, the cranes of Felixstowe Port were in operation (international ports never stop, not even for bank holidays): the Ever Given, one of the largest container vessels in the world and notorious blocker of the Suez Canal, was in town.

Heading towards Shotley, a flock of some 200 Brent Geese lifted off the fields behind the village, and came down to feed on the exposed muddy flats and fringes of Erwarton Bay. Here they joined feeding waders, most numerously a couple of thousand Knots, almost invisible in the murk until they took off and swept around in murmuration. As we progressed alongshore, flocks of Wigeons became increasingly frequent.

As the first shower enveloped us, binoculars turned to mid-channel where a Great Northern Diver was fishing, or probably crabbing, a hundred metres or so from the boat. And then, even closer, a bull Harbour Seal surfaced with a huge flatfish in his mouth, and proceeded to eat it in front of our admiring gaze. Our thoughts having turned to food, the summons to breakfast, a delicious egg, bacon and sausage bap, was most welcome – as was the chance to warm up, safely spaced, below deck.

Emerging again,  the Royal Hospital School had come into view, and the (slightly) sheltered margins of Holbrook Bay held a few Great Crested Grebes. The first Red-breasted Mergansers and Goldeneyes splashed into the air ahead of the boat, and good numbers of both remained a feature all the way up the increasingly narrow channel to Mistley.

Narrow channels mean bigger mudflats, and on them Shelducks in particular were in impressive numbers, along with Curlews and Grey Plovers, Dunlins, Redshanks and a lone Greenshank…

… while the creek edges were liberally sprinkled with flocks of Teals and Pintails and, wading out into the shallow waters, the stars of the inner Stour, 300 or more Avocets.

Heading back closer to the Essex shore, it was waders and ducks all the way as we became enveloped in a squall, subduing even the glorious golden gables of Grayson Perry’s ‘A House for Essex‘.  A Buzzard flapped slowly over the river from Suffolk to Essex, and in a final flourish, in better light, a male Marsh Harrier did pretty much the same, heading inland over Parkeston Quay, while a single Guillemot bobbed in the choppy channel. A fine end to a challenging, but rewarding, day.

For more information about trips on the Sailing Barge Victor, visit Sailing Barge Victor – Public and Private Charter (sbvictor.co.uk). A good day out (and great food!) are guaranteed, although Wes has no control over the weather….

#WildWivenhoe Bug & Botany walks: a crisp winter’s day at the Naze

Britain's Wildlife, Bug & Botany Walks, WildWivenhoe

Having Walton-on-the-Naze on our doorstep is surely one of the delights of living in our part of Essex. And delightful it surely was on our Fossils and Birds walk on the coldest day of the year – sub-zero temperatures but in sparkling sunshine, we could see for miles out to sea, the still air  punctuated by only the lapping of the waves and the burbling of the Brent Geese one to another.

Standing on the beach looking at the cliffs, you really are looking back many millions of years in time. The whole area, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, is one of the finest geological sites in Britain, comprising layers of London Clay, topped by Red Crag.

The stunning redness of the Crag is due to oxidisation of the sand and shell layer laid down over 3 million years ago when Walton was, as now, at the edge of the sea, just prior to it being engulfed in the turmoil of the last Ice Age. Fossils of many kinds and shell debris can be readily be found on the beach, most stained an attractive red colour, distinguishing them from otherwise-identical modern shells.

A combination of the seeping of rainwater downwards, lubricating the clay surface, and storm wave pressures makes the whole area prone to landslips and substantial coastal erosion, which although exciting for geologists and fossil-hunters, nevertheless is extremely worrying for those with buildings atop the cliffs! One vulnerable structure is of course the famous Naze Tower, a 300 year old leaning landmark, built by Trinity House for navigational purposes and today a popular art-gallery and tea room.

Some years ago a local dispute raged as to what to do – completely surround the whole Naze with a sea defence?  Extremely expensive and would prevent geological discovery and the ‘production’ of sand which feeds our local seaside resorts. Or let the whole area eventually fall into the sea? A compromise was sought and about ten years ago an additional 170 metres of defence was built. Now known as the Crag Walk, this allows a safe walkway, and provides a chance to study the cliffs at close quarters, whilst learning about the geology and wildlife from interpretation boards. It also protects the area immediately below the tower.

And so to our beachcombing….many delights awaited the patient explorer, including a shark’s tooth spotted by Chris – probably 50 million year old and looking in pretty good nick! (the tooth that is!), from an inhabitant of the subtropical London Clay lagoon which then covered most of what is now Essex.

‘Boring piddocks’ Chris was heard to exclaim at one point….to whom or what was he referring? Turns out Piddocks, also known as Angels’ Wings, are attractive shells which bore vertically in the soft London Clay, making perfectly round holes as they do so. Equally modern are the Slipper Limpets accidentally introduced to our waters a century ago.

Other delights included ancient pyritised wood (turned to ironstone), and copperas nodules (which some suggest are fossilised poo or ‘coprolites’). Fifty million years old!

