SUTTON BONINGTON
We were hard pushed to get a day out this week given the very unsettled period with much heavy rain but today’s rain was gentle enough (for much of the day) to allow note-taking.
It’s perhaps a bit questionable whether this one is legitimate as a wild plant in this location given that gardens weren’t too far away but the decision was made and Sedum spurium will appear in the atlas for this square; many others are not allowed in but there’s no doubt about Cerastium diffusum growing along the salted kerbside given its unexciting form – hardly a garden escape.
Once again it was Dave’s lengthy experience that detected the jizz of this difficult species though samples are now under the microscope for confirmation. There was lots of it, with a similar population of Fern Grass Catapodium rigidum along the verges of Park Lane.
Later on we found lots of Salsify Tragopogon porrifolius – Goatsbeard but with blue flowers – and only the second population I’ve come across (the first was one plant – this one was well into double figures).
This happily moist moss is, I am assured, Homalothecium sericeum (Silky Wall Feather-moss)
Later in the day the gentle drizzle became wetter and a walk along a wild public footpath was drenching from the thighs down but on our return via Hungary Lane the ‘odd’ sounding Chiffchaff we had heard earlier gave a flourish of stuttering Willow Warbler – a hybrid surely!
Well, maybe not. It seems that some Willow Warblers go ‘chiff-chaff’ when they’re hacked off. Perhaps this one was just fed up with the weather.