perhaps a strange giant spider, like the ones pictured and described in the last Newsletter,
but quickly realised what it was. From having seen several dead ones at times, I was
delighted to see one alive, though the very short glimpse I got did not allow of a detailed
study. Later, at the end of October, I saw a Common Shrew running across my path
through the grass in front of me. Again, I enjoyed seeing one alive, instead of dead.
People remarked in the spring of the paucity of butterflies round here. In late summer
people were saying the same again. Friends basking on a Normandy beach saw a number
of Red Admirals appearing from above the waves, apparently coming in to land from
Britain, borne on a light North-west wind. I have never seen butterflies over the sea, but
then I think I have never looked! Does this explain our shortage, perhaps? Or is it that
those coming from North America, or wherever they come from, have bypassed Britain
and gone straight to France? While mentioning butterflies, lots of the tree-planting
going on round here as part of the Thames Chase Community Forest project includes
Alder Buckthorn, which does not naturally grow in the area, supposedly to encourage
the breeding of Brimstone butterflies. I am slightly worried about planting masses of
one kind of tree simply to attract one pretty insect to the area. Or am I missing an
important point here?
The Blackberry crop from Brambles seems to be particularly good this year. Every
journey on local paths and tracks seems to take much longer because I have to stop at
frequent intervals and have a mini-feast! Other wildlife is clearly benefiting too, judging
by the purple or black droppings round about. It was interesting spotting a fox-dropping
that seemed to consist entirely of whole blackberries. Of course the carnivores have
pointed teeth, for catching and tearing meat, which are no use for chewing. They also
have short guts, as meaty food is energy-rich, fairly quick to digest and contains little
bulk compared to the bulky plant diet of herbivores. It would seem that the blackberries
had given the fox no nutritional benefit at all, so why had it eaten them? Do foxes have
a taste for sweet things? I think so, as in Warwick Wood there were lots of fox-droppings
full of sweet corn kernels, from that crop grown nearby, and I was told about some full
of plum stones on another occasion. A sweet tooth would seem inappropriate for a
carnivore.
September has been mostly warm and dry, with a long period of high-pressure weather
for the whole month. However, on the 9th, which was a Monday, we had heavy rain for
much of the day and it measured almost 3 cm depth by dawn next morning. A week later
all trace of it had gone, and the ground was everywhere dry and hard again. Some gentle
ambles around the local woods and fields revealed virtually no fungi, whereas normally
at this time there are lots of early species to be seen. Along our suburban road, however,
is a wonderful layered growth of the huge bracket Meripilus giganteus, which achieved
about 60cm across by mid October. It is almost on the soil, under the branches of a
small shrub, but I think it is actually living on the remains of a tree stump below rather
10
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 40, January 2003