The Mist And The Tower

Mossy hummock of Polytrichastrum formosum, Bank Haircap. Toys Hill, 21 January 2014.

Another walk round Toy's Hill, following the one pictured here: Toy's Hill in Autumn. This time it was wetter and mistier. I walked a different route, passing mossy hummocks like this one.  There are many hummocks like this in some woods.  I suspect that they are eroded root balls pushed up when trees fall over.

Myxomycete on wet deadwood.  Toy's Hill, 21 January 2014.

At the bottom of the hill there was even more moss.  This shows a Myxomycete, an odd thing that moves around like a slow slime in one stage of its lifecycle, then stops and makes spores.  In the background, the fallen trees familiar from my previous walk.

Eroded pathway.  Toys Hill, 21 January 2014.

The rain has clearly had an effect.  Some of the paths are like this, with eroded channels down the middle.  It's almost like walking up a stream bed.

The pond at Toys Hill, 21 January 2014.

At the bottom is a pond that was used to provide water for the nearby Emmets estate.  This photo makes it look much bigger than it is. In fact the far bank is just to the left of this view and cuts in a straight line towards this viewpoint.

The Bat Tower at Toys Hill comes into view. 21 January 2014.

The route comes back up the hill, crosses a road, and loops around back to the car park.  Along the way is this Bat Tower, once a water tower but now converted specifically to be a bat roost.  So the name is not just fanciful.

This hill is the highest point in Kent, and you can see that there is no mist up here.

Shoreham, November

A field of grape vines near Shoreham. 2 November 2013.

I'm tidying up my folders of photos, and these are a few from a walk round the neighbourhood of Shoreham with the Orpington Field Club in November.  I thought these plants, seen on the walk down from the station car park,  were hops, but a close look at the leaves reveals them to be grape vines.  Two really wet winters in a row .. I wonder how well they are doing?

Shoreham is a small town on the small river Darent.  Some of the houses are right by the river.

Riverside houses in Shoreham. 2 November 2013.

I expect the inhabitants are glad that the houses are noticeably above the water level.  I see two concrete cats on the decking.  I wonder how actual cats would like it there?  There had better be some good spots for them to come ashore if they fall in.

Water House, Shoreham, where Samuel Palmer lived 1828-1835.   2 November 2013.

This is Water House, occupied by Samuel Palmer for seven years from 1828.  You can't see it well from farther back because of that high hedging.  The occupants of Shoreham seem to be very aware of this bit of history.

Stinking Iris, Iris foetidissima, by the roadside in Shoreham.   2 November 2013.

The vivid seeds of the Stinking Iris.  Sometimes called the Roast Beef Plant.  If you crush the leaves you get a strong smell that might be compared to roast beef, so I suppose how much of a stink you think it is is up to you.  I find it unpleasant, much more so than actual roast beef.

Lych gate at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Shoreham.  2 November 2013.

This lych gate and walkway give a very gloomy introduction to the local church.  It's very well cared for, but that dark avenue with fastigiate yew trees on both sides is artificial and overpowering.

Photos were taken with my Ixus 100 (Water House and the iris) and my iPhone 5S (the other three).  Even though they are jpegs, I put them all through Adobe Camera Raw, which is brilliant at adjusting brightness levels.

New Hill, December

New Hill, 20 December 2013.

Farthing Downs and New Hill are an area where chalk grassland predominates, with some patches of old woodland.  In the absence of commercial grazing, scrub springs up and quickly turns into youg woodland.  The grassland would disappear if it weren't maintained and this pic shows one of the methods being used.  Scrub and trees have been cleared from an area, and some of the cut material is being burned.

New Hill, 20 December 2013.

Not all the trees are undesirable.  The old woodland is pleasant.  Here is some of it, looking back up in the direction of Farthing Downs.

Sheep grazing on New Hill, 20 December 2013.

In some fields, sheep are brought in to graze during the winter, then taken away when the meadow plants start to grow in spring.  Sometimes you can see goats instead, as I did at Trosley Country Park not long ago.  But these are definitely sheep. 

Pythian Apollo

Bronze coin of Gordian III from Thessalonika showing Apollo.

I am mostly focused on natural history now, but I still pick up an ancient coin now and then if it looks interesting.

This is a bronze coin from Thessalonika in the reign of the Roman emperor Gordian III.  Like one of my previous coin posts, Apollo from Didyma, it shows the god Apollo, but in another of his many roles.

Here he is the patron deity of the Pythian games.  Like the Olympics, these games were an important and widely known event.  They began as a singing contest, where the god's praises would be sung to the accompaniment of the kithara, a concert-sized lute.  This explains the presence of a lute on the coin.  Other contests, including chariot racing and athletic events, were added over time.

The snake winding around the column represents Python, defeated by Apollo when he first took up residence at Delphi, near the site of these games.  On the ground is a basket, described as a prize basket with a palm branch, though the object in the basket looks very much like another snake to me.  There should be five apples there too, but, probably because the strike of the coin is poor at that point, I can only see two.

When Apollo holds a branch downwards like that it is most likely a laurel, the type that we call Bay. He is sprinkling water from it as a ritual cleansing gesture.

The coin's legend is ΘЄCCAΛONIKЄΩN NEΩ ΠYΘIA, or THESSALONIKEWN NEW PYTHIA in Latin lettering.  The first word says where the coin is from.  NEΩ is short for NEΩKOPON, a title that could be given to provincial towns that maintained temples to the Roman emperors, and the coin adds this title as a sort of boast.  And PYTHIA indicates either the games themselves, or the period between games, which was known as a Pythiad.  At this period a Pythiad had the same four-year interval as the Olympics, so that they would not clash. 

A final note about the legend.  This coin uses the curved Є rather than the Latin E, and joins letters together sometimes, which saves space and reduces the work of carving the die.  The N and E of NEΩ are ligate, and this E is therefore forced to have a straight back.  So it seems that the engravers didn't see any real difference between the two forms of the letter.

Blue Tit

Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus.  Hayes, 27 January 2014.

I am not a dedicated bird photographer.  These shots were taken hand held through my window and they lack the extreme clarity of proper bird photos, but they do show the bird quite nicely.  This is the most common bird I see in my garden. They come regularly for peanuts or sunflower seed hearts.

Blue Tit, Cyanistes caeruleus, attacking a kernel.  Hayes, 27 January 2014.

Fun to watch.  They usually take a nut up to a branch and eat it there, breaking it up and swallowing it piece by piece, but this one stuck around the feeder.

I used a 200mm lens with a 2x extender.