Out to the fringes of ‘old Essex’, in Stratford, the Olympic Park and Three Mills Island: landscapes old and new…

In the Olympic Park, nearly 10 years on the ecological planting still thrives…

Our last visit to the area was the subject of one of our earliest blogs in July 2017. There have of course been changes over four years, especially in the additions to the high rise landscape.

But from a wildlife perspective, it seems the main change has been the colonisation by Mottled Shield-bugs. New to the area (and Britain) as recently as 2010,  there were dozens of them along the Greenway edges and hedges of Traveller’s-joy and Bramble (and bizarrely Summer Jasmine) in all nymphal stages, along with a few adults.

This bug is still unknown to us in the north of the county. The same is not true of this splendid Rose Chafer, a fairly common sight around Colchester, but with very few records in the south-west, according to the Essex Field Club map…

To these can be added much more of interest, from Rose Sawflies, picturewings and hoverflies, and dense patches of Dwarf Elder.

And so to the main reason for our visit, to explore the complex of waterways in the kilometre downstream of Stratford, a fascinating complex of channels, fresh and salt, tidal, flowing and still, embracing an inland archipelago.

Three Mills island is in effect the end point of our mental walk around the Essex coast, right to the far flung corner of the tidal lands of the East Saxons, the ‘walk’ which has been turned during three months’ lockdown into eighty thousand words, and a planned six volumes of Not Just a Field Guide to the Essex Coast. Two tidal limits here, one just upstream from the House Mill, the other at the head of the Channelsea River:

As with the Olympic Park, architecture and artitechture featured, both old and new, with cathedrals to both power and poo….’poo’ being the ornate Byzantine dome of Abbey Mills pumping station, and ‘power’ being the largest tidemills of their era, and the interlocking tracery of now abandoned gasworks, their form seemingly mimicking the The Orbit, just upstream.

Low tide rendered the tidal channels almost empty, but still a Kingfisher flashed through, as Red-eared Terrapins basked in the sunlight. And as everywhere, there were plenty of other delights to find, from leaf mines to jewel beetles…

On the banks, again it was a mixture of natives and recent arrivals, mostly increasing invasive species, apart from the Honeybee using the Himalayan Balsam flowers for food. The delights of Multicultural London, where even plants from half way round the world are doing their bit to support our pollinator army!

So where were we? Gazing at a vast area of gently undulating grassland, the backlit, silvery grass heads picked out by the sun. No sound, save for Skylarks and Corn Buntings singing in the searing heat. The Spanish steppes? The causses plateaux in the Cevennes? Maybe the puszta of Hungary? The stuff of dreams in these pandemic times. No, we were atop a vast heap of domestic refuse, capped off with clay, and given a decade of rewilding: the Essex Wildlife Trust’s Thameside Nature Discovery Park.

Sadly, although I spent much of the first phase of my working career in south Essex, I cannot claim any of the credit for this (take a bow, John Hall, former EWT Chief Exec!). By the time my work took me elsewhere, the tip was still not yet full, and indeed restoration (and extension of the Nature Park) is still ongoing. But I did notify the adjacent Stanford Warren reedbed and the Mucking mudflats as an SSSI, commencing the discussions with the landfill operators which eventually led to the Nature Park. And I did spend several years of my life working on the project which converted the Shellhaven oil refinery into the London Gateway container port: those long hours in public inquiry left a legacy of replacement bird-rich mudflats (now Stanford Wharf RSPB reserve) on what had been standard coastal arable land.

That was one of the reasons for our holiday down there: to revisit some of the sites of my past by way of research for our (hopefully) forthcoming book. Another of course was ‘getting back on our horse’ after the heavy fall of Covid. And as it transpired, a jolly good part of the world to find interesting wildscapes, both natural and post-industrial, a model perhaps for the post-human lifescapes which will follow us…

That process of picturesque decay is underway in so many places, including (just down from the TNDP) at the iconic Modernist Bata building at East Tilbury…

… and still further south at Coalhouse Point…

..although Coalhouse Fort, designed to defend against attack, seems to be withstanding the ravages of time more effectively.

Tilbury Fort likewise, albeit more unassumingly, nested as it is into West Tilbury Marshes:

And ports can always be relied upon to produce interesting landscapes, both physical and metaphysical, those ports being at the ends of the golden threads which (should) tie us all together….

Then there is Chafford Hundred, a place of meaning and memory to me, as when I started working here it simply didn’t exist. A series of chalk pits, long disused, were earmarked for the largest new housing scheme in the country, and so became one of my very first big cases, into which I hoped to introduce at least an element of sustainability.

Thirty five years on, I do feel my efforts were worthwhile. Yes, there is presumably less biodiversity than before the building, but of course if the pits had been left undeveloped and unmanaged, they would do doubt by now be suffocating under the choking grip of Buddleia and invading trees, stealing the light from life on chalk.

