Reports of members’ activities and sightings
John C. Writes: Not feeling very energetic yesterday – Monday – morning, I decided to spend an hour or so sitting quietly in the small ‘meadow’ area at the bottom of Sue’s garden to see what invertebrates, if any, would visit the flowers.
John C writes: Even though it’s spring, it hasn’t felt like it for the last couple of days and we spent another damp Sunday afternoon at Pit 60, which, as usual, was not without its rewards.
Maggie Collins writes: Spring seems to be here at last and at the moment the heavy rain is holding off. Jill T called on me to say that Large Red Damselflies were hatching in her pond….
John C. writes: Whilst everyone else was heading off at high speed in the hope of tea and cake at Chastleton House on last Sunday’s walk from Adelstrop, I was lagging behind, turning over wet logs in the hope of finding (what else?) slime moulds. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one interested in them.
One of the first signs of spring is to see a butterfly – a brimstone or perhaps a small tortoishell. But where do they come from, and why do they emerge so soon?
John C. writes: When a fight started in the playground at school the shout of ‘Bundle!’ would go up and everyone would pile in. Well, kids probably couldn’t get away with that these days but the coots at Pit 60 clearly don’t know anything about that.
Lindsay Fisher writes: Most noticeable fungi appear in the autumn, but last month’s wet weather produced quite a crop of eye-catching specimens in Witney’s Deer Park Wood.
If you don’t share my enthusiasm for the microscopic weird and wonderful, there’s no need to read on!
John C. writes: “Pit 60”, an old gravel pit in the lower Windrush Valley at Standlake is one of my favourite birding places, not only because it’s only a few miles from home, but because of the numbers of ducks you can see there.
The week before last, Elaine Steane visited the Somerset Levels. She writes: I joined five others on a Naturetrek-led two day visit to the Somerset Levels, based from a very comfortable old coaching inn, The Swan in Wells, just opposite the Cathedral.
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB