18 December 



The last mid-week excursion of the year was on 18'^ December, when Gordon Crutchfield led 8 

 members on a walk which started from the Black Horse at Checkendon. The route followed 

 footpaths through woods and fields to the village church, then turned westwards to cross the 

 grounds of Checkendon Court. A line of large fungi in the short parkland turf were probably Field 

 Blewits, but their decaying state made identification difficult. At the end of the park, another 

 footpath turned northwards into woodland. A fallen beech log had 2 different kinds of bracket fungi. 

 Silver-leaf (notorious for damaging plum trees) and Bjerkandera adusta. After a short stretch along 

 a quiet lane, the next footpath turned into the woods of Braziers Common. Pale leaves on the 

 ground came from Whitebeam trees, which favour chalky soils. Some of the hazel coppice stools 

 were very large and old. A conifer log had the orange specks of the fungus Dacrymyces stillatus. 

 At the bottom of a steep stretch of path was a hazel which proved, on closer inspection, to be 

 covered by a number of different fungi. Stereum rugosum had pale tan-coloured flakes which 

 stained red when scraped. Hypoxylon fuscum formed small black lumps along a branch. The route 

 back passed a massive ancient oak tree in the farm yard at Scot's Farm. Most of the party then 

 enjoyed lunch at the Black Horse, where there was a welcoming log fire and good beer. 



Thanks go to Jan Haseler for the reports and to all the leaders for an excellent selection of walks 

 and pubs. 



INDOOR MEETINGS 2012 

 Ricki Bull 



3 January - Gilbert White - the man who started us all bird-watching by John Eyre 

 (chairman of the Hampshire Ornithological Society) 



The title of this talk was a statement by John Fisher and is probably true. Gilbert White was an 18th 

 century curate, born in Selborne Hampshire in 1720 in a house which has been preserved and is 

 now called the Gilbert White House. White studied and graduated at Oriel College, Oxford. He 

 lived in Selborne most of his life and did not travel very far as he suffered sickness when travelling 

 by coach. He visited London, the South coast and Rutland on horseback. White studied the flora 

 and fauna of Selborne in detail and wrote down everything he saw. In later years he wrote about 

 his observations to his friends Pennant ('Letters to Pennant', 1767-1780) and Barrington ('Letters 

 to Barrington', 1769-1787). In 1789 he published his famous book, 'The Natural History of 

 Selborne', which was based on the letters to Pennant and Barrington. White had also written the 

 'Garden Kalendar' (1751-1773), which was a record of the crops etc. he was growing in his garden 

 and the 'Flora Selborniensis' (1766-1767), in which he started to use the Latin names of plants. 

 There is only one known drawing of White and he was apparently rather short of stature. 



White was especially interested in birds and other animals that were only around in certain 

 seasons, so he did not record much on robins and blackbirds, which were there all year round. In 

 his time not much was known about migration and it was thought that the birds that disappeared 

 in the winter were hibernating, e.g. swallows were thought to go to the bottom of a pond. White 

 himself thought that migration was more likely, but when he saw martins at the end of October, he 

 wrote to Pennant that these birds would probably hibernate as it was too late in the season to 

 migrate. 



White made great contributions towards the knowledge of birds, e.g. about nightjars, cuckoos and 

 ring ouzels, which were all still common in Selborne at the time. He also sorted out the differences 

 among the three Phylloscopus warblers; the willow warbler, chiffchaff and wood warbler, on the 

 basis of their song, colours of their legs and differences in plumage. Moreover, he was the first 

 person to describe the lesser whitethroat. He also wrote notes about how common the various 

 birds were in his area, although he did not give any numbers. The raven was common and so were 

 woodlark, redstart, song thrush and grey partridge. White did not record any Dartford warblers, 

 probably because there was a mini Ice Age at the time and Dartford warblers do not survive harsh 

 winters (in the last cold winters 95% of them died). White also recorded the weather, so that we 



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