The left-hand coiling whelks Neptunia contraria are interesting as most gastropods coil in a dextral way; these left-handers from the warmer Red Crag seas can be dated at over two million year old. It’s hard to get your head round numbers like this!

Although quite slippery on the London Clay platform, areas of sand became more accessible as the tide receded and we were particularly struck by the beautiful dendritic drainage tree-shapes in the sand. 

In addition to the wonderful beach treasures, we were able to see and hear many birds who make that area their home…the ubiquitous Brent Geese, as well as  Herring and Black-headed Gulls. In addition entertaining us running up and down the beach were several Turnstones, Grey Plovers, Curlews and Sanderlings. On the cliffs, Rock Pipit and Robin, their singing suggesting they were migrants defending their winter territories, and overhead several small flocks of Siskins, also migrants, flew northwards.

A very enjoyable end to our 2021 season – thank you all. Fingers crossed we can go ahead with our 2022 programme as planned, as #WildWivenhoe Bug & Botany walks are rebranded as simply #WildEssex: we try to do the lot!

The grassland fungi of Wivenhoe’s New Cemetery

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

We have always valued the grassland in Wivenhoe’s New Cemetery highly for its biodiversity. Created around the start of the 20th century, and on the gravelly soils that sit atop the Wivenhoe Ridge, the quality of the turf, undamaged by the pervasive modern scourges of pesticides or fertilizers, is apparent from the springy, diverse grasses, and abundance of interesting plants such as Mouse-eared Hawkweed and Field Scabious.

This autumn however, in common apparently with many other sites in southern England, other features have come to the fore: a remarkable range of interesting and often attractive grassland fungi.

From corals to clubs and puff-balls to waxcaps, the latter a kaleidoscope of colour from white to yellow, orange through to crimson, the show this year has been magnificent, indeed better than we have ever seen before. Which highlights one of the big conservation issues for grassland fungi, simply knowing where the best sites are, as the fungi produce fruiting bodies only very sporadically, sometimes not showing for several years at a time.

Now we know this site is of value for its fungi. And more important than we might at first appreciate: a national expert  commented to me when I posted the photos on Twitter ‘From the data I hold there are very few quality grassland fungi sites in Essex. So the cemetery & its grassland is very important as you obviously know’. Thanks to Wivenhoe Town Council for keeping it that way.

So where else in the area might be equally good? Well, any of our local grasslands, whether part of the ‘no mow, no sow’ enhancement project or not, have the potential. The only similar shows of grassland fungi I have ever seen round here were in Wivenhoe Park a couple of years ago, and the KGV back in 1987. Indeed it was memory of the latter showing that helped convince me the lower end of KGV would be good for our first foray into hay meadow management five years ago.

But, confounding my hopes and expectations a wander round KGV this year, while it did provide a few fungi, was certainly not exceptional. Just goes to show the unpredictable and evanescent nature of fungal fruiting, and why we should grasp all opportunities we can to record it, evidence for the protection that grassland fungi so desperately need.

The Wild Side of Essex: day walks of the Essex coast in November

Britain's Wildlife, WildWivenhoe

Two walks in November, as autumn gave way to winter.

Early in the month, our day on the Naze may have been in unremittingly dull conditions but the wildlife was excellent, starting with several hundred babbling Brents on the foreshore. Offshore, there were at least 40 plunge-diving Gannets (a good number for the Essex coast), with good views of a Mediterranean Gull and a passing Shag, while migrant Grey Wagtails, Starlings, Fieldfare, Brambling and Siskins flew in off the sea.

Along Stone Point, an array of feeding waders included Sanderlings, Ringed Plovers, Turnstones and Redshanks, and around 200 Bar-tailed Godwits. A Buzzard flapped along the beach, and a female Stonechat popped out of the coastal scrub.

Aside from birds, lingering summer delights included Hog’s Fennel and Sea Mayweed still in flower, and Cord-grass heavily infested with its own, large, rather scarce form of Ergot.

And always reliable, the internationally significant geology of London Clay and Red Crag, with attendant fossils indicative of the climate when each was laid down, and evidence of ancient volcanic ash clouds provided us with something interest right through to dusk.

At month’s end by the Colne Estuary, the weather could not have been more different: clear blue skies for much of the time, barely a breath of wind and really very mild.

A morning feast of waterbirds as the tide came in, with maybe 3kiloKnots, hundreds of godwits (both species), Avocets, Lapwings, Redshanks and Brent Geese…

And much more, from Teals and Wigeons, Little Egrets and Dabchicks, to bird of the day, a Red-throated Diver, rarely seen this far upriver.

Later on, Cutthroat Lane and Cockaynes Reserve had fewer birds, but some lovely autumn colours.

A few lingering flowers included Jersey Cudweed and Four-leaved Allseed on Wivenhoe Waterfront, and Lesser Calamint on the Essex Alps, while early rather than late was Butchers’-broom, normally coming into flower in the New Year.

