Mystery plant

These "mystery plant" plant pictures will probably be popping up more and more often as the year progresses. The wildlife survey by KWT last year identified about 150 species, and that was from one guy (Fred Booth) visiting a dozen or so times across the year.

What caught my eye about this one was simply that it was flowering in middle of January (well, 8th Jan). The rest of the plant, best described as a lightweight bush, was just brown twigs. Any ideas?

What we found on the Litter Pick

Our recent litter pick was very impressive. Many, many thanks to all of you who came along. In less than a couple of hours, we collected eight sacks of rubbish from the eastern end of the Downs, including a few surprises like an arrow (!), a chunk of kitchen sink, a ping pong bat, and a very unattractive pair of Y-fronts. The mind boggles!

I think my least favourite bits of rubbish are crisp bags (which seem to be indestructible) and plastic vending machine cups, which split into dozens of white plastic sticks which then go everywhere.

---

Mystery Gull

Shortly after we arrived at the car park at the end of Reculver Drive, we were befriended by a very people-friendly young gull. It turned out that this youngster is regularly on the scrounge, and has trained a number of people to turn up and feed it each morning! If you have any idea what species this is, please let us know in the comments section below.

---

MYSTERY PLANTS

One of the good things about litter-picking is that your attention is focused on the ground, so you see things that would otherwise go unnoticed. Here's a couple of rather lovely plants that I spotted, and I have no idea what they are.

If any of you green-fingered botanical types can enlighten us, fill in the comments bit below.​​

Mystery Plant 1​

​Mystery Plant 2