25/7/14
I went down to the railway track the other day to see if any parasol mushrooms have emerged yet. They haven’t and I found a beautiful wild flower patch but what was most interesting was the track I was walking on. It is the one that was surfaced with large granite chippings a year or so ago when they were starting to do the forestry work. They haven’t used the track a lot- it was something demanded by the planners apparently, and it is now being taken back into the forest. The part I normally walk on has what I had thought were Black Medick but now I think are Hop Trefoil. Both have small yellow mop heads of clover like flowers, only about a centimetre diameter. Sometimes it is only possible to identify plants when the seed heads form and these do resemble small pale brown hops. They creep across the track. The Hare’s foot clover and the kidney vetch do that too. The granite is gradually being carpeted by mats of stems with fluffy seed heads floating above them.
I was fascinated in New Zealand to see trees growing on what appeared to be clear rock faces. Our guide explained that the lichen form first, then the mosses and gradually soil builds up so that bigger plants can colonise and eventually trees.
Here in the forest it is fascinating to watch plants colonise and spurn the tidy planners dreams. In the middle of the track the grasses have taken hold and the broad leaved plantain and common plantain are comfortably settling in.
There are even small gorse seedlings growing now, spikes of grey green prickles about 30cms high. On one side, just next to the track on the edge of the narrow grass verge before the pines, I find two plants I don’t recognise. When I look them up they are Common Figwort. The flowers are insignificant, with only small red brown petals and green sepals. The green egg-shaped seedpods are more obvious than the flowers. I have never come across these before. They like woods and shady places.
The forget me nots continue to straggle about the sides of the track as do the drying tangles of the hairy tares, now displaying their seedpods. The corn spurrey are all but dead and the grasses are dry and stiff. These early opportunists will die and rot to form small patches of soil for other plants to take hold. There are a few small willow herbs. They need much more detailed attention to reveal their identities. Lots of them seem to favour damp places which this certainly isn’t. I bit further into the verge I spot a small magenta common storks bill. They are similar to the small cranesbill that I have failed to identify that grows everywhere on the forest tracks but these have frond like leaves rather than the small hand leaves of the cranes bill. Hand like leaves of the small lemon flowers of the tormentil are creeping across the path too.
As I walk further towards the railway I am surprised by the number of buddlea bushes growing along the edge. Every few yard there is a bush. I know they are an introduced species.I know they take over everywhere. But their flowers do smell beautiful and they do create a wonderful food source for butterflies. We called them the Butterfly bush when I was a child. They still do I suppose.

13th July.
A major problem with birds is that they won’t sit still. Just when you catch sight of one it flies away or hops about and pops behind a bunch of leaves while you try and focus your binoculars. I have set myself a new goal this year; to learn more about birds. Pursuing this latest nature quest I draw up in the car park of Lackford Lakes Nature Reserve and sit in my car waiting to hear an interview with Natalie Bennett against TTIP. A grey haired, suntanned man wearing a baseball cap rushes over. “ If you get out quickly we have a turtle dove in the ‘scope over there.” I can’t resist an invitation like that. Natalie can’t compete. After all I probably know what she had to say. I have been signing petitions against TTIP for some time.
The Turtle Dove is as beautiful as I could expect. Scaled brown and black wings, pink breast shading into bronze, black and white stripes across its neck, it sits preening itself on top of a dead tree. The precarious lives these birds live makes them rare now. Huge numbers are shot as they hazard the hunters of Cyprus and winter south of the Congo. Here sits a handsome male in Suffolk. I think of Passenger Pigeons which the settlers in America shot to extinction. There is a stuffed one in the museum at Norwich which I spent some time drawing for my final degree show. I hope Chris Packham’s campaign manages to save the Turtle Dove from the same fate. The bird takes off.
I join the anorak clad binocular laden attendees dribbling into the education room. Many of the group of nine know each other. The tanned man is Paul, our guide. While we enjoy our welcome cup of tea and bourbon biscuit he points out of the window. On a pale, dead branch emerging from a reed lined pond sits a kingfisher. Canoeing on the Dordogne one year , their jewel colours flashed as they skimming the surface but I have never been able to see one in Britain.
At exactly ten o’clock, Paul starts by explaining about bird moulting. Feathers are minor engineering miracles. When birds preen they are zipping up the rows of tiny hooks . They have to moult because feathers wear out but their diverse strategies are complicated. Species moult at different times and in different ways which makes bird identification even harder.
A week ago a small brown bird with a spotted breast landed on a garden chair below the bird feeder in my garden. I was puzzled. It looked like a robin but had no red breast. When I looked it up, the book said it was a juvenile robin. The next time I saw it the breast was turning orange and the speckles were disappearing. I recounted this to Paul who nodded sagely and said “Yes, it only takes them about three weeks to change. The adults are conditioned to attack everything with a red breast so the speckled plumage protects the juveniles.” I know robins are fiercely territorial. That is one of the reasons it is so easy to get to know individuals in our gardens. They might be less friendly if we wore red teeshirts.
The new feathers push out the old ones as they wear out. Swans, geese, ducks and rails shed so many feathers at the same time that they cannot fly. They lurk in groups at the edge of lakes, ready to dash into the greenery to hide if they have to avoid predators. Raptors take a different approach. They have to carry on flying to catch their food, so they lose their primary feathers symmetrically. You can’t have a wobbly hawk trying to swoop down on its dinner.
The Turtle Dove flies back and forth as we listen, distracting us from Paul’s descriptions of the intricacies of moulting. The more I hear, the more complex it sounds. Bewildered, I feebly voice my concerns “How I will ever know enough?” Paul smiles, his bronze face wrinkling “Just constant practice, that’s the only way to do it…there’s no substitute for looking acutely.” Gilbert White would have been proud of him.
We set off along the tracks into the reserve. The loud purring of the Turtle Dove follows us. Even if I see nothing else I’m happy. I have seen a Kingfisher and a Turtle Dove.

