IT'S WINTER HERE

I've nearly gone. There was to be another book review before the sleep-tight round up but I decided if I couldn't say anything nice about it, it would be pointless even to mention. So now I need the wind to calm and the sun to come out so I can trot around with my camera to say a temporary 'Goodbye' to the plants and trees and streets which form the subject matter for this blog.

But I can't let you miss today.

This was here at mid-day. It's not a sea to swim in, to paddle in or to surf in. It's a sea to die in. You go too close at your peril.

This man is not as close as he seems. Chesil Beach goes down in steps so although it looks as though he is standing at the edge of the surf, he isn't. The sea is below him - which may give you an idea of the size of these waves.

There were lots of people. By 'lots' I suppose at any one time there were a dozen. But they were coming and going - and virtually every one of them with a camera. I have not done justice to this sea - but the air was dense with salt and spray. It was reckless. Cameras don't like salt and spray. But I wasn't the only one who couldn't resist it. (Camera menders may be in for a bonanza!)

Incidentally, the black blodge on the waves is a huge mat of seaweed.

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YOU'VE GOT TO SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT

Note the path. Important.
(The white line along the top of Chesil Beach is spray from the sea low down on the other side.)
This photo was taken March 1st 2015.

If you look into the sun you won't see anything. And if it's a hazy day and you look behind you, you won't see your shadow. And if the sun is in an inconvenient place - you won't be able to move it.

Such is life.

The path! See the path?
This is how it was on May 6th 2014

BUT. If you don't know what something is like now you may fail to realise how much it has changed when you reach the future. By then, you'll either have forgotten what was or be so overwhelmed by the present that you won't care any more.

I'm not being philosophical. It's a fact.

Last year I showed what the foot of Chesil Beach is like when thrift is in flower. I was also able to show you the context, how there are plants on the landward side of this huge, huge, long, long mound of pebbles, even though they fade out as you walk up and up till you see the sea down, down, down on the other side.

It was sunny on Sunday. But it was hazy too. And spray from the sea was misting the air where Chesil Beach meets land at Portland.

March 1st 2015

So even though masses of people had come out walking in this suddenly pleasant weather, it wasn't a good day for photographs. Which is a bit of a daft thing to say beside a picture dominated by a deep blue sky. But that's because I was looking in the other direction when I took it - away from the sun. A good principle! And at considerable distance from the cold sea spray. Another good idea when carrying a camera!

BUT (the point of the first BUT) if you don't see it now, you won't be as surprised as you will be when the thrift is out in May.

June 1st 2014.

I found it hard to decide. Should I provide you with an exceptionally boring post . . . ? Or shall I show you what will happen . . . ?  I was going to go with boring - but by the time the time the flowers come out you may have forgotten what it's like now. So . . . here we are with a now, compared with a then, which by previous years' experience will be what it will be in a couple of months' time. Miracles!

Here's another miracle. It's cold. It's not summer. But looking straight into the sky - larks would you say? (They kept flying overhead - except they stopped when I pointed the camera into the air and came back when I pressed the 'end of video' button. Never mind. You can hear them. Promises of summer.)

(I don't know how YouTube works but when I listened to this the larks suddenly gave way to a woman explaining how to make Christmas cake - which was a bit abrupt and disconcerting. So beware of seasonal and contributor muddle!)

Then we turn round and cross the road. Portland Harbour (over the bank) is a great place for sailing and kite surfing. Here it is now.

The grass is a bit drier than it looks in this picture.
March 1st 2014

Here is the 'now' 

May 14th 2014

and here is the 'will be'.











Shall we make a date for May?

(All 'then' pictures are taken from the post 'Thrift on Chesil Beach' from June 2nd 2014.)

* * *

But first: The Tree Following Link box opens at 7am on 7th March and closes on the 14th. (UK time.) See you there!

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THE RAGBAG

November 24th 2014

As you know, I'm distracted and busy so proper posts are somewhat adrift. But . . . well, do you have photos which start off stacked and ready to use but which drift down like half-used balls of wool in a knitting bag?

I do!

So for this post I'll rescue a recent few and bung them here.

First is the section of Dorset cliff which begins at West Bay and runs east towards Portland. It's where Chesil Beach begins (or ends, depending on which direction you're coming from). (So for all that these soft and golden and fast eroding cliffs are beautiful and impressive, look at at their feet.) For a while it runs along like an ordinary beach slam up against the shore but gradually and extraordinarily it drifts off into the sea, first leaving gaps and pools then peeling away completely leaving the Fleet Lagoon between it and the land. And as it goes East, the lagoon widens and the beach rises till it becomes a looming pile of up to fifty feet running parallel with the continuing cliffs and fields till it launches off on its own for a couple of miles then is stopped short by the very different grey stone cliffs of Portland. (Apologies for long sentence.)

