The Hot Dog Days of Summer

Right now it's 29°C and tomorrow it will reach 34°C in Bristol, where I live. Temperatures that were anomalies - record-breaking, even - a few years ago are fast becoming commonplace, and it's wearying - and worrying. 

Our city rivers are running very low ... 

The River Frome at Winterbourne Down

The River Trym at Badock's Wood

The Hazel Brook at Blaise 

... and the parks and nature reserves are tinder dry.

Bronze-age round barrow at Badock's Wood

Blaise

Purdown

Vassalls Park

And the trees continue to drop branches, and in some cases, fall, as they have ever since last summer, which was also extremely hot and dry. 

Lincombe Woods

Snuff Mills/Vassalls Park

Though they might not actually be that safe to walk around, Cwtch and I have stuck to the woods on our daily walks as much as possible, given that it's several degrees cooler in them than being out in the open. Even so, we've tried to get out as early as we can, to miss the worst of the heat that builds throughout the day and peaks late afternoon.

sunrise on Purdown ...

... and in Hermitage Wood

Watching rabbits at sunrise

Other parts of the Frome look a little fuller. We've been mooching through Snuff Mills regularly ... 

... and one morning we went through the stone stile on the far side of Frenchay Bridge and walked through Lincombe Woods. 

Further upstream, at Winterbourne, it was cool in the quarries and Cwtch was happy to dabble her paws ... 

... while at Blaise we wandered along the banks of the Hazel Brook, a tributary of the Trym, and lurked in the ditches of Kings Weston hill fort, scouting for feathers ...

... of which there have been many, from all of our walks. Though as always, they have to be hunted for, rather than just found.

Of course sometimes you find a lot all at once, which is a shame ... 

... but if there's not too many, we make a little shrine to honour the dead one(s) ... 

thrush shrine

... which have often met their end at the beak and claws of a sparrowhawk. 

My best feather finds to date have been a wren primary, to go with the one I picked up last year, both in gateways on the eastern edge of Barn Wood on Purdown (though what I'd really love is a wren tail feather) ... 

... and this jay tertial, the first one I've found which has some blue on it, and also some very natty banding - such a lot going on in one feather.

Apart from the aforementioned rabbits and sparrowhawks, most wildlife has been lying low, the birds in moult and the rest possibly because it's so hot. Much of what we've seen has, as usual, been dead:

CLOCKWISE from top left: a new brood of thrushes; dead rat; dead and alive squirrels; dead crow; blackberry-eating badger poo; decapitated mouse; robin

CLOCKWISE from top left: buff-tailed bumble bee; Speckled Wood; Gatekeeper; Red Admiral; demoiselle wings

Most of the wild flowers are over themselves too - just the following late bloomers:

CLOCKWISE from top left: wild clematis; wild carrot; burdock; rowan; loosestrife; creeping thistle; the dreaded Himalayan Balsam

Fungi, on the other hand, are coming into their own. I'm not very good at identifying them, so I now have an app, but I'm not sure it's much better. Anyhow, here goes:

TOP ROW: pinkish porecrust; oak mazegill; King Alfred's cakes; branching oyster

SECOND ROW: ganoderma; dryad's saddle; beefsteak fungus; something with mould on it

THIRD ROW:  chicken of the woods; shaggy bracket; dead man's fingers; oak bracket

BOTTOM ROW:  artist's bracket; penniporia fraxinea; lumpy bracket; green elf cup 🙂

Oh, and stinkhorn in various stages

Finally, hoggin - not something I actively look for this time of year, when there are feathers to be found, but I got quite a haul all the same, including some quite big bits.

And in case I ever forget where I am in the heat of the moment:

Dog Days in the Frome and Trym valleys

I love woodland in summer; how it's different each time you walk through it, and as it's the holidays, I can be as leisurely as I like, wandering around Bristol's urban woods. I've even found myself feeling happy on occasion, which is quite unprecedented. 

I made a vow this summer to explore parts of the Frome and Trym valleys that I don't know, as well as the more familiar paths, and in the case of the Frome, it's been fascinating to see the extent to which it impacts the city's topography, even though for the most part it's invisible, either deep in its gorge or culverted. 

Having tried twice before - and failed - to reach Bury hill fort at Frenchay from Winterbourne viaduct, I was really pleased to get there on a couple of occasions, once with Cwtch the collie, and once with Cwtch and my old friend, Liz.

stone stiles

The hill fort was constructed in the iron age, but earlier flint chippings and an axe head discovered there attest to earlier occupation of the area. Cwtch and I had a wander through the ditch between banks on our first visit, and saw two roe deer in their red summer coats, leaping through the bracken and brambles.

