Perhaps it was too hot, but only four people joined Jan Guilbride for an extremely interesting two-hour stroll in the Pauline Flick reserve, near Great Rollright, on the morning of Sunday 25 June.
West Oxfordshire Field Club is 60 years old this year. Malcolm Brownsword, who is one of the club’s longest-standing members and a Vice President, has written some personal reminiscences of his time in the club.
On the warm, balmy afternoon of Sunday 28 May, twenty-two of us wandered down Hill Valley at Aston Upthorpe. While we were being serenaded by blackcaps and whitethroats, we soon identified several butterflies: common blue, brimstone, peacock and small whites. Once we were on a rough chalk and flint hillside, there were the dingy skippers and to our delight what we thought was the rare grizzled skipper.
Malcolm Brownsword writes:
In the last week of May, I discovered an uncommon arachnid in my garden. I had seen this species forty years ago on the Costa Blanca and about ten years ago at BBOWT’s Hartslock reserve on the flower spike of a Pyramidal Orchid. It’s the Flower Crab Spider, Misumena vatia.
Following Lisa Lane’s excellent talk about the Chimney Meadows Restoration Project in February, on Monday 15 May 2023 thirteen Field Club members met with Lisa once again to see the Project for ourselves. We were lucky in that it was a dry, fairly sunny day, although the wind was chilly.
Sunday 16 October was a glorious day when ten of us met with Peter Creed for a morning’s fungus foray. Peter led us through a variety of habitats, each very different and thus providing a variety of fungi.
Brenda Betteridge writes:
Julia’s pop-up walk on 18 September was a great success. Thirteen of us enjoyed spending this sunny Sunday morning in the Windrush Valley. After walking through the village of Asthall, our starting point, we took the lane which leads to Toque House and Asthall Farm where, on the south side of a barn, we noticed a vigorous member of the Amaranthaceae family.
John C. writes:
We don’t usually think of this time of year as a time to go looking for flowers but there are a number of late-flowering species that are as rewarding to find as the season winds down as the first spring flowers are as the season winds up. A particular favourite of mine is autumn gentian, Gentianella amarella. Whilst perhaps not as spectacular as spring gentians – which are rare in the British Isles – they’re not very uncommon and have, to my mind, a rather understated charm.
Come on a short sound walk with Sue Morton who writes:
What could be nicer than strolling along in the dark on a fine summer night listening to crickets? It’s something I never get tired of, although passers-by tend to give us a wide berth when we’re poking around in the undergrowth with the bat detector.
On the evening of 24 June, moth expert Julian Howe and I set up three moth traps in and around a private garden in Shilton.
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB