All posts by Chris Gibson

Benton End & Wolves Wood

Britain's Wildlife

Last summer I was very excited to be invited to Benton End, the former home of Sir Cedric Morris, the acclaimed gardener and artist. The house and garden, close to Hadleigh (Suffolk), were well known for gatherings of the great and good in the artistic and gardening worlds of the 1950s, with guests ranging from Lucian Freud to Benjamin Britten to Beth Chatto.

Cedric died 40 years ago since which the house and especially the garden have been neglected. But now under the ownership and guidance of the Garden Museum, both are being restored with a view to opening to the public in 2026. It was an unrelentingly grey day for my visit, hence the dingy photos, but still the garden was very interesting as it is gradually tamed from the neglect of the decades…

For a start, the cracks in the paving around the house were colonized by a few choice plants, including Deptford Pink and Tunic Flower:

Round the back it was equally informal and delightful:

And so into the walled garden where the first steps are being taken to return it to its heyday, albeit inspired by its past rather than being a slavish copy: feature trees such as the old Judas-tree are being retained, borders and beds are being restored, and plants bred by Cedric or otherwise associated with him will be returned to their home.

This still leaves space for natural grassland, sown with Yellow Rattle to suppress the grasses, and with Field Garlic growing happily through. An interesting plant this: a native onion of the sloping edges of valley grassland (as here), it is found mainly well to the west and north of East Anglia. There is a scattering of localities in Suffolk and Essex mapped in the BSBI Plant Atlas 2020, though none are shown as occurring beyond the end of the 20th century: could this be an overlooked survival?

Outside the walled garden there is an even larger area of grass, scrub and woodland for the garden team to play with!

It was not good weather in which to find insects, but I have no doubt this wonderful enclave of non-farmed land in a sea of agricide supports a good selection. One thing we did find was the bud gall of Germander Speedwell, caused by the gall midge Jaapiella veronicae. Although widely scattered across Britain, the NBN Atlas suggests it is rarely frequent (except perhaps in the ‘home range’ of active recorders?) and there are only a dozen or so Suffolk localities.

Getting it back into a state appropriate for public viewing will be a long and arduous task. But the signs are very hopeful: I was entranced as I was shown around by the team, including Head Gardener James Horner. And importantly, all is being done without pesticides or herbicides. This is undoubtedly what Cedric would have wanted: one of his most activist paintings is ‘Landscape of shame‘, produced in response to the pesticide-driven killing fields of  the1960s, which sadly continues to this day.

Landscape of Shame, c.1960 © Tate Gallery

I look forward to returning, and anyone interested should keep an eye on the website A plantsman’s paradise – Benton End House & Garden Trust for open days and plans to open more widely. Thanks to all for the invitation, and sorry the blog has taken so long to appear!

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While in the area, and despite the gloom, I decided to have a nose into Wolves Wood RSPB reserve, a place I haven’t been for more than a decade – my last visit memorably being the occasion of hearing my last Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in Britain! It is a lovely ancient coppice wood, although I don’t remember the very intrusive traffic noise – perhaps I have just become old and intolerant?

Sitting on glacial clays, the car park has signs proclaiming it as a ‘wet wood’, and ”wellies advisable’: well, in late July that was not quite necessary, but there were certainly some wet patches following our damp spring and early summer.

And the vegetation very much reflected those conditions, the fenland flora at its best now in open clearings, in contrast to the long-past spring peak under the tree canopy: there was Meadowsweet, Square-stalked St John’s-wort, Creeping Jenny, Lesser Spearwort, Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil, Marsh Bedstraw and Marsh Thistle among many other species.

And as always there some other interesting finds to report, most notably a gall on the leaves of Meadowsweet caused by the gall-midge Dasineura pustulans. The NBN Atlas shows this to be largely western and northern in distribution, with only the one Suffolk site, near Bradfield Woods, while there are none from Essex and only a scattering in Norfolk, despite the frequency of the host plant.

Both sites are well worth a visit, and together make a fine day out in mid-Suffolk. I look forward hopefully to heading over the border again in the coming summer!

 

 

#WildEssex New Year Plant Hunt 2025

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. And traditionally this has been our first #WildEssex event of the year, a walk around Wivenhoe Waterfront on New Year’s Day. Sadly not in 2025: as seems to be getting more frequent, we were subject to a severe weather alert for strong wind and heavy rain so for reasons of comfort and safety we took the decision to cancel.

All data collected in this citizen science project are fed into the national record of what is flowering at this time: for more information see New Year Plant Hunt – Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (bsbi.org). It is good to be part of a bigger project to aid learning about how British and Irish wildflowers are responding to climate change, so it is fortunate we did a recce a couple of days prior to our planned walk, applying the same rules, and more or less following the same route as in previous years.

Our recce produced the ‘usual suspects’, shrubs that routinely flower in the depths of winter and annuals that flower at any time of year: Gorse, Hazel, White Dead-nettle, Groundsel, Annual Mercury, Shepherd’s-purse, Hairy Bittercress, Sun and Petty Spurges and Common Chickweed were among those we found, together with Daisies and Dandelions sparkling sparsely in lawns. 

