WALKING BACK FROM THE CASTLE

Fish, Gold and Black, swimming among the Elodea crispa plants
in the pond in Sandsfoot Castle Park in Dorset, England.
Thanks to Mark and Gaz at Alternative Eden for water plant ID.
January 11th 2013

When the Castle was done up a bit last year
(and made safe to go inside)
 mats with grass on were laid along the tops of the ruins.
I don't know why. (They're falling off now.)
January 11th 2013

You know the castle in the view? The view we're following? Soon I'll show you round. First, though, I'll set up the year. Not that I've got a good record on this. I say I'll do things then never get round to them. That, or they go wrong. I decide to see what will grow in a particular patch of ground - and the council mows it. I decide to photograph the leaves of a particular tree - and forget all about them until they've not only opened but have dropped off in the autumn. Nevertheless, there are some things which are fairly well embedded in my ordinary Loose and Leafy routine. It's reassuring when we get to January to find the world is still going round much the same - at least, bits of it are! You can't stop the seasons.

Geese on the water. Portland Harbour January 11th 2013.

There's a good account of brent geese on the RSPB site.

For close up drawing to help with ID, plus more info.

So, imagine you are in the grounds of the castle-in-the-view. You've looked at the fish and the weed in the pond. Now you go into the castle itself (it's very small, what remains of it) and walk through it to a little platform overhanging the rocks to see what you can see. There's a lot of noise. A flock of geese (brent geese?) is landing on the water. They set off together for a very quick paddle - you can see where the water is left disturbed in their wake. The herring gulls on the rocks ignore them.

Dessicated blackberries.

January 11th 2013

Then you potter along a bit to look at the elderberry clump we've been following.  The remains of dessicated blackberries still stick out from it over the path. For much of the year, these trees are little more than climbing frames for brambles and ivy.

January 11th 2013
For all that it's a bit odd to recommend a video
about something quite this static,
if you haven't seen the Natural History Museum clip about
lichens as pollution indicators,
click HERE for Xanthoria parietina The Movie!
(And more .)

The lichen on it is a brash and ghastly orange. When it's densely packed like this . . . I'm not sure it's entirely pleasant.

Common Orange Lichen - well named! But it changes its shades; yellow one way and green the other. Sometimes it's very green - but not today; which is surprising because I've always associated the green with damp weather (and there's been almost nothing but recently!)

Xanthoria parietina is an indicator of nitrogen in the atmosphere too. Near the sea, as this is, nitrogen is to be expected. (Sea birds contribute a lot!)

Common Orange Lichen
(Xanthoria parietina)
January 11th 2013

The first picture shows its real colour on January 11th 2013. This is the same photo with the colours changed a bit to emphasise their gradations. (So you notice the bits which are a bit greener. Sometimes, they are greener still.)

Elderberry.
January 11th 2013

The elderberry leaf shoot we've been following for more than a year (!) and which did hardly anything last summer . . . .  There's a new leaf where the old one was. It's got a sort of head-start in height this time round. Maybe it will one day become a branch? This appears to be a long term project!

Ivy Berries
January 11th 2013

The year before last, I followed ivy until its berries ripened but never showed you what happened when they opened and dropped their seeds - so we'll take up with ivy roughly where we stopped off before. For all that it's a common plant, its flowers, berries - even the shapes of its leaves - go much un-noticed. I suspect its seeds are even more of a mystery. (See the post for December 3rd 2011 -  Exploding Ivy and for January 13th 2012 - The Berries Mature.)

Cock's Foot Grass (Dactylis glomerata) January 11th 2013

Grasses - I'm thinking it might be a good idea to make more of a fuss of grasses this year. Grass isn't just grass it's . . . well, here's some flowering already.

And the view.

The view we're following - with Sandsfoot Castle and tree.
January 11th 2013

I'm a little fed up with this view. It never does much except sit there and be beautiful. And I daren't go back to the dent where the willows are to look at the rocks because the cliffs have been so washed by rain recently I'm worried they'll slip down and squash anyone who goes too close.

So I'll pretend I've been back, even though I haven't, and put in a picture I took there before . . .

December 18th 2013

Shells emerging from one of the rocks in the dent. Prehistoric cockles? (Anyone know?)

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January 11th 2013

Some tree followers have been rounding up their year with final posts about their particular tree. I'll soon do a round up of the round ups. Have you finished with your tree or will you be carrying on? Has it been interesting? Will you be choosing a new one?

This, as you can see, is the one in the foreground of my view. I'll be specially aware of it over the next few months because, by summer, it will be obscuring what's beyond - and, by then, the brent geese will have gone.

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Best wishes for 2013

I hope your year has got off to a good start.

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OF COURSE GEESE HAVE TEETH

The sea can be a pain. It's all connected to the moon. Sometimes, the tide goes so far out, I wonder if a Tsunami might be imminent. In 1824, the village of Fleet, a little further west but still well within Dorset, was swept away by a tidal wave - so it's not impossible; unlikely, perhaps - but it comes into one's mind. At others, the sea hardly goes anywhere, just potters around on the rocks.