2/7/14

A warm bright morning with the softest breeze. There is nothing to hurry for so I enjoy strolling along the morning walk. Charlie and Jazz are happy to mooch along enjoying smells.

I take the short cut across the field. That way I am nearer to the trees so there’s a chance of seeing birds and there is shorter grass where I can see what is growing. I  was leafing through my flower guide yesterday when I  found a page of  Forget- me- nots . I had assumed the ones here are just garden escapees but now I know they are not   I decide I need to identify them while there are enough flowers left at the top of the long stems of seeds. I pick one to take home. I don’t think there is any danger that they are rare.

There are patches of yellow toadflax, dotted with orange in the shorter grass. Small groups of Self Heal remind me of pirouetting bumble bees with purple tutus. There are still some vivid blue Wood Speedwell nestling along  this stretch too.

 Walking  this way I look along the furrows of planted pine seedlings. Despite the weedkiller spray earlier in the year , there is little evidence of trees below the vegetation. Where the spray killed all the weeds at the time new ones have sprung up. Walking earlier in the year I thought  “ they look like Groundsel but not quite the same ” when I looked them up they turned out to be Heath Groundsel, a taller, paler version of the yellow weed  in my garden. They are unattractive straggly plants with clusters of tiny yellow brush flowers but en masse between strips of mauve Yorkshire fog the overall striped effect in the morning sun is a delight.

I notice that the Mahonia shrublings alongside the track are starting to sport bunches of berries ripening. When I turn the corner onto Meg’s track I am greeted by a glorious patch of them. Some leaves are different shades of green but many are red and orange. This group gets  lot of sun and there are stringed bunches of dusty  blue fruits hanging in contrast against the spiked leaves. I stop and look for a while trying to tease out all the colours until I realise I have no dogs with me. I walk on a find Charlie and Jazz have come to look for me. As soon as they realise I am there they turn round and go off on their own explorations again.

As I walk along the drove the bracken are crowding to the edge pushing away less vigorous  plants. I find a couple of raspberries which I pick and eat. Vipers Bugloss are stretching out their startling blue spikes and Ribbed Mellilot are straggling across the with their tufts of yellow pea flowers. My book says they are  “possibly native in Southern England and Wales but introduced elsewhere”. According to the little map shaded pink in the book they are counting eastern England as South so I assume these are not introduced.

There are scores of butterflies stuttering across the tops of the grasses and bracken.  I think I see some Meadow Browns with a dash of orange on their open wings, dancing among the numerous brown Ringlets. When I get back to the car there is a Greater knapweed in flower close by. I count five Ringlets sitting clustered on top of the purple flowers and a small tortoiseshell. They  seem sociable and are patient of my peering at them.

The Goldcrest sings as I walk along but it hides among the treetops as usual.

The Forget- me-not turns out to be a Changing Forget- me- not. The flowers change from yellowish to blue.