It was too sunny and warm to sit at a desk writing, so I took bicycle and binoculars and went along the Thames path to the Wetland Centre. Even in a T-shirt it was warm work, feeling more like an English July (ok, that’s not saying much) than the last day of November .
Afternoon sunbeams on a very warm Halloween at the Wetland Centre
Inside the Centre I passed some diminutive witches and warlocks: they seemed to be sweating uncomfortably inside their costumes. I took a swig of water and cooled off in a hide; two rare migrants, Green Sandpipers, bobbed daintily at the end of one of the little islands, dwarfed by a Black-Headed Gull and a Moorhen, neither of them particularly large birds. Their habit is not unlike that of the Common Sandpiper, but they lack the white streak that rises in front of the wing. One of them took flight, its slender dark wings and white belly giving it something of the look of a rather large and clunky House Martin. It felt very odd to be watching autumn migrants on such a summery day.
Over at the wader scrape, a Little Egret strutted and once fluttered across the shallow water; it is an uncommon visitor here, though becoming more usual along the south coast marshes and estuaries.
A Green Woodpecker bounded over the grazing marsh in its distinctive undulating flight, its red cap and green body showing beautifully in the hot sunshine, with a loud laughing call in case anybody was in any doubt what it was.
A Cetti’s Warbler sang its bold short song, Chwit-i-pit-i-pit, Chwit-i-pit-i-pit, as usual invisible deep in a reedbed.
Out on the open water, numbers of winter ducks are (oddly, given the summery weather) building up; several Shovelers dabbled; some dozens of Wigeon grazed; a few Teal, the drakes in glorious colour, swam nimbly about with some Gadwall.
Even on the way home, I had no need of a pullover. The BBC weather report confirmed what everyone instinctively knew: it was the warmest 31st of October ever recorded in Britain, with an astonishing 23.6 Celsius in London. Of course, a cold front is forecast.
P.S. The next morning was grey and rainy, autumn on the way. Two large grey Mistle Thrushes flew overhead, rasping out their wintry calls, like a boy blowing over a comb covered in tracing paper.
P.P.S. Four days later, after a clear starry night, the sun rose over a chilly town on a fine November morning. It was winter.
Well, despite the extraordinary warmth of both September and October – I was still working in a T-shirt down at the Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve today, anything more being too hot – the fungi have finally come out in earnest. This small speckly Dapperling seems to be Lepiota hystrix, a rare species.
Birch Log fungi
Several fungi were on show on a pile of birch logs, including a large Birch Polypore and some elegant smaller Turkeytail brackets as well as Orange Curtain Crust.
Turkeytail, Trametes (Coriolis) versicolor
These handsome Common Cavaliers were growing beside the path.
Common Cavalier Melanoleuca polioleuca (aka M. melaleuca)
Many damp rotting sticks and stumps had Stagshorn or Candlesnuff fungus growing out of them, Xylaria hypoxylon. These were thin and stick-like early in November, well-developed by 20 November.
Stagshorn Fungus, Xylaria hypoxylon, well developed
In the anthill meadow were plenty of puffballs, Lycoperdon perlatum. They certainly looked pearly, as their specific name suggests.
Good big Common Puffballs, Lycoperdon perlatum
In the picnic meadow was a tall slender yellow Inkcap, Coprinus auricomus.
The delicate, lemon-yellow Coprinus auricomus
A long-bodied wasp, surely a queen, was trapped in the surface film of the pond by the parish boundary stones. We rescued her with a stick to get a closer look.
Queen Wasp
Two days later: the weather has turned more autumnal and showery. More fungi have popped up, including quite a few Clouded Funnels, Clitocybe nebularis, behind the anthill meadow. The display of Puffballs is fine, the large clean specimens having an obviously grainy, almost pearly surface.
Clouded Funnel, Clitocybe nebularis
Some Sulphur Knights, Tricholoma sulphureum, have grown up behind the loggery at the base of the mound by the pond. They are deep orange-yellow, quite thick-stemmed, with an flattened or dished cap and widely-spaced gills that barely touch the stem.
Sulphur Knight, Tricholoma sulphureum
I found a broken Blusher mushroom, Amanita rubescens, in the anthill meadow. In this family of poisonous fungi, some deadly, it is edible when properly cooked, though the water it is cooked in must be thrown away.
The Blusher, Amanita rubescens (broken)
And a single small Slippery Jack, a suitably slimy bolete. It was yellower than the photograph shows, the cap appearing a shining light brown, the pore surface underneath rather yellow.
