Berkshire: River Loddon & the Loddon Lily

30 April 2013                                             OS 175: Reading & Windsor

Length: half day.

 
This walk was essentially all about the rare Loddon Lily Leucojum aestivum, which is either native or long-established here along the Loddon and to a lesser extent by the Thames, although it occurs elsewhere casually as a recent garden escape.
 
We started at the car-park of Dinton Pastures Country Park just east of Reading SU785717 (just £2-40 all day).  The park was busy with dog-walkers, joggers and groups of walkers of all kinds.  With it being a sunny spring day after a long winter, flowers, bee-flies and butterflies (most of the spring species including holly blue) were out in quantity.

Comma on its food-plant

 We took the path west along the south side of the park, heading straight for the River Loddon, which forms its western boundary.  We passed some indigenous wood-carvings of a bird and snail.

Bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta were just out - our first of the year; lesser celandine Ficaria verna, garlic mustard Alliaria petiolata, greater stitchwort Stellaria holostea.  Many trees and shrubs were flowering: blackthorn Prunus spinosa, Norway maple Acer platanoides, field maple Acer campestris, ash Fraxinus excelsior, wild cherry Prunus avium.
 

Norway maple flowers & lichen Xanthoria parietina

Ash flowers

 
By the streams, lakes and pools (these are former gravel workings) great pond sedge Carex riparia and hemlock water dropwort Oenanthe crocata were common.  At the first lake, ducks and geese congregated around the interpretation board where there was obviously regularly feeding.  They were largely mallard, Canada geese, Egyptian geese, coot, mute swans, herring gulls, tufted duck, a few gadwall, great crested grebe and a possible melanistic mallard.
 

Egyptian goose and mallard

Gadwall quacking

Melanistic mallard?

Freshly-opened cuckoo-pint Arum maculatum posed for a picture and could not be refused.

 

When we reached the river, we first saw ramsons Allium ursinum on the banks, the flowers still in bud, wrapped in a white cowl, but soon afterwards we began seeing clumps of Loddon lily and these were at a perfect stage in their flowering season.  We saw these scattered the whole length of the river on both sides between the southern and northern boundaries of the Country Park.  Reminiscent of snowdrop with the green spot on their petals, most spikes had 2 or 3 bell-shaped flowers which hung their heads demurely.  The rare flower that happened to be gazing upwards revealed the striking orange anthers inside which normally remain unseen.
 

 

Close-up of Loddon lily showing orange anthers

 
We explored the east bank and then crossed the river by the bridge at the south end of the park to follow the west bank north.  Where mud had been dredged from the river there were bleached remains of the River Snail Viviparus viviparus, restricted to major rivers like this and the Thames, and Swollen River-mussel Unio tumidus.  Deep in the stream could be seen the large submerged leaves of fringed water-lily Nymphoides peltata.

          After diverging from the river round a large field, we followed a path through an equally large marsh.  It was fortunate that the path was concreted here because the water was very high in the centre, coming over our feet, and it would otherwise have been difficult getting through.  It led to a rather decrepit wood (Sandford Mill Copse?) with some old trees that looked as though it had seen better times, but by going right at the entrance through fallen wood debris we came across a swamp with thousands of Loddon lilies crowded around, the largest colony we found (see picture).

 

 
Although neglected and with some rubbish, this copse also contained wood anemone Anemone nemorosa, primrose Primula vulgaris and moschatel Adoxa moschatellina.  Some of the latter had distorted stalks and the silvery spore-capsules (sori) of the fungus Puccinia adoxae.

Wood anemone and primrose

Moschatel

 
Old willows had the common bracket fungi Willow Bracket Phellinus igniarius and Blushing Bracket Daedaleopsis confragosa.

Willow bracket

Blushing bracket

 
At the top of the wood (having found the right route among the meandering paths) we were confronted by the apparent wreck of an aeroplane!

Having found a way around to the other side we discovered the Berkshire Museum of Aviation.  There were a couple of outside exhibits and much other stuff inside a hanger, but it was currently closed.  Just inside the fence by the entrance were the dead seed-stalks of tower mustard Arabis turrita, reportedly transferred here when land nearby where it grew was landscaped for the museum car park.  On a barish grassy bank opposite the entrance grew early forgetmenot Myosotis ramosissima, cornsalad Valerianella sp, thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana, common whitlow-grass Erophila varna, parsley-piert Aphanes arvensis, field woodrush Luzula campestris and leaves of tansy Tanacetum vulgare. 

 

Early forgetmenot

Nearby were garden yellow archangel Lamiastrum galeobdolon montanum, garden grape hyacinth Muscari armeniacum, honesty Lunaria annua, purple and white forms together, and curly leaves of crow garlic Allium vineale.

Honesty in purple and white forms

The museum has access to the lane from Reading to Sandford Mill, which we took past the latter, where a dell below the road as it passes over the Loddon had more Loddon lily, ramsons and marsh marigold Caltha palustris.  The bridge itself supported hartstongue Phyllitis scolopendrium and common mosses, while shiny cranesbill Geranium lucidum was common in the verges. 

Mosses on bridge, Bryum capillare (green capsules) & Tortula muralis

 

Shining cranesbill

 

Just over the second bridge a path goes left along the east bank of the river again.  (Another path across the road re-enters Dinton Pastures just where there is a large bush of wild plum Prunus domesticus in full flower, with the leaves unlike blackthorn.)

Wild plum

 Back beside the river we saw alder-fly emerging and passed the corpse of a common shrew (these creatures always seem to die in mid-path).  From a bird-hide we could see across another of the gravel-extraction lakes where there was a narrow island adopted by a group of cormorants.  Other birds were great crested grebe, lesser black-backed, black-headed and herring gulls, Arctic terns, and moorhens.  A fox was scouting the far bank, perhaps looking for accessible nests to raid.  Frequent along the well-vegetated banks were the clambering vines of hop Humulus lupulus. 

River Loddon

At Whistley Mill a heron was fishing beside the wide old mill-pool. 

Heron at Whistley Mill

 

The riverside path ends here and we had to divert westwards and then north along a wide track through more lakes reserved for angling clubs and protected by high fences, spoiling the experience for walkers.  Goldilocks buttercup Ranunculus auricomus was frequent on the pathside, and occasionally water chickweed Myosoton aquaticum. 

Goldilocks buttercup

 After passing underneath the main Paddington railway we were in Berks Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust's Loddon Reserve, with much planted western balsam poplar Populus trichocarpa with fresh bright green leaves and red currant Ribes rubrum.  One path rejoins the Loddon, where the banks were full of comfrey Symphytum sp not yet in flower.  In wet hollows was more Loddon lily and marsh marigold.

         The path eventually leads to the road on the west edge of Twyford, where we found a café for a snack.  Alongside the main road, between the pavement and a cottage wall were a few plants of early scurvy-grass Cochlearia danica.

Early scurvy-grass in Twyford

 This walk could easily be foreshortened by returning through Dinton Pastures after Sandford Mill (past the wild plum) without missing much of consequence and having seen the best the Loddon lily could offer.  By the car-park is a café that might then be useful.

         We afterwards drove to the pleasant old town of Wallingford and walked up the west bank of the Thames north to opposite Preston Crowmarsh, a place where Loddon lily has also been recorded, but we only found two well-separated plants and the banks were too built-up and bare to provide suitable marshy habitat.  However, we did find flattened meadow-grass Poa compressa and Mexican fleabane Erigeron karvinskianus growing on Wallingford bridge and saw mistle thrushes feeding in the grassy parkland beneath the bridge, while beside the street from the bridge into town was rue-leaved saxifrage Saxifraga tridactyla.