Large swathes of some old pits and relict fragments of original Ancient Woodland have been retained, and are managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust…

… but just as important is the comprehensive network of green infrastructure which ramifies through Chafford Hundred, allowing movement of wildlife and human beings alike, and bringing important habitat patches into everybody’s reach.

The wildlife is special in the Essex context, as for us Chalk is such a rare base rock. Here, we have a small outlier of the North Downs, on the ‘wrong’ side of the Thames; capped with sands and gravels, and in the favoured warm microclimatic zone of the river, this provides conditions for a wide range of plants and animals, many of which are rare or absent elsewhere in the county.

Even in the heart of the estates, the ‘standard’ grass road verges have interesting plants such as Strawberry Clover…

… while the c2c railway embankments are simply festooned with chalky vegetation, brimming with life, in a way which would not be tolerated in our Greater Anglia part of the world, aka glyphosate central.

And our stay even allowed us to get across the water on the Tilbury Ferry, to take in the delights and charm of Gravesend.

The Thames Estuary,  place of history and wildlife, big skies and panoramas, everywhere the imprint of a millennium of civilisation. However you see it, whether fingerprint or skidmark,  it never fails to impress, and for me it was good to be back.

This section of the Essex Coast is due to feature in Volume 6 of our newly-renamed Not Just a Field Guide to the Essex Coast. Watch this space!

Our first tentative trip to London for half a year. The absolute antithesis of #wildwivenhoe, our lockdown habitat, but thrilling nonetheless. As we have written before: ‘Canyons of glass and steel, capturing but not quite taming the sky‘…. but not set amid the customary hordes. The streets of the City were quiet, apart from construction men, security staff and cleaners, giving us space and time to contemplate the modernity:

.. but as always, it was both gratifying and humbling to see those spots where, by design or default, Nature has blurred the hard edges that we have tried to impose upon the world. By design, whether it is a tree canopy  creeping into the vista, or blooms to lift the spirits at ground level:

By default, take the sub-tropical garden that has developed and been encouraged on the bombed-out shell of St Dunstan-in-the-East…

…or the simple pleasures of an already-colouring fallen leaf on the pavement…

… and on the steps and Embankment in front of Old Billingsgate, the cracks between the block paviors colonised by a goodly range of mostly non-native plants, including Spotted Spurge, a rapidly increasing ‘weed’ of urban areas in the south. Either the absence of herbicide or the reduced footfall has allowed it to thrive this summer.

Plants like this give hope, and speak to me of the impermanence of our arrogant species, redolent of the Mayan cities now enveloped by apparently natural rainforest. Every thing has its time: perhaps the havoc wrought by Covid indicates that our time is past?

A couple of years after our first, delightful visit to Gunnersbury Triangle (see here), we were again in the vicinity last week, and took the opportunity of a perfect, mellow, sunny autumn day to sample its delights once more. In practice, we spent most of our hour there staring at just one tree, a three-metre Pedunculate Oak on the edge of a clearing, simply laden with galls…

Oak is of course renowned for the number of insects it supports. Many of those cause the formation of galls, abnormal growths in the host plant triggered by its interaction with a gall-causer. While many gall-causers are tiny (and essentially identical without microscopic examination), different species can be told apart by the shape, colour and texture of the galls in which their larvae develop. Those caused by Gall-wasps (Cynipdae) are some of the most distinctive, and all those shown below fall within that group.

Galls can form on any part of the tree, but most obvious are those formed on buds and acorns, and those on leaves, often on the undersides. Perhaps surprisingly given its abundance in recent years, ‘our’ tree had no signs of the large, sticky, woody acorn distortions (Knopper Galls) of Andricus quercuscalicis, but other bud/acorn galls were obvious. By now we are reasonably familiar in Essex with both Ram’s-horn (Andricus aries) and Cola-nut (Andricus lignicolus) Galls, the latter like small, rough, scaly versions of the Marble Gall (Andricus kollari), one of the commonest species everywhere but again apparently missing on this tree. All four of these are relative newcomers to this country (Marble 1830s, Knopper 1960s, Cola-nut 1970s, Ram’s-horn 1997) and have now spread more-or-less widely.

But especially exciting for us was one we hadn’t seen before, the Hedgehog Gall of Andricus lucidus, dramatic pompoms of blobby-ended spokes. Another newcomer, this was first found in Britain in London in the 1990s, but has hitherto shown few signs of spreading far.

London is seemingly the initial focus for many of these new arrivals, presumably in part due to the heat-island effect of the city, keeping winter temperatures 5°C or more higher than in the countryside, and favouring these species originating from more southerly climes. Another contributing factor could be the relative abundance of Turkey Oak alongside native Pedunculate Oak in London’s woodlands. This tree also originates from southern Europe (although the fossil record shows it to have been native here before the last Ice Age), and interestingly all the galls mentioned above (except possibly Ram’s-horn) rely on both oak species for specific stages of their life-cycle. With two generations a year, the sexual generation requires (and forms galls upon) Turkey Oak, while the asexual, late-summer generation is the one we were looking at…

Ands so to leaf galls. There are three widespread and familiar Spangle-galls, the Common Spangle Neuroterus quercusbaccarum, the Silk-button Neuroterus numismalis, and the Smooth Spangle Neuroterus albipes.

