Daphne in the mist

I spent four hours this morning on Reigate and Colley Hills, seemingly cut off from civilisation courtesy of a low drizzly mist that enveloped the hills in a milky light that not only softened all that I saw but muffled any sound. There wasn't an awful lot to see or hear to be honest, although a couple of Treecreepers decided that this was the time to engage in a bit of singing. - not a lot else joined in. it wasn't until I started to scan the fields just off the ridge (towards Mogador) that there was a bit of activity, with a loose flock of 500 Redwing leapfrogging their way across the earth as they fed. I was heartened to see that, in several places, the fields here had flooded, although any hoped for displaced wader was aiming far too high - apart from a lethargic flock of gulls nothing else had been tempted down. A quick nip into the closest bit of Walton Heath woodland provided the hoped for Marsh Tit (2015 patch list now on 61 species).

Daphne laureola - that's Spurge Laurel to you and me - was most obvious at the top of the hills, in particular around the Napoleonic fort. At least 80 plants were counted and there must be plenty more in the general area. Some were out in flower. There is also plenty of wild Box here, a very local species in England. I am guilty of taking it for granted, but know that I shouldn't.

Spurge Laurel, close up of flower (left) and a healthy specimen (right) maybe a metre tall.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more