Bridleway from Chilswell Farm to Boar's Hill

A walk earlier this week from Chilswell Farm towards Foxcombe Road on Boar's Hill. Sun shone.

This gall on an oak, a marble gall, caused by the larvae of a small gall wasp - the adult wasp emerges from the gall. The gall starts green, this is one from last season, and's now gone brown.

I like the English names - this one's the fungus called King Alfred's cake. Legend has it that King Alfred left some cakes to cook to long - and indeed these do look a bit like burnt buns. Their less romantic Latin name is Daldinia concentrica - but again it's descriptive as the cross section shows a pattern of concentric circles. Dried, the inside lights very readily and can be used to get a fire started. Also known as cramp balls and coal fungus, it grows on dead and decayng wood especially ash.

Pussy willow was attracting bumblebees with several on this patch - here a buff-tailed

and here a red-tailed bumble bee

Blackthorn much in evidence - huge splashes of white.

Butterflies were enjoying the sun too - a Peacock looking a bit tatty from last year, and a Small Tortoiseshell.

Primroses, coltsfoot and a bug

To the Nature Trail at nearby Hinksey Heights Golf Club. This is maintained by pupils of Peers School, Oxford, soon to become the Oxford Academy with marvellous new buildings - they do a great job.

Some wonderful primroses in the woods, two large clumps. They've been there for the past two years to my knowledge, oddly they haven't spread at all, no new clumps and the only ones in the woods that I've seen. I met a lady walking her dog who told me primroses have a scent - she's right, indeed they do, very pleasant.






Beside the lakes on the path is an area of coltsfoot, where a little rivulet runs. They seem to like this wet area, not growing beyond it here, though my flower book makes no reference to any such preference. I don't know what the little bug is.

Wildflowers for the church project

We have a lovely old church and churchyard, with immediately next to it a burial ground which is owned and managed by the civil Parish Council. The churchyard is closed to new burials which now take place in the burial ground. The burial ground is largely empty of graves still and at the present rate it will be many decades before it is full. Until this year the unoccupied area (about 1500 m2) has been regularly mown as an area of grass - a giant lawn. From now on, in a joint project, both the burial ground and churchyard are to be managed for wildflowers - and hence other wildlife, including we hope lots of butterflies, bees and so on.

We've chosen a contractor for the necessary cutting, which will cost no more than before. More later about the mowing regime we'll be trying. We're waiting to see what comes up from the existing turf - in the meantime supplementing with plantlets from our gardens and in particular that of Camilla, a local botanist and friend who has also given us invaluable advice.

Three or four weeks ago we went to Camilla's and came away with cowslips, primroses, stone parsley and betony. Snowdrops came from our own gardens.

We returned to Camilla's today and have moved yellow (hay) rattle, common vetch, self heal, cat's ear, knapweed, bird'sfoot trefoil, dropwort, meadow buttercup, field woodrush and more cowslips.

Maggie and Camilla

We've put them in, into two broad areas of the burial ground - to be managed for spring and summer flowers respectively. Also white sweet violets from friends and co-workers Jo and Linda went in today, and we hope tomorrow to get in foxgloves and more common vetch from our own garden.

Jo, Linda and Maggie proudly inspecting our first cowslip in flower!

Spring at Sandford-on-Thames

A beautiful sunny day so to the Thames at Sandford.

Sandford-on Thames is a small settlement on the Thames below Oxford. There used to be a water mill here, going back to before 1100, and originally used to mill corn; in 1826 it was converted to a paper mill, where paper was made for the Oxford University Press. It finally closed in 1982.


Looking up towards the lock at Sandford

Perhaps one day the river here will be used as a source of power again, to produce hydro-electricity, though I know of no such proposal. A few miles upstream, at Osney Lock, however, a planning application is being considered at the moment to do just that at the old mill there. And I understand a further application will be made, maybe later this year, by a group called Low Carbon West Oxford, to site another hydro-electric turbine at Osney, opposite the mill. Things are coming almost full circle.

The river here is busy in the summer, with lots of activity around the lock, but quiet now.

Going into the first field two red kites flew up from a stand of tall trees. By the time I got my camera out, they were rather distant! You should see one kite if you look at the big image. Perhaps the pair is planning to nest in these trees but I could see no sign of it yet.



Red kites were nearly extinct in the UK by the end of the 19th century, with only a few hanging on in Wales. In 1989 kites, brought from Spain, were reintroduced to the Chiltern Hills which lie between Oxford and London. They have established very successfully and spread out; we now see them often over Oxford.

Next two Peacock butterflies, woken from hibernation. Here's one sunbathing



A few wood anemones (A. nemorosa) - also known as windflowers - the Greek word anemos means wind - on the edge of a wood; I didn't think limboing under barbed wire and into a ditch of water was worth it so the shot's from a distance and not too sharp.



