FOOT STICKING - MAY

Honeysuckle beside golden elderberry leaf.

Here's a post where I place my feet somewhere and with at least one of them stuck firmly to the spot, look around to see what I can see. Mostly, I keep both feet 'stuck' but sometimes I wobble then I have to move one or I'll fall over. Once I did fall into a bush by trying to look behind it while keeping my feet in front of it. In some ways this is a meditative exercise. In others, an unconventional form of yoga. Either way, it's surprising what you can see if, for a moment, you stand still and refuse to move.

Today, when I plonked myself in front of a hedgerow, it was its leaves which caught my attention. There are flowers . . . but mostly we're in a kind of flower-lull. Being 'verdant' is currently the 'in' state to be. Or gold. This honeysuckle (above) with it's early reddish-ness is beside a golden elderberry bush. I've never known why some elderberry bushes have golden leaves when most are green. Is it a variety? Is it a deficiency? Is it a mis-identification?

And here's another puzzle; did a golden snail decide to sit on one of the golden leaves because it would be a good place to hide? or did whatever turned the leaves gold turn the snail gold too?

Hedgerow silhouettes have changed again. In winter they were a gathering of arches and spikes. Trees were like frost patterns. With spring they went frothy with blackthorn blossom, then blodgey with hawthorn, fringed with the floppiness of bluebells. Now they have filled out. At first sight they are a green mass, a unity. It's only when you peer in that you see how many plants go into the making of one blob. But the overall hedeginess is broken up here and there with spurts of honeysuckle between us and the sky and the stiffness of desiccated blackberries which somehow got stuck in time last autumn.

Blackthorn . . . I think I've mentioned before how it begins the year dramatically then fades into obscurity during the summer and comes out of hiding in the autumn when people search for its fruits - sloes. It's funny that. Apple trees grow apples. Pear trees grow pears. Raspberry canes grow raspberries - but blackberries grow on brambles and blackthorn bears sloes.

Underfoot, things are a bit . . . um . . . not very attractive. The alexanders have been mown down and all plants shaved to earth level. Now that cyclists rule the world, we pedestrians have to put up with views less interesting so cyclists won't suffer the inconvenience of driving over us when they come round corners.

A few years ago, it was very aggravating when the council shaved the bushes back as well. Since then, there have been flat sided elders and sheer walls of ivy. One gets used to it. Well, no. I haven't got used to it. Nature is not meant to be flat sided. Resigned may be a better description. No. That's not right. Morose. That's better. Brambles would like to take over the world. A certain amount of cutting back is necessary or we'll end up in a thorny mono-culture. And it is good to have a path to walk along . . . but all the same . . . Ah well, don't worry, green will return. It does.

Way high up - too high to photograph crisply -
honeysuckle buds are ready.

Some links.
Countryside Hedgerows: Protection and Management - the Government
Road Verges are a Refuge for Some of Our Rarest Plants - Plantlife
Plantlife's Campaign to Protect Wildflowers and Nature on Roadside Verges - Plantlife

If you too would  like to stick your foot somewhere and see what you can see - the link box for 'Stuck Foot Posts' will stay open till 7pm (UK time) on 25th May.

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LEAVING THE BOX A BIT LONGER

I understand the July Tree Following box has been hiding from some people. There seem to be a variety of reasons for this . . . browsers . . . internet security . . . the way mobile devices behave differently from PCs.

So I'm leaving it open for a bit longer. If you too have a tree following post but have not been able to find the box to put it in, leave a note with the link in the comments and I'll add it into the box for you before closing it.

I'm not sure the English is very elegant - but you get the gist. (?)

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HARLEQUINS

Those who do not live near ivy may not realise how poplar it is with insects. When it is in flower, you can hear them buzzing loudly as you approach.

In the last week, I have been taking pictures of ivy in various stages - buds, flowers, beginnings of berries. The weather has been variable so I've been going backwards and forwards, trying out different lights.

Sometimes, there were three insects per mini-firework display so my attention drifted to them . . . and from them to ladybirds in the leaves . . . and from ladybirds to realising there are Harlequins here - Harmonia axyridis.

Harlequin Ladybird -Harmonia axyridis

The good thing about these ladybirds is that they eat lots of aphids. That's why, in 1988, some were taken from Asia and introduced into the U.S.A..

The trouble is, these ladybirds have such a great appetite for aphids . . . they gobble up every single available one of them. Indigenous ladybirds begin to starve to death. Does this bother the Harlequins? No. They extend their diet to include the already declining species of local ladybirds . . . and lacewings . . . and butterflies . . . and hoverflies . . .

Their population is expanding. It is now the most widespread ladybird in North America and some species which used to be common in Canada are now rare.