All were present on our tree, with Smooth Spangle typically the most scarce. But most certainly not present and correct, because most of the Smooth Spangles, instead of being flattened, smooth, whitish or pink discs, were puckered into the most beautiful flower-like forms.

Another new one for us! But what was it? Eventually, we came up with a name from the internet. Neuroterus albipes variety reflexus. Or perhaps Neuroterus albipes subspecies reflexus. Or just perhaps even a separate, as yet undescribed species, ‘Neuroterus reflexus’. It seems nobody really knows what it is, or even where it is: the normally reliable Fauna Europaea database shows it (as ssp. reflexus) scattered across Europe, but perhaps significantly NOT in Britain or Ireland, nor indeed France, Germany and the Low Countries.

From our observations, we could well believe it is something different to albipes altogether, both from its distinctive, consistently variable shape, but also giving the strong impression of being more strongly associated with the main leaf veins than true albipes.

But there are perhaps other possibilities too. A reflexus gall on one leaf was being closely attended by a tiny 3mm wasp. Completely the wrong time of year and indeed the wrong shape for one of the gall wasps, this looked more like a parasitic species with a long ovipositor. Could the ‘reflexus‘ galls simply be parasitized Smooth Spangles? After all, big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em, and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum….

Whatever the truth, a delightful hour of Gunnersbury Triangle magic provided us with new and interesting sightings, and more questions than answers!

Our first (non-working) trip to Bristol last week gave us much of what we were seeking – history, art, architecture, food and the warm feeling of a place so proud of its green credentials. But, in common with much of the rest of the country, also a lot of rain, which rather curtailed our wildlife hunting.

For just half a day the rain held off, although the skies remained stubbornly leaden. Time enough to walk up the Avon Gorge, underneath the magnificent Clifton Suspension Bridge, to ascend through Leigh Woods, cross the bridge and back into the city. No blue skies so the landscapes were muted, and we concentrated upon those inner wildscapes which can always be relied upon to brighten up a dull day.

First the plants. To find a Bee Orchid is always a thrill; the parasitic Ivy Broomrape which reveals its achlorophyllous splendours only at close range; and the all-too-easily overlooked details, the black, stalked glands on Hairy St John’s Wort, hidden from all but the hand lens or macro setting.

Insects too. Stilt-bugs were previously outside our experience, but here was Metatropis rufescens, its knobbly ‘knees’ continued as a design theme into the joint and the final segment of its antennae.

And best of all, Jude’s sharp eyes caught sight of a small red grape seed, rearing up at her: a Deer Tick questing, seeking a host on which to latch itself. But the tick is blind, so how did it know we were there? Carbon dioxide, warmth, vibration? Whatever, it knew, and left a dramatic impression in our minds as the rain set in once again….

The latest in our series of explorations by rail of hitherto unknown (to us) parts of Britain took us last week to Manchester and Chester. Despite the weather, as always we had a superb time, taking in the architecture, art, culture, food, and even a little wildlife…

Manchester was a city of surprising delights, as surprising as discovering that Lowry was not a one-trick pony, but accomplished in a variety of styles. The modern architecture of Salford Quays, complemented by watery reflections, contrasted with the Victorian industrial heritage in the city, and we were especially impressed by the Metro linking the two. Clean, quiet, efficient – surely the way forward on urban transport.

As befits ‘the city built by the workers’, its bee symbol is celebrated proudly everywhere:

And it was gratifying to see real, useful, living bees and other wildlife being actively catered for, with flowery verges in places even in some of the most heavily developed areas.

We hadn’t expected to see much in the way of insects, especially given the weather forecast, but as always there were things to be found. By Salford Quays, ornamental Eleagnus bushes with seemingly every leaf supporting one, or a small flock, of Cacopsylla fulguralis, a recently-established, and spreading, native psyllid of Japan. A novel food source perhaps, but one which seems to be being exploited by the (similarly non-native) Harlequin Ladybirds and by the ant-like nymphs of the mirid bug Miris striatus.

In the same area, the waterside Alders were covered in hundreds of Alder Leaf-beetles Agelastica alni, recently re-established in Britain after an absence of 60 years, and now spreading out from the north-west. Including to our next destination, the banks of the River Dee in Chester…

Chester: a very different city which wears its antiquity on its sleeve, back to Roman times.

This is the city which seems to have grown out of the local rocks, the Red Sandstone, in places patterned like the hide of a giraffe, something we have seen previously in the north-east corner of Menorca.

Aside from Alder Leaf-beetles, Chester also came up, in one of the few dry moments, with this splendid, fresh Hawthorn Shield-bug, in fact the first we have seen this year.