Category Archives: Nature Reserves

Conservation, Nature Reserves

A Winter Task: Digging out Wet Woodland

Image 27 November 2018 Ian Alexander

Digging out wet woodland in Gunnersbury Triangle, seen from the boardwalk bridge. The “carr” steadily silts up with mud, leaves and roots. Here the team is carefully preserving the rushes and gypsywort, removing mud to a spade’s depth. The mud will be graded to form a gentle transition from the deeper areas, which only dry out in midsummer, to the dry bank that’s covered in holly.

Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Expedition to Fray’s Farm … to collect logs

13 November 2018 Ian Alexander

Unloading wheelbarrows from roof of Land-Rover at Fray’s Farm, one of London Wildlife Trust’s numerous reserves on the western edge of London. All we needed to do was to find the logs!

We fanned out across the reserve looking for log-piles. On the way, I found this beautiful Oak in full autumnal splendour, as well as a buzzard, a red kite, and a common darter dragonfly (not bad for mid-November), and a brief glimpse of a roe deer. Jules found a handsome Carabid ground beetle.

Anna and Netty loading the spoils. The logs were covered in lichens and the ones which had lain a year or two with elegant curtain crust fungi as well.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Willow Emerald Damselfly Eggs in Willow Twig

8 November 2018 Ian Alexander

Willow Emerald Damselfly (photographed earlier this year). The species is very new to Britain, having arrived last year or not long before that; and this year is the first time we’ve seen them at Gunnersbury Triangle, so it’s very exciting to see the unique egg-laying traces!

Netty with glorious autumnal Aspen twig. The colours are exactly as photographed.

Natural History, Natural Patterns, Nature Reserves

Gunnersbury Triangle Bug Day – Purple Hairstreak, Rove Beetle

25 July 2018 Ian Alexander

Purple Hairstreak found in pond (worth a look at full size, click and see)

Bug Day pond dipping – water level alarmingly low

(Prob. Southern) Hawker Dragonfly Nymphs, Pond Snails. We also saw plenty of Ramshorn Snails, a flatworm, a leech, small diving beetles, damselfly nymphs, water fleas, Greater Water Boatmen (Backswimmers), young newts (with 4 legs and gills) and more.

Devil’s Coach Horse (*Ocypus olens*) – a Rove Beetle (Staphylinidae), splendidly fast and wriggly

The magnificent Fibonacci spirals of a Teasel flowerhead

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Moths at Gunnersbury Triangle

7 June 2018 Ian Alexander

Angle Shades, named for the dark angled markings

Netty had a successful night with the moth trap.

Pyrausta purpuralis, a small but beautiful “micro” moth. And yes, it’s name means the purple one in Latin

Heart and Dart, one of 3 trapped (and released after ID). The name refers to the black markings

Rustic. We scratched our heads at its similarity to Uncertain (hah!) but it does seem to be the paler and less distinct species all the same.

Natural History, Nature Reserves

Gunnersbury Triangle Damselflies Egg-Laying Like There’s No Tomorrow!

3 June 2018 Ian Alexander

Shimmer and sparkle: many pairs of ovipositing Azure Damselflies – seven seen here, there were at least fifteen pairs, not to mention …#

Large Red Damselfly (there were several pairs)

Male Bluetail Damselfly on a reed leaf: there were two males tussling, but no female as yet

Yellow and Orange ‘escaped’ Goldfish in GT pond. Perhaps people think ‘setting them free’ when moving house will be a good thing, but they devastate native pond life

Netty with jigsaw cutting out pond minibeasts

(27 May 2018) Flooded GT paths after thunderstorm – I never saw the water table THIS high

GT seasonal pond flooded over path, yes, that’s the main path on the right there

GT looking not its best after floods – car parts, bits of fence, railway sleepers, erosion scour, rubbish-filled silt …

Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves

Nightingales at Northward Hill

14 May 2018 Ian Alexander

Northward Hill, looking over oakwood, scrub, grazing marshes, and river

Well there are some things one just has to do, even if it means braving the traffic. Nightingales, once common all over the south of England, can now only be heard in a few special places, and Northward Hill is one of them. There are some others in the southeast, like Lodge Hill, and guess what, they want to build houses all over it. Better go and enjoy the birdsong while it lasts.

