Little Cuttle; picture from www.glaucus.org.uk
The large contingent - 70+ - of adults and children who fished the murky waters below the low tide mark were not disappointed this morning. Not only were there the the usual tail-flicking Shrimps and little Plaice but also species which we rarely or have never caught before.
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Though I had no more than an hour to spend on this grey morning, a lot of birds were on the move past the old coastguard houses, mostly flying E. Many were just bundles of tiny dots bowling past the headland, anonymous had they not issued the twitter of contact notes which distinguished them as Goldfinches (730), Linnets (220), Meadow Pipit (50), Siskin (40), Pied Wagtail (25), Lesser Redpoll (10) etc etc.
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…not the history of kings and battles but that of everyday labour in the Wealden forest told in banks and ditches, was the history illuminated by Dr Nicola Banister, landscape archaeologist, in a walk at the Woodland Trust’s Brede High Woods on Saturday.
This map from c1800 shows that today’s forest was at that time a mosaic of woods and farmland.
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As might be expected this late in the season, relatively few species in the Lime Kiln moth trap this morning, with ten in total. The majority were the ubiquitous Large Yellow Underwing (though still only six of these), while new species for the year (and typically ‘autumnal’ species) were Red-line Quaker, Brick and Feathered Ranunculus. Highlights were Large Wainscot, Feathered Brindle and a Great Silver Water Beetle, one of the latest records ever for this species on the reserve.
Large Wainscot
With the week’s rain yet to drain from the dripping woods, the reservoir level is still low enough to expose the top of the old causeway which, for hundreds of years up to 1930, had crossed the valley.
The angler on the right is standing on the old road, built of iron slag and usually under water.
3 Little Egrets, including a juvenile, were running about the water’s edge where leaping fry preceded the emergence of a Little Grebe which had been hunting them; I had taken its ripples to be those of a swimming fish.
Further over, five Mandarins, lit bright orange by the autumn sun, sat in the shallows outstaring a fox, also bright orange, half-hidden in willows.
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