Some of the older walls and brickwork supported Mexican Fleabane, Trailing Bellflower and Ivy-leaved Toadflax, while other showy plants included Green Alkanet, Greater Periwinkle, Pot Marigold, Sweet Violet and Common Knapweed.  And it was quite a surprise to find Ivy flowers still open in places.

Along the waterfront itself, in the cracks of the block paving, Four-leaved Allseed is more abundant than it has ever been since its arrival here around the time of the pandemic, but try as we might we could not find any in actual flower. But other subtle flowers such as Guernsey Fleabane and Pellitory-of-the-wall made it onto our list after close scrutiny, a real test for my newly-decataracted eye! The rapidly spreading Water Bent also increases in abundance every year.

On the salt-marsh, a few Sea Aster flowers remained from late summer, and some spikes of Common Cord-grass dangled their naughty bits wantonly to the wind. But much more dramatic were the very numerous, huge fruiting bodies of Cord-grass Ergot, a fungus we found around here less than a decade ago and which now seems very prevalent.

Carrying on the seaside theme, three plants we have not recorded before on these forays are garden escapes that have put on their first flowering appearance outside the confines of cultivation: Sea Campion and Rock Samphire, native plants of sand and shingly beaches, and Sweet Alison, a familiar bedding plant, but often found wild in coastal areas, as reflected in its scientific name Lobularia maritima.

All in all, 37 species in flower represents a new high for us (see full list here New Year Day PLANT HUNT Year on year) compared with 34 in 2024, 23 in 2023, 35 in 2022 and 30 in 2021, although one should fall short of celebrating – many of these plants should not be flowering now, and are doing so only because of the harm we have inflicted upon our climate…

But our feeling was that while we saw more species in flower, there were fewer flowers of each species to be found: the landscape was much less floriferous, more akin perhaps ‘proper winters’ of decades past. I got exactly the same impression at Boxted the day previously where I led a village wildflower walk for the second New Year in succession.

There is of course another way of looking at it. Plants are not the only things responding to climate change: although we saw no insects being active in the dully, foggy weather of our walk, it is undeniable that fewer insects are hibernating than used to be the case. And year-round activity needs year-round nectar and pollen resources, so any insect-attracting flowers such as Gorse and dead-nettles are important, even in the context of much richer supplies inside our gardens, as for example the gorgeous, subtly showy blooms of Virgin’s-bower Clematis cirrhosa.

While there is a little turnover of species year upon year, in some way there is also comfort to be found in the litany of names, old friends in many cases, even down to actual individual plants, recited in a ritual that echoes that of the Shipping Forecast. In spite of our best efforts at self-destruction, the world still turns! Happy New Year!!

 

 

 

BOOK REVIEW Cull of the Wild: killing in the name of conservation by Hugh Warwick

Reviews

Cull of the Wild: killing in the name of conservation by Hugh Warwick
Bloomsbury Publishing | March 2024 | ISBN 978-1399403740 | Hardback 304 pages | £19

Cull of the Wild: Killing in the Name of ConservationThis is a book that should be required reading before anyone is even allowed to engage in debate about conservation ethics. By ‘debate’, of course I mean the expression of opinions about complex, nuanced topics, such as ‘is it right to kill to conserve?’, the sort of polarized views we all too quickly fall into especially
through social media. So, Hugh Warwick has done us all a favour in exploring these and related issues through a series of case studies, both close to home and further afield, without shying away from asking hard questions, of himself and others, and crucially not averse to modifying his own views on the basis of objective evidence. Surely this is a desirable position for us all to adopt, the primacy of fact over opinion?

My fear is that some may find its initial delve into hard-core philosophical principles hard going and off-putting. That discussion is important, but my advice would be to read the first chapter once, and then again after reading through a few of the case studies that follow – it all seems to come together then and make much more sense.

As the narrative of the book expands, so the philosophical conundrums, challenges and considerations expand, from the simple ‘should species x be killed to benefit species y’, to ‘if objective evidence suggest the answer to the above is yes, then what are the primary considerations? Effectiveness? Targeting? Compassion?’. All very important considerations
and ones that benefit from the basic ethical premise of the author, a long-term vegan.

There are also interesting explorations of things we could all usefully learn from in all walks of life, especially conflict resolution through empathy. The section from page 68 is an especially powerful few pages covering the cull of the wild that accompanies attempts
to ‘conserve the shooters’ privilege’ – the killing (legally and otherwise) of predators that have the temerity seek a share of the landscape overloaded with pheasants, a landscape within which the birds themselves conduct their own culls, of invertebrates, snakes etc. All to create a crop of birds themselves to be killed. Devastating reading, especially when one
sees how it quickly breaks down from illegal killing of predators to death threats against human beings.

Only at the very end of the book did the subject that is my personal red line emerge: trophy hunting, the selling of killing and legitimisation of the taking of trophies to demonstrate ‘prowess’, in order to fund the conservation of other individual or species. In my view, that is nothing short of rewarding psychopathy. The author’s position throughout the book is to maintain objective distance to avoid polarization, but on this topic of trophy hunting he observes that there is no common ground to be found: ‘some things are wrong’, an insight provided by a professor friend who said ‘fundamentally, I believe that ethics should precede science’.

If the above comments suggest the book is austere and worthy, sorry. It is not! The author has the most engaging style, full of gentle humour, weaving anecdote and dialogue into even the most potentially distasteful topics (for some). And in doing so, making it all so much easier to swallow, like washing down syrup of figs with malt whisky. Not everyone
will want to grapple with the contradictions and conundrums, but those are the very folk who should do so if we want a society built on consensus instead of conflict.

Reviewed by Dr Chris Gibson FBNA and BNA Trustee

First published in BNA News Bulletin Issue 22 November 2024, p 24.

 

 

A flying visit to Maidenhead

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Our final short break of the year took us to uncharted territory: Maidenhead. While the main reason was a friendship visit, at least the river frontage of the town has always looked alluring, even at high speed, on our rail journeys further west….

… so we booked for a night into the Thames Riviera Hotel, ideally situated on the Thames bank, between the 18th century stone road bridge and Brunel’s 19th century brick railway bridge. The hotel was very comfortable, if uncannily quiet, and did provide us with a sumptuous evening meal: for two of us, lamb shank at its melt-in-the-mouth best.

Next morning we explored the river and its environs. After a sharp frost, it soon got really quite warm in the solstitial sun as we ventured over the border into Buckinghamshire at Taplow. Down leafy lanes, Ivy berries were ripening nicely for late winter bird food and Old Man’s Beard was catching every drop of the low light in its shaggy halo.

Our breakfast destination was the Lake House Café, overlooking a watersports lake, and so probably a whole lot more relaxing at this time of year when the only residents were the ducks, Cormorants and Coots! Breakfast was excellent, as were the views, ever-changing cloudscapes reflected in the tranquil waters.

Then we walked up-river, alongside the Jubilee River, a major flood-relief, only 25 years old but merging seamlessly and naturalistically into the landscape, in a series of habitat improvements designed to offset the effects of developments within the river valley:

Willows and roses were covered in overwintering gall structures, Mistletoe was everywhere, and Red Kites wheeled and mewled around in remarkable numbers, some taking time out in the bankside trees…

Then it was back to the Thames and its islands and locks. Ray Mill Island had more kites, Egyptian Geese and sweetly scented Winter Heliotrope, flowering alongside a remarkably late blooming Ivy bush.

From there it was a very pleasant stroll through the back lanes into the town centre. What of Maidenhead? Well at least it has a clock tower …

Actually, that is unfair. We thought that might be all that there is to it, until in our last hour when we scratched the surface and discovered the waterways that reach into its heart, right up to the High Street, providing interesting photos and mind-bending reflections, along with Grey Wagtails…

Then there are the sculptures, ranging from this Green Man to a hanging gaggle of bats, the latter to celebrate the filming of a Dracula film in the nearby Bray studios (and the sourcing of rubber ‘models’ from the local Woolworths!)….

And a few interesting buildings like the church below, plenty of shops, and a fine pint in the Bear, an old pub still with atmosphere and life (and cheap beer, being a Wetherspoons).

All in all a very fleeting visit but a worthy end to our catalogue of short breaks in places less visited. Roll on 2025!!

December in Dundee & Perth

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Planning short breaks in the winter months is always beset by the short days and of course the risk of inclement weather. For the December trip in our first year of monthly short breaks by train we decided to ignore the weather risk, and simply accept the inevitability of short days (the above ‘sunrise’ photo was taken well after breakfast!) … indeed to face it square on by heading north into even shorter days, and return to Dundee after our fantastic couple of days there last year. The answer is to make the most of good food and drink when it is dark (is that why whisky was invented?) and to take advantage of good short-term weather forecasts and the shelter afforded by museums, churches and trains (and pubs!) to avoid rain, which we did pretty successfully.

With long train journeys bookending our four-day break, it is important to enjoy the travelling. And going north up the East Coast mainline, it is impossible not to enjoy the journey of cathedrals (Peterborough, Durham, York), castles ( Durham, Lindisfarne, Bamburgh, Edinburgh), bridges (Newcastle, Forth, Tay), islands (Farnes, Holy Island, Bass Rock), the Angel of the North and a whole lot more.

So another two nights in the Premier Inn right on the bank of the Firth of Tay: what’s not to love with the low sun only just rising above the horizon, but lighting the Firth in dramatic spectacle?

And it just happens to be a couple of hundred metres from one of our favourite buildings ever, the utterly magnificent V&A. A whale from one angle, the prow of a ship from another, and walking underneath it has all the echoing wilderness of a dripping Scottish sea-cave:

Surrounded by water, it is equally as impressive in reflection…

… and the delights continue after dark.

