Slindon

A beautiful, though showery, day on Saturday at the Apple Fair, Slindon.

At some places around the estate some of the fantastic Beech woodland survives. Most was destroyed by the 1987 storm.

The pumpkin mosaic.

Part of the woodland covers a Paleolithic raised beach. Hard to believe, but an area of sloping land was a sea cliff about half a million years ago. It has been excavated and there was plenty of evidence found of hominid activity, in the form of worked flints. A quick search revealed several examples of scrapers, knives and two cores. These are the remains of a larger flint that has been repeatedly knapped to produce sharp slivers. Nothing really remarkable. Would love to find an arrow head or a hand axe one day.

A selection of our finds. The cores are in the bottom left-hand corner. The broken round flint in the top middle just looked nice.

Rosebay Willowherb seedheads.

Purple Toadflax.

Not too many birds about, but I did see several Buzzards, a group of House Martins, a Coal Tit and my first Redwing of the Autumn.

Most frustratingly, I briefly as I drove West I saw a pale Harrier from the A27, just before the Southwick tunnel. My snatched view was not enough to identify it, and I could find no record of a sighting in the area. One that got away.