This very tiny yellow snail
(less than a centimeter)
is, I think, a
Flat Periwinkle (Littorina obtusata)

I'd been pottering around on the rocks with it - looking at seaweed and snails and wanting to take a picture of Sandsfoot Castle from the shore. There's a new little balcony where you can stand and look out to sea in a romantic sort of way, pretend you are a mediaeval princess (for all that it was built in the 1530s) or Juliet transferred from Italy to Dorset and on the look out for an aquatic Romeo. Visitors like to stand there. (I like to stand there!) It's very nice for them - but it sort of spoils the look of the castle. (And I'm reluctant to take pictures of people without their permission.)

So . . . I'm sitting on a rock, waiting for them to leave, when I notice a dead Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) between me and the not-very-far out water's edge. What a photo op.!

It had not been there long. There was no smell, no decay. Indeed, I couldn't tell how it had died. There was a little dot of damage beside its nostril - otherwise, it was intact and the tail feathers and the feathers on the land side were dry.

I've not noticed Canada Geese along this stretch before. That doesn't mean they are never there. Of course not. But it was a surprise. If it had been a Brent Goose, it would have been interesting in a different way - they are gone in the summer so it would have been a sign of seasonal change - but less puzzling. The issue of how it had died would still have been a challenge. It was as if it had dropped out of the sky, or settled to rest for a few moments and had never managed to leave. Even the tiny, slightly bloody (freshly bloody) little wound might have been made on the spot by a flying stone, chucked out of the water by the sea as it retreated. Not enormously likely to have killed it but I was stuck for an explanation. And it wasn't that big. And the feathers weren't tatty. I don't think it was old.

Canada Geese are not popular. They were imported from North America in 1665 because they look good, settled in, bred, and have become a bit too numerous for comfort. They specially like ponds and lakes in towns and villages (not so much rocky seashores though they do eat seaweed as well as pond weed). They live in flocks and a flock of fifty birds can produce two and a half tons of excrement in a year. No wonder they aren't always welcome on village greens!

A digression. (Except it isn't really.) Two questions. Have you ever seen elephant teeth? How would you define teeth?

I first came across elephant teeth in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and was fascinated by the patterns and grooves in them. Elephants, being vegetarian, need to grind up the leaves they eat. Specially interesting (to me) was that elephants are born with a life-long supply of teeth already intact. At first, they don't use the back ones. As the front ones wear down, the back ones gradually move forward to replace them. When they run out of teeth they can no longer eat - so they die.

That's one question. Here's the other.

What are teeth? To me, they are bony bits in our mouths which we use for biting and grinding and chewing. Usually, they are inside the mouth but if you think of crocodiles, we know they can also stick out of the mouth so they can be used for tearing. Until I met this goose close up, I would not have included gums in my definition. Yet looking at this one's beak, it clearly has what I would describe as teeth (called lamellae) - hard, pointy things and grooved grindy things with patterns on (just as elephants have patterns) which they use for snapping off and tearing up the weeds and grasses they eat. They also work as sieves when they are feeding on plants in water. All they are missing are gums. If I had hard lips, I don't suppose I'd mind having my teeth sticking out from them as long as I had a tongue capable of helping me to transfer the food to my throat and good enough muscles in my neck to mean I could swallow it. Which means, in my mind, that, whatever the convention is about birds in general - geese have teeth. Well, this one does!

* * *

Some references.

A picture of elephant teeth (scroll down the page) on the Elephant Facts site.

How to Identify an Elephant's Tooth on the Natural History Museum Site

Eleaid - Elephant Teeth

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Below are some Canada Geese links. You won't want to look at all of them - and, believe it or not, this is a (roughly) random selection. I put the list here because it gives a snapshot idea of how widely found these birds are - and some of the sites are worth knowing about in themselves because they have information about other birds and animals too.

I'm always interested in how sites present their material. There's a great variety here. And it's interesting  (and frustrating) how different sites filter information. Each tends to have a snippet that can't necessarily be found on others - so you only begin to get a picture by plowing around.

Another frustrating thing is that I can't re-find my favourite site. It was made by a student in the U.S.A. as part of her course work. When I find it again, I'll give it a special place in the list.

Geese have teeth? - Picture of Canada Goose with open mouth - on the Natural History Museum site

Canada Geese info. RSPB site (You can even hear what they sound like except they sound better in real life! This makes them sound as if they are woofing. It gives a bit of an idea though.)

Canada Geese in Illinois - which may sound odd given that this goose died in Dorset - it is interesting though - on the Living With Wildlife in Illinois site.

Canada Geese on Animal Diversity Site for University of Michigan

Canada Geese on Citizens for the Protection of Wildlife site

Canada Geese on Critter Catalogue (Detroit!)

Canada Geese on BBC Science and Nature Site

A bit about Canada Geese migration (in North America) at Waterfowl Hunting HQ!!!!!!!!!!

There are an awful lot of them - video of migrating Canada geese - shows why you might not like them to land near where you live!

P.S.

I'm an idiot.

There are some tree following posts

ready on other blogs for you to read.

My eyes are going bleary for having looked at the screen for so long.

I'm off to make a cup of tea.

I'll make a big deal of these posts later!

Meanwhile - if you haven't let me know of your latest tree following post -

do.

Here's your chance.

(And I'll make a fuss of your blog too!)

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