Rainfall over southern England - soft rain, persistant rain, enough to render the camera worthless for wildlife photography and to turn the attention towards the South Coast's historical human interest. This is, they say, where King Harold was shot through the eye by a Norman archer and the political landscape of England changed forever.



(The inscription, if it is difficult to read, runs the traditional site of the high altar of Battle Abbey, founded to commemorate the victory of Duke William on 14 October 1066. The high altar was placed to mark the spot where King Harold died.)

It is hard for me not to see all English historical dates overlaid with the fate with our now-missing wildlife. That October - 943 years ago, minus nine days - would have been coloured with the howls of the last wolves of south east England. They were here: historical records confirm that, but like the strength of the old English army, they have gone...and an ecologist must read their former struggles in the speed of the deer and the strength of the wild boar, in much the same way as historians look at the sharp hill of that famous battleground and wonder how the Norman army ever forced their way up the slopes to break the English shield wall.



But break it they did, and William the Conqueror was crowned king. He built Battle Abbey in the 11th century to show pentience for the death toll in the invasion.



Today it is partly in ruins; King Henry VIII disbanded it in the 16th century, but it remains highly imposing.



The crypt can only be seen as a depression in the ground.



But other parts of the Abbey are more fully preserved. This is the room where newly-recruited monks would have studied.



William the Conqueror was killed after being thrown from his horse in 1087, but at least he avoided the fate of his namesake William III, who died in 1702 from complications relating to injuries sustained when his horse tripped on a molehill ("the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat" as his enemies put it). I didn't see any moles today, but there was one unusual species present:



This is the chicken-of-the-woods, a large fungi!

And my trail cam has spent the last few days looking for wildlife in the woodlands. Here's a very brief clip of a badger and several shots of foxes.


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I'm now back home in the North Downs. But not for very long

The second half of my day in Kent was all about reptiles Outside of the hazelwood, the land dips sharply downwards in rolling rough, grassy downland very similar to that at home in Surrey, though Kent's hills are lower. Exposed sunny sites attract animals that need to sunbathe to raise their internal body temperature.

This particular area is reasonably good for adders, but they were hiding themselves I did see a couple of common lizards, but they were too quick for the camera! These, however, were not!



It's a slow worm, of course - a legless lizard, often mistaken for a snake but a very different creature. It's completely harmless, except to slugs. Unlike a snake, it has eyelids, and so can blink They're not large animals, usually around a foot in length. They're very vulnerable to cat predation, which is probably why their numbers are so ridiculously low in my own area

The female is quite ornate with stripes and pretty patterns



The male is much blander.



And this is a juvenile, probably from last year. The females are giving birth about now; they produce live young, rather than eggs.



While the slow worms were getting used to all the attention...



...a few pretty butterflies were darting about, but most didn't want to be photographed This is a common blue.


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Finally, to change the subject back to Surrey, here's a photo I took last week down a local lane Terrible light, as always, but I thought it showed up the typical facial differences between vixens and dogfoxes quite well. The fox sitting up is likely a vixen: she has a sharpish, V-shaped head. The fox lying down has a W-shaped head, and is almost certainly a dogfox.