Here at the beginning, the pebbles are really gravel. But if you were to follow the beach along you'd find the pebbles get bigger and bigger so by the time you arrived at Portland you would find not only that your legs would hurt horribly but the pebbles would now be flattish and smooth and many colours - pink and brown and grey. Most of them would be about the size to rest comfortably on the curved palm of your hand.

I don't think it's possible to explain anything of what this is all like. You have to see Chesil Beach to make sense of - and even then it's pretty hard to grasp and even when I see it every day I never fail to find it extraordinary.

There are so many extraordinary things to wonder at; things which go beyond the merely geographical - like what is that man doing on top of the cliff?

He was there quite a while. Is he practising golf strokes? Is he? And, if so, why there? . . .

Now we'll flit to the New Forest in Hampshire. Whenever I mention the New Forest I need to make it clear this is a very old forest. (Developed from pre-existing woodland in 1079) And here is a very old tree beside the village of Fritham. And on the very old tree there is lichen. Indeed, the tree seems to be plastered in lichen . . . and moss . . . and I wish I had had time there to look at it properly while I was there. But I didn't. It was a 'Hang on can you wait a minute while I take a picture,' sort of moment. Snap. Snap. And we were away. Hurray for cameras that's what I say! In a sense I was able to bring the tree back home with me to look at it here.

December 17th 2014

November 1st 2014 - but fairly confident ragwort will be flowering there still in December.

And a third extraordinary. I don't know when autumn ends and winter begins. Whichever it is, it's not still summer. But some flowers flower and flower. And some flowers, like this Oxford Ragwort like to flower in extraordinary places. In Poole, Ragwort has taken a shine to the railway. This plant is growing through the zig-zag slats there to dissuade pedestrians on a level crossing from veering off down the tracks. And it hasn't noticed it's season is over. It's carrying the Ragwort banner, ploughing on well after its companions have died down.

Closer to home, out of an urban setting, nearly always there will be an Oxford Ragwort plant flowering in winter. Personality!

Ain't nature wonderful!

Related Posts

CHESIL BEACH

Nothing But Stones

Thrift on Chesil Beach

NEW FOREST

Redwood Trees in the New Forest

On My Other Blog - Message in a Milk Bottle

The same beginning but with Portland in the distance.

External Links

Chesil Beach on Wikipedia

Chesil Beach - lots of info. provided as advert by commercial company specialising in measuring underwater noise.

The New Forest on Wikipedia

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THRIFT ON CHESIL BEACH

Sea Beet  (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima) (I think!)
The white flowers beside it are Sea Campion. (Silene uniflora)

June 1st 2014

Let me first remind you of the context.

(We began this exploration in the last post - Nothing But Stones.)

A sea of stones between sea-and sea.

Where somehow, some plants grow.

Not many. And only on the lower levels. But they do grow.

This Sea Beet plant plant in the picture above is about two feet across.

The focus of this post though is Thrift (Armeria maritima).

Thrift - Ameria maritima. June 1st 2-14

In the foreground, Thrift. Further back - green patches where plants also grow. These in the picture are several feet across but some little islands of green are only twelve inches. Even in these small circles there are Thrift flowers in May.

For an idea of scale - the dots are people climbing to the top of the beach.

A sea of Thrift with the cliffs of Portland beyond. May 6th 2014

In the winter months of early 2014, this part of the world was specially storm tossed. Not only did great waves come over the top of the beach but tides came up higher than usual. The road that runs beside this part of Chesil Beach had to be closed from time to time because it was flooded.



The extraordinaryness of this is hard to explain if you've never been here. And if you have . . . it is probably even harder to understand. For when you see where the sea is meant to be, it is . . . well it's terribly hard to believe that it can have come so far over its usual bounds. But come it did - up and over from one side and in on the tide from the other. So, to my mind, it's not only extraordinary that Thrift can make a mat for itself (along with other sea plants . . . and the odd dandelion that gets in on the act) and grow among pebbles, it's astonishing that it can make such an incredible display where everything has been thoroughly salt-soaked and under water.

May 6th 2014

Here is an individual flower. For those of you who have not met Thrift in person - they look very much like chive flowers. They stand five or six inches high. Their leaves are a mat of spikes; barely distinguishable from mown or cropped grass.

May 12th 2014

This incredible flowering began in late April and has continued right through May.

Now we are at the beginning of June the great expanse of colour has gone, even though there are still many blooms.

Spent Thrift. June 1st 2014.
(Ignore the green furry thing on the left. That's something else.)

But even dying flowers are lovely. And soon there will be seeds.

These Thrift flowers were growing on the other side of the road - next to Portland Harbour.
The ground there is dry, hard earth rather than pebbles. May 14th 2014

Then, next year. It will all happen again. (Though 2014 has, I think, been a specially spectacular year.)

Notes.

