Our final day on the habitat management course at Fort Burgoyne was all about small mammal surveying. Small mammals are often overlooked but form a vital part in the food chain and are good indicators of ecosystem health. Some Longworth traps had been set up around the fort:

As we were walking round the traps, we also looked under a metal ramp and found a nest of short-tailed field voles with a mother and a rather large number of young:

Although many of the traps hadn’t been in place long enough to catch anything, the door of one of the traps was found to be closed, indicating that something might be inside. The entire trap was placed within a large plastic bag before opening:

Inside the trap was a vole who seemed completely unperturbed by the predicament he found himself in. He was only interested in getting on with the apple:

But, whatever species it was, the sweet little vole was sexed and weighed before being released back into the dense vegetation.

After we had inspected the Longworth traps, we were treated to a tour amongst the wild vegetation at the back of the fort. In the Second World War structures were added to bolster the fortifications of the 19th century fort, but these are now being slowly reclaimed by nature:

There were numerous intriguing back entrances into hidden corridors and storerooms:

We saw a small patch of collared earthstar fungi growing in the grasses:

Two minuscule orange bonnets were intense pops of colour amongst the greenery:

After our walk in the rampant nature around the back of the buildings, we were then escorted down into bowels of the fort itself. Groups are only taken into the fort until the end of October, by which time the overwintering bats will be soon to arrive:

Some butterflies have already arrived to commence their hibernation:

This herald moth was three floors down below ground:

The Conservation and Habitat Management course, and spending time at the atmospheric fort, was very enjoyable. I must keep an eye out for other courses they might run there next year.

We did another sort of small mammal survey this week when we carried out the October tour of the dormouse nest boxes in the wood. This involved checking only twenty boxes this time, but we did find eleven dormice in nine of them.

Box 10 strapped to a hazel coppice….

…with a classic dormouse nest within:

There will be a November tour of the boxes but we will not be expecting to find many dormice by then. They will soon be building their winter nests, close to the ground where temperatures will be more stable. Unfortunately there is a 60% mortality rate for hibernating dormice over the winter but I do hope to see some of these dormice again in the spring.

All sorts of migrating bird species are being seen in the wood. Redpoll are about with that raspberry red patch on the top of their heads:

The tawny owls are still frequently bathing in the pools, despite the lower autumn temperatures:

I like this photo of a green woodpecker with her red feathers half up, making her head look over-large:

We have been visited once more by an unknown mustelid but it is going to have to show its face for us to have any hope of identifying it:

The contorted fruiting bodies of the white saddle fungus, Helvella crispa, are seen every year both in the wood and the meadows. They look so strange that they are difficult to walk past without photographing:

One part of the wood has a large stand of silver birch trees:

The fly agaric fungus, Amanita muscaria, forms a symbiotic relationship with many different types of tree but one of its favourites is birch. Some autumns we see lots of this eye-catching fungus but this year there doesn’t seem to be very much about.

Below the meadows there is a long, wide stretch of shingle beach. Holm oaks grow in this shingle between Walmer Castle and the village of Kingsdown to the south and every autumn something extraordinary happens down there amongst the trees:

It seems so peculiar that they are growing without any soil, but they are getting their sugars from the roots of the holm oaks. In return the fungal mycelium provides the trees with water and also minerals which it must somehow be able to extract from organic matter that gets trapped in the shingle.

Well, I love a bit of good news and here is some from the meadows. In the last post I was so worried about the kestrel who had something terribly wrong with her eye:

I can now report that she seems largely better. What a relief:

Tawny owls are regularly hunting in the meadows at night:

And the acorns from the holm oaks are fast disappearing:

One of the trail cameras got a fantastic shot when it captured a meadow pipit on a perch. This is an unusual visitor to the meadows:

As is this fieldfare:

The meadows have also been visited by a mustelid but, even though this one is a complete blur, I can tell you that it is a weasel because it has been seen on this gate a lot this year and I’ve got my eye in for it:

John the bird ringer has now spent several weeks visiting his son in Western Australia and is soon to return. He has sent some photos of the many orchids they have seen, flowering in what is now the Australian spring. The exotic spider orchid, Caladenia nivalis, is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia:

The weird-looking warty hammer orchid, Drakaea livida, is also found only in the south-west of Western Australia. It is pollinated by a single species of male thynnid wasp using sexual deception. The part of the flower on the left resembles a female wasp and emits the same smell. When the male tries to mate with it, the flower hinges backwards and the male is pressed against the part of the flower on the right, picking up its pollen that he will then transfer onto another plant when he is next deceived.

It’s all fascinating stuff and the thought of it being spring there is most appealing. Here in the UK we are going to need to get through a winter first before we can savour the joys of spring, and it is far too early for me to begin counting down the days.