So impressive that going inside the building is almost disappointing, though the ‘strata’ and (genuine) fossils are a magnificent touch.

As a building the V&A really benefits from the sun creating an ever-changing interplay of light and shade, so it is fortunate that our day and a half of daylight were under blue skies, also great conditions to stroll along the Firth to the Railway Bridge:

The sunlight showed the many monumental buildings in the city centre to their best effect…

… a city centre also filled with public art and sculpture:

 

Churches, pubs (here the Trades House) and the museum provided us with culture and sustenance…

And for us one very special place was the graveyard known as the Howff, a beautifully unmanicured space, where Death begets Life.

But apart from the gulls and Shags on the Firth, the main other wildlife interest was in the adornments of lichens on pretty much every street tree:

Our next move came about at the recommendation of a friendly street-sweeper who out of the blue came up to us and suggested we visit Broughty Ferry, even giving us the details of how to get there by bus. And as we had a couple of hours before the anticipated arrival of rain, it would have been rude not to. A very lovely peaceful fishing village, with harbour and castle, this kept us very happy.

Rock Pipits, Turnstones and a partially albino Carrion Crow fed along the beach, where Sea Mayweed and Sea Rocket were still clinging to flower, and again lichens added their splashes of colour to the harbour walls:

And as the first rain arrived it was into the delightful Ship Inn, where we tucked in to the very best bowl of Cullen Skink just before the kitchen closed, and essentially decided the treat we would try and recreate for our Christmas lunch this year!

We’ve still not done with Dundee! We will be back again. Even though it sits astride the National Cycle Route 1, the very same as I worked with Sustrans to deliver as its first stage through Wivenhoe some 30 years ago,  we are perfectly content to let the train take the strain!

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All too soon, it was time to head to Perth, the destination for our final night, with dire warnings of Storm Darragh ringing in our ears. Amber warnings were everywhere, for snow just to the north, wind just to the south, and rain all over! And even though the rain came, we largely missed it in the pubs and other place of shelter…

Perth was clearly once a place of considerable wealth, to judge from its buildings, but now it feels as though it has seen much better days.

The same sense of faded glories ran through our hotel (the Salutation), the sight of which on a TV programme originally piqued our interest to stay there – but the excellence of its breakfast in the palatial dining room was undeniable.

The mighty Tay still flows on through Perth, as it has since the city’s heyday, under a lovely sandstone bridge, in which erosion of the sand matrix has left pebbles embedded in relief, like natural braille… what are the rocks trying to tell us?

Lichens once more adorned the rocks and walls, and trees were filled with tseeping Redwings…

And in the backwaters of the mill races (leats) that run though the city, we had excellent views of a Kingfisher, a shaft of brilliance on the dreariest of days.

St Ninian’s Cathedral provided both shelter from the showers and plenty of interest, as did the newly refurbished museum, with some excellent exhibits including the Stone of Scone/aka Destiny in its new permanent home. Similarly the Art Gallery was just the right size, not too big but with enough fascinating art (much by William Gilles) to pass a happy couple of hours.

 

But lunchtime arrived and it was time to head homewards via Glasgow and the West Coast Mainline as the storm raged further south. Yes, we could see the snow settled on higher ground between Perth and Stirling, and quite a lot of flooding, but for us just a few minutes’ delay. Then into England, a points failure at Penrith added to the delay, but all in all it amounted to just two hours. Not bad really given the severity of the storm and the dire warnings that preceded it – and of course, it meant we got our money back!

 

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: … and the year turns full circle

Beth Chatto Gardens, WildEssex, WildWivenhoe

After what feels like months of gloom, the sun came out for my final visit of the year to the Gardens, bathing the now-faded autumnal tints in light, bringing the promise of new life just around the corner.

And blue skies always serve to lift the spirits!

Foliage comes to the fore in a winter garden, whether it is the spent leaves being recycled or new shoots of vibrant greens …

… and made all the more festive with diamond droplets as adornment.

Seeds and berries too, feeding birds of all kinds, from flocks of Goldfinches to ravenous thrushes – Blackbirds, Redwings, Fieldfares and Mistle Thrushes all vying for their share of the fruit bonanza. Thankfully there is still plenty left for if and when the frost and snow sets in.

And flowers! There are the hangovers from autumn…

… the midwinter staples, sustaining the few insects still flying. Even in the weak sun, Mahonia was attracting social wasps, hoverflies and bluebottles.

 

… and the first harbingers of the spring to come. Just a week from the solstice and life will be returning!

So ends another year at Beth Chatto Gardens, each season tumbling inexorably after the previous. But for our native wildlife, insects in particular, it has not been an easy year across much of England. Whether to do with weirded weather, longer-term climate collapse, habitat losses or the post-war raindown of pesticides on our planet (or all of the above), insect populations have been lower than at any time in recent memory, which of course means birds, bats and other consumers have also suffered.

