Beckenham Place Park

Ancillary buildings and autumn trees at Beckenham Place Park, 30 November 2013.

Autumn and winter views at Beckenham Place Park.  This is a municipally owned golf course, with at one side buildings dating from the 1760s.  Surrounding the course are ancient woodlands and further away, some meadows forming the flood plain of the small River Ravensbourne.  This view across the golf course shows the small formal gardens.  Work on the roof of that building is obviously under way.

The mansion in Beckenham Place Park across the golf course.  20 December 2013.

In this view of the mansion, three weeks later, only a few leaves are left on some of the trees.  In the centre are some Crataegus, related to Hawthorn but with much larger berries.  I don't know which species or variety these are, but they look good.  This is still part of the golf course; the holes run between double rows of trees.  The mansion currently contains a visitor centre and a café.

Dead oak in Beckenham Place Park, 20 December 2013.

I thought this tree looked quite spectacular against the sky.  The brush around its base is placed there by park management, I suppose to protect it from golfers.

A final pic from elsewhere in the park:

Stinking Iris, Iris foetidissima.  Beckenham Place Park, 30 November 2013.

The bright orange berries of the Stinking Iris.  When crushed, its leaves have a strong smell which has been compared to roast beef, though I would not really care to eat beef that smelled like that.  And you can tell from both its common and Latin names that the smell was not generally thought to be pleasant.

Jubilee Country Park, February.

Butcher's Broom, Ruscus aculeatus.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

A few of the Orpington Field Club had a stroll around Jubilee Country Park on a cold and windy day with light snow.  Mostly we were looking for birds, which are not my speciality, so I was on the lookout for anything else of interest too. I was pleased to find that, having made the basic settings, I could operate my camera wearing thick gloves.

There were some snowdrops in bud, and cherry trees just coming into flower.  This bush was probably the best sighting, in Thornet Wood.  Butcher's Broom is a good indicator of ancient woodland, and here you can see the buds and flowers and a big fruit emerging from the middle of the leaf-like cladodes.

We did see some birds too, mostly Magpies, Gulls, Pigeons and Crows.  There were a few others, and I made an attempt at photographing them.  I make no claims for the quality of these.  This bird was the prettiest; a tiny one, too fast-moving for me to get a proper shot.  By the time I had focused on it, it was somewhere else.

Goldcrest, Regulus regulus.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

And another bird with a golden name:

Goldfinch, Carduelis carduelis.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

Robins are easy to photograph in gardens.  They are well-known for following gardeners around, watching for worms turned up by the digging.  Here, they stayed a bit further away.

European Robin, Erithacus rubecula.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

But my favourite photo is this one, one of the magpies taking off from its perch in a tree, missing a twig by a tiny margin.

Magpie, Pica pica.  Jubilee Country Park, 23 February 2013.

More from Otford

Filston Oast from the road.   Otford, 2 February 2013.

On our walk from Otford we saw several oast-houses, probably all converted like this one into living spaces, as they all had the same white-painted vents.

We also saw some unexpected birds.

Pea-fowl, Pavo cristatus, on top of a house.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

There's a cock in the middle, and hens to either side.  This post gives them a good view of their surroundings, and it's also possible that there is more warmth up there than we were experiencing on the track below.

High in a nearby tree I saw this:

Mistletoe, Viscum album.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

An evergreen parasite, able to get sufficient food and water from its host tree to keep green in the depths of winter even when the host has closed down for the season.

There were still a few berries around, even in this unproductive winter.

Garden Privet berries, Ligustrum ovalifolium.  Otford, 2 February 2013.

Although this was out in the fields, it the cultivated hedgerow species rather than the wild one.  It has broader leaves than the wild species, and hangs on to them much better in the winter.  It was nowhere near a garden, but it was on the edge of a path where hedgerow species might have been planted.

Here's a map of where the photos were taken:

Anticlockwise from the bottom right: Privet, Mistletoe, Peafowl.  And the view, taken with a different camera, was from Filston Lane on the left.

Small-Flowered Sweet-Briar

Small-Flowered Sweet-Briar, Rosa micrantha.  Lullingstone Country Park,  14 October 2011.

This is one of the roses whose thorns I showed in my previous post. Although this is not an ideal specimen, it shows some of the features that help to distinguish it from other species; features that I would not have noticed before taking this wildflower course.

There are glandular hairs on the flower stem and even on the fruit, and many glands without hairs on the leaflets.  Their secretions glisten brightly in the light of the camera's flash.  Of the nine species of rose that grow wild in Kent, only the common Dog Rose (Rosa canina) has leaves which are smooth and shiny underneath, and you can feel out very quickly this way whether you are looking at a less common type. 

The sepals are reflexed, folded back along the fruit, and fall early, Here, just one is left.

The photo was taken in bright daylight. The dark background is an illusion caused by the way the photo was taken, with a very small aperture and fast exposure, so that only objects close to the flash show up at all.

Yellow-Berried Holly

Holly, Ilex aquifolium, with yellow berries next to one with red berries.  Hayes Common, 10 October 2011.

Not all holly berries are red!

Black Bryony, Snowberry

Black Bryony, Tamus communis, in High Elms Country Park, 15 September 2011.

Some more autumn berries. These showy red ones belong to Black Bryony, a delicate climbing plant with heart-shaped leaves. The larger leaves belong to the plant it is climbing on, a Wayfaring-tree. Some of the Bryony leaves are already dead, and you can see them towards the bottom of the photo. A still living leaf can be seen right in the middle. At the top and bottom, you can also see the stem, winding around that of its host plant.

Spiders are everywhere at this time of year, and these plants and berries are covered with a fine mesh of web. There is a spider at the lower left. Small invertebrates often turn up in plant photos.

Below are the fruits of a Snowberry. This is a weed plant in High Elms Country Park, and I don't use that word carelessly; in this place, it causes problems. It was introduced by a previous owner to provide low cover for game birds, and it thrives and spreads so well that it tends to crowd out the other plants.

The sun had not reached the Snowberry when I took this, and it was still covered with dew. Spiders' webs again!

Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus, on Orchid Bank, High Elms Country Park, 15 September 2011.

Spindle Berries

Spindle berries, Euonymus europaeus.  Scadbury Park, 11 September 2011.

Among the shrubs and plants that I never saw in my childhood is the Spindle. Like many British species, a few degrees of temperature makes all the difference to where it grows.

It's a small, thin-stemmed shrub, with inconspicuous flowers, and it doesn't really stand out in the hedgerows until the fruits appear. These are so vividly and waxily pink, sometimes shading towards red, that it's hard to believe the colours are natural.

When they ripen, the orange seeds squeeze out from the fruits without any prompting.

It is said that the name derives from traditional use of the wood to make spindles for spinning wool. With those delicate branches, this must have meant that a whole plant would have been taken to use the trunk to make just a handful of spindles.

Spindle fruits, Euonymus europaeus.  Scadbury Park, 11 September 2011.

Dogwood, Hawthorn

Berries of Dogwood, Cornus sanguinea, on Burnt Gorse at High Elms Country Park, 22 August 2011.

The countryside is full of berries now. These are on dogwood, a small shrub that is found in ancient woodlands and in hedges. Bushes related to this are often grown as garden plants for their brightly coloured stems.

The hawthorn, below, is a very common shrub or small tree. Its value in a hedgerow is that it grows fast and puts out many thorny branches. These berries, called haws, are everywhere. In fact where I grew up, near Newcastle, countryside berries were generally referred to as hips and haws - fruits of wild rose and hawthorn.

Berries of Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna. Scadbury Park, 11 September 2011.