The first weekend in March we went to Pakefield, just South of Lowestoft. There are
cliffs of loose sand and soft sandstone, eroding rapidly, and a sandy and shingly beach
below. We went for a walk along the beach for 3 days in a row, and noticed a major
shortage of birds. At last we saw some on a sandy spit ahead of us, but they were Wood
Pigeons. And there was a gull or two, middle-sized ones, but not sure which sort. Then
we saw some lbjs running along at the edge of the waves, about 5 of them. They were
hard to count as they kept changing direction, and their legs moved so fast it was hard to
see them; they looked a bit like clockwork mice running around on the wet sand. 'Dunlins!'
I exclaimed, remembering what my mother told me about birds on the north Kent coast
where I was brought up. Later in the day we mentioned the Dunlins to a local birder.
'Dunlins? Don't you mean Sanderlings?' he said. Oh dear, wrong again!
The weekend of 14/15 March and Monday 16 was definitely summer, at 15.9°C on the
Monday afternoon. Everyone was out in their gardens, lawns were being mown, chil-
dren sorting out the soccer season, primroses and daffodils beautiful in the flower beds,
and in our lawn, and birds singing everywhere.
A few days later I was in Weald Country Park with a Ranger. We were walking all over
the Park, both of us being very familiar with it. But Nicole showed me a Silver Birch
tree that she thought was very unusual in its shape, and one that I had never spotted,
though it had clearly been there for many years. If you look at the photos (see Plates 2
& 3), you will see an amazing and very old tree, very close to an ancient Oak. Have you
ever seen a Silver Birch like this? And can you imagine its history, that made it grow in
this strange contorted way?
Near the end of March I was with Ken Adams and Tim Pyner in Grays Gorge, which is
part of the Chafford Gorges Nature Park. I have visited before in autumn to study the
fungi, but this time we were looking for bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). Now if
you know that many naturalists tend move rather slowly in the field, you should try
bryologists, who need to crawl over a surface with a 20x lens almost all the time in use.
Progress across the terrain is seriously slow! However, when you look at these things
with said lens at your eye, they are truly beautiful. Many people think 'moss' is one
thing, like 'grass', but when you get to see these tiny things they are exquisitely different
and nothing like each other. Incidentally, so are grasses! In particular, two aquatic
mosses were found in water in Warren Gorge, neither of which I had seen before, so I
brought bits of them home to study using the microscope, when the beauty and differ-
ences were even more obvious. Our dedication to the task was shown particularly in
coping with the weather: we had sleet showers and it was bitterly cold, but we did not
give up.
With April just arrived, we hope for warm weather now!
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Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 59, May 2009