What is especially pleasing though is that the only place I have reliably been able to find good (albeit not great) numbers of insects this year has been in the Gardens. Of course, we have the luxury of space, to ensure continuity and complexity of provision of nectar, pollen and other food resources, water, breeding sites and shelter for wildlife. And we must be doing something right!

Most of us do not have that luxury of so much space, and so many hands to work it. But hopefully inspired by our example, some of us will make one change, some of us will make another. And the sum of us will then make the difference. I wish I could claim credit for this philosophical insight, but no – it comes from Manchester poet Tony Walsh, a poem for the pandemic – but the idea has such resonance across all fields of collective endeavour, it seems too good not to reuse it!

Anyone wanting to enjoy the Gardens in their winter plumage still have a last opportunity this next Thursday to Saturday before Christmas. Thereafter, opening every Tuesday to Saturday from 4th February 2025, and unless we are enveloped in snow, spring should be springing right from the start! Book your visit here: Entrance – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens

The REALLY Wild Side of Essex with Naturetrek: a wind-lashed day round the Naze

Britain's Wildlife, WildEssex

It was a day of ferocious north-westerly wind, and as the Naze promontory is perched in the top right hand corner of Essex, we took the full brunt of it on our latest Wild Side of Essex day trip. Strong, gusty and cold, the wind-chilled temperature barely lifted above freezing, and given the wall-to-wall, dawn-’til-dusk lowering cloud, we were thankful at least it wasn’t raining!

The weather really suppressed bird activity. In the clifftop scrub, a couple of bands of Long-tailed Tits contained a few Blue Tits and Goldcrests, while Blackbirds and a single Song Thrush flew away in panic, presumably at seeing people on such an inhuman day. And even the usually reliably noisy Cetti’s Warblers could only muster a few staccato ‘chip’s.

Sadly it was the same on both the open foreshore and in the Backwaters, most wildfowl and waders no doubt seeking shelter well into the heart of the estuary. Just a sprinkling of Grey Plovers, Dunlins, Redshanks, Oystercatchers and Curlews showed their heads above the parapet, and even then the wind was too strong to hold binoculars still. Only the Brent Geese proved hardy (as befits their high Siberian breeding area), with some 500 seen in flocks at rest or being whisked past on the wind.

So it was left to the rest of the natural world to provide our wildlife fix for the day, at least those things unaffected by the wind. Gorse was looking splendid just heading to its peak flowering, in more clement weather the saviour of winter-emerging pollinators.

Lingering summer flowers included the very last Hog’s Fennel (a real  local speciality), Sea Mayweed on the sea wall and Sea Rocket on the low dunes.

On the saltmarsh, just a few Golden Samphire flowers remained, but we all got to savour the smell of the crushed leaves (more than a hint of diesel or shoe-polish). Similarly, Stinking Iris in the scrub edge, with bright orange berries was subjected to the scrunch-and-sniff test: this one roast beef or Bovril.

And despite the best efforts of the waves, Shrubby Seablite was still clinging on, thriving even, in adversity.

Lichens on tree bark are always fascinating, and the yellow Sunburst Lichens on Elder branches lived up to their name, a ray of light on a Grade A grey day….

Despite the freezing weather two weeks ago, grassland fungi were still coming up, especially Snowy Waxcaps, while growing out of seemingly most Cord-grass flower spikes were the horn-like fruiting bodies of Cord-grass Ergot.

Silver Birches also produced their share of the fungal interest, from Taphrina witches’-broom galls in the branches, to Birch Brackets (the nemesis of many a mature birch) and Turkey-tails on dead limbs.

And the of course wholly oblivious to the weather there was the geology of the cliffs and fossils on the beach, telling tales of ancient subtropical lagoons, distant volcanos, continental collisions, the meandering Thames, climatic instability, periglacial dust clouds and (right up to modern times) the erosive battle between land and sea…

All that and a spot of extreme picnicking, clustered in the shelter of a Blackthorn hedge, under an Evergreen Oak. What’s not to love about the Essex coast  at its most elemental!

For other planned Nturetrek days out with me, please visit my page on the Naturetrek website.

 

London in winter

Britain's Wildlife

So, we are doing our first ‘year of monthly short breaks’ in 2024, but just occasionally the opportunity arises for an interim one as well. This last weekend was a case in point: we wanted to attend the Essex Field Club’s Annual Exhibition & Social in the Wat Tyler Country Park, Pitsea, and east London is a good stepping-off point to get there by train. So we decided to revisit one of our favourite spots in ‘old Essex’, Barking Creek, for the night, preceded by a whistlestop tour of London in the run-up to Christmas.

When we arrived in the City, it was a beautifully sunny day, all the better to show off the edifices of glass and steel piercing the blue:

And nestled between them, historic fragments deep in the 21st century gorges, mostly churches and graveyards (including the tomb of one Sir William Rawlins, successful upholsterer, benefactor, Sheriff of London … and fraudster, convicted and jailed for electoral misdemeanours – some things never change!) followed by a lunchtime organ recital in St Margaret Lothbury, tucked behind the Bank of England.

Heading across to Kensington and Knightsbridge we then went to a (somewhat underwhelming) exhibition of Tube Maps at the Map House, though the V&A looked lovely as did many a roofscape in the sinking sun…

… before a potter across Hyde Park as the sun finally set, the trees and grazing geese oblivious to the racket from the Winter Wonderland just behind us!

Resisting the ‘temptations’ therein, and in the designer frivolity of Harrods and Selfridges, it was time for a very good meal in the Lamb & Flag, then out to a place we feel much more comfortable, Barking, full of life, diversity and real people…

The Ibis Budget hotel is not only well-priced, but right by the former mill at the point the River Roding turns into Barking Creek, ideal for a morning stroll along the Roding towpath.

Urban rivers like this are fraught with challenges, and the water quality seems pretty poor, no doubt from discharges both legal and ‘accidental’. But there is at least a veneer of nature, with Grey Wagtails and Moorhens, and it has recently been reported that Otters have finally returned to this area, one of the last watercourses of Essex to be recolonized following extirpation in the 1970s and 80s.

The riverbanks and towpath have fared little better, strewn with litter, the jetsam from the unthinking and uncaring. It could have been so different: in a moment of civic optimism some years ago, it seems attempts were made to create a pleasant riverside walk, but as is so often the case, ongoing maintenance and care has been lacking.

But the power of nature taking over, coating bricks with a patchwork of mosses and lichens, and paths and walls being subsumed into the urban jungle, just like the Amazon rainforest eating up some of its concrete incursions, does give hope that while the river may be ailing, its spirit will never quite be killed.

The EFC event at Wat Tyler Country Park was, as always, a great opportunity to meet up with friends old and new and also, as we headed back to the station, to witness a fly-past of at least 60 Pied Wagtails, on their way to roost.

And so back into London, the walk from Fenchurch Street to Liverpool Street gave us not only a fine pint and friendly company in the Windsor pub, but also the remarkable sight of the glass canyons transformed into works of art, transient masterpieces of colour, light and shadow.

A fitting end to an action-packed day and a half!

POSTSCRIPT

At the Essex Field Club meeting, we picked up this year’s edition of the journal Essex Naturalist, another bumper edition of 248 pages (as good a reason as any for joining the Club), covering a wide range of topics, including a paper from us:

GIBSON, C. & GIBSON, J. (2024) Observations on Saltmarsh Horsefly Atylotus latristriatus in Wivenhoe, North Essex. Essex Naturalist (New Series) 41: 149-151.

 

Winter arrives at the Harcourt Arboretum

Britain's Wildlife

Last week I was pleased to be invited as far afield as Abingdon to give a talk. Travelling so far from home, it provided the ideal opportunity to explore the Oxford area a little. But the weather had other ideas: plans to visit the Botanic Garden had to be abandoned because of overnight snow and heavy sleet that made the journey down there last most of the day.

However, the following morning it was a different prospect, with sunshine and very light winds. Yes, it was very cold but ideal conditions in which to explore the University of Oxford’s Harcourt Arboretum. Just me and the trees, barely a breath of wind, and no sound save for the traffic on the road and the flutter of falling leaves, the gentle crack of abscission followed by a sigh as leaf meets earth once more.

The previous day’s snow cover had all but gone, but penetrating frost left its mark right up to midday:

Walking slowly around the Arboretum was a joy, the autumnal colours shifting from green to gold to red with every vista:

Every species of tree was trying to rise to the challenge of painting the season:

The innerscapes of hanging leaves adorned with the transient interplay of pigment, sunlight and shadow made progress around the garden slow…

… while the groundscapes of fallen leaves added their unique autumnal dimension to the picture.

Add to all of that the extra colour and structure from bark and lichens, seeds and berries ….

… as the temperature rose above freezing in the sun, the frost sublimating to mist in wisps was wreathed in the fragrant billows from the charcoal burner: it really was a feast for all the senses!

And that just leaves the wildlife. Yes, free-range Peacocks are always good fun, especially when pecking around under trees from their natural home. The trees had seeping Redwings, lots of skittish Blackbirds and Song Thrushes, as well as noisy Nuthatches and woodpeckers.  More than enough nature to build up the strength of purpose to do battle with the M25…!

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: the advent of winter

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

Two visits  to the Gardens a week apart witnessed the arrival of winter this year. Last week it was still autumn, albeit a relatively subdued one in terms of colour, blanketed under dank anticyclonic gloom…

It was also dead calm, as indeed it had been for several weeks, leaving leaves largely where they were, apart from the groundscapes created by traditionally early droppers…

 

And it was mild, meaning there was still plenty of flowering to feed the bees and flies still busy in the garden.

Most exciting of all though were the bird’s-nests. Fungi, that is, their fruit bodies occupying just one of the peony pots. They are Crucibulum laeve – so-called Common Bird’s-nest, but we’ve never seen it before.

