Mary Elford writes: On Sunday my family and I went to Lashford Lane Fen in Dry Sandford. We love this small but important reserve that hardly anyone seems to visit. We hadn’t been in the autumn before so didn’t know whether it might be good for fungi. We concentrated our search in the woodland area.
Maggie Collins writes: On a short walk to the Windrush Valley recently we spotted some Blue Fleabane, Erigeron acer, still in flower. There were plenty of seedheads about so it must also have been flowering at its normal time of July and August.
John C. writes: Whilst cleaning out nest boxes with the LWVP volunteers at Standlake last Thursday morning (12 October) we noticed some fungi on a log at the side of the track. I didn’t pay much attention to them at the time but after we’d finished and I’d spent an hour or so in one of the hides, I went back for a closer look.
Sue Morton writes: You know what it’s like packing to go away – you can’t take everything, and this time my bat/cricket detector didn’t make the cut. I regretted this almost immediately when we arrived in Germany last month to balmy evenings, just right for bats, and resigned myself to a cricket-free holiday, as most bush-crickets’ songs are too high pitched for us to hear except through a bat detector.
Gavin Hageman writes: At 7:15pm – about ten minutes after sunset – on Friday 22 September, fourteen of us, including Maggie’s two enthusiastic and bubbly grandchildren, met at the Woodford Way car park in Witney to look (or rather listen) for bats.
Thirteen of us met with leader John Baker in Stonesfield Church car park on the grey but dry Sunday morning of 17 September. Owen Green from the Oxford Geology Trust came along too, so we had a full quota of Geology experts! Thus began a fascinating and rather exciting morning of discovery.
On the mercifully cooler afternoon of Sunday 10 September following a week of temperatures regularly reaching 30 degrees C, a group of non-arachnophobes assembled at North Leigh Common for an excursion led by Lawrence Bee. Lawrence’s background was in ecological and environmental education, and he developed specific interests in spiders and insects, and has co-written several beautifully illustrated books on the subject.
John C writes: Our recent post about the solitary bees in Sue’s garden (Intrigued by Bees) stimulated quite a lot of interest amongst members, so a (rather belated) update seems in order.
Ten of us met near Swinbrook church in the evening of 12 July for a walk in the area followed by a hunt for glow-worms after dark.
The Club had a stand in the marquee at the Wychwood Forest Fair at Foxburrow Wood, on Sunday 9 July, again this year.
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB