Caburn Hillfort Sunrise

Scenic Sundays #32

The Brighton & Hove Ramblers had a sunrise walk yesterday - we ascended Caburn Hillfort under a starry sky to watch the sun rise over Glynde.

 

Maritime Grip

Fencepost of the Week #41

Another groyne from Winchelsea beach.

Roesel's Bushcricket

Wildlife Wednesday #33

Metrioptera roeselii - Roesel's Bushcricket (male)

Metrioptera roeselii - Roesel's Bushcricket (female)

Staghorn Sumac

Tree-fetish Tuesday #26

Rhus typhina - Staghorn Sumac

This is an exotic looking little tree, growing in gardens all over England. It originates from eastern north America. The fuzzy, red drupes have a taste rather like sherbet, and can be used to make a kind of pink lemonade.

They are also very useful for dyers - yielding several different pigments and a mordant as well.

Wire Coils

Fencepost of the Week #40

Ravens in Flight

Wildife Wednesday #32

Alder Island

Tree-fetish Tuesday #25

Alder trees seem to love water more than any other British tree. Here is an island in a sea of duckweed, made from the rotten stump of an old alder tree now with a flourishing forest of new growth.

Beautiful glossy leaves, alders grow fast colonising poor waterlogged soils. They grow quickly but are relatively short-lived trees, collapsing as the heartwood rots. Though often sprouting anew from the stump.

Alder leaves against a background of fast-flowing, peaty water - a familiar sight to many from alders clinging to river banks all up and down the country.