Jubilee Country Park, February.

Butcher's Broom, Ruscus aculeatus.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

A few of the Orpington Field Club had a stroll around Jubilee Country Park on a cold and windy day with light snow.  Mostly we were looking for birds, which are not my speciality, so I was on the lookout for anything else of interest too. I was pleased to find that, having made the basic settings, I could operate my camera wearing thick gloves.

There were some snowdrops in bud, and cherry trees just coming into flower.  This bush was probably the best sighting, in Thornet Wood.  Butcher's Broom is a good indicator of ancient woodland, and here you can see the buds and flowers and a big fruit emerging from the middle of the leaf-like cladodes.

We did see some birds too, mostly Magpies, Gulls, Pigeons and Crows.  There were a few others, and I made an attempt at photographing them.  I make no claims for the quality of these.  This bird was the prettiest; a tiny one, too fast-moving for me to get a proper shot.  By the time I had focused on it, it was somewhere else.

Goldcrest, Regulus regulus.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

And another bird with a golden name:

Goldfinch, Carduelis carduelis.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

Robins are easy to photograph in gardens.  They are well-known for following gardeners around, watching for worms turned up by the digging.  Here, they stayed a bit further away.

European Robin, Erithacus rubecula.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

But my favourite photo is this one, one of the magpies taking off from its perch in a tree, missing a twig by a tiny margin.

Magpie, Pica pica.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

Two Common Mosses

Bryum capillare on a wall in Bourne Way, Hayes.  9 February 2013.

Early spring is a good season to observe mosses and lichens.  Here are two which are common and widespread, growing on garden walls in my neighbourood.

It's useful for anyone interested in mosses to catch them when they are fruiting, as many are in this season.  It's not easy to catch a good photo because of the limited depth of field in macro closeups, so that often only a few of the leaves and capsules are sharp and well-defined.  But that is where brick walls can be useful; some of the mosses grow on the mortar between the bricks, and are lined up in neat rows.  

Grimmia pulvinata on a wall in Lennard Avenue, Hayes. 9 February 2013.

Of course, others don't do that, but instead grow in cushions on top of the bricks. 

In Case Of Complaint

Mesh fence tag, railway path between West Wickham and Hayes, 26 September 2011.

This fence went up two years ago now, and this tag is still there.  I noticed it last week.  It must be nearly as tough as the fence! 

(Not much is happening in the wild at the moment.)

Roxy

Roxy in my back garden in Hayes on 26 May 2012.

My little cat fell ill and died in early February.  She was with me for not much more than two years, and we got on very well.  She was old for a cat, arthritic and slow-moving.  This meant that she didn't jump up onto things — except my lap and my bed. 

I miss her.

First Moths of the Year

Chestnut, Conistra vaccinii, left and Dark Chestnut, Conistra ligula, right.   In my garden in Hayes on 4 February 2013.

This is the first opportunity I have had this year to put out my garden moth trap.  It was over zero degrees, not covered with snow, and there was no rain and no high winds.  And I got two moths! Nothing unusual, but it's good to see there's life out there.

These two are typical winter moths, that come out on warmer nights to look for berries dripping juice.  There's plenty of ivy nearby and that is probably what brings them here.

The Chestnut is lighter in colour and has more rounded wingtips.  The Dark Chestnut is also glossier, and has light flecks on the leading edges of its wings. But they are not easy to tell apart, specially if you are only looking at one specimen.

More from Otford

Filston Oast from the road.   Otford, 2 February 2013.

On our walk from Otford we saw several oast-houses, probably all converted like this one into living spaces, as they all had the same white-painted vents.

We also saw some unexpected birds.

Pea-fowl, Pavo cristatus, on top of a house.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

There's a cock in the middle, and hens to either side.  This post gives them a good view of their surroundings, and it's also possible that there is more warmth up there than we were experiencing on the track below.

High in a nearby tree I saw this:

Mistletoe, Viscum album.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

An evergreen parasite, able to get sufficient food and water from its host tree to keep green in the depths of winter even when the host has closed down for the season.

There were still a few berries around, even in this unproductive winter.

Garden Privet berries, Ligustrum ovalifolium.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

Although this was out in the fields, it the cultivated hedgerow species rather than the wild one.  It has broader leaves than the wild species, and hangs on to them much better in the winter.  It was nowhere near a garden, but it was on the edge of a path where hedgerow species might have been planted.

Here's a map of where the photos were taken:

Anticlockwise from the bottom right: Privet, Mistletoe, Peafowl.  And the view, taken with a different camera, was from Filston Lane on the left.

Otford and the Darent Valley

View across the Darent valley to Meenfield Wood and the war memorial, on the hillside opposite Shoreham,
the next small town along the valley from Otford. 2 February 2013.

It's winter and most of the OFC outings have been for birds, which are not my interest.  This was more of a walk along the valley, keeping an eye out for any interesting natural history.  It was a cold and windy day, in the middle of a rainy season, but on this day we had intermittent sunshine, which made a nice change.

It was interesting to see that war memorial - the cross on the hillside - because then I realised I was within sight of a walk in May last year, which I do not seem to have put on the blog.  We walked along the treeline on that hillside and I saw the cross from above.

The water you can see is flooded fields; the small river is behind the trees.

We saw a few wildflowers, including snowdrops and primroses, but they were on a bank outside some houses; perhaps they were seeding themselves, but they must have been planted originally.  And some flowers were survivors from last year.  The only true wild spring flower we saw was a Lesser Celandine.

Lesser Celandine, Ranunculus ficaria.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

A pretty little flower, related to Buttercups.  But winter and early spring are good times to look for mosses and lichens, and we saw some of those too.

Syntrichia intermedia.  Darent valley, 2 February 2013.

This lovely thing grows in round cushiony clumps on walls.

Ramalina fastigiata.  Darent valley, 2 February 2013.

This, as you can see, grows on twigs. 

I was using a new camera that has GPS built in, and there is software which produces a track of where you have been with it:

Walking route in the Darent valley, 2 February 2013.

We walked this route anticlockwise starting at the bottom right.  The pins mark where the photos were taken; in order, view - lichen - moss - flower.  Of course, I took more than that; enough for me to show a few next time.  Please ignore the trail off to the bottom left; I forgot to turn off the GPS and it tracked the car all the way home from inside the boot!

London Planes

Pollarded London Plane trees behind Tate Britain.  8 January 2013.

 I took this photo on a grey day in London when I went with a friend to see a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Britain.  These trees always look fantastic, winter or summer; they look architectural, as though they were designed to counterpoint the red brick buildings behind, and they seem to go on forever.

They are London Plane trees, a hybrid related to the American Sycamore, and they manage very well in a polluted atmosphere.  I have read that this is because they shed their bark every year.  You can see the patchy effect this creates on their trunks.

London Planes and a view of Lambeth Bridge.  8 January 2013.

Walking back along the river, I tried to get some more planes to frame this picture nicely, but it's not really satisfactory.  But anyway .. those are the fruits of the tree, and behind you can see a typical London scene combining the old and the new.  Straight ahead is Lambeth Bridge with Lambeth Palace behind.  The bridge was opened in 1932, but the earliest part of the palace dates from 1440.  Behind is the Shard at London Bridge Station, dating from 2013. 

The bridge is guarded by two pairs of obelisks.  I always thought their finials were pineapples, but according to Wikipedia they are pine cones.  The London bus on the bridge is advertising the film of Les Miserables.