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.