Crystal Palace Park Dinosaurs

Crystal Palace Park dinosaur lake, 12 August 2016.  Spare head in the foreground.

I used to live near Crystal Palace Park, and we sometimes walked past the childrens' zoo and sat on a bench to read newspapers and try to stop the goats from eating them.  Goats and zoo are now long gone.  Around that time, parts of the park were refurbished, particularly the Victorian attraction that is the dinosaur lake.  The origin and much of the history of these dinosaurs is covered in Wikipedia, so I won't repeat it, but the repainting of the dinosaurs at that time does not seem to get a mention.

Since then it has been refurbished yet again.  I wonder how many spare dinosaur heads they have?  When I went back there this August I thought this (above) was the same head I remembered being put near an information point at the time of the repainting, but the details are different.

Crystal Palace Park, 1990s.  Spare dinosaur head.

Here's the earlier head.  The old photos in this post are internally dated February 1998, but that's when the negatives were scanned; the photos will have been taken earlier in the 1990s.  These days I make the date part of the filename.

Crystal Palace Park dinosaur lake, 12 August 2016.

The lake with its big models is really quite eye-catching. 

Iguanodons at Crystal Palace Park dinosaur lake, 12 August 2016.

These are the most spectacular models.  Those nose horns are now known to actually have been spiky thumbs, but they did the best with what they knew at the time.  That rather puny tree fern trunk under the Iguanodon's foot is a recent addition.

Iguanodons at Crystal Palace Park dinosaur lake, 1990s.

The original tree had died and shrunk away at this point, so a replacement is fair enough, but I don't think that tree fern would have stood up to the dinosaur.  They've also changed the colour scheme, and planted a much more appropriate, less Wordsworthian array of flora. 

I'll post some more about Crystal Palace Park - strictly speaking it's not natural history, but it is at least a park.

A Walk round the Hawkwood Estate - part 3 of 3

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 25, 30 August 2016.

This is the last in a series of three posts following a walk around the Hawkwood Estate with an iPhone camera. 

Here I was past the halfway point and going mostly downhill.  Some parts of the route can be done along the edges of fields as shown in this first photo ...

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 26, 30 August 2016

But I took the woodland path instead.  It is not far away and goes the same way.  There are many well-defined paths through local woodlands, though I see very few people there.  I heard voices while I was in Petts Wood, and in a couple of these iPhone photos people are visible in the distance, but even on a fine day like this it was hardly crowded.

Flushers Pond.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 27, 30 August 2016

The path skirts Flushers Pond.  I had to duck through a fence to take this photo.  In wet weather, the level is higher and the water comes right up to the fence.

Redshank, Persicaria maculosa.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 28, 30 August 2016

A stand of Redshank in a more open part of the wood.  You can buy related Persicarias as garden plants.

Redshank, Persicaria maculosa.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate, 30 August 2016

These are the flowers closer to.  Not many plants start to flower at this time of year.  Most, even those still with open flowers, started some while ago.

Greater Plantain, Plantago major.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate, 30 August 2016

Like this Greater Plantain in the same spot, which has brown, ripe fruiting spikes.  Greater Plantain is a common sight near, and sometimes even on pathways because it can withstand quite a lot of being walked on.

Wild Clematis, Clematis vitalba, Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 29, 30 August 2016

Wild Clematis to the right of the path, known as Traveller's Joy when flowering and Old Man's Beard later when it has hairy fruits. 

Information board.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 30, 30 August 2016

An information board!  Complete with a map that points to where you are.  I have been following more or less the yellow route.  My starting point was at the very leftmost point on that route.

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 31, 30 August 2016

 You could hardly miss this path - it has more signs than a city street.  A dog walker is just visible in the distance.

The small yellow arrow points to an alternative route that goes past Tong Farm.

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 32, 30 August 2016

Further on it is once again possible to bypass the woods, with a view over fields that look more rough than the neat grass elswehere.  This field is off the edge of the estate. 

Graffitied tree.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 33, 30 August 2016

One of the paths through the wood goes past this elaborate graffiti, so elaborate that I can't really tell what it says.  Lacey?  The hearts show that it is a love message, anyway. 

Pond Wood.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 34, 30 August 2016

This is the second pond on this walk, in the usefully named Pond Wood.  It doesn't seem to have a name, but if it did, I expect it would be Wood Pond.

