Eastcliff (Mules) Park



Teignmouth, Devon

More
  • Home
  • the history
  • Latest News
  • Photo Albums
  • Calendar
  • Contact
  • The Future
  • Lost and Found
  • poems
  • Natures Diary
    • 2019 Diary
    • January Diary 2020
    • February Diary 2020
    • March Diary 2020 locked down
    • April Diary 2020
    • May Diary 2020
    • June Diary 2020
    • July Diary 2020
    • August Diary 2020
    • September Diary 2020
    • October Diary 2020
    • November Diary 2020
Small White butterfly

Great tit

Longtailed tit

Red Admiral

photo 2   Speckled Wood
photo 3   Chloromyia Formosa
Crow
photo 4  Shaggy Parasol mushroom
Toadstalls
photo 5     Kestral
  photo 6   Bullfinch
Jenny Wren
photo 1 Goldcrest
Goldfinch
The waterfalls gushing now
Dunnock
Bluetit
Stinking Iris berries

Nature Observations: Eastcliff(Mules)Park - October 2020

by Catherine Locke



2nd October


A lot of robins about. A  lovely clear October day. Crickets singing in the grass,


and craneflies in the top meadow, although this year I have noticed a decline in their


numbers in the park. Good to see the meadows left uncut until later, as last year they


cut early and took the harvest of hay and wildflower seed to the new Dawlish


Countryside Park to spread on the meadows there.


Today I saw two Red Admiral and three Small White butterflies. Not many Large


Whites about this year.


The trees are just beginning to turn now in the park. A group of tall Sycamores are


gradually turning yellow by the lower edge of the top meadow.


                                      The sun lights their fires.



Birds seen:

Robins (everywhere)

a family of Blue Tits

a family of Magpies

Flock of Goldfinches

a Great Tit family

pair of Wrens

a Nuthatch

flock of Long Tailed Tits

a pair of Dunnocks

many Wood Pidgeons

two families of Crows

a family of Jays( always heard first when they are in the trees and, if lucky, are then seen).


Its amusing to watch families of Grey squirrels using the long branches of the


Monteray pines by the park steps as arial runways.



6th October


Sunny. Lucky to see 6 Red Admiral butterflies and so many honey bees on sunlit ivy


flowers. The ivy tumbles over a wire fence which separates the park from the grounds


of Cliffden. Ivy is such an important resource for insects as late flowering pollen and


nectar, and provides berries for birds afterwards, and shelter for them too.


Altogether in the park today I saw eight Red Admiral butterflies, one Small White


and four Speckled Woods. Unusual as it is a windy day. I was pelted by leaves


and Sycamore seeds along the lower path. I saw a couple of squirrel drays in the


Sycamore trees; a tangled mass of twigs leaves and earth, often in an irregular


shape, in  a high fork of a tree.


I was blessed today to see three separate families of Goldcrests. I usually hear their


thin high pitched see-see-seee call first before I spot them hopping around in the


branches, often going upside down to take tiny insects from twigs and leaves.


I saw an unusuall fly on an Elder leaf. Around half an inch long with a copper


green shiny thorax and brown wings over the abdomen. I looked it up later and


found it was a type of soldier fly called Chloromyia Formosa, a male as the female


has different colours. Usually flies May to August but there is no mistaking the


species.



13th October


A flock of Goldfinches twittering as they flew across the park. A cheerful sound from


a colourful little bird that is one of my favourites, and increasing in numbers in the


UK.


Wood Pidgeons are gathereing in large flocks now, going from one feeding site to


another and feeding safer in groups. Crows flying over in spread-out flocks as well.


     A lot of interesting Fungi about after recent rains. Some of the types I've seen are:


Clumps of Fairies Bonnets on rotting wood under trees at the Rowden's edge


path, and in the same area Charcoal Burner fungus. Under Holm Oaks and


English Yews in a dark wooded area near the Rowdens I found a group of Large-


cap Shaggy Parasol mushrooms, and in the grass under a tall fir tree I found


clumps of cultivated mushrooms. By the OverDell path I saw Destroying Angel


toadstools, and on rotting logs behind the Walled Garden, King Alfreds Cakes,


hard black rounded fungal growths. In The Dell woods Orange Jelly fungus on a


rotting stump with Yellow Fingers and Candle Snuff fungus. Also the rubbery


brain gelatinous forms of Jews Ear fungus.