Un-hatched Harlequin pupa

Bizarrely, despite this experience, Harlequins were introduced to mainland Europe as a device of pest control . . . and then they flew to the British Isles.

The empty skin of a hatched
Harlequin pupa. 

There is a lot of alarm about this (naturally!) so the UK Ladybird Survey has set up a special section for monitoring their spread here.

It's almost useless to explain what to look for because although the Harlequins I came across on the ivy look much like 'ordinary' ladybirds, they can come in a surprising number of guises. (Disguises!) The best thing (I suggest) for people in the UK to do is to submit photos of ANY ladybird to the UK Ladybird Survey. Not only will they be able to distinguish one species from another, it's as important to record the distribution and numbers of indigenous ladybirds as it is to make a map of Harlequin spread. The impact of Harlequins needs to  be monitored - and it's good to keep an eye on what's happening to our wildlife whether or not we have concerns about the activities of a particular predator.

Another empty skin of a hatched
Harlequin pupa.

There are charts and pictures on the UK Harlequin Survey site - these are worth consulting too. There's an interesting summary of information about Harlequins HERE - and information about studies of them in the London and Essex areas HERE.

But what about other insects on the ivy?

I went back to take photographs. The weather had cooled - was it this which meant there were fewer around - or was it that the sun was shining on the bushes and the insects preferred shade? . . . 

I don't know - but whatever the reason was, as soon as I decided to pay attention to insects, most of them vanished. But there was a Blowfly next to a Harlequin - 

And a Drone Fly. (Probably E. tenex).

And a moth. (Possibly a Nettle-Tap - Anthophila fabriciana).

The rest kept flying around, buzzing off, flitting away - if only they had been prepared to sit as still as this snail!

With thanks to members of iSpot for help with identifications.

SOME LINKS YOU MIGHT LIKE

UK Ladybird Survey

Pictures and Charts to help identify Harlequins

Harlequin Ladybird Survey

Record sightings of UK Ladybirds

Record sightings of Harlequins in the UK

History of Harlequin invasion - on this page there is information about how to send live ladybirds to the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University. The address for this has changed and specimens are no longer needed from certain areas. Details are on the right hand side of THIS page, the address to which ladybirds may now be sent is on the left.

To find out about the forty-three species of ladybird native to the UK. (Click the red names on the right hand side to see pictures.)

Using sexually transmitted disease to render Harlequin females sterile is being studied at Cambridge University but parasites are another form of control. You might like to take part in a parasite survey on the BBC Breathing Spaces site.

And . . . beyond ladybirds - here's a list of surveys UK residents can take part in with OPAL (Open Air Laboratories).

And . . . I know I'm always going on about iSpot . . . but it really is worth belonging to / contributing to if you live in the UK.

For readers in other parts of the world . . . there seem to be no parallel ways for people who live on mainland Europe to take part in surveys like these. It may be that there are some in North America . . . if there are, I'll add information here . . . or does anyone already know?

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P.S. You can follow Dr Helen Roy of the UK Ladybird Survey on Twitter.

HOME IS WHERE WE KNOW

When we set off for our exploration of England and Scotland, I'd imagined I'd come home with lots of photographs of plants.

I didn't.

It rained. My, did it rain! You know the myth about people who live in snow-filled worlds having an almost infinite supply of words to describe the consistencies of snow? I now wish I had words for rain. Never previously have I realised how many kinds of rain there are. Some are beautiful. Some are as hackneyed as buckets of water thrown into the set of a B movie. But through all the kinds of rain we travelled, never did I find one which would make friends with my camera.

There were other disincentives too. Telling the people one is travelling with (Esther Montgomery and her family) to stop posing for holiday snaps and get out of the way of a leaf - isn't friendly. Nor is expecting them to wait while you crawl through the undergrowth. But these are not the only reasons for my empty handedness. Nor are they the most interesting. For I have learnt the value and importance of familiarity.

August 8th 2011

This is one wonderful landscapes we found ourselves walking in while we were away - part of the Goyt Valley in Derbyshire.

Fortuneswell (Dorset) Portland Harbour, Chesil Beach and The Ridgeway.

This is what I am used to.

Standing where I stood to take this photo, I am close to the Young Offenders' Prison, the stone quarries and the Old Railway Line I described in THIS post. The great bank of pebbles stretching into the distance (Chesil Beach) is pictured in THIS one. Most of the hedgerows featured in this blog are straight ahead. I live in an especially plant-rich environment - but people who live in the hills and the moors would say the same of the land around their homes - for they know what they are looking for.

If it hadn't rained so much, I would have learnt what to see. As it is - I re-learned the value of 'home'. Context is crucial. Familiarity opens our eyes.

