More snow!

Our task this week was at Buchan Country Park, where we were working with our good friends, the rangers Robin and Simon.  Robin had cut some of the old heather out on Target Hill.  Our job was to rake up the arisings and remove them from the heathland.  This was to prevent the nutrients from the heather returning to the soil.  Heathland is a habitat of poor soils, and enrichment of the soil is a constant danger, as it will encourage grasses and shrubs to grow, and shade out the heather.  Robin was telling us that he is fighting a losing battle, as atmospheric pollution, especially nitrous oxide from exhaust fumes, is always adding nitrogen to the soil.

We started well, but yet again the weather was conspiring against us.  A drizzly sleet soon turned to a snow storm and it was difficult to see where the heather had been cut.  However the volunteers worked on heroically and we got the job down 

Some of the arisings we burnt on a fire, which kept us warm at lunchtime, but by then we were all wet and/or chilled to the bone, so we cut the task short.  But yet again our landscape had been transformed, albeit temporarily, into a winter wonderland.

Flashes of colour

After the initial burst of taking Christmas card type scenes, it is a challenge to find something different to photograph, or to find any colour, other than dark evergreen, given that the sky has been leaden grey for days.  But here are my best attempts:

This a close up of a young beech tree.  The orange staining is a lichen, probably Xanthoria parietina

The bright green moss caught my eye.  This was on the verge of a main road, but the snow was undisturbed, except for this hole which was a couple of centimetres wide.  There were no obvious footprints, but they may have been obscured by a partial thaw.  Voles and mice can live under the snow creating tunnels and I wonder whether this is where a rodent came up for air?  Contact me if you have any other theories. 

Snowy scenes

Welcome to my blog. I am going to try and record some of the wildlife and landscape I see in my local area, all within about a 10 mile radius of Gatwick Airport. I want to show the beauty in nature that can be found on your doorstep, improve my identification skills at the same time, and publicise the work of Gatwick Greenspace and the Sussex Wildlife Trust.

I may have timed the start of this blog well, as snowy scenes make for good photos, but I hope keep posting on a regular basis, so if you like what you see, come again.

Although I will always try to have a camera with me, I suspect that most of my photos will be unplanned, and just whatever catches my eye. The top two photos were taken at Tilgate Park, the last, just a few metres from my house.