{"id":7472,"date":"2020-10-12T19:26:06","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T19:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/?p=7472"},"modified":"2020-10-12T20:47:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T20:47:16","slug":"quick-get-out-to-aston-rowant-before-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/12\/quick-get-out-to-aston-rowant-before-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick! Get out to Aston Rowant before Lockdown!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Volunteers (not me this time) cutting and burning scrub that was invading the Chalk Grassland at Aston Rowant. They made a lovely snipping and clipping noise, very gentle, with a background crackle of burning, as the smell of woodsmoke floated across the reserve.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ravens, several in aerobatic pairs, wheeled overhead, as did a Buzzard and quite a few Red Kites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Witches Broom Hornbeam tree – the brooms are not Mistletoe but shock growths of the tree itself, caused by a bacterium, fungus, or virus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bryony Fruits and handsomely spiralling stems of this climbing plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Chalk Grassland is perfect for a picnic – smooth and dry to sit on, and there’s usually a lovely view. Ideally comfortable – unless you sit on a low-growing Sit-Upon Thistle! <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Bullfinch wheezed its odd “Deu” call from a hawthorn bush as we had our picnic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The local Sheep have made a comfortable hollow to keep out of the wind while they’re lying down to digest a bellyful of grass (and why shouldn’t they, it must be tough). The result is a neat geological section through the thin soil, called a Rendzina, down to the solid white Chalk only a few inches beneath the turf. The topmost layer of soil is relatively rich in humus (organic matter); then it turns into a mixture of eroded chalk bits and poorer soil; and then it’s Chalk. The soil successively deepens as it goes down the valley, becoming a richer Brown Earth at the bottom; the chain of soils from thinnest, driest Rendzina at the top to thickest, moistest Brown Earth at the bottom is called a Catena (Latin for chain).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sulphur Tuft in attractive “troops” all over and around a mossy tree-trunk, which it is helping to decompose<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The “Egg” of the Stinkhorn fungus, which rejoices under the name Phallus impudicus (“The Rude Phallus”) – the gelatinous “Egg” turns into a long roughly cylindrical, er, stalk, with a brown, wrinkled, stinking, bell-shaped, er, top which crumbles into masses of spores; flies, attracted by the stink, come and disperse the spores. As they say, there are lots of ways to make a living …<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ravens, several in aerobatic pairs, wheeled overhead, as did a Buzzard and quite a few Red Kites. A Bullfinch wheezed its odd “Deu” call from a hawthorn bush as we had our picnic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[136,1597,706,12,1596,751,681,142,1595,1392,1144,1593],"class_list":["post-7472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-history","tag-aston-rowant","tag-bryony","tag-bullfinch","tag-buzzard","tag-catena","tag-raven","tag-red-kite","tag-rendzina","tag-stinkhorn","tag-sulphur-tuft","tag-volunteers","tag-wild-privet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7472"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7490,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7472\/revisions\/7490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obsessedbynature.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}