Sunday afternoon is scooter time for me and three-year-old. So off we go down to Peckham Rye, careering into wheelie bins and unwary pedestrians as we go.
Sunday afternoon is scooter time for me and three-year-old. So off we go down to Peckham Rye, careering into wheelie bins and unwary pedestrians as we go. He's really got the hang of his little three-wheeler and I take a particular childish pleasure in hurtling after him on one of the girl's chrome scooters. There are two reasons to go down to the park: one is to wear out small boy fuelled by roast lunch and too many home-made buns, and the other is to have a look and see what I can find in the way of wildlife down there. The Rye is a tad bigger than my back garden, so I can usually find something different.
The first thing we see is a fox, loitering about the 'cat house'. As we reach the impenetrable front garden I can hear it walking about in the deep bushes; as we pull back a branch and peer into the dense gloom we can see it skulking only a few feet from us. I guess it feels safe here and is probably a regular visitor pinching the food left out for the more or less feral cats that prowl the area.
Down on the Rye everything is starting to look very autumnal and the leaves are building up into treacherously slippery mounds. The trees still hold some secrets though. In 1767, a 9- or 10-year-old William Blake saw an oak tree full of angels here. The angel oak as it was long called is no longer, but there are some handsome black poplars which might just about be 250 years old. I'm not a poplar expert, but these must be the widely-planted cultivar, Populus x canadensis.
We park our scooters up against the tree and examine the gnarled and wrinkled bark at the very base of the trunk. Sure enough, sheltering in the crannies there, are several specimens of a very pretty weevil, Dorytomus ictor. No English name for this little (4.5mm) beetle, even though it is delightfully marked, with coloured scales all over. More secretive than scarce, I think, it is usually regarded by entomologists as a rare insect, but in London it is on all black poplars, except for the Lombary poplar, 'Italica'. It must spend most of the year out of reach up in the foliage. I've only ever seen it once in summer, when dozens of specimens were flying about under a large tree in the gardens of Buckingham Palace. In winter it heads for the bark and is always there. I show them to the boy, but he just wants to chase squirrels to see if he can squash them under his wheels. As I said, no angels here any more, just the odd little devil.
Gardeners' World Web User
28/11/2008 at 21:23
Today i have had such an array of birds feeding in my garden , i live in Worsley Manchester. The Blue tits were searching out the bird boxes ,Gold Finches , a Chaffinch, Wren , Dunnock, Coal tits ,Sparrows, Blackbirds ,a pair of Magpie,s , and of course Starlings.It was like a spring morning . 2 pairs of Gold Finches and 2 pairs of Green Finches are new to the garden this year , lets hope i can keep them . I feed them every day and they love the sunflower hearts.
