Will winter ever come?

Last Sunday I had a quick pootle around Langley Wood NNR, to catch the last of the autumnal colours and see my favourite, magnificent beech tree. Although it was raining, and the daylight was fading fast, it was, as always, very atmospheric.

Then, when out in the garden recently, I noticed that the garlic I had recently planted was sprouting, and is now several inches high - crazy!

This comes after an extremely-mild week - I was in London on Tuesday on a training course, and I was trying to explain to them my job, and what the greatest threat facing our planet is - i.e. climate change. They were staggered that it was already impacting on communities (both people and ecosystems) around the world, and had no idea that, as well as the USA and China, that Australia was such a bad polluter and consequent contributor to the atmospheric changes. So, I feel I've done my little bit for raising awareness this week.

It was a much more wintry day yesterday - clear, sunny skies (after initial rain showers - the edge of Abigail or whatever they're calling the latest storm!) - so I headed up to the Ox drove by the racecourse again - this time venturing further along it to a little loop amongst woodland on the Wilton Estate. Although it wasn't a very long walk (an hour or so), I love the feeling you get when you're covering new ground (I had a map with me, unlike the previous times in Bentley Wood - see other posts...). The view back to the edge of the Nadder valley (opposite side to the Ebble) w


as beautiful.

So, I live in hope that at some point we might actually have winter, but this mild weather has really worried me and is quite probably a sign of things to come. Of course, the irony is that I won't be using the heating as much, thereby reducing my own carbon emissions...

Autumn in the Ebble Valley

For those of you not aware, the River Ebble is a beautiful chalk stream that flows from the west into Salisbury. Interestingly, it isn't legally protected, unlike most of the other chalk streams in the area. In any case, it sits in extremely picturesque surroundings, and its valley formed the basis of my walks last weekend.

I was meeting friends for lunch in The Queen's Head, Broadchalke (close to the Ebble and highly recommended!), so had a bit of time to kill. I opted for a brief yomp along the ox drove from Salisbury racecourse, which forms the watershed for the Ebble catchment.

I'm sure I've talked about these droves before, but we seem to have rather a lot in Wiltshire, probably linked to the rich farming heritage of the area, using the droves to drive cattle and sheep to market. This particular drove runs from the south of Salisbury, pretty much all the way to Shaftesbury! I settled for a quick up-and-down a stretch of the drove, to take in the magnificent autumn colours.

After lunch, we picked our way through another droveway and out across arable land, in a loop back to the pub, taking in the Ebble on our way. It was a very misty day, so the autumn colours really 'popped'. The final stretch was through what would probably have been watermeadow, but with little remaining today, apart from amazing old ash trees, with ancient gnarly trunks joined together in a line - they would probably have formed a hedge at some stage.

As I write this, the gales are blowing autumn off the trees, so I'm quite glad I've managed to had a couple of jaunts out to immerse myself in the colours, smells and sounds of autumn.

An encounter with stags' horns

No, nothing as dramatic as you might think - this is referring to the amazing fungus, the yellow stagshorn.

I foolishly decided the rain wasn't too bad yesterday, for a quick stroll in the New Forest at Wellow Common. Here, the vast closely-grazed lawn, dotted with conifers and gorse, provides an excellent mosaic for a great variety of fungi.

In addition to the staghorn, I'm pretty sure I spotted the sickener (bright red) and the rose russula (lovely light pink) - however, as it was now a steady blustery drizzle at this point, I didn't get the camera out and can't be certain!

Now is a great time to get out there and spot the great variety of fungi we have in the UK - the New Forest is an excellent spot to go on a fungal foray (and, indeed, the Forestry Commission are running such events currently), but there is also a bit of a political storm brewing over collecting fungi for consumption.

It is prohibited to collect for selling to restaurants, but in reality, this is very difficult to enforce. Coupled with the personal allowance being, in my opinion, very high, it could be putting the future of this weird and wonderful group of species at risk.

So, please, look but do not collect when you come across something you think is edible, and leave it for others to enjoy.

Autumn catching up

It's been a funny year, as I've mentioned in previous posts, with flowering times all out of kilter. Even the leaves have taken a while to start turning, but suddenly they have been catching up.

Having friends staying with me last weekend gave me a good excuse to head off to the New Forest to check out the autumn colours there. Our first stop was Bramshaw Wood, in the north of the Forest - the colours were indeed beautiful on a slightly damp and grey day - typical autumn! Beech and bird leaves formed a colourful tunnel along forest tracks and footpaths, with few people to disturb the tranquility.

We then headed off to Bolderwood deer viewing platform, as we were still in the middle of the rut for both fallow and red deer. Alas, no deer at all, but the short walk through the arboretum contrasted well with the native trees we'd experienced earlier - enormous redwoods and more sweet chestnut, with far more people, in this popular spot in the Forest. At this point the rain set in.

The next morning we headed out for the excellent yomp up to Old Sarum - it was a very different day, with glorious sunshine and mild temperatures. The autumn colours were perfectly setting off the blue sky, with the usual beautiful views across the valley and from the top of the hillfort - I am so lucky to have this on my doorstep!

The advantages of getting lost

Yes, yet again the innate ability of the Roses to get lost didn't fail us, when Mum and I went for a walk in Bentley Wood a couple of weeks' ago.

We had decided to walk from a different car park, along the forestry track and then loop back on ourselves - how hard could it be? Well, we should have known better, for it became obvious that we had perhaps turned left a bit early and missed our connection with the main track back to the car park. Heading off in what we thought was the right direction, we soon ended up in a field full of cows - definitely wrong!

Retracing our steps through the woodland compartments - fiery sweet chestnut and beech leaves contrasting against the conifer plantations - our quiet panic was suddenly disturbed by the very-close rumbling roar of a fallow stag in rut - amazing. We'd seen quite a few herds on our meandering route as well.

The fallow roar is very different to that of a red deer, being more guttural and 'gargly' than it's larger, native compatriot. Whereas red deer rut in open areas, aiming to stake their claim to the large harems of does hanging around, fallows sometimes have fewer females, who choose the successful (strongest) male.

So, if we hadn't got lost (and we did soon manage to find our car!) we would never have heard that amazing autumnal sound.

Long shadows

I love this time of year - coming back from meetings in Dorset, I can pop into Martin Down for a quick yomp to blow the cobwebs away with the crisp autumnal wind and long shadows cast by the low sun.

It was looking stunning - as always - and the storm cloud in the distance just heightened the sun catching the top of Hanham hill (the highest point on the Down).

The seedheads of many flowers - still interspersed with some in flower (knapweed, yarrow, hawkbits, devils bit scabious still going strong in parts!) - were beautifully back-lit in the sun. We've used them as table decorations for Christmas lunch before - agrimony, wild carrot and knapweed look spectacular sprayed silver and strung with beads!

Extended summer

This summer has been a bit of a funny one - after the wash out of August, September was mostly glorious sunshine. I'm not sure if the plants were watching, but whatever the reason, it's quite amazing how so many are still flowering.

On my recent trip up to Scotland, the heather and devil's bit scabious formed beautiful purple carpets, and coming back down south, on a quick foray to Martin Down during the week, the knapweed and rough hawkbit were still very much in flower.

On the flip side, for some plants it seemed that autumn came early this year - though the blackberries were starting at the end of July, they've continued to fruit still, providing a bumper crop for humans and wildlife alike - lots of blackberry jelly this year!

Of course, it's hard to say whether these changes are just one-offs, or whether climate change has a part to play here. I guess this sort of topsy-turvy world is becoming something we are going to have to get used to - but can the wildlife do this too? Hmm...