Phobias

Agoraphobia - the fear of fields.... a justifiable fear if the fields are full of 'orrible bity things. So you stay in, and are threatened by terrors there too..... like this Roesel's Bush Cricket that visited us at work.
This cricket apparently thrives in hot summers, so it's official - this is a hot summer. They don't need telling in Russia, or indeed the States, so how much more climate-change-denying will we have to put up with?
Less frightening is the Speckled Bush Cricket that I often find when gardening.

Big huge spiders are being found around the house now, but the speed of despatch - out of the door, not under a foot - precludes photographs.
The fear of insects is Entomophobia, and I have a pathological dread of identifying moths.

But who could worry about the dear little Brown Argus?

Looking up a list of phobias, I didn't realise that fear of flowers has a name - Anthophobia

What's my phobia? Claustrophobia..... don't fence me in.

No-see-ums

This was a four-bite weekend, with the worst ones in the Sandwich area (as you can imagine, they are particularly painful in the Sandwich area). There have been complaints about biting insects for years around here, but they seem to have reduced recently, perhaps due to various eradication measures.
Anyway, I was stupid enough not to put on the spray, and suffered the consequences.

I was tramping the saltmarshes of Sandwich Bay in search of Deptford Pinks, but I saw none (no-see-um hehe), but that doesn't mean they aren't there - just that I didn't find them.

There were plenty of pink blooms to be seen on the walk, but not the right ones - extensive drifts of Sea Lavender, and also some cultivated flowers grown by the farmers along the field edges, presumably to attract pollinating insects.

There was plenty of Sea Bindweed foliage but few flowers - Sea Holly by contrast is looking good at the moment. This one had attracted a Turnip Sawfly, which from reports seem to have swarmed in last week, but are now few in number - have they moved inland, I wonder?
More Painted Ladies were seen, and it will be interesting to know where sightings have been this year.
It was a good weekend for butterflies, but not good enough to provide me with a sight of the Folkestone Graylings (no-see-em either). Common Blues are frequent, even in my garden, and further sightings of Small Tortoiseshells are encouraging after its recent mystery decline.
Blackfly are being harvested by ladybirds and other larger insects, which in turn feed...
....the birds, now reappearing after their quiet time, with this juvenile Dunnock actually stopping for a photo-opportunity.

When there is more better opportunity, look you

Where better to look for rare arable plants than near a field which has been seeded with Chickory? Clearly the farmer cares, and may have created conditions which the rapidly-disappearing small field plants like. It's easy to see the Chickory, tall against the skyline above the Eastry by-pass - it's less easy to find the arable plants.
But there they are, two species for which I had previously searched in vain - Round-leaved and Sharp-leaved Fluellen, growing as usual side-by-side.
There were about ten round-leaved plants, but only on sharp-leaved one. Why are they so-called - they seem to have no relevance to Shakespeare's Captain Fluellen, who is bold and bluff. He says "Look you" frequently..... I've spent much time with Welshmen of all kinds, and have never heard them say it once.

At the end of the day I travelled to Knowle Wood (or the Waterworks Wood) on a tip-off - there are Broad-Leaved Helleborines there, they said.
Yes there are..... plenty of them, feet away from the car park, and lining the roadside.
Most photos were poor in the low light - this one is included only because of an apparently unusual Ladybird, which I missed in the gloom.
Back in Kingsdown, a Small Blue was seen - presumably a late generation one, while on the beach an opportunity for another birder-sop pic presented itself -two rare Sea-Doves.

A Sociable Stroll

We are blessed locally with a number of organisations that organise guided walks, led by experts in their field who are kind enough to pass on their knowledge. I'd recommend them to anyone interested in the subject, as they will be taken to the best places, shown things they might not have noticed and get plenty of background information.
Today a walk led by Fran of the Denge Wood Butterfly Project strolled around Lyminge forest, and despite light drizzle and sparse sunshine managed to clock up a commendable 16 species, including the target White Admiral. Perhaps more pleasing was the sight of two Painted Ladies - looking fresh, so have they hatched from eggs laid by some of the millions of visitors last year?
Fran has done an excellent job of raising awareness of butterfly habitat conservation among landowners and the general public, and the number of known sites for Duke of Burgundy has increased from two to nine while the number of individuals recorded has increased dramatically as well.
We were fortunate to have some skilled botanists on the walk to point out interesting plants, and there were also learned discussions on the origins of round and long barrows. Good company.
Formation mating (1) - hoverflies on surprisingly early Devil's Bit Scabious.

Formation mating (2) - Turnip Sawflies..... I've seen two swarms of these flies recently, while another has been reported in the village. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, swarms of them would devastate crops, and more recently they have been found on oilseed rape. They probably fly in from the continent in eruption years - has anyone else seen them this year?
And finally.... a sop to the birders out there - a yellowhammer still singing on the Downs.