A very shy Wall Brown, now a mainly coastal butterfly, the first I’ve seen for years

I was greeted by the song of blackbird, chaffinch, robin, song thrush, and wren as I walked in. A few ‘whites’ – large white, orange tip, green-veined white – skittered about as I reached the attractively rough scrub of hawthorn in full May blossom, blackthorn, wild pear, wild plum, and wild cherry, topped by the occasional whitethroat singing away scratchily.

Into the woods, with a handsome old cherry orchard on the right. Some of the oaks were straight out of Lord of the Rings, splendidly gnarled, knobbly, with massive trunks and holes to hide a good few goblins in.

Nightingale country: a fine old Oak. It looks to have been pollarded at about 12 feet up some centuries ago, so it was probably cut to that height while smaller wood was coppiced all around it.

And yes, sure enough, a nightingale obliged by singing its hesitant but amazingly rich and varied song from the thick cover. A little further, another; and a cuckoo kindly sang its unmistakable song from an oak almost in front of me, then with a ‘gok’ call flew, sparrowhawk-like, from the tree, a special sight.

Down to the hide overlooking the pool in the top photo; I wasn’t expecting more than a coot and maybe a mallard, but there were breeding lapwings chasing off the crows; breeding oystercatchers, and an avocet sitting with them; and a couple of solitary little egrets, stalking and stabbing at small fish or frogs. A redshank gave its wild teuk-teuk-teuk call and flashed its wingbar briefly.

Overhead a few swallows flitted about, and three swifts raced over the marsh.

The Hoo Peninsula is still a wild, spacious, lonely place, even with the swelling villages. You can see the Shard and Canary Wharf in the distance (some 30 miles); the river with its cranes and giant ships is ever-present; but the North Kent Marshes are special, as is Northward Hill with its fine old woods, still unspoilt for birds. Go and see it while you can.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands

Spring Migrants at Thursley Common

10 May 2018 Ian Alexander

Eriophorum angustifolium, Bog Cotton, a plant of wild, wet and rugged places

A bright, breezy, and much cooler day (16 C, not 29 any more) was just perfect for a visit to Thursley. Perhaps many of the dragonflies decided not to fly: I saw one Common Darter and (I think) one Brown Hawker, and nothing else, so anyone who went along hoping to see the Hobbies hawking for dragonflies by the dozen will have had a wasted trip (and indeed I saw several extravagantly camouflaged types with gigantic telescopes standing about looking very bored).

But everything else was in full swing. A Cuckoo called from the pinewoods. A Curlew gave its marvellously wild, bubbling call from the open marsh. A Dartford Warbler gave me the best view ever of its rufous belly and long tail, as it sat low in a scrubby Birch, giving its rasping anxiety call repeatedly. I enjoyed the view through binoculars. By the time I remembered to take a photo it was half-hidden again.

A Stonechat gave its scratchy call from a small Birch, then hopped up to some Pine trees (so, a distant shot).

A few Chiffchaffs called from the woods; plenty of Whitethroats sang from the regenerating Birches that are encroaching on to the heath. A Green Woodpecker gave its fine laughing call.

Birches regenerating on to heath below Pines

So I heard three warblers today to add to the four yesterday, so seven singing warblers in 24 hours, a little bit special.

The lichen flora on the heath was quite beautiful, with Usnea beard lichen, leafy Parmelia, bristly Ramalina (all on old Heather), and elegant Cladonia potscourer, cup, and stalk lichens (three species).

Miniature elegance: Cladonia cf fimbriata, cup lichen

A Linnet sang from the top of a Birch. Goldfinches twittered and flitted about.

Dove’s Food Cranesbill, Geranium molle, (?), on dry heath beside path

Musk Stork’s-bill, Erodium moschatum, (?) on dry heath beside path

And on the path out, a Hobby leapt from a tree right in front of me, where it had been sitting watching the bog pools, waiting for dragonflies to come out and display themselves. It flew round and up, then circled, soaring, away to the south. Perhaps it was the one the twitchers had been waiting to see flying all morning.