Wild Garlic or Ramsoms

Wild Garlic in Ashurst Woods

Of all the plants that carpet our woods, Ramsons are perhaps few people's favourite, but I like them and I welcome the pungent smell they give off and I like to pick a leaf and crush it to catch the smell.  They tend to favour wetter areas than the bluebells and here they take over from them and occupy a slope leading down to a stream and a very wet meadow.

Ramsons or Wild Garlic Allium ursinum

Green-winged Orchid

Green-winged Orchid Orchis morio

We walked around Beeding Hill and Anchor Bottom today, mainly to see the Cowslips, and without much expectation of seeing many other downland plants in flower.  The Cowslips were out and made a lovely show, but best of all were the Green-winged Orchids on Anchor Bottom.  This is a little early for them and these were among the few that we found in full bloom, but there were hundreds of them coming up and they will make a great show in a few days time.  There was a little Milkwort coming into bloom too.

We saw and heard our first Whitethroats in the scrub on Beeding Hill and I got my first sighting of a Willow warbler, which was singing heartily on the quarry side of the coombe.  Two days ago I saw a second cuckoo near Daylands Farm and this morning a house martin was the first thing I saw as I opened the bedroom curtains.  We also heard a third nightingale in Ashurst Woods, so more spring visitors are arriving all the time.

Spring Flowers

Bluebells in Ashurst Woods

Greater Stitchwort Stellaria holostea

Spring flowers have been early and abundant this year and here are just a few examples.  Bluebells have been terrific and Ashurst Woods has been a wonderful sight.  There are lots of other flowers besides bluebells in the woods and some are easily overlooked - we tend to take them for granted.   But they are worth a closer look as these examples shoe.  Stitchwort and Celandines seem to have been especially abundant this year.

At first glance, Wood Spurge does not seem to have much to recommend it, and it can often look rather scruffy, but the curious flowers are very striking when you see them close up. Green flowers are an adaptation to living in shady conditions.

Wood Spurge Euphorbia amygdaloides

More signs of spring

We have not seen many lambs so far this year, and it was a delight to see these very young onesa few days ago on Westburton Hill.  The building in the background is a shepherd's barn and yard, built of flint and a reminder of the dominance of sheep in this landscape in times past.  Our walk took us past Barkhale Iron Age enclosure where we saw a small flock of wheatears, not spring visitors to these parts, but passage migrants taking a break on their way north.  While we were watching them we thought we heard a snatch of willow warbler song, but it did not repeat and we had to wait until we had reached Stane Street, the Roman Road from Chichester to London at the point where it starts to run down hill to Bignor and the Roman villa before we were treated to full song and a good sighting of two in a Hawthorn.

Steyning Downland Scheme Birdwatch

Here is the full list of 23 species from last Sunday's bird survey:

Blackbird, Blackcap, Blue Tit, Carrion Crow, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Coot, Dunnock, Goldcrest, Goldfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, Green Woodpecker, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Linnet, Long-tailed Tit, Magpie, Mallard, Marsh Tit, Moorhen, Nightingale, Nuthatch, Pheasant, Robin, Skylark, Songthrush, Treecreeper, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Woodpigeon, Wren, Yellowhammer.

The only summer visitors we have so far are Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Nightingale and Whitethroat.  We were delighted to hear the Nightingales, but many others were in full spring breeding song. 

Nightingales

Steyning Downland Scheme birdwatch group set off this morning at 6:30am very hopeful that we would hear a nightingale.  A couple had heard one singing loudly on Friday night at about 10:30pm near the ponds where one took up residence last spring.  So we were delighted to hear another on the path near the entrance to the south side of the rifle range, where we had not heard one before.  Not only that, we got very good views of it too.  It was perched in the top of a hawthorn which was not fully out in leaf and we all had good views of it, a real treat as this is a bird that is much more often heard than seen.   One team also reported hearing one in the expected place by the ponds, too.  The wide, scrubby hedgerow that runs up by the path may be developing into suitable nightingale nesting habitat, but somehow I doubt it.  Nonetheless, we will all be listening out for it in the weeks to come.

