more. The same day it was announced to an amazed public that another 500,000 homes
were to be built around the Ml 1, especially in Essex but also some in Hertfordshire,
Cambridgeshire and nearby areas. Some of the building will be in green belt farmland,
though admittedly so sterile is much of the arable land that the wildlife value is very low.
This latest lot of 'development' is in addition to the huge Thames Gateway project,
which intends more housing to be built on our precious and special Thames Terraces,
which really are exceptional for their fauna and flora. I do not want to see any more of
Essex buried under concrete, bricks, and tarmac.
The last week or so of February was mainly bright by day but frosty at night with
temperatures down to -5°C in our garden again for a number of nights in a row. We had
the odd snow flurry, but nothing much. The sunshine on many of the days was beautiful,
but the low temperatures halted the rapid advance of spring noted in January and early
February. When out in an ordinary street near my home, my husband noticed a growth
of Mistletoe, with flowers, in a street tree (Plate 2). We must have walked under it
numerous times, but never spotted it; we have only lived here for 39 years! In another
nearby street, a big plant of Mistletoe caused some loss of blossom of the tree (a Prunus
cultivar), so the Council cut down the whole tree! What a shame. Our usual winter
weather, mild and damp, returned early in March, but summer came again on 16th and
17th, when temperatures reached 17°C again, and I cut the lawn for the second time this
year.
At the end of February I was walking over grassland in Belhus Woods Country Park and
a small heap of broken eggs nestled in a tuft of grass caught my eye. They were all
empty, but were leathery (so clearly reptilian, not avian) and a pale creamy-brown colour,
2.5cm long and 1.5cm wide. I contacted Jon Cranfield, the leader of our new
Herpetofauna Group in the Club, and he said they were Grass Snake eggs, left over from
the previous summer. He expressed surprise that they were in grass, as usually the Grass
Snake will go for a warm place to incubate them, eg a manure or compost heap. They
must have hatched naturally, as the eggs each had a simple tear, and were all in a neat
heap rather than being scattered around with torn fragments everywhere, as would be
the case if the eggs had been eaten by a predator such as a Weasel or Magpie. I had
never seen snake eggs before, so I was very pleased to find them.
Later in March we went botanising on the Havering Cleanaway site by the Thames, next
to the new RSPB reserve on the marshes. In late summer last year the site was the world
capital of Hoary Mustard, with lots of casuals such as Safflower, Sunflower and Tomato.
But yesterday it looked quite different. It was the world capital of Bur Chervil instead,
with quite a bit of Lesser Chickweed and a low mossy bank with lots of the little blue
Grey Field-speedwell. The latter were in full bloom in the spring sunshine, and looked
like lots of tiny blue stars scattered over the bank. The Common Field-speedwell, which
was also there, looked quite gross in comparison (Plate 3). The plants there show an
interesting diversity, as they contain coastal plants like Sea Couch, Wild Celery and
Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 44, May 2004 7