Places less visited

Many times I've driven past this gate and wondered what it led to, but never before had I entered. Today I made time for it and was very pleasantly surprised.
It's somewhere south-east of Ashford (TR0635) and may have been created as part of the planning consent for housing on the site of the old prison (the internet is silent on its history, in fact on everything about it).
A line of pylons bisects the wood, creating a ride bordered by mature trees which is perfect for butterflies and dragonflies and the large anthills hint that the land was gently treated in the past.
A Scarce Migrant Hawker (I think) posed for pictures, as did a Brimstone. Sheltered sunny corners were alive with insects - the most numerous butterflies were Gatekeepers with a mixture of Meadow Browns, Red Admirals, Commas, Common Blues, Small Coppers and Marbled Whites for company. The surrounding oaks should have held Purple Hairstreaks but not one was seen.
Moving on to Dungeness, I walked around the Long Pit for the first time. Yellow Water-lilies covered the surface and again there were many dragonflies.
Each time I took a path to the water's edge, there was a plop of a green flog diving into the lake.

Parsley Water-Dropwort

On Dengemarsh Road (where the Great White Egret showed but the Purple Herons didn't) there are some strangely-sculpted Gorse bushes, not straggly as normal but tightly packed and smoothed by the wind. The branch in the photo is in fact the bush's stem.
Dodder flowered profusely, smothering Wood Sage, Nottingham Catchfly and anything else in its path. It was good to see this strange rare plant, as I can't find it on the East Kent beaches.

Talking of which...... the final Place Less Visited is on the beach halfway between Sandwich and Deal. There, standing proud among the low-growing vegetation in the middle of nowhere, are two tall spikes of flowers that I haven't seen before.
Twiggy Mullein I believe, which is an introduced species that pops up unexpectedly from time to time. A welcome arrival that gives status to an out-of -the-way place.

A Scientific Tourist

The splendidly-named book "The Scientific Tourist through England, Scotland and Wales in which the traveller is diverted to the principal objects of Antiquity, Art, Science and the Picturesque" by T. Walford (1818) mostly dwells on old buildings and plants.

In the former section he dismisses this area as: Deal.— A Castle. 2 m. s. is Walmer Castle. and describes Ramsgate as a "beautiful bathing place", which presumably at that time it was.

The second part lists 56 rare plants in Kent, of which only about half are still known in the county. Of the survivors, few appear to have increased their range, others unsurprisigly have reduced, orare not in the same places, or indeed with the same names - Purple Goats-Beard is better known as Salsify nowadays..Nottingham Catchfly is still on the cliffs but I've not noticed it on Sandgate Castle and Sea Pea is indeed still growing by Walmer Castle, and has not spread.

Wild Madder is on the list "on the cliffs at Dover east of the caves" which would be a clear pointer if you knew where the caves are - perhaps the ones now surrounded by the railway sidings? But the plant has flourished along the new fencing beside the railway line at Samphire Hoe, so maybe it moved along the tracks in the last 200 years. The Channel Tunnel workings created a huge amount of spoil, now flattened into Samphire Hoe, giving a new habitat to the area, with the opportunity for rare plants to thrive in conditions that are unsuitable for commoner, more successful species. Sea Lavender loves it here, giving a pink glow to the concrete apron.
In places the fallen chalk has given refuge to many small plants, like the clints and grikes of limestone.

The world has vastly changed since 1818 and some wonderful things have been lost, but it's good
to know that others have the strength to adapt to new opportunities.
The Kent branch of the Botanical Society has published its own list of rare plants, numbering 256 - in 200 years, how many of these will still be with us?

Dread trade

Yes, it's Shakespeare Cliff time again...Samphire collectors should be scaling the treacherous cliffs to reap the bounty that nature provides for free. But no, it's a dead trade and only strange people like me take the trouble to pick some to enjoy at home.

After a scramble over the crumbling sea wall I found what I was searching for.... the pretty and rare Sea Heath. It's not a heath, in fact, but there's no reason to change the traditional name just because it is inconveniently etymologically incorrect.
There were five clumps (mats really) in a small area - there may be more further along the cliff face but as the tide was in, this couldn't be checked (wimp...that wouldn't have stopped Joseph Banks).
Sea Lavender is coming nicely into flower now, both on the cliffs and along the central reservation of the nearby A20.

Nearby, tree mallow

And this one seems familiar by the side of a path ...... can't think what it is, though.

While writing about sea plants, Sea Pea is flowering and setting seed on Walmer beach, while Sea Holly is at its best along the Sandwich Bay strand. Photos for Ann and our friends across the sea.