DAILY DIARY

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Really warm sunshine this afternoon saw me on my bike and heading for Hayling. The tide was still high as I crossed Langstone Bridge but the water was devoid of birds and there was little else to note until I neared the Oysterbeds where, before the lagoon came in sight, my ears were filled with a sound that I have not heard for the best part of a year - the uproar of hundreds of Black-headed Gulls jostling each other for space on the nesting island. Even better, cutting through the raucous uproar, were the quieter, penetrating calls of Med Gulls which kept making me look up to see the bird making the call, apparently just above my head though in fact much further away, such is the ability of this call to cut through the other gulls calls.

I did eventually get a good look at one of the birds in it's 'virgin pure' plumage but Chris Cockburn (who had also been attracted here on his bike) reminded me not to be deceived by the air of innocence engendered by the white plumage, but instead to take the bird's scarlet bill as a truer symbol of it carnivorous habits, which make it the principal predator of the Black-headed Gulls chicks.

Moving on south to the shore copse in line wih Daw Lane I thought at first that none of the many wild Primroses had yet felt the call of spring but I did eventually find three or four flower stems still encased in green and just one which had started to expose the tips of yellow petals.

The harbour water was still devoid of birds but not so the West Lane fields in which at least 800 Brent were silently eating the tillers of wheat, stuffing it down as fast as possible as fuel for a long flight which I guess they will be making tonight. They were still feeding nearly two hours later when I returned from the southern shore of the island (and in addition to this big flock there was another seemingly as big on the water that remained off Langstone Pond with the tide nearing its lowest).

Nothing special to note on south Hayling though the Green-winged Orchid leaves were longer and more numerous than last time I was here. Crossing Langstone Bridge again on the homeward trip I had a good view of a Buzzard making its was laboriously west over Langstone village, and coming up Wade Lane several branches of Cherry Plum, sheltered within the tunnel of trees, were by now in full flower whereas the section of the lane outside Wade Court now had only two heads of Winter Heliotrope on show as winter comes to an end.

A cycle ride yesterday to Warblington, Nore Barn and Denvilles gave me nothing that was an absoute first for the year but kept reminding me that spring had started. At Warblington the warm air told me that the Cattle Egret had almost certainly felt its message and departed (no sign of it that I could find) though at Nore Barn the Spotted Redshank had not received that message and the look of its unchanged winter plumage indicated that it might be some time before its hormones got into spring mode though one of the Black-headed Gulls on the shore nearby had a seemingly complete black face-mask.

Moving from the shore to Warblington Road I noticed my first Three-cornered Leek/Garlic flowering in a garden gateway but had to go close to confirm that its apparently all white flowers did have the thin green line running along the 'keel' of its petals rather than the green-tipped petals of Summer Snowflake which has been quite a common sight for about a month. Further along the road there was a substantial patch of Sweet Violets flowering in the roadside grass.

Crossing the main road and continuing up Bridge Road I decided to ignore any goodies that might be on offer in the public carpark (one of the 'Emsworth Waysides' on account of the variety of wildlife which grow around its periphery, particularly beside the Westbrook Stream which flows along the eastern side) and this meant that I saw something on the west side of Bridge Road that I have not noticed before - a large apple tree supporting large bunches of berried Mistletoe along all of its many branches. The tree gave me the impression that it was the property of a commercial Mistletoe grower who for some reason had failed to sell his crop at Christmas time but Brian Fellows told me subsequently that the owner has in fact already given away many bunches to friends and neighbours and the mass still on the tree is just what remains!

My final stop on the way home was in Denvilles at the junction of Southleigh and East Leigh Roads where a south facing bank on the north side of Southleigh Road immediately east of the junction is doubly attractive, partly because it is wall drained and catches whatever sun there is, encouraging early appearance of wild flowers, and partly because it appears to be an ancient hedge bank that once surrounded woodland and thus has a great mass of Lesser Periwinkle growing in the hedge bottom. Today the first two Lesser Periwinkle flowers were open and with them was a mass of Ivy-leaved Speedwell while a Chaffinch continuously repeated its song from the branches of a Cherry Plum tree whose flower buds were starting to open. Before long I expect to find my first flowers of both Greater Stitchwort and Crosswort here though I may have to wait another month for these.

Today I limited my outing to a walk around Havant with the aim of finding the first Danish Scurvygrass which I hoped would have responded to the spreading of road salt on recent frosty nights. I did find some in flower on the west side of Petersfield Road where it passes Havant College but both the leaves and flowers were so tiny that I would recommend others not to waste time looking for it until we have had some substantial rain!

