Menu Close

Ridgeway near Aldworth – 10 December 2011

There was ice on the puddles, but the sun was shining and the air was still when Fred Taylor led a walk round Lowbury Hill in the Berkshire Downs on Saturday 10th December. A flowering poppy was a surprise find as the group started off up the track above Starveall, near Aldworth. Also in flower at the field edge were Scentless Mayweed, Shepherd’s-purse and Groundsel. Along the base of the hedge were a few clumps of Spurge-laurel, and this too was in flower, with its inconspicuous small green flowers.

There were big flocks of Starlings, Lapwings and Golden Plovers on the grass above Juniper Valley. The big surprise of the day was the number of species which were in flower on the racehorse gallops, including Cowslips, Common and Greater Knapweed, Field Scabious and Clustered Bellfower – very unexpected for the middle of December. A number of fungi were found, including white waxcaps and Field Blewits in the grassland. Some of the hedgerows had been drastically flailed back. Where they had been left, they carried heavy crops of sloes, hawthorn berries and the bright red strings of Black Bryony berries and these were attracting large flocks of Fieldfares and a few Redwings.

Pictures by Ray Reedman and Jan Haseler

Plants in flower

Common Poppy  Papaver rhoeas
White Campion  Silene latifolia
Shepherd’s-purse  Capsella bursa-pastoris
Cowslip  Primula veris
Spurge-laurel  Daphne laureola
Burnet-saxifrage  Pimpinella saxifraga
Hogweed  Heracleum sphondylium
Wild Parsnip  Pastinaca sativa
Wild Carrot  Daucus carota
White Dead-nettle  Lamium album
Clustered Bellflower  Campanula glomerata
Field Scabious  Knautia arvensis
Common Knapweed  Centaurea nigra
Greater Knapweed  Centaurea scabiosa
Nipplewort  Lapsana communis

Birds

Red Kite  Milvus milvus
Buzzard  Buteo buteo
Kestrel  Falco tinnunculus
Golden Plover  Pluvialis apricaria
Lapwing  Vanellus vanellus
Skylark  Alauda arvensis
Meadow Pipit  Anthus pratensis
Pied Wagtail  Motacilla alba
Fieldfare  Turdus pilaris
Redwing  Turdus iliacus
Starling  Sturnus vulgaris
Linnet   Carduelis cannabina