And fungi included  Cordgrass Ergot (again), here with its even scarcer orange hyperparasite Gibberella), Birch Bracket and Fly Agaric, and a scattering of waxcaps right at the end of their season, given the forecast of first frosts to come….

The most sublime winter day of sunshine and still air, evocatively burnished with the gentle sound of falling leaves and burbling Brents!

Exploring the innermost corners of the Essex coast – from Purfleet to the River Lee

Britain's Wildlife

South Essex is a fascinating region, especially close to the tide: the innate wildness of the estuaries is never wholly tamed by their juxtaposition with development and human beings. As part of our mission to complete exploration of the Essex coast in its widest sense for our book project, we have this summer been looking southwards in more detail, and indeed already produced several blogs, from the Crouch Estuary and the Roach Estuary to the chalklands and refuse tips of Thurrock,  and the Three Mills area of the River Lee at Stratford.

All those left just one big gap in our experience, from Purfleet to the mouth of the Lee, that bit which is now Greater London but was once firmly part of the kingdom of the East Saxons. So in midsummer we made our first foray to Barking, with abbey, mill and port at the point the River Roding grades into the tidal Barking Creek, once the haven for one of England’s largest fishing fleets.

And it proved both interesting and instructive, with wrecks in the semi-tidal waters covered in Hemlock Water-dropwort, overlooked by the delightful  (and welcome!) Boathouse Bar, to Cuckold’s Haven with a chalk flora including Wild Basil and Greater Knapweed (maybe sown, or perhaps naturally generated on calcareous spoil from a chemical works).

Add into the floral mix the non-natives like Greek Dock and Bladder Senna – it just beckoned us back for an overnight stay.

And so at the end of September it was back to  to the delights of Beckton, in the crook of the North Circular and A13, nestled next to the largest sewage treatment plant in Europe. Yes, the air was full of the scent of the effluent and hydrocarbons, but also the sound of a myriad of Cetti’s Warblers. At least ten singing birds from Barking to Creekmouth, in reedbeds and scrubland, plus several others in ornamental plantings around the Gallions Reach and other retail parks.

Barking Creek and Creekmouth may not be classically beautiful, nor sweetly fragrant, but they are certainly dramatic, with giant pylons and the drop-down flood barrage, a familiar site from both sides of the river, a vast array of sewage tanks and treated water gushing out to the Thames.

Dramatic and, so it proved, fascinating entomologically, with several bugs which are new colonists of the UK from the south taking advantage of the heat island of the capital (and the sewage farm). The most widespread nowadays is Southern Green Shield-bug, rather similar to the widespread Common Green Shield-bug as an adult, but with very different multicoloured nymphs, as below:

Next new bug was the Mottled Shield-bug, one we had seen first a few weeks previously in remarkable abundance on Wild Clematis on the edge of the Olympic Park, one river valley to the west of Beckton. Here there were fewer, but they were scattered on much more common shrubs such as Bramble.

And third, what seemed to be the  Privet Leafhopper, a very recent arrival in these parts. However, while we remain convinced of its identity looking at images online, it has been pointed out there is another, similar, equally new relative with us now, and the two can only be separated by destructive microscope work. So for us, as ethical entomologists not wishing to kill in the pursuit of our passion, this has to remain Fieberiella sp.

In addition to the specials, there were plenty of other more common bits and pieces too…

Finally while in the area, we took the opportunity to visit some of the other, really quite extensive, green corridors based on the Thames tributaries, albeit now sluiced and so no longer tidal, including the Mardyke, Rom, Beam and Ingrebourne. Green areas are good for wildlife, good for people and help give a separation between places such as Romford, Dagenham and Rainham.

One feature at this time of year was of course flowering Ivy. Everywhere it was blooming, everywhere it was buzzing, with Red Admirals, Ivy Bees, Hornet Hoverflies, and many more.

Especially around Purfleet, where the once famous low chalk cliffs have now been erased by the march of progress, the influence of our Essex outlier of the North Downs is still all around with Wild Clematis scrambling through the hedges, now in full Old Man’s Beard mode…

Purfleet itself is full of military history, although now perhaps more renowned for the Rainham Marshes RSPB reserve. The two are intertwined, the marshes once a firing range which saved them from destruction under mountains of refuse like the area to the west. My own involvement spans the eras – my last visit to Rainham Marshes was when the RSPB reserve opened nearly twenty years ago; prior to that my visits were all associated with building the case for the protection of the Inner Thames Marshes as we tried (successfully) to prevent the marshes’ transition to a film studios once it became surplus to military requirements. Shades of Swanscombe, across the river – and let’s hope the outcome there is as positive!

And Ingrebourne Marshes provided me with something I have never seen before, despite years of searching: three species of Neuroterus wasp galls under one oak leaf. Two of the three commonest spangle galls – Spangle, Smooth Spangle and Silk Button – I have often found together, but never before all three.