Early spring plants & whitethroats: April on Hothfield Heathlands

The writer H E Bates moved from Northamptonshire to Little Chart Forstal in 1931. His deep knowledge of the countryside coloured all his writing. In ‘Through the Woods’ (1936), with fine wood engravings by Agnes Miller Parker, he wrote in loving detail about the plant and animal life in Coldham Wood, which lies due west of the Extension section of Hothfield Heathland.

Close to the heathland, then a working common, he describes a ‘paradise of flowers’ in May on marshy ground, including ‘a blaze of kingcups…immense luminous islands, gigantic buttercups among lush clusters of pink-stemmed burnished leaves of bottle-green…water torches…more burning than any noon’. 

Early spring plants

Spring is about four weeks early so Bates’ water torches will be blazing in April. 

Less common now, they occur along the stream running along the western margin of the reserve, usually in dappled shade, and again on the Fen section of the reserve off Watery Lane, where they can be seen beyond the bus stop on the A20.

The kingcup or marsh marigold, with many more regional names, is an axiophyte of wet woodland and alder carr, indicating a habitat that is considered important for conservation. Caltha is derived from the Ancient Greek for goblet, paulustris from Latin for marsh-loving. A perennial, rooted in soil but happy with its hollow stems growing up through water, unlike the meadow, creeping and bulbous buttercups growing on the heathland, it doesn’t have sepals and petals, just one ring of tepals with no nectar sac at the base. Up to 100 stamens provide a lot of pollen for insects. The seeds, held in an upright pod similar to a pea pod, a follicle, fall or are splashed out of the pod by rain once the pod splits down one side, and are able to float away. The spent flower stems tend to fall close to the water surface, helping spread the seeds beyond the plant, and where stem nodes touch a solid surface they grow roots, helping the plant spread vegetatively. The newly flooded areas on the reserve should help the kingcups to spread. 

There is a miniature white, alpine species, Caltha leptosepala, which I was thrilled to find flowering one May in a trickle of snowmelt on Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic Peninusula of Washington State, USA. Flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum, was flowering on the steep stony slope above.  

The arrival of the whitethroats

Whitethroats will be arriving this month from the Sahel, just south of the Sahara, the males arriving perhaps ten days before their partners, to establish their territories ready for the breeding season. They build a few rudimentary nests of dried grass and plants for the female to choose from, the female then finishes one or starts a new one from scratch, lining them with cobwebs, willow fluff, wool, and other animal hair. Nests are built only a couple of feet from the ground, in nettles, or brambles, making it very vulnerable to disturbance by dogs during the breeding season. Egg laying begins in early May, incubation takes up to two weeks, chicks are fed for another 10 -12 days, then a second brood is laid.  

Whitethroat. © Jon Hawkins

The whitethroat is a medium-sized, long-tailed warbler of grassland, scrub and hedgerows. Males are sandy-grey above, with pale grey heads, pinkish-buff breasts, bright white throats, rusty-brown edges to their wing feathers. Females are duller. It is a hedge bird, seeming to be permanently hopping about during nesting time, singing or babbling and tail flicking all the while. Song flights are short and bouncing between bushes or back to the same low perch, head feathers held erect as it sings. If disturbed at night in May and June will give snatches of song, less mellifluous than a nightingale. They feed on insects and larvae, ants and spiders, but in late summer, with young brood in tow ahead of migration in October, they eat fruits as well. Drought in the winter quarters of the whitethroat affects survival, and a prolonged drought in the late 1960s led to a 90% crash in UK numbers. The species is still recovering from this crash so is on the Amber Conservation list. 

© Tim Horton

Keeping dogs on leads

In order to help protect these vulnerable, disturbance intolerant ground nesting bird species we will be asking that dogs be kept on leads and on the paths in the open areas of heath across Hothfield. This will enable our heathland bird species to nest in peace away from the paths. Dogs can still be off lead but under control in the wooded area around the edge of Hothfield Heathlands as tree nesting species are less sensitive to disturbance by dogs and people. With all of your help we can support these vulnerable and rare species to thrive again in our unique heathland habitat. 

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