A couple of miles downstream are Lincombe Woods in Downend, through which a fork of the Frome runs down to the river. The Frome walkway is on the opposite side of the river at this point, but you can still walk a short way north-east, and south-west down to Frenchay bridge, at the top of Snuff Mills. First, though, a detour to nearby Britannia Woods, so called because in 1957, a prototype Bristol Britannia aircraft crashed there, with the loss of all of on board - fifteen people in total. There's a plaque commemorating the incident on the wall of Lincombe Barn.

There's a big dip in the wood, and I couldn't help wondering whether that was where the plane came down, though it's situated on a hillside anyway, so maybe not.

I'd been intending to visit for a long time, as there was a strange sort of family connection to this event, in the form of an anecdote my mother told about how she'd dreamt the Britannia crashed just a few days before it did. She a said she always felt guilty for not telling anyone the authorities, but of course it's highly doubtful anyone would have taken any notice of her. The strangest thing about this story is that my mother had no interest in the subconscious or the supernatural; it really was an aberration as far as her mindset was concerned.

Lincombe Woods

Where fork meets Frome

A piece of hoggin bolstering the path between Lincombe Woods and Frenchay bridge. More about hoggin later.

Frenchay bridge

Quarry in Oldbury Court estate

I've also been walking along paths on the opposite bank of the Frome from the tried and tested footpaths. It's funny to see familiar sites from childhood from a new angle. 

Poor Cwtch was less impressed, as she mistook the leaves and dirt up against the barrier - you can just see it at the far end - for dry land and fell in the river.

'Can you please stop talking to that tree and get on with my walk?'

'No, cream first!'

School Lane, Stapleton

There were more familiar spots seen from the opposite bank from usual when we headed down the Begbrook to the Frome and walked as far as Glenfrome weir.

The island, covered in Himalayan Balsaam

Part of Glenfrome weir from the back

High above the Frome is Purdown, part of  Stoke Park estate, and Cwtch and I have been up there a fair bit this summer, skulking in some of the less frequented parts of the wood on the hunt for moulted feathers.

Having just thought to myself how good it would be to add a few more Great Spotted Woodpecker feathers to my collection, I did come across a sparrowhawk predation site early one morning, with a full quota of twenty wing feathers, plus a few tail, feathers, and red head and rump feathers. A question of being careful what you wish for. 

More about feathers later.

Autumn coming on apace

A felled ash refusing to die

Yum!

Strangely glittery purple poo

We've also been walking a lot at Blaise Castle, above the Ruver Trym, trying different starting points at the various entrances to the estate.

Tree on Castle Hill 

Giant's Footprint

Bridge on the River Trym

Sheltering from torrential rain one Sunday morning

Knobbly roots

'Observe a tree' carving

Up on King's Weston Down

There are lots of Mr Bumps, painted by Bumpsy, in the areas neighbouring Blaise, as well as on the estate. This one is near Henbury golf course.

Fewer flowers than earlier in the summer: here's (clockwise) yarrow; great burdock; fleabane; cuckoo pint; great willowherb, wtih escapees crocosmia and evening primrose; cyclamen; burnet-saxifrage; and ragwort as tall as me

 

fungi

Clockwise: the ladybirds were swarming mid-July in the hot, dry weather - I hadn't seen so many since the drought year of 1976, these on a stone in the middle of the River Frome; female beautiful demoiselle; hogweed with ladybird, red soldier beatle, narrow-barred fusehorn, large ectemnius and ichneumon sarcitorius; noctua pronuba; ladybird on great burdock; buff-tailed bumble   

hoggin, which has been harder to spot than usual with the leaves falling early following the hot weather

TOP ROW: blue tit; magpie, tawny owl, jay covert, goldcrest; jay covert and primary; 2 x buzzard, magpie, and 2 x jay secondaries; magpie, jay and great spotted woodpecker tail feather; magpie, goldcrest, 2 x jay coverts, mistle thrush, great spotted woodpecker; jay primary and secondary; buzzard, magpie, jay tail feather, tawny owl

MIDDLE ROW: 2 x buzzard, 2 x tawny, jay primary; magpie, tawny and blue tit; 2 x tawny, magpie, jay covert, buzzard; magpie and jay tail feather; 2 x magpie, 2 x jay tail feather, 2 x jay primary; jay tail feather; green woodpecker, jay tertial and tail feather, 2 x magpie; wren primary

BOTTOM ROW: tawny secondary and primary, green woodpecker, sparrowhawk, 4 x buzzard including primary and tail feather, 2 x jay primaries; 2 x jay tail feathers, buzzard, sparrowhawk and tawny; 3 x buzzard, 2 x magpie and a jay secondary; jay primary and covert, goldfinch and tawny; tawny and jay tail feather; magpie; jay tail feather

A dou-blue-n!