Slippery Jack, Suillus luteus
By the 6th of November it was far colder, and there were fewer species on show, with Fly Agaric, Clouded Funnel, quite a few Butter Caps, and this small gelatinous fungus on dead willow, Tremella mesenterica. I also found a small fragment of an brown Amanita with a white stem, probably A. pantherina, the poisonous Panther Cap.
There were several Pale Brittlestem at the edge of the Anthill meadow under Birches, bordering the strip of acid grassland where the railway used to be.
Pale Brittlestem, Psathyrella candolleana
By the 9th of November, things were visibly more autumnal; the Clouded Funnels were still about, now large and more clearly funnel-shaped; a few Butter Caps persisted, along with the Puffballs. The small fungus Phoma hedericola (‘hedera’=Ivy)was by now making large obvious spots on ivy leaves.
The Ivy Spot fungus, Phoma hedericola
These little toadstools with a cream-coloured, slimy cap and whitish fleecy stems were growing out of a loggery, the dead wood half-buried in the soil. They may be the Sticky Scalycap, Pholiota gummosa.
? Sticky Scalycap Pholiota gummosa on 9 November Same group of ? Sticky Scalycap, Pholiota gummosa on 19 November
Finally, no collection of fungi is complete without The Deceiver, Laccaria laccata, which comes in a variety of sizes, shapes and colours. It’s typically rather russet-brownish and the stem is quite thin, often a bit flattened and twisted. The cap can be round or wrinkled; it begins rather globular and flattens out. It’s rather well-named. Mind you there are several similar species: this could easily be L. fraterna, given its smooth brown stalk and rather rufous cap.
The Deceiver Laccaria laccata
Fungi are continuing to appear as late as the 11th of November. The magnificent Collared Earthstar, Geastrum triplex, was growing under birches, willows and oaks behind the anthill meadow.
Collared Earthstar Geastrum triplex
On the 12th of November:
A yellow Russula, perhaps R. claroflava (Yellow Swamp Brittlegill)A Bonnet, Mycena sp.
On 18th November, a troop of smallish, tall, pale Coprinus that don’t really turn to the usual black ink, growing on woodchip beside the path. Seems close to Coprinus impatiens.
Emmylou Harris sang of sunshine in December and roses in the snow. It’s only the 28th of October, so not that late in the year yet, but the mercury climbed to an improbable 18 Celsius – that’s T-shirts and sunhats for work down at the nature reserve – and there were indeed roses blooming in the garden.
For the record, also in flower today were Alpine Pink, Tayberry, Squash, Strawberry, Primula, Nasturtius, Hydrangea, the little New Zealand Sorrel that manages to grow between the paving stones, and Daisy.
Down at the reserve, Beaked Hawksbeard has come back into flower (for the second time this year) on the picnic meadow. It seems that the warm weather has coaxed the plants to try flowering. They’ll get a bit of a shock with the change coming in the weather tomorrow, probably. It certainly feels like an odd bit of Phenology, but of course we won’t know for many years whether this is part of a long-term trend to do with global warming, especially as the global average temperature has been taking a holiday from its inexorable rise for some years now. When the temperature does take off, it will be too late to stop, and very costly to mitigate.
Judging by the feeble global co-operation on the far more obvious and immediate threat of Ebola virus, it’s hard to be optimistic about our ability to collaborate as a species on anything as large as global warming. The Drake equation, the one that predicts the number of intelligent civilisations in our galaxy, has a term for the lifetime of a civilisation, as Prof. Brian Cox recently explained in his TV series Human Universe. If it’s only a few centuries, that would neatly explain why – despite the profusion of suitable-looking planets – we haven’t been contacted by any other civilisation. That would imply that “intelligent” life never lasts very long on any planet. However hard it tries to be sensible, selfishness – which must always be favoured by evolution for short-term gain – always takes over, and people use up the resources of their home planet until – pof! – they wipe themselves out. Just clever enough to be really stupid. What a cheerful thought.
perhaps Noble false widow spider, Steatoda nobilis on Henry Moore statue
Well, it was certainly a large and striking spider with a distinctive crescent mark on the forward slope of its abdomen, so “False Widow Spider?” sprang into my mind. It was, amusingly, making itself conspicuous on the noble bronze surface of the Henry Moore statue in Kew Gardens: there’s just one now, reminding old-timers of the ‘one behind every bush’ feeling we had in 2006 when the gardens were full of Henry Moores, and I confess I pretty much ‘understood’ what they were about for the first time, seeing them against a natural (well, you know what I mean) background as massive, handsomely curved figures. One was near a splendidly branchy conifer, its huge curved branches setting off the sculpture.