Steyning Coombe area seemed very quiet.  It is an area that promises much, but often delivers little when it comes to birds.  There was a noticeable lack of nuthatches and treecreepers in the woodland areas, but great spotted and green woodpeckers were drumming and yaffling all round.   The south side of the rifle range was busy with at least two pairs each of yellowhammers and linnets and a very confiding chiffchaff. Other groups reported hearing willow warblers, whitethroat and marsh tit, but we did not.  A wonderful spring morning with the sight and sound of the nightingale more than making up for the other things we missed.  

The track up to Blackdown

It is a steep climb up to the top of Blackdown; it is after all the highest point in Sussex.  Tracks like this one were old drove roads to move cattle between the heathland on top and the better pasture on the lower ground.  This one ran along side a boundary bank of neatly laid sandstone blocks surmounted by a beech hedge.  This has not been tended for years, so it has grown into a row of precariously balanced trees.

The sides of Blackdown are covered in beech woods with an understory of holly.  This too dense to allow any ground flora. but there are lots of mosses on the stone walls.  Holly would have been browsed by the cattle as they walked up and down.

The height of Blackdown means that it is one of the few places in West Sussex where you will find bilberry.  It is in flower now, as is the gorse.  The National Trust have been restoring the heathland on top of the hill and have cleared a lot of conifer plantation. They keep belted galloway cattle there to manage the regrowth of heathland flora.  They are small, hairy and inquisitive.  One took quite an interest in us as we sat down to have lunch, before moving on to continue feeding on bramble leaves.  

Woods in spring

Bluebells and Lady's-smock in Wateredge Copse

Wateredge copse is one of my favourite woods at this time of year.  A stream that arises at the foot of

Blackdown runs through the southern edge of it right by the path.  It is mostly old coppiced hazel and oak standards with a rich ground flora of snowdrops (now long over of course), bluebells, celandines, wood anemones, and lady's smock.  Surprisingly, as it is rather damp there is a lot of dog's mercury in places, mingling with the bluebells; usually, they partition the wood between the drier and damper parts.  This year all of the spring flowers are blooming vigorously, but here in Waterdge Copse it seems to be the lesser celandines that are outstripping everything else.

Lesser Celandines

Not only were the woods full of flowers, they were also full of birdsong: blackbird, songthrush, chiffchaff, blackcap, chaffinch, and nuthatch.  Treecreeper was seen but not heard and we have yet to hear a willow warbler.

First Cuckoo

We heard our first cuckoo yesterday in Windfall Wood Common near Lurgashall.  It called for a minute or so, quite near, but we did not see it.  The BTO is reporting its nearest tracked cuckoo location as the middle of the Sahara, so this one is well ahead of them.  Birds of Sussex gives the earliest ever arrival as 15 March (1936), but that was exceptional.   However, the average first arrival date has gradually got earlier.  1962-71 it was 11 April; by 2002-11, it was 2 April.  So this date of 9 April is not so unusual by current standards.

Garden Wildlife update

Here is how things stand with breeding birds in our garden:

• both House Sparrow nest boxes are occupied and we regularly see parties of up to eight adults around the garden and visiting the seed feeder.
• Blue Tits are nesting in the hole in the apple tree which they use every year.  They are frequently in and out and ignore me when I am working in the garden close by, so presumably they are feeding chicks.  There is another Blue Tit nest in the shrub border on the south side of the garden.
• Dunnocks are probably nesting in the dense honeysuckle on the other apple tree.  We have seen up to four adults, but now we rarely see more than one suggesting that birds are sitting on eggs.
• We have two Robins which are tolerating each other, but we have not seen any interaction between them so far.
• We have seen a male Blackbird gathering food close to the house and suspect that he may have a nest in the garden but do not know where.  We rarely see a female
• a male Chaffinch is singing loudly from a concealed location on the south side of the garden and may have a nest nearby, but maybe in a neighbour's garden. 
• Great Tits are frequent visitors, but I do not think that they are nesting in our garden. 
• A Chiffchaff is often heard calling just beyond the bottom fence, but does not seem to venture any closer.