19th October


A sunny but cold day. A lot of Grey squirrels about, mostly munching on sycamore


seeds up in the branches. Saw a queen bumble bee looking for a nest site. Quite a


few robins again, mostly making a titting noise, showing other robins that this is


their territory, or a short sharp whistle as an alarm call. There are many flocks of


Goldfinches around.


Great to see a kestral hovering over the meadow in the park. She was chased by


crows several times but was quick at dodging them. I also saw a pair of Willow


Warblers in a tree next to the Walled Garden. I had my binoculars so I managed


to get a good look at them as they searched for insects. Saw a handsome male


Bullfinch in a bush near "Finch Copse" which is my name for for the stand of


hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel and sycamore, with a natural tunnel walkway through it,


by the lower meadow.



27th October


A sunny and calm day today. Wasps and flies sunbathing on the large leaves of


tree mallows by the park steps. So many families of Grey squirrels in the park


now, running and jumping or feeding on tree seeds. There were several families just in


the Monteray pines. A wren zipped past my nose to land in a bush at the bottom of


one of the pines. Robins titting everywhere. At least 6 pairs heard and 7


individuals seen. It was a Wren day as well with 3 pairs heard and 2


individuals. I also saw 5 separate families of Magpies in the park, with their


chattering calls echoing all the time. Yesterday's gale force winds had almost


stripped exposed trees of their leaves. Two of the Tree Mallows had been snapped in


the wind. I saw the hovering female kestral again, in her usual spot over the rabbit


brambles and hedgerow of the lower meadow. A family of Goldcrests seen in trees by


the lower path, which is a sheltered path that leads to a fork. One of the prongs of


the fork is The Dell path, the other prong leading above The Dell through


woodland. I call this, appropriately, Overdell Path. I often see Bullfinches there.


I took the Dell Path today and heard the twittering of many Goldfinches in a


towering Ash tree by a garden fence. Today was a real Goldfinch day as I saw one


large flock, two smaller flocks, and a juvenile on a garden feeder near to the park


boundary. The juvenile has the bright yellow wing streak but the head is grey with no


sign of the red,white and black of the adult. The yellow wing flash is, I think, for


flock recognition, whereas the striking colours of the adult head plumage are for


attracting mates in the breeding season, and red is also a warning colour for


predators.


The ponds are very full now with each waterfall gushing loudly into rapidly flowing


streams, and thence to the tiered ponds. Primroses and Hydrangeas are still in


bloom. Spotted a pair of Bullfinches in trees adjacent to pond number 3, near to a


garden peanut feeder. Also seen there a pair of Dunnocks, a family of Goldfinches


and a family of Blue tits.


Top meadow has been mown now and the grass taken for making hay. Magpies,


crows and Herring gulls searched for worms and insects upon the cut meadow.


Over the lower meadow I saw a flock of crows, a flock of around 25 Wood


pidgeons, a striking jay in the hedgerow with a large acorn in its beak. I heard


recently on Autumn Watch that jays can carry 8 acorns in their crop and another in


their beak and they will bury them all in different place. That is good news for the


oak tree as they will forget at least a percentage of them.


Highly poisonous bright red berries have now appeared on the Black Bryony, a


climbing plant with large heart-shaped leaves, and finally orange berries are spilling


out from cracked open pods of the Stinking Iris, under tree shade.




                                                                                                                                    read the page for November



                                                                                       Catherine Locke




photo credits


photo 2  author    Charles J Sharp [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Speckled_wood_butterfly_%28Pararge_aegeria_tircis%29_male_2.jpg


photo 3 author    Hectonichus [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stratiomyidae_-_Chloromyia_formosa-1.JPG


photo 4  author    voir ci-dessous [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Macrolepiota_rhacodes_JPG3.jpg


photo 5   Author    Sepand Bakhtiari [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sep_068936ER.jpg


photo 6  Author Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]censes/by-sa/4.0)]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bullfinch_male.jpg

photo 1 © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goldcrest_1.jpg


COPYRIGHT
Copyright ©2010-2022 eastcliffpark.com.  Protected under all applicable international laws and all rights are reserved. No image, text, or any part thereof may be copied, shared or transmitted to others without permission from the Copyright holders. Information herein may not be posted or made available, in whole or in part, on any website, FTP site, electronic bulletin board, newsgroup, or their equivalent.