I went a walk up to Hollingbury Hill Fort today and have never really noticed what a great view of the Lewes Downs massif you can see from there if you look to the north east. You can clearly see it's a separate portion of the Downs with the very noticeable Mount Caburn (146m) on the right. Behind the quarry in the centre of the massif is Southerham and on the left behind the almost invisible football stadium is Malling Down, you can see clearly right up the Coombe. Lewes itself on the other hand, is concealed from view.
From pretty much the same vantage point you can see Truleigh Hill looking to the west, only about 5 miles away from Brighton as the crow flies but it is great to know that one of the farms I surveyed there had 50 Skylark territories, over 20 Corn Bunting territories and three singing Quail. Not only that but some really great arable plants. It's nice to know that some of the closest parts of the Downs to me are so great. It all feels so much smaller from the top of the fort.
I got a tip off from Peter Whitcomb about this nationally scarce arable plant on the Ditchling Road so I was able to stop in as it's right on my route back from work. A phone call later and I finally managed to see the thing, it's Fine-leaved Fumitory and it's quite distinct with very fine leaves and tiny white flowers. Here is some Common Fumitory for comparison.
However, that's not the best lifer I had today because I went and twitched the
White-winged Black Tern at the Chichester Gravel Pits at lunch time. Always wanted to see a summer adult and having dipped on a couple over the years, it was a gamble that paid off. Also present were
Common Terns and a
Little Gull. See if you can spot the bird in this ridiculously bad photo or alternatively look at some decent shots on
Jake's blog. That leaves me on 3290.
I went up to Hollingbury Fort and the back of Wild Park to experience the visible migration, it's almost as addictive as sea watching! I observed from 07:45 to 09:35 and here are the totals. It was quite windy and it was difficult to hear birds unless they were right overhead.
| Goldfinch | 45 |
| Chaffinch | 31 |
| Meadow Pipit | 25 |
| Skylark | 18 |
| Wood Pigeon | 10 |
| Swallow | 7 |
| Brambling | 5 |
| Pied Wagtail | 5 |
| Stock Dove | 5 |
| Redwing | 5 |
| Linnet | 4 |
| Greenfinch | 3 |
| Siskin | 3 |
| Song Thrush | 3 |
|
|
| In the bushes... |
| Chiffchaff | 3 |
| Goldcrest | 2 |
| Firecrest | 1 |
It was nice to hear
Bramblings again, definitely one of my favourite calls.
Collins Bird Guide has perhaps the best written word interpretations of bird vocalisations. So, it puts Brambling's call as 'a loud, croaking, harsh, nasal te-
ehp'. I am sure I heard one last week go over the car park at Woods Mill.
Firecrests seem to be turning up everywhere at the moment.
After hearing so many migrants passing overhead this morning and witnessing the stiff north-easterly breeze, I headed up to the hill fort at Hollingbury a mile or so north of my house. There was little passing overhead, 1 Meadow Pipit, 3 Skylarks and a Pied Wagtail but I did stumble across a Woodlark, right in the centre of the fort. It flew right overhead calling as it went out of view to the north west. I can only apologise for the photo but you can still tell what it is (sort of). I am all about the macro photography so that is about as good as it gets for my bird photos.
There were the typical invertebrates for this time of year including this Comma on some Old Man's Beard, a few Common Darters and Eristalis hoverflies. The only beetle I found what I though was a tiny Bembidion under a section of metal pipe. It turned out to be Microlestes maura, a very tiny (this one was about 2.8 mm long) carabid, too small and fast for a photo I'm afraid. There is another very similar species, so, as with so many of these idents, it came down to a comparison of the size and shape of the penis, this species having a distinct hook on his member.
Thanks to Peter Whitcomb for the gen on this species, this is the fruit and flowers of the bizzare alien, Thorn-apple. I have never seen this before, although it's not meant to be all that infrequent on waste ground and disturbed areas, exactly where we were on the edge of Hollingbury Golf Course. There was also a hole suite of strange looking alien grasses and goosefoots as well as Love-in-a-mist, Californian Poppy, Blue Fleabane and Blue Sow-thistle. More aliens than an episode of Star Trek!
These photos are of something even stranger, a fasciated Rosebay Willowherb. Found by Ian Whitcomb and shown to me by Peter this is quite an oddity, towards the top of the stem, the stem was over 8 mm broad by about 2 mm thick with the fruits projecting in only one plane. The flower head was also different, being highly congested. Not sure what causes this but it's very unusual.
After struggling with back problems for three weeks, my GP and physio have finally convinced me to have a week off sick. This is gonna kill me at this time of year and in this heat as I am supposed to sit still and only go on short walks/drives. Fortunately there is a lot of stuff to see in Brighton & Hove, I can't walk anywhere without seeing something new at the moment! So much for going to the New Forest this weekend. I was feeling pretty miserable at the thought of spending a week locked up so on the way home yesterday I saw this field of Common Poppies and had to stop for a few shots. It is a stunning field by Devils Dyke and a public footpath runs through it. It is right next to the road, park in the second car park along the dyke road from Brighton. In the distance you can see Brighton and Hollingbury fort, just behind that Perennial Sow-thistle. It also has a lot of nice arable weeds, Venus's Looking-glass, Dwarf Spurge, Small Toadflax, Sharp-leaved Fluellen and lots of Rough Poppies (second photo. You can see how obviously different they are to Common Poppies). I also saw all three field speedwells and actually took a photo of Grey and Green Field Speedwell. In the bottom photo, Grey is on the left with the darker leaves and flowers and Green is on the right with the lighter leaves and paler flowers.
I just went a short walk up to Hollingbury from my house and was amazed to get two vascular plants ticks. I stopped on a mound of disturbed soil, both swine-cresses and Scarlet Pimpernel drew my eye in. Then I saw lots of Henbit Dead-nettle and Common Field Speedwell and as I was photographing the dead-nettle, I saw something I did not even recognise, as I got closer I realised it was Small Toadflax. I began photographing the tiny specimen only to notice that immediately below it was a single plant of Sharp-leaved Fluellen. I have never seen either of these species before, how cool, within walking distance of my house!? The toadflax is the second photo and the top photo is the fluellen. Arable weeds are pretty cool and really easy to overlook. I think the vegetation community comes out as OV15. It's really easy to find as the mound of bare earth is visible from Ditchling Road (see bottom photo).
A slow walk around Hollingbury Park and the hill fort was about all I could manage after a heavy night on the pop. Hollingbury woods are full of Cuckoo Pint right now and there are hundreds of Early Purple Orchids on the top of the fort. Very few invertebrates around today with colder than usual temperatures. I did see a pair of Kestrels and a pair of Linnets there too.
Posts
