Category Plants
Return to Pixton
Every year we manage to make at least one visit to Pixton Meadow in the village, not least because it is such a delightful and popular spot. As we have noted before, meadows have seriously declined over the last 70 years so it is great to see even this example of what in the past […]
New Year Plant Hunt
This New Year was the sixth time the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland organised a plant hunt. Its objective is to record any (non-planted) species in flower around and just after 1 January. This has proved to be considerably interesting since it has provided a stark indication that many more plants are flowering in […]
Spiders and Gentians
Today was a gorgeously sunny moment to have a short walk on Ashdown Forest. Our local heath hosts a nice range of habitats, in which some rare and beautiful species can be found, and they were the focus of our walk. The primary purpose of the walk was to see one of the Forest’s iconic […]
Wildlife at Tablehurst
This article appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of the Tablehurst and Plawhatch Newsletter. Over the last seventy years the diversity of living things on farmland has declined astonishingly. Where there used to be abundant birds, butterflies, moths and plants, most typical farmland nowadays has a much reduced range of species. This can be problematic […]
Pixton Meadow
The main focus of today’s walk was the lovely meadow at Pixton, just north of Emerson college. It is looking great at the moment, so it was an ideal opportunity to focus on a particular habitat that is only 30 minutes’ walk from the centre of the village. Though there were plenty of other things […]
National Garden BioBlitz 2015
The weather on Sunday 31 May wasn’t that great when we headed to Alastair’s garden in Colemans Hatch, though considering that the forecast had been truly awful it turned out better than expected. The garden itself is within Ashdown Forest, has a pond and a (largely covered) stream through the middle of it, so has […]
Spring at Tablehurst
The weather forecast really wasn’t very good, and I had expectations of no-one else turning up, but happily there was no rain, even if it was a bit overcast and chilly. So, five of us managed to have a very short walk through the farm looking out for birds, spring plants and some invertebrates. Heading […]
A cold day in March on the Forest Way
When we planned a cycle ride along the Forest Way we were hoping for some nice early spring sunshine, find some basking snakes and various small creatures starting to come alive as the temperature starts to rise. However, only a small group of us ventured out on what was really rather a cold Sunday afternoon […]
Common woodland bryophytes
I appreciate that mosses and liverworts probably don’t have the same appeal as birds or bees, so it wasn’t that surprising that we had a smaller group on our bryo walk. It was also on a Sunday morning, and the weather didn’t look that promising, but it did mean that we could have a focussed […]
Springhill and Goat
Our third walk (1 June 2014) took us to Springhill and into the woods at the bottom end of Goat in some glorious sunshine. It was a nice big group and we saw a good range of species. The sandstone outcrop at Springhill was home to lots of sheep’s sorrel, as well as the moss […]
Nature's book 