A short walk in London
Kensington Gardens
A royal park with a formal round pond and a long narrow lake curving north east through old trees.
Standing in the place, open the portal and a guide walks it with you, about 45 minutes, spoken aloud. The facts it rests on are here.
4 spots in walking order, about 45 minutes. 3 of them have something to ask this week.
Start at the round pond and work north east along the Long Water. The trees are the slow half of the walk.
Spot 1
The Round Pond's North Shore
The paved edge on the far side of the round pond from the palace.
Meet the goose that is not a goose at all
Look along the pond edge for a bird with a dark patch around its eye.
What is around its eye?
- A chestnut patch, like a mask
- An Egyptian goose. The pink legs are the second thing to check and they are hard to miss.
- A white cheek strap
- A Canada goose, black neck with a white strap under the chin. The commonest goose on this pond.
- Nothing, a plain head
- A greylag, most likely. Heavier, and the orange bill tells you more than the eye does.
- I could not find a goose on the grass
- They move between waters through the day, so one pond can be empty while another holds them.
The Egyptian goose is closer to a shelduck than to a goose. It came from Africa and settled here on its own.
This is a clue rather than a certain identification. Young birds carry a much fainter mask, so check the pink legs too.
The Egyptian goose was kept as an ornament on English estates for centuries and some of those birds walked away. It now breeds freely across the south east, often in a hole in an old tree rather than on the ground. Sacred in ancient Egypt, and a park bird here.
Common in London in these weeks, though not recorded at this exact spot.
Spot 2
The Old Sweet Chestnuts
The very old broad trees with bark that twists around the trunk, back from the Long Water.
Nothing to ask here this week. The question at this spot is about sweet chestnut, and it opens again in week 40 of the year.
Spot 3
The Hornbeams
The hornbeams near the Long Water, with fluted trunks that look like muscle under the bark.
Find the tree that hangs paper lanterns full of seed
Look up into the crown for hanging bunches of pale papery wings, each one split into three points.
What do the hanging clusters look like?
- Papery, three points to each one
- Hornbeam. Each papery wing carries one hard seed and turns as it comes down.
- Small hard cones
- Alder or birch rather than hornbeam. Both like wetter ground than hornbeam usually takes.
- Nothing hanging, leaves only
- Then look higher. Hornbeam holds its clusters well up, and the low branches often carry none.
- I could not find a tree with clusters
- Hornbeam does not seed heavily every year, so a lean tree can carry almost none.
The papery wing is not a leaf. Hornbeam grew a sail on each seed so the wind would take it clear of the parent.
This is a clue rather than a certain identification. Ash and maple make winged seeds too, but neither makes a three-pointed one.
Hornbeam wood is the hardest of any tree growing wild in Britain and it was once cut for cogs and mill wheels. The fluted trunk is normal for the species and not damage. Each three-pointed wing turns as it falls, which slows it enough for a gust to carry it clear.
Spot 4
The Horse Chestnut Line
The line of broad-leaved chestnuts near the fountains at the top of the Long Water.
Hold a fallen leaf to the light and find who lived inside
Take one leaf from the ground and hold it up with the sky behind it.
What does the brown look like with light behind it?
- Brown blotches all over, with pale outlines
- Each blotch is a room. A caterpillar the size of a grass seed ate the leaf from inside.
- Brown at the edges only
- That is usually thirst. A leaf dries from the rim inward, because the rim is furthest from the water.
- Green, no brown at all
- Worth a second look. A clean horse chestnut leaf in a London autumn is less ordinary than it sounds.
- I could not reach a leaf
- Horse chestnut holds its lowest branches high, so under the biggest trees the nearest leaf is already down.
A tiny moth lays on the leaf and its caterpillar eats the layer between the two skins. The tree drops early because of it.
This is a clue rather than a certain identification. A fungus makes brown blotches too, and drought browns the rim.
The moth was unknown to science until the nineteen eighties and reached Britain in two thousand and two. It spreads partly on the wind and partly on fallen leaves moved by people. The tree survives it year after year, and the conkers it drops are the same size as ever.
Rewyld asks you one of these where you already are. Open Rewyld
Where this comes from
- Place and spot coordinates from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL)
- Trees and wildlife from The Royal Parks, Kensington Gardens (Cited, not reproduced)
Each question was written to a naturalist review, and the ones that could not be stood behind at this site were cut rather than softened. Every question asks you to look, never to pick or to touch.