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 35, 30 August 2016

The path leads out to that same rough field seen earlier.  At the bottom of this slope is a footbridge over the Kyd Brook, near the start point.

Kyd Brook.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 36, 30 August 2016

There's the brook, and a path with a sign which is an alternative entry point to this walk.  But I went straight past this path - my route went from left to right, just behind where I was standing to take this.

Start and finish point.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 37, 30 August 2016

And back to the start!  That walk took me about an hour and a quarter, but I walk fast.  Good exercise in good countryside.

A Walk round the Hawkwood Estate - part 2 of 3

Tong Farm. Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 09, 30 August 2016.

This is the second part of a three-part walk around the Hawkwood Estate and the edge of Petts Wood, consisting mostly of iPhone photos taken on the way around.

Having walked alongside the Kyd Brook, I came to a T-junction.  Up the slope to the left is Tong Farm, a working farm open to the public.  The path up here also serves as a short cut back down from later in the walk.

Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 10, 30 August 2016.

I turned right along this shaded path between fields, towards the railway.

Railside path.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 11, 30 August 2016.

Then left along the side of the railway, which is well fenced off.  This path looks dry and well-drained now, but in wet weather it is another row of mud puddles.

View across the railway.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 12, 30 August 2016.

The far side of the railway is populated by Rosebay Willowherb, Chamerion angustifolium, sometimes called Fireweed.  It grows freely on disturbed ground and used to be common in bomb craters in London.  I used to work over the road from what must have been just about the last undeveloped London bomb crater, near Ludgate Circus - it is now office buildings - and it certainly grew there.

Railway footbridge.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 13, 30 August 2016.

This footbridge would take you over the railway to Jubilee Country Park, which has its own wartime history. (*)  I went around the steps and onwards.

Petts Wood sign.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 14, 30 August 2016.

This is the edge of Petts Wood, which gave its name to the neighbouring conurbation.  Despite what the sign says, there are no bye-laws on its back.  (I have a photo of the back, but I have left it out because it is boring, there being nothing there, so the photo numbers jump by one at this point.)

Wooden walkway.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 16, 30 August 2016.

The National Trust does not build walkways like this unless the ground is usually a sea of mud.  Luckily, this has been a dry spell.

The gantry just visible at the top right is the last sight of the railway, as the walkway curves off to the left.

Petts Wood.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 17, 30 August 2016.

Up into woodland, now.  The path is broad, and obviously must be used by a lot of people, but they are clearly not all here at once.  I only came across half a dozen people on the whole walk, two of whom were running for exercise, and the others were walking dogs.

Remains of English bluebells, Hyacinthoides non-scripta. Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 18, 30 August 2016.

Most of the low woodland plants flower really early, to get the benefit of spring sunshine before the trees' leaf canopy blocks it all off.  This is all that remains of bluebells by this time of year.

Dry stream bed.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 19, 30 August 2016.

 This is known as the wet part of the wood.  This dry runoff watercourse just emphasises again that we have been having a dry spell.  All that dry mud is usually wet mud.

Ganoderma fungus.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 20, 30 August 2016.

This is a tough fungus, hard to the touch, genus Ganoderma, growing on an old dead stump.  The white surface is composed of the pores for spore dissemination and can be easily marked.

Soldiering Field.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 21, 30 August 2016.

The path turns out of the woods and between two fields.  The field on the right is known as the Soldiering Field.  It is where volunteers mustered and drilled in the 19th century.  Here is a view from the other side in 2014:

Soldiering Field, Hawkwood Estate, 30 July 2014.

Along that path I could not resist taking a closeup of a hoverfly.  

Hoverfly, Syrphus species.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate, 30 August 2016

Adult hoverflies eat pollen, and this one is steadying an anther with its left foreleg while it uses its proboscis to gather the tasty food.

Into the trees again at the far side, where there is an area of heath.  Several plots in Petts Wood have been scraped and seeded with Ling heather.

Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 23, 30 August 2016.

This is the same species that covers the hills of Northumberland and Durham, where I grew up.

Rowan tree, Sorbus aucuparia.  Walk around the Hawkwood Estate 24, 30 August 2016.

A left turn here takes you downhill.  Rowan, or Mountain Ash, is the most showy of the early berry trees and occurs in many woods.  Our two native Viburnums, Guelder Rose and Wayfaring Tree, are also full of berries but are smaller, and usually found on chalk.  Spindle is showier, but later, and also usually smaller.

