October 2022

Wildlife Watch Walk – October 18th 2022

 

Present: Ffiona & 3 volunteers

We started the walk in the Jenkinson Garden where most of the flowers are now dying back, though there were still a number of bees & bumble bees around the flowers still in bloom.

As we walked along the northern path we noted a patch of fungi growing on an old tree trunk in the undergrowth and heard a jack daw above.

The bees’ nest in the hollow high up in the London plain tree is still active and we observed a number flying in and out while we stood underneath.

The leaves on the deciduous trees are starting to turn colour & drop and there’s a carpet of leaves beginning to form under the London plain and the large beech, where a mass of beech mast is also carpeting the ground. We heard a robin and a nuthatch in this area. Across the pleasure grounds, the blackberries have died back, but we saw a number of berries on other plants and trees including on the red dogwood and on some of the holly trees, along with the berries on the arum maculatum. Large pieces of fungi are growing out of one f the beech trees in this area of the woodland. According to our head gardener, Piers, this is killing the tree, as it is established within the trunk.

It was lovely to see the water level starting to rise in the Bishop’s Pond after an exceptionally dry spring and summer, when the upper part of the pond was completely dry. A pair of swans had been observed on the pond a couple of days previously and a mistle thrush was seen in one of the trees close to the new bridge. There’s a carpet of acorns on the floor in this area with evidence that some kind of rodent has been eating them. Slightly further up the path a red admiral butterfly was spotted, along with a number of other insects, including a damsel fly.

For the first time since we’ve been running the monthly walks, we were able to include The Great Meadow, our floodplain meadow, in the walk, as the work to create a fully accessible crossing for the Ha-ha had been completed over the summer. There is still a great deal of Himalayan Balsam growing along the Ha-ha, despite our volunteers’ efforts to remove this invasive species. However, they do provide a food source for our pollinators late into the season. It was also lovely to be able to note for the first time what was happening at the furthest end of the oxbow lake as we walked along the fence line. We saw blue tits and then a female blackbird feeding on the hawthorn. In the nearby trees we heard a wren and a robin and further along the field, we saw a thrush and a nuthatch. In the next tree there was a male blackbird and a redwing and we saw a wood pigeon on the other side of the Ha-ha.

As we walked across the middle of the floodplain meadow, it was noted that the pasture is still full of productive grasses, especially ryegrasses, both Italian & Perennial, despite the spreading of green manure taken from the traditional meadows at the National Botanical Gardens of Wales last year. We saw quite a bit of cocksfoot and some meadow foxtail, along with creeping buttercup, thistles, plantain and unfortunately, docks, which is an indicator that the soil is still very rich in nitrogen. We walked along the lower boundary and we could see the lower end of the Bishop’s Pond, where we saw a moorhen in the reeds. As we walked back to the bridge, we spotted a mallard.

Back in the pleasure gardens, there was an abundance of various types of fungi growing on the old beech tree trunk at the centre of the woodland garden. There is fungi everywhere in the park this year and we found numerous varieties on the side of the lower paths and on the ash trunk that’s been re-purposed.

We brought the walk to an end here, as we’d already been out for 2 hours!