So we now have two species in the garden,  Field Bird’s-nest from 2022 outside in the Reservoir Garden is the other, twice as large and greyer. Both are simply exquisite, and part of the reason we love nature so much!

And so to yesterday, winter: a sudden cold snap had brought several nights of penetrating frost, and even an unexpectedly early dusting of snow:

This was a very different day, with temperatures hovering around freezing and feeling much cooler in the stiff breeze, but with crystalline sunlight beaming down from an azure sky.

Whether the leaf colours had really changed that much, or their intensity was magnified by the quality of the light, it felt that winter was here…

 

Whether en masse or in detail, winter is permeating every corner of the garden…

And the blanket of fallen leaves grows ever more varied:

As for wildlife, as always in the cold, the garden was a refuge for birds: a Red-legged Partridge sitting disconsolately in a snowpatch, untroubled by visitors (there were none!) and safe from the guns, while a Moorhen had recently ventured out of the ponds and left its mark.

The berry bushes were full of Woodpigeons and five species of thrush (Song and Mistle Thrushes, Redwing, Fieldfare and Blackbird) gorging on the ripe fruits, leaving the still-green Ivy berries for late-winter sustenance.

Autumn is still not forgotten: under a Silver Birch there was a fruiting Fly Agaric (as with the Red-legged Partridge, only the second time in the Gardens for me) and a Birch Bracket in the trunk above.

The frosts had disposed of much of the previous week’s blooming, but remarkably there were still insects foraging, despite the cold. As I extolled the virtues of Mahonia, right on cue along came a Buff-tailed Bumblebee – the wonders of a fur coat! One of the best things any gardener can do is to plant midwinter-flowering shrubs to fill the nectar-gap when our native countryside simply is not up to the mark, the gap that used to be a hiatus in insect activity but now in an overheated world simply not the case.

Another surprise was a new insect for the garden, at least for me: nestling down in the solar reflector leaf of a Cistus populifolius was a Parent Bug, long-anticipated as likely to be present. Another one to add to the inventory we are starting this winter!

So winter may be here, but there is still plenty of the wild side of life to appreciate in the Beth Chatto Gardens. Open Thursday to Saturday, 10.00 to 16.00, until 21 December – AND until then it is entry is half-price – Welcome to Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens

Cooling towers, canals, caves and a cathedral: the Trent Valley, east to west

Britain's Wildlife, Travel by Rail

Our monthly short breaks often have their genesis from a single place or sight or activity we want to experience, padded out into a two- or three-night stay with other things we think might be of interest in the vicinity, or at least easily accessible by public transport. November’s trip was no exception: for this, we need simply look back to the televised rail journeys of Michael Portillo. Love him or hate him as a politician, it cannot be denied that he opens the eyes of many to the abundant delight of rail.

A few months ago he alighted at East Midlands Parkway. A station in the middle of nowhere – except for that fact that the platform is almost within touching distance of the iconic cooling towers at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station….

For this one we were hoping for fine sunny weather, and as we left St Pancras, it seemed we were in luck. But by the time we reached Nottinghamshire, the anticyclonic gloom of the past few weeks had closed in again. We shouldn’t have worried: against blue skies or grey, so close up those iconic megastructures cannot fail to inspire awe.

And yes for a few precious moments, the towers lit up as a few shafts of sunlight broke through …

To hear that these cathedrals to power generation are due to be demolished, we knew we just had to visit. And just in time perhaps, as the power station ceased generating at the end of September this year, the very last coal-burning power station still operating in this country.

Of course, it is wonderful to know that such power stations are no longer polluting our world. But do their most obvious manifestation, the cooling towers with their almost sensually curved shape, need to be wiped from the face of the Earth? Surely there is still space for these iconic buildings, if nothing else as a memorial, Lest We Forget the damage inflicted to our planet and its future over the past three or four generations, and the damage inflicted upon human communities by heartless political dogma without effective transitional help towards low-carbon economies.

Every step we took, we were overlooked by the eight brooding, tamed beauties, even down by the River Soar at Redhill Marina, just about the only place within walking distance to find an afternoon cuppa.

A few hundred metres short of its discharge into the Trent, the river here is canalized, with locks, towpaths and barges, the stiller waters rampantly colonized by invasive Floating Pennywort.

In common with seemingly everywhere this year, the valley grasslands abounded in fungi, including fresh cowpats with the orange discs of Cheilymenia stercorea.

There just past the lock was the red hill after which it is named, quite a surprise in the flat valley. And the rocks really are very red, a type of friable mudstone with numerous ramifying seams of fibrous gypsum, up to several centimetres thick.

It could be the gypsum that is imparting a calcareous influence to the soil, with seepages encrusted in tufa, and the slopes festooned in Old Man’s Beard.

Then, after a happy three hours in the middle of nowhere, it was back onto the train and onwards to Nottingham.  What a revelation! As the light stated to fade we were back among canals and warehouses …

… including the welcome Canalhouse Bar, in a former canal museum and still with a narrowboat on show inside the bar.