But I digress. The spider had a finely moulded cephalothorax and a large, nearly globular abdomen, marked with a sandy crescent and a dotted area. Its legs were distinctively reddish. Back at home, I looked up images of false widows. It certainly wasn’t the large native False Widow, Steatoda bipunctata. It looked much like the introduced Steatoda nobilis; perhaps the dotted area on the abdomen was not typical, but it seems close enough. The species, according to the Natural History Museum, arrived here in the 1870s — not quite such a new arrival as the ebola-panicky tabloid newspapers seem to think, then. It most likely arrived among bananas from Madeira and the Canary Islands, so it really is a subtropical scary. It can “live comfortably in our homes all year round”, says the museum cheerily, and is now common and widespread. And yes, it does bite; but the effect is not much worse than a wasp sting. I suspect a bit of hydrocortisone cream would sort it out nicely. Or a swift tap with a shoe, of course.
In 1942 the scholar of Middle English, christian apologist and author of the Narnia books, C.S. Lewis, published The Screwtape Letters. The explanatory subtitle was Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil, indicating the purpose of the book, to educate the young devil in the most effective means of corrupting humans from the paths of goodness and righteousness. Of course, we believe (or are free to imagine) the book to have a different purpose altogether for its human readers. In that spirit, here is some Advice to a Young Property Developer.
—o0o—
Dear Frango, you are trying to get planning permission for a huge, ugly glass and concrete stump in a beautiful area that is already fully built-up with attractive rows of houses and their little gardens, small friendly shops and peaceful parks. I understand you like strolling around the area at lunchtimes. Enjoy it by all means, but do not allow your feelings for the area to intrude on your work. Professionalism must come first. Your company’s existence, your job and those of your colleagues depend absolutely on your being able to work unsentimentally and methodically towards the goal of making money through development. You must use all means at hand, within the law or where necessary without it, taking all due precautions of course, to achieve the desired ends in good time. Time is money, as you will become aware. Each month’s delay costs the company a month’s salary for all the employees involved, as well as a month’s interest on the money it has borrowed from the City. It also delays by a month the necessary returns to the company’s owners and shareholders, and your jobs depend ultimately on their confidence in your professionalism and reliability. Therefore, do everything you can not just to get the job done, but to overcome opposition quickly. Leave your feelings for lunchtimes and evenings. All the best, Nick.
Dear Nick, thank you for your letter. I’ll do my best, but we are heavily tied down by planning law, especially the need to consult widely and to provide 40% social housing. What a nuisance! It takes ages and the social housing will cut our profits down terribly. Any ideas? With many thanks again for your help, Frango.
Dear Frango, you are quite right to ask. The good thing about the rules on consulting is that you only have to do it within a fixed distance – I think it’ll be 500 metres in your case. This may sound a lot, but if you choose a site at the boundary of a park or commercial estate, or beside a river for instance, you’ll immediately halve the area involved as you’ll only have to consult in half a circle. Even better, if you can find a place near a borough council boundary, you can forget about the people in the other council! What an excellent rule! Of course, if you’re near an administrative boundary and also beside an industrial estate, then hardly any local residents will ever get to hear about your project, until it’s too late. Things are pretty well stacked in our favour!
As for the 40% social housing, I wouldn’t get too hung up on the percentages. We can easily offer the council some cash “in lieu” of the social housing: they can announce they will be using it somewhere else, some time in the future, to build some social housing, somehow or other (certainly not with us, there’s no money in it, but I’m sure if they offer a building contract, there’ll be some builder willing to take their money off them to throw up some matchwood stuck together with spit for the deserving poor. As soon as your council smell the money – we can call it Section 106 you know, even if it isn’t exactly compensation – they’ll be eating right out of your hand. Your affectionate uncle (may I call myself that?), Nick.
Dear Nick, of course you can be my uncle if you like! Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions. They are just what I needed. My team leader was really impressed in our weekly meeting this morning. We’ve got a suitable site lined up and think we may be able to get away with a 42-storey tower! I couldn’t have imagined we’d be able to risk anything so profitable around here. All the best, Frango.
Dear Frango, delighted to hear it’s all going so well. Do be careful not to get your hopes up too early: remember there are many steps to the process, and “obstacles” to be overcome. Take things one at a time, though, and you’ll soon be in management. Your affectionate uncle, Nick.
Dear Nick, you were right. We’d hardly got started when an incredible busybody of a local nuisance – I think she’s got a lawyer for a husband – has started complaining to all and sundry, and we haven’t even put in a planning application yet. She’s pointed out that we’re in breach of the Local Plan, and that we can’t use Section 106 money to compensate for lack of social housing. If only we could shut her up… Your stressed-out “nephew”, Frango.
