Monday 27th September 2021.

 This may well be one of the last mild early autumn days on the Park. A few of the trees are just starting to show autumn colour.

I found a Queen bumblebee nestling down into the grass where she will spend the winter buried in the grassroots.

 Surprisingly, there were some dragonflies hawking about in the sunshine. I think that they were faded Brown Hawkers and must be near the end of their lifespan.

I was pleased to find a native six spot Ladybird.

And on a sun warmed log there were a Wasp, and a flesh fly.

I spotted a Comma Butterfly feeding on one of the few remaining Thistle flowers.

One of the older Oak trees has got a large bracket fungus growing out of the base and it also has two bat roost boxes.

This year, the Oak trees have not produced hardly any acorns. They do this occasionally as not every year is a full fruiting year. Any acorns that did form have been parasitised by a small wasp which lays an egg in the flower bud causing it to form a Knopper Gall, the wasp larva feeds inside the gall.

A familiar gall on Oak is the Oak Apple. You do not seem to notice them until the wasp grub has hatched and left through a tiny circular hole. Once again the adult wasp lays eggs into the developing buds which developed into the 'Apple'.

Another two galls on Oak leaves are the pretty Silk Button Gall once again caused by a tiny wasp and the Spangle Gall.

And finally I couldn't leave without taking a picture of some of the beautiful, bright Hawthorn berries we have on the Park this year.

 History Group investigation Wednesday 1st September 2021.

The group decided to investigate a rectangular hollow just to the east of Oak Walk. The hollow shows up clearly on LIDAR.

We used a soil auger to make boreholes along a 40 m transect across the hollow.

As the sediments were extracted we laid them out in lengths of rainwater guttering. 

We classified the soils using a Munsell Soil Colour Chart and the average value was 10YR 6/6. We also carried out a 'Dirty Hands Test' which showed us that the soil is a silt/clay loam.

The conclusion was that most of the area is underlain by Chalky Boulder Clay which has been very deeply weathered in post glacial times. There appears to have been a thick layer of gravel laid over the top of the clay along the line of Oak Walk. We could find no evidence of either a pond or a garden as had been suggested. The conclusion was that soil had been moved from the sloping ground to the east and used to level up Oak Walk to make it easier, safer and more comfortable for coaches, carriages and carts. See diagram.