Hair of the Dog(s)

The other day I saw a Carrion Crow fly up from my neighbour's garden with something fluffy in its bill.  I could not make out what it was and it did not look like a food item.  Then yesterday my neighbour showed me a photo she had taken of a Crow sorting through a pile of dog hair she had put out for them.  She has pretty, long-haired Sheltie dogs and over the winter she saves the groomings and puts them out for the birds. The crows pick it over and fly off with beakfulls of it to line their nests.  I had never heard of people doing this before, but my wife tells me that her aunt used to do it.  She had a Collie and kept its groomings and put them out in her garden in the spring.

Wilmington, Lullington, Jevington.

As we walked over Windover Hill we were serenaded by a skylark.  It attracted the attention of several walkers who stopped to listen to it.  At Winchester's Pond the surrounding scrub was full of Chaffinches and Goldfinches and a Chaffinch.  There was no sign of the Great-crested Newts that we had hoped to see, but the pond was full of water and looked in quite good condition.  Recent conservation measures seem to be working.  There was a lot of water Crowfoot sprouting up and even a few early flowers.  

There has been a lot of conservation effort through Deep Dene too, with extensive scrub-bashing.  Hopefully they will be able to maintain this important area of chalk grassland.  I look forward to going there later in the summer when there are more flowers to see.  

Lullington Heath is another area where there have been programmes of scrub-bashing in recent years and it now looks very different in places with less gorse and more grass.  

We paused in a patch of woodland on the way to Jevington and while faint aroma (faint because it isn't in flower yet) of wild garlic wafted up the bank we listened to Blackcap, Blackbird, Jackdaw, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Blue tit, Robin and Wren.  

Garden Birdwatch

Garden Birdwatch figures for 2013 are now available and I have been comparing last year's records with the figures for the whole 13 years that we have been submitting records.  Last year we returned records for 48 weeks and I have worked out percentages of weeks recorded for each species.  Blue tit, Great tit and House Sparrow were present every week last year.  Robin, Woodpigeon, Dunnock, Blackbird and Carrion Crow were present for more than 90% of the weeks, with Magpie appearing 85% of the time. 

Most birds appeared with frequencies that matched the long-term record, some surprisingly constant.  The notable variations were Carrion Crow, up from 64% to 90%, Nuthatch up 67% from 41%, and Sparrowhawk up 29% from 15%.  In the other direction, Collared Dove was down to 40% compared to the long term figure of 53%, Chaffinch down to 33% from 66% and Greenfinch the most disappointing of all down to just 6% from 28%.   For some reason Garden Birdwatch does not list our records of Pheasant, but these have been present in most winter weeks and we now have four (three female and one female) turning up at our seed feeder on a daily basis.

This winter, blackbird numbers have been down, probably because of the very mild winter weather and it will be interesting to see how this shows up in the figures for this year.  

Species	Percentage of weeks present 2013	Percentage of weeks present since 2000
Blue Tit	100	99
Great Tit	100	90
House Sparrow	100	87
Robin	98	92
Woodpigeon	98	95
Dunnock	96	92
Blackbird	94	93
Carrion Crow	90	64
Magpie	85	89
Wren	73	63
Nuthatch	67	41
Coal Tit	54	31
Long-tailed Tit	52	51
Collared Dove	40	53
Great Spotted Woodpecker	38	44
Chaffinch	33	66
Jay	33	24
Song Thrush	31	31
Sparrowhawk	29	15
Blackcap	17	19
Goldfinch	17	25
Greenfinch	6	28
Fieldfare	4	5

Lichens on beach pebbles

There are at least four species of lichens on these beach pebbles.  I think that the bright yellow one is Xanthoria parietina and the one with large flat grey lobes is Physcia adscendens.  The thin-lobed one on the right has long hair-like structures and is probably Parmelia sulcata.  There is also a white crusty one and a black crusty one, both of which are beyond my identification skills.  These were on Pagham beach, in an area that was once the mouth of Pagham harbour, but is now a long way from the shore and the harbour mouth which has now migrated far to the east.  They have therefore had a long time to get established in this tough habitat.

Stranded Sea Urchins

The winter storms left many things stranded on the beaches including sea urchins.  I found a lot of these on Pagham beach and I think they are Psammechinus miliaris, the Green Sea Urchin. Actually, there are several green species, but these are the ones most likely to crop up on the English Channel coast.  Mostly we find the Edible Sea urchin (would you like to eat one?) Echinus esculentus, but I have not seen any recently.