I did, however, make two unexpected discoveries that made the outing worthwhile. One was a single plant of Garlic Mustard with a couple of small flowerheads seen in Leigh Road. The other was to find long catkins already hanging from the Dawn Redwood tree in Havant Park - I noticed these from the footbridge over the railway which brings you level with the height at which the catkins grow! Later, walking in the Park, I had a further look at the new fungal brackets growing on the dying Horse Chestnut trees close to Market Parade. Last time I was there I thought these might be young examples of Trametes gibbosa but the brackets have now acquired a rich brown colour to their top surfaces suggesting they are a species of Ganoderma. On a root of one of the trees, before it disappears into the ground, were some large but rain-starved and shrivelled growths of Giant Polypore (which I have seen here looking much healther in damper conditions last year).

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Daffodils, Snowdrops and Croci can be seen everywhere now as the temperature starts to rise and today the first Mimosa blossom was out in Mill Lane at Langstone but I was more excited by the first flowers on Ivy-leaved Speedwell in Havant and Cherry Plum trees at the south end of Southmoor Lane near Budds Farm.

After lunch I walked down the Langbrook Stream finding one plant of Field Pennycress still flowering in Juniper Square and Marsh Marigold plus Blackthorn still flowering near the South Moors from which I put up three Snipe.

At Budds Farm pools there were good numbers of Gadwall, Shoveler, Tufted Duck and Pochard with the pair of Swans that will nest there but nothing new so I headed east along the seawall with the tide just past high and, as expected, this gave me a close view of a Rock Pipit on the seaweed along the tideline but I found more interest near the mouth of the Langbrook stream where the falling tide was allowing the fresh water from the stream to flow out into the harbour, attracting a number of duck species to the triple benefits of such a place - fresh water to drink and in which to bathe (fresh water being better than salt for both purposes) plus whatever food items might be washed down with the stream. Seeing Wigeon, Gadwall, Mergansers and three male Goldeneye all making a bee line for the outflow as the tide started to fall made me realise that for some time the rising and then standing tide would have been penning back the fresh water and only now was the falling tide releasing it to flow out into the harbour. (Here this outflow is invisible to our eyes but when I was at school, evacuated during the war from Canterbury to a cliff top hotel at St Austell Bay in Cornwall, the outflow of the local stream, stained bright white with china clay effluent, could be seen forming a narrow white line extending almost a mile out to sea, not dispersing as soon as it reached the open water)

Turning inland my eyes were drawn to the sky over the Moors from which came the non-stop calls of a Green Sandpiper but there was little more to see until, after crossing the main road into Langstone village, I found more than 170 Brent also enjoying the falling tide as it brought the previously underwater weed within reach of their necks. Although it was now nearly sunset I could only see four Egrets around Langstone Pond - no doubt a few more came in later but numbers based there will soon start to rise as they start to build nests.

Finally, if you have not already seen the weekly summary I posted yesterday, you might be as interested as I was to discover the sex life of an earthworm which I explored in the Other Wildlife section, and to see the news of a presumably wintering Stone Curlew just over the Sussex border near Arundel.

My latest weekly summary of reports is now available by clicking Weekly Summary here

Rather than following the main road through Emsworth I went via Selangor Avenue, allowing me to confirm that the Rooks are back in the rookery where the road becomes Victoria Road, and then to cycle through Brook Meadow.

The Slipper Mill pond and the Little Deeps were frozen and birdless but there was a good show at the west end of the Great Deeps (though the Great White Egret was not in sight). A couple of Cormorant with dramatic 'judge's wig' heads were among the first birds seen, followed by the dramatic sight of two huge Great Blackback gulls in fresh breeding plumage - both made themselves more dominant by holding their wings up at full stretch in order to move short distances over the water seemingly in pursuit of some tin food items. Nearby a pair of Herring Gulls were looking equally smart (but relatively tiny) in their breeding plumage and to end the list of gulls there were many Black-headed (one with a seemingly complete 'black head') and a single Common Gull.

To fill out the space on the water there were around 300 Brent and among them were Shelduck, Pintail, Gadwall, Wigeon and a few Teal with Mallard and a couple of Swans. Waders included Oystercatcher, Lapwing, Red and Greenhank, Grey Plover, Turnstone and Dunlin while the distinctive call of a Spotted Redshank was heard. To round off the list I saw one Little Egret and one Grey Heron.

