I didn't get to the Field of the Hollowing Oak and the Small Dark Wood of the Mind as much this summer as previous years. This was in part due to the weather, which was either hot and humid, or wet, both of which sent me scurrying to the shelter of the much more extensive woodland on Purdown.
In addition, the paths along two of the edges and diagonally across the field are so overgrown as to be impassable, which means walking around it is a bit too trying to be relaxing, and sometimes there are days when I need my walks to be relaxing.
Bramble-blocked paths
Finally, the development beyond the wood, out at Charlton Common, is very much happening and a bit depressing. The part of the Common that was mowed, having previously been wild and brambly and home to a herd of muntjac, has had soil spread on top of it and been seeded with grass, presumably in order to make it look tidy for the prospective home-buyers ...
... and whilst it's a pleasure to get acquainted with some of the trees that were previously inaccessible, it's such a shame for the wildlife.
Even worse, on the other side of the Common, the Skylarks Field is now Challenger Road (after the aviator and aero-engineer, George Challenger), with houses springing up on it.
I try not to walk by the development site too often during the week, when it's impossible to escape the noise of construction work.
the re-routed footpath
And the ash tree at the bottom of Far Field was felled. Admittedly, it was way past its prime, and suffering from die-back, but I miss it.
That said, this scrap of edgelands still my favourite place to walk. My favourite moments over the summer were a couple of memorable encounters, the first with a roe doe, which crashed away from me and the dog along the overgrown path that leads to the ditch. In the process she left behind her fawn, which was almost perfectly camouflaged in the long July grass.
If you can't spot it, here's the video:
The other unforgettable moment came a month earlier, at midsummer, while we were walking back to the car through the Small Dark Wood of the Mind, having watched the sun set. Cwtch ran off into an inaccessible part of the wood, and refused to come back, even though we called and called. Then a black-and-white striped face burst through the trees, but it was too close to the ground and there was another black-and-white striped face behind it, higher and grinning: yes, it was a young badger, with Cwtch in pursuit. They shot past us and back into the wood, Cwtch still refusing to come and the both of us concerned, not that she might harm the badger - there's not a bad bone in her body - but that it might not realise this, turn and swipe her too-close nose with its claws. But then she did come back, happy and unscathed, and we've kept her on a lead through the wood at twilight ever since.
No pictures of that escapade - it happened so fast; just some badger poo instead.
Marking the yellow rubber mat covering part of the re-routed footpath; a series of latrines along one of the paths in the Field of the Hollowing Oak, filled to the brim
We've also seen a few foxes, evidence of rabbits and owls, ubiquitous dead shrews, and a bat box with a picture of a bat on it so that the bats know it's for them.
Plus a kestrel - or maybe more than one - on numerous occasions; ditto, ravens.
Out on the development site, they're monitoring something in all the hedgerows that haven't yet been ripped out ...
... though probably not the swallows, magpies and robins.
Talking of birds, there were some feathers to be found, though admittedly not as many as on Purdown.
magpie feathers
jay feather
Buzzard feathers
tawny owl feathers, some of them rather scruffier than others
predated juvenile thrush
On the whole, it was a good summer for flowers.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Hedge Woundwort; Dog Rose; Cuckoo Pint; Cut-Leaved Crane's-Bill Leaf; Dogwood blossom; White clover; Mallow; Sicilian Honey Garlic; Melilot; Hedgerow Crane's-Bill; Hawk's-Beard
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Hemlock; Common Vetch; Nettle; Narrowleaf Bird's-Foot Trefoil; Foxglove; Honeysuckle; Lesser Spearwort; Chamomile; Perforate St John's-Wort; Creeping Thistle
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Ribwort Plantain; Woodland Figwort; Goatsbeard; Scarlet Pimpernel; Grass Vetchling; Bramble blossom; Fumitory; Love-in-a-Mist; Small-Flower Sweetbriar; Cock's-Foot; Wood Avens seedhead and fern
This is Purple Salsify before it becomes Goatsbeard. (I could stare into its golden eye for hours.)
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Spear Thistle; Agrimony; Common Knapweed; Northern Evening Primrose; Nipplewort; Pink Yarrow; White Yarrow; Rough Chervil; Spindle blossom; Bristoly Oxtongue; Hedge Parsley
Cinquefoil had me stumped. Why 'cinque' when there are often four or six petals? Then someone pointed out to me that 'foil' is derived from 'feuille', which is French for leaf - of course it is! - and that made sense ... until I found some specimens with six, seven and eight leaves.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Poppies; Purple Toadflax; Ladies Bedstraw and Yarrow; Tufted Vetch; Meadow Vetchling; Flax; Ragwort; Buddleia; Mugwort
Bindweed
My favourite wild carrot in all its variety
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Common Mint; Burdock; Prickly Lettuce; Brambles and wild Clematis; Tall Goldenrod; Rosebay Willowherb; Hemp-Agrimony; Red Shank; Wall Lettuce; Teasel
Another favourite: Michaelmas Daisies
The flowers having turned up in abundance is why, as the June gap became a whole-summer gap, the dearth of insects was so concerning. After a late spring full of Orange-Tips, I was luxuriating in the prospect of more and more butterflies, but there were so few. Plus, the second consecutive terrible year for Red Soldier beetles. It was surely in part down to the disappointing weather, but other, more methodical observers of nature will doubtless have other, more worrying theories.
TOP TO BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT: Speckled Wood; Small Heath; Yellow Shell moth; Small Copper; Dark Arches moth; White Plume moth; fragment of a Large Skipper wing; Small Skipper; dead Comma; Gatekeeper; Ringlet; Meadow Brown; Small tortoiseshell caterpillars; the Drinker moth caterpillar; Cinnabar moth caterpillar; Ruby Tiger moth caterpillar
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Buff-Tailed Bumble bee; Common Carder; honey bee; Bombus Cryptarum
CLOCKWISE: Thick-thighed Flower beetles; Rose Chafer; Kern's Flower Scarab; Red Soldier beetles, Harlequin Ladybird; Rose Bedeguar Gall; Green Bottle Fly; Nursery Web spider web; Emperor Dragonfly; Rose Sawfly; Seven-Spot Ladybird
Snail nesting in a wild carrot
Summer is the time for sunsets up the field, and we went up there as often as there was the prospect of one. Here are a few.
1st June 2024
2nd June 2024
8th June 2024
10th June 2024
17th June 2024
20th June 2024
7th July 2024
21st July 2024
28th September 2024
'Not in your way, am I, Mam?'
And of course we've been watching the inexorable slide from sumer into autumn. Here's blooming June out on the development site ...
... at least until midsummer, when the mower went in.
The Field of the Hollowing Oak, as always, is left to its own devices, and grasses and flowers that were as tall as me at one point are only now dying back.
Autumn has had a slow burn this year ... and it has been wet at times ...
... but all the colours have come to the party during October ... out beyond Charlton Common, where the spindle berries are glorious ...
... in the Small Dark Wood of the Mind ...
... and in the Field of the Hollowing Oak. On a day with sun in it, it's glorious.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Crabapples, Silverweed turning autumnal, Damsons - sadly very few and out of reach, Black Bryony, Hedge Parsley and Creeping Cinquefoil
Lastly, I found a few bits of hoggin out on the fields and the common; always pleasing to come across traces of the past, especially as much of it is about to be lost under tarmac.