Finally - and I'm not obsessed with catkins, it's just that time of year - a Pussy Willow also known as Goat Willow and Sallow (Salix caprea). The yellow catkins mean it's a male tree. (Female catkins are green.) Sallow has either male or female catkins on an individual tree = monoecious. Cf last week's hazel, both on the same tree = dioecious.

Frog spawn, more catkins and a buzzard

This afternoon to Hinksey Heights Golf Club on the hill overlooking the village and Oxford, where one is free to walk past several ponds and through the woods. There turned out to be quite a lot to see! I went hoping to find frog spawn and was not disappointed: my friend Clive, a keen golfer and naturalist, had told me there was some to be seen in a pond on the golfcourse and indeed there was. Spawn is of course the fertilised eggs, fertlised by the male as they are laid. Each egg is surrounded by a blob of jelly which protects the developing tadpole. Not all develop into frogs - just as well really - some will be eaten by birds or fish, some will just die.

You can tell it's frog not toad spawn because it's in clumps - toad's is in long strings.

Incidentally, it's probably best not to collect frogspawn to observe at home. If you do, return the tadpoles to the pond you got it from. Several diseases can affect frogs and it's important not to spread these by moving spawn from one place to another.

On the edge of the woods are some hazels - as I didn't get a decent picture of the female

flowers the other day, here's to make up for that:

Couldn't get the lichen and the flower in focus together!

On the path are some alders (Alnus glutinosa), another tree with catkins.

The long catkins are male, the pink flowers are female, they develop into the brown cones.

A buzzard circled over the valley - you may have to take my word for it, my camera has no telephoto. Buzzards are not uncommon round here.

Lichens and moss

This tree has a good share of lichens - and even moss growing through the lichens.






I'm not a botanist, let alone a lichenologist, so I don't know the names, but lichens are extraordinary and beautiful things seen up close.

They're odd - composed of an alga or cyanobacterium and a fungus living together in what is probably a mutually beneficial arrangement (symbiosis). (Cyanobacteria are a special type of bacteria which can photosynthesise; they are blue-green in colour, hence cyano which means blue.) What you see is essentially the fungus, the algal cells being within it in various arrangements. The algae can generally exist on their own as well, but the fungi depend on the algae. Most lichens have one species of alga, occasionally there are two. The alga in a lichen provides photosynthesis for the fungus; in return it receives water and shelter.

There are thousands of different lichens world-wide; some inhabiting very inhospitable places. To varying degrees they are sensitive to air pollution, often failing to do well where pollution is high. They grow very slowly; some colonies may be 8 or 9000 years old.

Churchyards are important for lichens: according to the British Lichen Society, of the 1700 species in Britain, over 300 have been found on churchyard stone in lowland Britain, with many churchyards having over 100 species.

A war memorial field

Kennington Memorial Field commemorates six local men who died in the Second World War.



It is an area of grassland managed for wildflowers and lies in the village of Kennington a mile or two south of South Hinksey. The meadow is bounded by woodland on two sides, with Bagley Wood to the west, and sloping quite steeply down to Radley Large Wood to the south, with a stream marking the boundary. There's not much colour there at this time of year but the hazel catkins on trees beside the stream stood out in the weak sunshine this afternoon.

Catkin, common hazel, Corylus avellana.

The hazel catkin is male; it moves freely in the breeze, releasing pollen which lands on the female flower. Individual trees carry both male and female flowers (monoecious).


A closer look at the catkin

Closer still

Sorry it's not that sharp but catkins are very good at moving in the slightest air current! You can just make out the short hair-like tufts which are the stamens. Each divides (you can't see that here), into two anthers which burst open to release their pollen.

Sheep and cowslips

At a local nature reserve this afternoon to check the sheep are ok. There are six sheep (Shetland I'm told) and they're here to crop a small meadow - which will be a mass of flowers in a few weeks.

The first will be the cowslips (Primula veris) and lots of plants are already appearing. They are still quite flat to the ground so although the sheep take off odd bits of leaf they do no real harm. Sheep really are the most amazingly efficient mowing machines, they never seem to stop. They leave this meadow in a week to carry on the good work elsewhere. The Wildlife Trust owns various animals which are used to maintain the reserves.

There are several cowslips in this shot, one just under the nose of the sheep.

Village and dreaming spires

A strong cold wind this afternoon but sunny.

The village of South Hinksey is only about 70 houses. Many people who live here work in Oxford.

Seven or eight new houses were built in the village last year on land previously occupied by a digger hire company. This is a great improvement and the extra houses and their inhabitants are very welcome in our small community. The houses are clustered round the ancient church dedicated to St Laurence. Being of stone they fit in well.

Looking in the other direction one can see in the distance the famous 'dreaming spires' of Oxford - a description coined by the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold. Matthew Arnold was the son of the famous headmaster of Rugby school, and educationist, Thomas Arnold, who featured in the novel Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes.