Found On The Mound

New meadow seating area

No one who has visited the Hawk Conservancy this season can have failed to notice the most obvious change to the meadow, the big new seating area on the back of the mound. In the past we have used the hedgerow behind the old seating area as the eastern boundary of the meadow but as most of that hedge has been removed the mound itself now forms the new top boundary. The mound was re-shaped and raised a little higher during the building of the seating area, using soil brought in from other parts of the Conservancy, mainly from the car park. The soil used to build the original mound came from outside the park and therefore contained a different seed bank from that of the meadow and in the past we have seen a number of species growing on the mound that did not appear in the meadow. The soil from the car park will also have its own seed bank and we are very interested to see what comes up on the mound this year. A grass seed mix was sown at the beginning of the season and the surface of the mound soon took on a green appearance, the young grass rapidly followed by a healthy crop of stinging nettles. Nettles are quick to appear on newly disturbed ground and very soon started to cause problems for the demonstration birds, which were seen to pick up their feet rather hurriedly as they walked along the ridge! With the arrival of warmer weather the combination of nettles and falconers wearing shorts was not a popular idea, so we needed to get in quite quickly to see what was growing before the strimmers moved in.

Fumitory	Charlock

We found several of the plants which we saw in disturbed parts of the meadow in previous years, in the ploughed strips and the old pond. These include Stinging Nettle, Broad-leaved Dock (very useful when growing close to the nettles!), Fumitory, Sun Spurge, Charlock, Fat Hen, Shepherd’s Purse and Field Speedwell, also sometimes called Persian Speedwell (picture shown later).

White Bryony	Herb Bennett

There were some other plants which have appeared in the meadow before, including Meadow Buttercup, White Bryony, Garlic Mustard and Herb Bennet, also known as Wood Avens. We would expect to see a good number of Field Poppies, which frequently grow on newly disturbed ground, but so far we have only found one small poppy seedling.

Chickweed	Knotgrass
Groundsel	Ground Elder

Among the things we have not seen growing in the meadow were Knotgrass, Common Chickweed and two garden weeds which many people will recognise only too well, Groundsel and Ground Elder. These are all common plants of waste ground and roadsides and we may only ever find them on the mound, where the soil is richer than in the body of the meadow.

Bryony	Wild Cabbage (poss.)

We found one member of the Bindweed family, not definitely identified, and a rather distinctive plant of the Cabbage family. This may be Wild Cabbage, the wild ancestor of all the cultivated cabbage varieties. Its leaves had a distinctive blue-grey tinge to their green, but without seeing the plant in flower we can’t be sure yet.

Cinquefoil

On the side of the mound facing the lower flying ground there is a large patch of a plant which looks like one of the Cinquefoils, that are members of the Rose family. We haven’t seen this in the meadow or on the mound before and will have to wait for it to flower to be certain which it is.

There were several other things that looked familiar but that we couldn’t put a name to. Several of these are possibly Cresses, members of the Cabbage family which all look rather alike when you only have the leaves to go on. And finally, there were some plants about which, frankly, we haven’t got a clue till they grow bigger and give us flowers – we’ll keep looking and see what else we can find and identify, in between the times when the mound needs to be strimmed!

The Meadow in late May	Meadow Buttercup

In the meadow itself the cowslips are just about over and the yellow which you can see is made up of Meadow Buttercup and Bird’s Foot Trefoil. The buttercups are very abundant again this year and the trefoil is just beginning to come out in force – by the time you read this there should be even more. As usual in May the vegetation has suddenly made a huge spurt of growth and the whole of the ground is covered with green. As the weather gets warmer the insects are increasing in number and we’ll show pictures of more new ones in a later page.

Germander Speedwell	Common Field Speedwell

We have already found two new species for our list during our May walks. The first of these is Germander Speedwell, growing in front of the seating area, just inside the start of the meadow vegetation. There are many types of speedwell and this is one of the most common, often found in woods and on roadsides. There is a large patch in the car park as you come up towards the gift shop, growing among the trees bordering the drive up to the double gates. The flowers of Germander Speedwell are a very vivid blue and are quite different from those of Common Field Speedwell, which we found on the mound. The Field Speedwell flowers are a lighter blue and one of the petals is very pale, sometimes almost white.

In Patrick’s Wood, the copse to the left of the seating area, we found our second new species, a small Horse Chestnut tree seedling. This is still very small, but will make a lovely tree as it grows up. Something or someone must have dropped a conker in the copse and it has germinated! Horse Chestnut is the featured species for this month.

Where the Fox Cub Was!

At the bottom of the meadow, at the back of the compost heap, Brigid caught sight of a fox cub on our last visit in May. It was relaxing in the sun, and slipped away out of sight once it realised that it had been seen. I wasn’t quick enough to see or photograph it, but this is where it was, in the dark area among the green at the back of the photo! We know that foxes regularly visit the meadow, as we’ve seen their droppings and they are almost certainly responsible for some of the animal and bird remains that are found there.

Meadow Seedling	Flowers & Young Seeds

Native to the area around Albania and northern Greece, Horse Chestnut was brought to Britain around the 17th century as an ornamental tree, planted mainly in private parks and gardens. It grows to over 30m (100ft), and has palmate leaves, sometimes as large as 15 inches across, with 3 to 7 leaflets,. The first thing to appear each year are the familiar large “sticky buds”, covered in a resinous substance that acts as a protection from frost and damp. The buds open during April and by May the leaves are fully open and the flowers coming out, in dense white (or occasionally red) spikes known as “candles”. The centre of each flower is yellow, turning red when the flower has been pollinated. As the flowers fade the tiny prickly fruits are already forming behind them, eventually filling out to become the spiny cases containing glossy brown conkers.

Conker Shell	Hoof-shaped Leaf Scar

I could find no alternative names for the tree itself, but the sticky buds have been called Cackey Monkeys and names for the fruits include Conkers, Cheggies and Obblyonkers. The scientific name Aesculus is said to come from the Latin esca, meaning “food” or “nourishment” and hippocastanum from the Greek hippo, meaning “horse” and the Latin castanea, the name for a Sweet Chestnut tree. The common name “chestnut” is thought to have derived gradually from the Latin castanea, into the Middle English chestaine, becoming “chesten nut” and finally chestnut. The Horse part of the name has two suggested origins, the first that it was historically used in its native region as a food and a medicine for horses, and the second that when leaves fall from the tree they leave a distinctive scar shaped like a horse’s hoof or shoe, with small marks like nail holes.

During the first World War Horse Chestnuts were gathered by schoolchildren to help make ammunition. It was used for the production of acetone (of which there was a great shortage during the War) which, in turn, was needed for the production of cordite, the smokeless powder used as propellant in small arms ammunition and artillery.