Walk the Square

This afternoon was another grey affair, though not quite as nippy and definitely less claggy. I have no idea what the morning was like, having managed to miss the whole thing. I'm not convinced that late nights playing board games with adult offspring and alcohol is sustainable.

Before I did anything else I nipped out for a quick drive around the block. I've not driven for the best part of ten weeks so it felt incredibly liberating. Being able to drive again makes no difference to my square-bashing, but it will be good to be able to head out to other local sites as and when the mood takes me (lockdown permitting!).

Afterwards I headed out for another walk around the square. When I did this in 2013, most of my finds were posted to the 1k in 1km square blog rather than on here. I also did not make too much of an effort to capture images of the habitat I was recording in, something which I tend to do a lot more these days with the ease afforded by a decent phone camera. So throughout the year I'll include some shots of bits of the square. If nothing else, it helps to see changes - since 2013 the housing estate has grown with two new developments.

First up a reminder that my square is SP5595ish - because it is actually half of SP5595 and half of SP5695, a necessary eastwards shift to avoid the M1 being a dominant feature in the middle of my 1K square.

Key bits of the square are pointed out below: the white dot is my house, the red dots mark out the rural length of Springwell Lane (the lane), the cyan dots mark the main A426 roadway through the square, the blue dots mark out Whetstone Brook running through the square, the green dot is the 'copse', the yellow dot is the middle of the horse paddocks, and the two pink dots mark the area I refer to as Whetstone Meadows. Note that the southern-most tip of the triangular field where the lane meets the A426 and the eastern-most tip of the horse paddock triangle are outside the square. The obvious pale roadway that is shown running parallel with the lane with a hook at the end was a construction service road to the new part of the estate - it was dug up and ploughed over last spring.

The two red-ringed bits of housing shown below did not exist in 2013. The smaller estate to the east was built shortly afterwards; in 2013 it was an accessible field with a pathway through it though I didn't find too much of interest in it. The much larger estate were fields that were not accessible, albeit viewable from Springwell Lane. Whilst the housing area won't be productive, there are now pathways through which mean that views across the fields to the south are improved, along with access to more of Whetstone Brook than was possible before.

The following shots from the yellow dots are looking east along the path with a drainage ditch to one side and scrubby hedgerow on the other. The other shot is looking north-ish across some sort of attenuation pond / sustainable drainage. This might start to be interesting as it develops, the estate was only completed just over a year ago. 

The horse paddocks is another area that I would definitely give more attention to if it was accessible. Most of it is viewable from the boundary, but it would be good to get in there. Might be a good place to deploy some clandestine intercept traps from gaps in the hedgerow.

The following are a couple of views looking roughly west and north from the yellow dots.

And here's a view or a roadside ditch along the A426 ....

I was looking out for a few birds that evaded me yesterday, but frustratingly there are still some glaring omissions. No idea where all the Rooks and Feral Pigeons have gone these days, both Skylark and Meadow Pipit were noted on every walk down the lane I had before Christmas, and how is it possible to go two days seeing no Dunnock. I did see Long-tailed Tit, Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge, and I also added a few plants: Traveller's Joy, Wild Privet, Lesser Celandine, Danish Scurvygrass and Knotgrass. Add in a couple of fungi and I'm up to 89 species. In 2013 I ended January on 100 species.

One for follow-up - this large bracket fungi looked like it might be worth collecting and poking about. Need to go back with a big knife and a carrier bag.

Not so sure this one is worth poking, looked old and a bit dry. It's on a large willow.