The Premier Inn, also by the canal in the Island Quarter, was conveniently situated just along from Binks Yard restaurant, which provided us what has to be the very best meal of the many we have tasted on our monthly travels this year. For me it was free-range local pork chop with sautéed potatoes, seared hispi cabbage and a delicious honey mustard dressing, while Jude went for the rainbow salad with all sorts of magical ingredients, topped with fried halloumi strips. We finished off with the richest possible salted chocolate tart, with blood orange sorbet, though pleased we ordered just one with two spoons! And very reasonably priced even with a splendid bottle of Tempranillo… I don’t usually put such foody detail in these blogs, but that really was one of the best of the best, one to be savoured vicariously over years to come.

Next morning, the grey had given way to blue as we headed back along the canal, the sunlight showing the distinctive red bricks to advantage, and contributing to some lovely reflectascapes …

… which were rendered even more exotic by the extravagance of displaying Mandarins.

But there is another side to the city, perched on the red sandstone hills: castle, cathedral, churches, municipal and other monumental buildings looking down over the canal.

Then built into the cliff is the art gallery, Nottingham Contemporary, continuing a centuries-old practice of expanding the city underground into hundreds of caves hewn out of the soft rock.

Used for storage, shelter and industry, we visited the ‘City of Caves’. Perhaps the tours under the castle would have been better organised, albeit no doubt more expensive, but we were left a little disappointed, especially when the wifi signal dropped out and we were left without commentary half way through …

Still we got the drift, and emerged blinking into the bright sunlight into a pop-up garden, full of dahlias, and even in very unprepossessing concrete surroundings, teeming with insect life!

And all that was left to do was head to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, built into the Castle mound, for a good lunch within the beating heart of the underground city.

Next stop further up the Trent valley was Lichfield. Again we had few preconceptions about the place, but very soon realised it is all about the Cathedral, the three spires from every angle looming large over the city and its other historic attractions.

It soon got dark, and even though it wasn’t illuminated, the cathedral made its presence felt, like something from the brushes of Atkinson Grimshaw, the master of nocturnal painting,

Overnight rain came as a bit of a surprise, but by breakfast the sun was out and the skies cobalt blue. First stop of course was the cathedral: up close its many statues, figurines and external decoration lend it an intricate Gothic scariness, the sort of thing we have felt previously in cathedrals such as Cologne.

And no doubt it was not so long ago even more forbidding, before most of the stones were cleaned of the grime of the centuries to reveal the natural red sandstone, which now with lower aerial pollution levels is allowing colonization by mosses, lichens and ferns.

And so inside. The space feels vast, and it comes with all the requisite pillars, ornamentation, stained glass and wall paintings, but both of us felt it lacked a certain indefinable something. We couldn’t fault the warmth of the welcome, but the fabric of the building simply didn’t have it for us.

Out again into the sun, time to stroll around Stowe Pool for lovely reflections, visit Dr Johnson’s house, walk past Erasmus Darwin’s house, and settle down in the Angel pub for a fine local ale. And before we knew it, back to the station and home. But only three weeks until our next trip!

The Wild Side of Beth Chatto Gardens: a time for renewal

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

Now that November is upon us, the Gardens have started their winter semi-hibernation, open only Thursday to Saturday, time for them to recover from the exuberances of summer. But at least they can still be visited to bring the joys of nature into our lives, and for half-price to boot …

The summer’s growth is starting to be recycled into next year’s growth …

… but the flowers are not yet done. Especially pinks and purples blend well into the message of autumn, and at least on sunny days they are still drawing in insects.

Even earlier this week when the day was grey, the air moist but still, there were Honeybees and a few bumblebees visiting the ever-reliable spikes of Bistorta amplexicaulis: there is no better plant in the gardens to feed these and many others. And no doubt, if the sun should ever come out again (it has been a grey week, not good for anyone prone to the wintertime blues) there would be a whole lot more, at least until the advent of the first frosts.

Cooler air means that the insects, if you find them, are less flighty and easier to see in close up. One such on my visit was this was a Twin-spot Centurion, our largest and latest of this group of soldier-flies, with distinctive orange legs and a pair of white spots above the antennal bases. This was my first record, not only for the garden, but anywhere: it is widespread in Essex, but records are rather thinly scattered especially in the north of the county – it may owe some of its apparent scarcity to its typically late-season emergence.

Berries and seeds, food for birds in particular, were also much in evidence: sprinkles of colour on the bushes, architectural forms rising from the beds and grass-heads exploding like fireworks from their tussocky bases:

And then of course the leaves – such a rapid colour change, fewer than two weeks since my last visit, signifying ‘peak autumn’.

And without any recent strong winds, the fallen cover the ground, plants and water like gentle foliar confetti, destined to become a deluge when this unusually calm spell gives way to winter proper.

But for now, there is still time to visit and see the garden in its full autumnal splendour! For details see Explore Our Gardens – Beth Chatto’s Plants & Gardens.