Continuing east along Thornham Lane I found Curlew and Starlings feeding in the ex-Llama field opposite Thornham House and while there I added Jay to my year list when one landed in the field hedgerow. The stretch from Prinsted to Nutbourne was remarkably short of birds though I did see a large and rich red Fox hurrying across the fields. No sign of Avocets at Nutbourne Bay and, now that apples are off the menu in the orchards, no Fieldfares in the trees.

Back at home I had an email telling me that the Billy Trail behind my house is to be closed from Feb 20 until work is completed to make the drainage north of East Street effective in order to prevent the flooding which has made the track impassable in periods of wet weather. The purpose of the email was to ask what evidence there was to show that this drainage would be detrimental to the Frogs which used to spawn in the water beside the track and this caused me to check my records to see when it was that Frogs ceased to appear here - I see that the last clump of spawn that I saw here was in February of 2005, quite some time after the national 'Frog Mortality Project' was set up in May 1992 (and that was sometime after Froglife became aware that a new virus was killing Frogs on a grand scale in the late 1980s).

Before lunch I took a short walk along the Billy Trail running behind my house (from East St to New Lane) during which I am pretty sure (from the distinctive 'gup' call) that there was at least one unseen Redwing in the trees above the old rail line. Later, skirting the east side of Havant Park, I noticed a lot of new young bracket fungi on the dying Horse Chestnuts close to Elm Lane - I have not been back to check them but I think they were Trametes gibbosa (though that usually favours Beech trees and looks different in that older growths often have green algae on the upper surface which in this case was a clean whitish colour)

After lunch I got out my bike and cycled to the south end of the old railtrack on Hayling in the hope of seeing some of the 500 Golden Plover which had been in the West Lane fields last Saturday.

Passing over Langstone Bridge I had good views of six Mergansers passing under it in company with just four Brent and when I reached the Oysterbeds I found few birds there despite the tide approaching high though the Shorelark was showing well on the Tern Island (populated today by four sleeping Mallard). Out in the Langstone Channel there was one noteworthy flock of a dozen Goldeneye including two males demonstarting their virility by regularly 'standing up' on the water and flapping their wings to make sure everyone saw their white plumage.

In the West Lane fields I saw no Golden Plover (I suspect the flock seen on Saturday were on passage to warmer places to the south and west) but there was still a noisy and hungry flock of around 500 Brent which had more or less grazed the northern field bare of the growing green crop.

Coming back I headed east along Daw Lane where a Great Spotted Woodpecker gave me a surprise by drumming on an oak as I was passing under it. Also in the lane, right at its east end, I noted the first flower on the 'Oxyloba' variety of Geater Periwinkle which covers the lane bank here (and which I used to think was Intermediate Periwinkle though that has pale blue flowers and this has very deep blue 'propeller shaped' petals)

My only other observation on the way home through Northney was that the Rooks were back at their nests.

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Despite the chill north east wind the bright sun and cloudless sky made it a pleasure to be out this morning and there were several signs of spring including the first flowers on White Comfrey lining the small stream running through the Parchment housing from the Homewell spring. Not new, but colourful and surprising was a fresh flower on the putative Geranium reuteri plant in the alley off East Street.

Crossing Park Road South near the Langstone roundabout I noticed the leaves of Danish Scurvygrass were now visible (though it may need both colder weather and a little precipitation - salt spreading and snow or rain - to bring the plants into flower but we have a little time before Feb 17 which is the date on which they started to flower last year). One white flower which was out was an Ox-eye Daisy in grass beside the water wheel close to the A27 and further down the Langbrook stream several Lungwort plants were in flower in gardens.

Coming out onto the South Moors I put up an unexpected combination of two Snipe feeding alongside two Song Thrushes, and when I got to the north end of the Orchid field I not only enjoyed bright yellow Marsh Marigold flowers on two plants but also put up what may have been a Jack Snipe though I saw nothing to prove the claim - the only suggestive features were that I thought it looked smaller than the other two birds I had just seen and that it flew off in total silence but I did not see the length of the bill and it did not make a short, low level flight and then go to ground (but that may be because it was heading for the Southern Electric office building and had to go over it).

At the south end of Southmoor Lane one Alexanders plant was starting to flower and on top of Budds Mound Common Fumitory and Small Nettle were both still flowering. On the pools were many Teal with the other expected species plus a pair of Canada Geese clearly thinking of nesting here.

Coming home via Langstone Pond a male Kestrel allowed me to walk right below the branch on which it was perched but otherwise there was nothing special to note and not a single Cherry Plum flower to record.

End of Previous Month entries