August 8th 2011

This is the tent we travelled with - set up on Cold Springs Farm, right next to the Goyt Valley (pictured above).

Here are the plants we came home to.

The ripened sloes.

Little yellow daisy flowers. (The blue dots are the remains of Vipers Bugloss, still not quite over.)

The seed of Alexanders. (Which, to my embarrassment, I used to think belonged to Ground Elder.)

Brambles and willow herbs.

Seaweeds.

Fossils which emerge from the rocks, almost as I watch.

And the sea, the sea, the wonderful sea. It's the Isle of Portland, straight ahead. (I was standing on the highest point you can see here when I took the second photo of this post. If I had still been there, and had binoculars, I could have waved to myself.)

I'll show you more from our adventures as the weeks go by. But first, I celebrate 'home'.

(All local photographs were taken today, September 17th 2011.)

Esther's posted about one of the places we visited while we were away - Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire - HERE.

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HEDGES, WALLS, WEBS AND HUMANS IN BLEAK AND DRIZZLEY WEATHER

Clearly, the season is turning. Some days, everything is crisp and warm and breezy. Other days, it's grey and drizzly and cold and webs in the bushes become sinister. For most of the time, they are almost invisible. Come the rain and it turns out the place is covered in them.

It's raining. Webs are full of drips.
Leaves are limp.
Haws are red.
Alexanders seeds are black.
(Not because of the rain.
Black is their colour.)
I could have brightened the image,
made it look as if the sun was shining
- but then you wouldn't see what
this bundle 
of bushes is really like
on a dull, autumn afternoon
- messy, wet and muddley.
It's not pretty!

It's a mixture and a muddle. Leaves darken and drop, berries brighten. Much dies. Other plants pop back for a final fling. Some flower unseasonably. I'm always excited by these. The seasons sometimes feel relentless. They, and the whole of nature with them, plod along the groove and there's nothing we can do except live through what comes. When a primrose rebels against autumn and waves a flag for spring by flowering in September - I salute it! When it whithers I grieve more for it than for the rest of its family when it drew back earlier in the year. 


But there are other plants which grab their chance to re-surge and, like bad memories, do their very best to stay through winter. New Buddleia is already on a fight-back, springing out of drains and bursting out of walls. If previous years are anything to go by, ground elder will soon march up to join the newly growing nasties. There's a silly song 'Old judges never die, they don't even fade away.'. I think it's by Instant Sunshine - someone will know (? ? ?). Nettles are old judges in the hedge rows. They grow threadbare and lean a little but stay. New nettles grow up round them. Little barristers.

In the photo (above) of the web smothered hedges, you'll see a window in the upper right hand corner. Humans (as well as spiders) live round here. How else would the hedge be there? And where am I? I'm on an old railway line which is now a path for pedestrians and a cycleway. (I've taken against cyclists. Pensioners on racing tanks too. I think The Council should take the names of pedestrians going onto the path and check them off at the other end to make sure they've survived!) Back to the point. That window in the corner decided me to make this a wall post as much as a hedgerow one. An 'oh look humans are here after all' sort of essay instead of pretending we are the only two-footers on Earth as I usually do.

So . . . here is a 'not a hedge'.

 I drew attention to the vegetation in this wall in a previous post and wondered whether it might fall because of it. A while after, the buddleia was cut away but plants know where they like to live - Aspleniums find it an especially congenial home. This wall is north-facing and right on a dull, lots-of-traffic road. If I were a gardener and this were my garden, I'd welcome them. (Until the wall fell down!)

Buddleia too!

Lichen likes a stone wall and will be here all winter (for ever!?).

On the old railway line itself, in front of a platform (in effect, a the foot of a wall) - this.

And on the opposite platform . . . what it one day will be?

Here is some other new life.

Cheerful weather!
September 22nd 2010

Disgusting if you look close. Some caterpillars are nice. These are not. En masse, they are horrid. Their nest is about four inches long and strongly built. If you want to see them, you'd better click the picture.

And here's how the seasons are muddled in with each other. The same nest, a few days later.

Winter seems closer when it rains!

BINDWEED AND SYCAMORE

Here's a walk from June 30th. 

If something in the distance takes my interest, I'm generally drawn forward to look closer . . . and closer . . . and closer. I expect it's the same for all of us. Added to that, one of the specially nice things about having a camera is that one can take a photo of leaves and seeds far too high to see otherwise but the detail is in the picture and can be zoomed in on at home.

People with tripods can use their cameras more like telescopes - but I don't have a tripod. Recently, when I phoned round the shops for advice about what camera to buy, one man told me I wouldn't be able to take photos of leaves without a tripod.

"I can," I said. "I do."

But he was strangely persistent.