Here is the RHS page about Thrift. The description there suggests Thrift will grow almost anywhere - but . . . does it?

If you look at the top left hand side of the picture with the cliffs of Portland, you'll see a cluster of white buildings. This video clip from February shows the sea coming over the beach where they are. (At the very beginning of the clip. After that it's beer barrels and things floating around in the flood.)

Our World Tuesday

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NOTHING BUT STONES

I am going to take you to a bleak and beautiful place. A place where nothing grows. A place of stones.

In this post you will see little else. A van on a road and, beyond it - stones.

You will see no plants in this post - only stones.

There are no insects - only stones.

These stones (or, rather, pebbles - because they are smooth and rounded and you won't hurt yourself if you fall) go on seemingly for ever - up and up, then for two miles one way (if you walked left out of picture) and around fifteen in the other.

You can change the seeming height in photographs. Often the flowers and insects I show you appear on your screen massively larger than they are in real life. It has to be like that - otherwise you wouldn't see them! But in this post, I have the opposite problem. There is no way I can express in pictures how high this bank of stones is, nor how it seems when you stand on top and see it curve into the mist of distance.

Where we are now - towards the eastern end, a couple of miles before they join land at Portland, the pebbles are oval and about three inches long. At the western end, where they join the mainland, they are like gravel. The sea, it seems, sifts them. And for much of its way, there is water on either side. Sea on the south. A lagoon called the Fleet on its other side which separates it from the coast of Dorset.

Almost at the top - and you begin to see the sea on the other side.

Photographs of Chesil Beach tend to show it from above - from the top of the Island of Portland - so you can see the sweep of it, the roofs of houses leading down to it. This gives it a Mediterranean feel. But when you are walking along the road beside it, along the two mile causeway between Weymouth and Portland, it feels very industrial. But it isn't. This is nature.

This is looking down to the sea from the top. Again, height is difficult to express.
The waves are a long way down.
They are not as high as they are sometimes but they are bigger than they look.
Between us and them there are huge ripples in the arrangement of pebbles.
They go down in stages so you have to go down and up and down and up
before you get to the sea - except its best not to get close.
The beach shelves. There's a strong undertow. Get in and you might not get out.
There may be fishermen with rods and long lines but
there are no swimmers!

Of course there are plants here, if only in its lower reaches; otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it on Loose and Leafy! But before we look at the dramatic flowering which happens each year in May I want you to grasp the context. Outside the towns of England, we are used to 'green and pleasant'. Even in towns there are trees. There are pebble beaches along some of our shores; dramatic cliffs too. But there's nothing like this - not on this scale. Which is why it's a World Heritage site.

Back to the causeway road. On the other side strong winds are
appreciated by kite surfers who race alongside it in Portland Harbour.

In the next post - I'll let you see the flowers!

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HERE COME THE FLOWERS

There are two easy ways to make a nature blog look especially attractive.

1. Take photos only on sunny days.

2. If you have to take them in a mist, adjust them to make the scene look more cheerful than it really was when you were there.

The disadvantage (apart from giving a wrong impression, a misleading record and, therefore, in effect, lying) is that, when the sun and summer eventually come, it is hardly of note. The seasons meld and can even seem pointless.

* * *

I don't want to labour the bleakness of The Hamm (the causeway between Weymouth and Dorset on the South Coast of England) but it hasn't quite hit clear days yet!

24th March 2011 - Cold and hazy!

When the sky blazes blue in the summer and the sea does too; when the wind drops on land and the heat rises; when the air shimmers and flotillas of white sailed training boats tag across the harbour; when the arcs above kite surfers are bright with colour . . . it all feels completely different.

Chesil Beach - 24/03/11

Even then, it's still a bit odd. It's still not easy to remember that, once you climb to the top of that overpowering and horrifically dull pile of pebbles (or look down on it from the heights of Portland) . . .if you do that, you will see that this is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Indeed, it is so special, it is a World Heritage Site. It's on the same United Nations list as the Pyramids in Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.A.; the Taj Mahal, Venice, the Dolomite Mountains and the Great Wall of China.

Looking towards Portland.
Sometimes surfers hanging onto the kites
skim along the surface of the sea
faster than the cars on the road.

But, on Thursday last week (March 24th 2011) it was cold and hazy. Mist thinned the view. The kites of the wind surfers were almost colourless. 

Spring was, none the less, springing underfoot - and the nice thing about taking photographs close up is that there's hardly any mist to look through - so the white of the haze disappears and the sun, which is filtering through eye-level glare (when standing) is all that's left between us and the flowers.

As you can see, there used to
be a railway here.
The sycamore tree we are 'following'
is on a bank in a cutting
about a mile behind us but
on the same line.

When the weather warms, when the sun comes out with more confidence - I'll climb that bank of pebbles (over on the right and stretching into the distance) and show you the view.