Next time, back to the starting point!

A Walk round the Hawkwood Estate - part 1 of 3

Gosshill Road. Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 01, 30 August 2016.

I'm going to show a walk around the Hawkwood Estate, taking in one edge of Petts Wood, in the same style as the Walk to Nash I posted in June.  That is, a sequence of iPhone photos of the route.  This time I will also include some closeups taken with my EOS 5DS.  As I am at least partly a botanist, I could not resist some photos of plants.

There are more than 40 photos this time, so I will post in 3 sections.  iPhone photos are numbered.  The others just slot in.

The quiet road in the first photo, Gosshill Road, is where a car can be parked.  Mine is on the right.

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 02, 30 August 2016.

To start the route, I went through this narrow gap.  There's a plastic bag of dog poo on the stump which added its characteristic aroma to  the scene.  (This bag is not an essential part of this walk.)

The face of the felled trunk has some interesting fungi.  That day, they were covered with released spores that looked like brown dust.  In wet weather, with the spores washed off, you can see the odd shine on the top surfaces, and the yellow edge, that tell you it's Ganoderma pfeifferi, Beeswax Bracket.  Here is what it looked like when I was there in 2013:

Ganoderma pfeifferi, Beeswax Bracket.  22 December 2013.

Soon it became less ... well, doggy ... and I was walking through what looks like a neglected orchard.

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 03, 30 August 2016.

The sun shone, all was lovely.  Past the small orchard ...

Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 04, 30 August 2016.

To the right was what looked like a field ready to be harvested for hay.  The trees mask a busy railway.  But if this is really for hay, the harvester needs to be careful.

Ragwort, Senecio jacobaea, on the Hawkwood Estate, 30 August 2016

There's a lot of Ragwort in the field.  This plant is poisonous and can harm horses and cows.  They don't eat it in the field because it tastes bitter, but apparently it loses this bitterness when dried in hay and so becomes dangerous.

The Kyd Brook.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 05, 30 August 2016.

To the left is a small, quiet, well-shaded stream, the Kyd Brook.  The Kyd Brook runs on towards London and becomes the River Quaggy, which then joins the Ravensbourne by Lewisham station.  The Ravensbourne runs on into the Thames.

The Kyd Brook.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 06, 30 August 2016.

This is the Kyd Brook looking upstream, in the direction of the walk.

I have been along this route in wet weather and the path along here was little more than a series of muddy puddles.  The weather has been dry recently, so the walk was much more pleasurable.

Bristly Oxtongue, Helminthotheca echioides.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 07, 30 August 2016.

These large yellow-flowered plants in the field to the right are Bristly Oxtongue.  I don't know how palatable they are, but they are not poisonous.

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris.  Walk round the Hawkwood Estate 08, 30 August 2016.

To the left of the path, Mugwort is still in flower.  This is a relative of wormwood, the plant that supposedly drives people mad when used in absinthe.  But for this plant, my reference book (*) says "The leaves and flowering tops are used as a spice" if gathered when the flowers are still immature. 

The flowers are small, and look like this:

Flowers of Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris.  Hawkwood Estate, 30 August 2016.

More to follow next time ...

(*) "Plants Consumed by Man" by B. Brouk.  Academic Press, London, 1975.  ISBN 0-12-136450 X.

Common Lizard

Common Lizard, Zootoca vivipara.  Hutchinson's Bank, 26 August 2016.

This lizard is not supposed to be rare in England, though you certainly don't see it everywhere.  I see it hardly at all.  Perhaps I walk too fast, because several of my walks pass through its territory.

I saw some at Ranscombe Farm in 2012.  Since then none, until a few days ago I saw this one sunning itself on a gate at Hutchinson's Bank.

Common Lizard, Zootoca vivipara.  Hutchinson's Bank, 26 August 2016.

I was actually hoping to see a Clouded Yellow butterfly, an immigrant species that has come over the channel in good numbers recently.  I did see a couple, but was not able to get a photo.  But the lizard more than made up for that!

The UK only has three lizard species; this one, the Slow-worm and the rare Sand Lizard.  I've seen lots of the snake-looking Slow-worms.  Here is one from Keston Common.

Female Slow-worm, Anguis fragilis.  Keston Common, 14 May 2011.

And here is my other Common Lizard sighting, from 2012.

Common Lizard, Zootoca vivipara. Ranscombe Farm Country Park, 25 May 2012.