"Not only will your photos be without detail, you won't be able to find the same plant again unless you leave the tripod in place, ready to come back to when you want to see how the plant has grown."

"I will," I said. "I do."


"You need a tripod," he said.


"I take photos of the undersides of leaves," I said. "And a tripod wouldn't fit under a mushroom."


I imagined buying a fleet of tripods and leaving one beside every interesting tree and plant in the area.  I imagined all the children in Dorset running round with my tripods or trying to sit on them.

"You'll also need to go on a course if you are to take pictures of leaves," he said. "There's a woman who runs classes in nature photography. She's very good. I think she's living in the North of Scotland now."

I live in the South of England; almost as far south in England as it is possible to go.

How excellent would I have to prove my photography to be before he'd consider me worthy to own a camera? If I went to his shop, would I have to take examples of my work, certificates of courses undertaken and passed before he'd let me near his shelves? Is there no room in the world for beginners?

I didn't buy anything from him - not even a tripod. If ever I find myself near his shop, I'll creep by it in silence in case he recognises my voice and chases me down the street shouting 

"Life cannot be sweet without a TRIPOD."

* * * * *

A few days ago, I went for a tripod-free walk.

(Don't think I'm anti-tripod. Don't be indignant if, one day, I buy one. But I won't wait idle in the meantime!)

Dying, yellowing Ground Elder dominated the sides of the path - and Convolvulus covered the hedges in bright, white splodges. I'm sad to see the Ground Elder go but the foliage will drop and we'll be left with magnificent seed heads topping lovely, solid, pink and green striped stems.

(I'll do a separate Ground Elder post soon.)

* * * * *

Loose and Leafy is, inadvertently, devoted to the unwanted and this post almost sums up its ethos. Gardeners are brave to come here. It must give them the heebie-jeebies to see Ground Elder praised. Which readers can see Bindweed without ripping it out? Blackberry will strangle a garden, straddle its acres and keep going till it reaches a road or the sea. (Not that a road will stop Blackberry bushes for long. Seeds!)

* * * * *

When a visiting relative saw a small sycamore tree in a pot, she said "You'll want to get rid of that!" Why? Because the woods are full of them and they spring up in gardens and get in the way? But look at the seeds! Most people in England, even in towns, know sycamores for the little helicopter seeds which spin down in autumn. And they enjoy throwing them up into the air to see them spin again. But how many people look up to notice the seeds as they ripen?


Having said that. I suspect this is a Maple. Near enough! When I go back, I'll see if any of the leaves are reachable so I can pluck one. My way of distinguishing between Sycamore and a Maple is that the sap of a Sycamore leaf stem is like most green, liquid sap whereas the sap of a Maple is milky. (But, always remember, this is an in-expert speaking. My system might be twaddle. If anyone knows - tell me!)

I WENT TO FROME ON SATURDAY

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Last year's Buddleia flowers

and this year's leaves.

I went to Frome on Saturday; along a little branch line which chumbles slowly between bushes and fields and is single track in places. There are even 'Request Stops' where the train will only come to a halt if you tell the guard in advance that you want to get off.

Rather grandly, the notice board on the platform said it would be going to Cardiff and the signs in the carriages were in Welsh as well as in English.

Dead leaves at the foot of a Holm Oak Trunk. You can go to Bristol on the same train too. Sometimes there's an announcement to say it will go to Gloucester instead.

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Dead Gorse.

New Gorse.

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One of the trees I am following. The slashed off branch

is still visible but catkins have arrived and the leaves are there. (Can anyone identify it yet?)

But whatever its destination - it never fails to be an adventure, going on this train. There's always a sense of 'something beyond' - a notion that, one day, one might simply stay in one's seat and leave it to chance where, and when, one might arrive. And, wherever it's going, it goes slow enough to make it worth while looking out of the window because everything stays there long enough to be looked at.

Much of the Ground Elder is taller than me now.

There are an awful lot of blasted oaks in the middles of fields on the way to Frome. You'd have thought they'd be in the way. And un-blasted ones too. There are little rivers and small hills - and a high ridge to look up to. And nearly all the fields are bright green squares bordered with the white blossom of blackthorn.

The Dandelions are like gold coins, dense along the verges. (Except gold coins don't tend to be lying around densely like this. Not round here. Wish they did!)

Not for much longer though. The further we went into Somerset, the tattier it got, browner, closer to the moment when petals will fall. It'll happen here too soon - and then we'll be into May. There's a white Hawthorn tree near my house which breaks into blossom first every year.

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And it's done it again!

Hawthorn in bud. (May.)

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And Hawthorn Blossom.

And, after the May . . . maybe last year will be gone. In the meantime, there's a lot of 2008 still around.

(Which is what, on the side, this post has been about.)

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