Dear Frango, something like this always happens. The good news is, we’re still here, and we have deep pockets. Of course we don’t want the delay and expense, but the fact is, we can cope with it, as we have done on every previous project. You’ll find a way around it. Remember that the busybody and her husband have no funds to fight us with, and plenty of other things to worry about – they have to earn their living, and fight off all our “friends” who are planning developments in the same area. Did you hear about the combined housing/office/retail development just off the high street, and the swimming pool/cinema/housing complex where the old tennis courts were? They’ll be run off their feet, you’ll see, and we can reapply with a marginally different proposal if your 42-storey tower actually gets rejected. So I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. Your affectionate uncle, Nick.
Today, with dry weather, damp ground and a gentle breeze it was perfect for burning some of the brash that we had cut in the past few months. Three enormous piles of wood and brambles were eaten up by the flames. As we raked up the remains, a few little frogs, charmingly bright green, hopped away. A red admiral butterfly fluttered energetically around an ivy bush.
Orange Peel Fungus Aleuria aurantia
On bare ground in the open meadow was a good clump of Orange Peel Fungus, Aleuria aurantia. With its brightly coloured open cup, it’s clearly an Ascomycete. It’s said to be edible; it looks as if something – maybe a snail – has been eating away at this one.
The acid grassland is dotted with large handsome puffballs; under the birches are a lone destroying angel, a small spherically-capped fly agaric, a brown birch bolete, and many smaller fungi including the amethyst deceiver.
The tail end of Hurricane Gonzalo is blowing leaves off the trees; the reserve is quite sheltered, and it is pleasant to work in the passing showers and bursts of sunshine, pulling up ivy and brambles, making space for grassland to regenerate and for new saplings to sprout. But with the mushrooms and the wind, it is at last starting to feel like autumn.
Yet another astonishingly warm day, not exactly Indian Summer now with a cloudy start, but too hot for more than a t-shirt by midday. The Wraysbury Lakes were quiet, the winter ducks represented only by a few shoveler and a couple of gadwall. The most impressive waterbirds were the cormorants roosting on the dead branches of a large willow.
Muntjac footprint and pellets
On the path I found a single muntjac deer footprint, with its tiny pellets. A few goldfinches twittered in the bushes, and a linnet. A buzzard circled over the hills in the distance.
Most of my last few visits to Gunnersbury Triangle have been taken up with untangling a mass of fallen Willow trees in the mangrove swamp. One tree fell on the next, which fell on the next … and the whole lot were in sticky mud with a rising autumn water table, covered in ivy to boot. I lopped, chopped and carried branches and lumps of ivy away, getting happily hot, tired and dirty in the process.
Lopped Trunks in the Mangrove Swamp
Yesterday I wandered around with no tools other than camera and binoculars, and was rewarded with the sight of a Grey Wagtail, a Robin and a Wren hopping about and feeding in their different styles, exactly where I had been clearing.
Grey Wagtail: it is blurred as it was moving and wagging its tail
The wagtail was gobbling mouthfuls of grubs that it grabbed from the soft mud. It constantly bobbed and wagged its tail, displaying its yellow rump in the process. Could that be aposematic – is the yellow, in other words, a warning that the bird is distasteful? If not, why does it constantly flash yellow, even when no other birds of its species are about?
Today, I finished lopping the fallen Willow branches; as these last ones were over on the side, it was a cleaner and drier job. Then I joined in with a corporate group from Lend Lease, a well led and relaxed team … of property developers. They were incredibly pleasant to be with. The next surprise was at the hut when we all had a cup of tea: a nice Indian businessman in a suit came and asked us if his firm of engineers could use the reserve … for a group meditation. They stood about quietly and respectfully in a group, at least one person with hands pressed together in the ‘namaste’ position. We went on clearing and coppicing in the delightful autumn weather.
I got a small winged bug in my mouth; it released a pungent taste of cinnamon oils. Probably that is a chemical defence too: certainly a powerful taste, probably unpleasant in any quantity; but it was not bad in a one-off dose.
I ended my day sawing off some of the tree-stumps left over from the coppicing, together with one of the very capable and enthusiastic London Wildlife Trust trainees. It’s tremendous to see such good work going on in the reserve. And a piece of excellent news: a new warden has been appointed to manage work on the reserve, along with a West London warden who will be based here, but will have the massive task of keeping all the Hillingdon reserves from getting totally overgrown with hawthorn and blackthorn, among other things. So, suddenly, the place is full of life! Let’s hope we soon get our new visitor centre, we need it.
Conservation work with property developers; meditating engineers. You couldn’t make this up, or if you did, nobody would believe you. People say nature opens your mind, helps you feel relaxed. It does, you know.
Autumn Oak Leaves (with spangle galls)
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