Coppicing

The Daffodil woods at Harwoods Green are managed by coppicing and one section or 'coupe' has been cut this winter.  The coppice trees here are Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa  and it looks like these poles are to be used for fencing.  The area in the background was cut a few winters ago.

Wall Pennywort

Wall Pennywort or Navelwort Umbilicus rupestris is not a common plant in Sussex, although common in the West Country.  Here is a little clump that was pointed out to us on some rocks near Harwoods Green.  Soon it will have upright spikes of greenish-white flowers.

Ashurst Woods

Wild Daffodils in Ashurst Woods

Much of Ashurst Woods is Hazel coppice with standards, mainly Oak, although in recent years there has been some clearance of the Hazel as in this area here.  The result has been a great flowering of wild Daffodils, the best we can recall. These woods are also outstanding for Bluebells and we will be making another visit soon to see them.  The signs are that it will be a good year for them.  Besides the Daffodils there are lots of Primroses,  Violets and one large patch of Town-Hall-Clock Adoxa moschatellina with its rectangular heads of tiny green flowers. Blackthorn is also out in flower in all the hedgerows, but only a few trees and shrubs are coming into leaf, mainly Elder and Hawthorn.

There was much bird song with Blackbirds, Songthrushes, Wrens, Robins, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, Great tits and Bluetits all in great voice.  We heard our first Blackcap of the year and a Chiffchaff was seen but not heard.  We occasionaly heard the call of a Buzzard overhead and caught sight of several small groups of Fallow Deer.

Walking down towards Daylands Farm we heard Jackdaws making a lot of noise and then caught sight of two on the ground in the wood a short distance away, apparently fighting.  It was hard to make out what was happening as they were partly hidden by undergrowth.  When they caught sight of us one flew off and the other flew up into the nearest tree and sat on a branch to be joined by another that, I am almost certain,  flew out of a hole in the tree and clung on to the bark a few feet away from it, flicking its wings.  This one then joined the other on the branch and after a minute or two they flew off together.  One bird seeing off a rival and then pairing up with its mate near the nest site?  That is my interpretation of a rapid and confusing series of events.  I shall be keeping a look out for that hole in the oak tree next time I am up that way.

Most of the older woods stood up well to the winter storms, but younger areas of conifer plantation showed extensive damage.  In one area it was the trees at the edge of the wood that had been blown down.  It was easy to imagine how the wind might have funnelled up the farm track from the south and wreaked the damage.   The ground would have been waterlogged by the exceptional winter rains that we have had, making it easy for the wind to push over the shallowly rooted trees.

For more pictures of  wild Daffodils Daffodil Woods see: Wild Daffodil Woods

Wild Daffodils

Wild daffodils at Harwoods Green

Harwoods Green, part of the Stopham Estate, is one of the best places to see wild daffodils that we know of.  The woods are chestnut coppice which is still cut on a long rotation and a small area had been cut this winter. This process ensures a mixture of different age growth in the wood and variation in the canopy cover.  This seems to affect the density of daffodils and also the bluebells which will appear later in the spring.  The wild species is much smaller than the cultivated varieties, but has a special charm and it is wonderful to see them scattered across the floor of the wood.  As you walk up through the wood, a larger, cultivated-type of daffodil with a crowded double head appears.  These probably originate from a long-ago demolished  row of brick workers cottages at the top of the hill.  You can still see some twisted trees that probably originated in garden hedges and there were until recently the remains of garden gate posts.
Although most bluebells were only present as small clumps of leaves there was one small group in flower, along with violets and celandines by the path.  We also spotted a couple of wood anemones in flower and some rosettes of early purple orchid leaves with their characteristic big brown splodges.  There were a few spindly-looking flowers of ladies smock by the path at the end of the wood, but huge clumps in sunny banks of streams near Furnace Pond Cottages.  In a neat hedgerow by the Wey and Arun Canal white blackthorn flowers alternated with pale green new leaves of hawthorn, but few other trees were showing more than tight buds.
We heard blackbirds, songthrushes, wrens, blue tits, great tits and robins singing and calling all morning, but no sign yet of any summer visitors around hear (we have been hearing chiffchaffs at home all week).  We were even reminded that the summer is not over yet by the presence of two large flocks of redwings chattering in the tree tops.

See more photos of Wild Daffodils here