Wilder Kent Blog

Long-time volunteer, Margery Thomas, talks us through all the exciting fungi at Hothfield Heathlands and their importance.

Margery Thomas, Hothfield Volunteer and regular columnist looks at the lack of butterfly sightings in recent months, the work volunteers are doing to remove bracken and how this all impact the wider management of the last remaining fragments of heathland we have left in Kent.

By August, floral glory has passed from the orchids (heath spotted, southern marsh and a few large hybrids) to the heather or ling. As ever, we hope for a protracted display of purple in the heathy areas, which is likely if the cool nights persist. Orchid seed is now ripening. Dust-like, dispersed on the wind, the seed contains no nutrients to support germination so needs a mycorrhizal fungus to supply nutrients from the soil to its roots. From seed to flowering takes three years or more.

The wettest winters and springs on record have had at least one benefit. The ponds and pools across Hothfield Heathlands are full of water!

On 19th May one hundred years ago, the first outdoors broadcast by the BBC was of professional cellist Beatrice Harrison playing to and with nightingales in the garden of her Surrey home. Around a million listeners tuned in to the midnight broadcast, and she performed for similar outdoor broadcasts over the next twelve years.

Margery Thomas describes another delightful May in Hothfield Heathland where volunteers conducted an amphibian torchlight survey on a number of Hothfield ponds. To learn what they found, read on!

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.

Margery Thomas, volunteer at Hothfield Heathlands, gives us an update from the reserve, where the first signs of spring are stirring!