TREE FOLLOWING - MAY

Have you noticed how some trees are enthusiastically greening up while others are clinging obstinately to winter? It will be interesting to find out who has leaves and who doesn't. Magnolia people are likely to have flowers. Are there hawthorn blossoms where you live? How are the bluebells doing? And if bluebells don't live where you live - are there flowers under your trees?

I find the heat of summer hard - so I've been making the most of comfortable walking weather. This is a path near The Hardy Monument in Dorset. (Not Thomas Hardy the novelist but Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, famous for being Nelson's friend at the Battle of Trafalgar.) I'd just emerged from a short stretch of woodland where bluebells were getting ready to turn the earth blue. That was ok - but there was something extra special about the evening light out in the open and about the elegance of these more widely spaced trees. There was a rainbow between them too - a massive pillar of colour that turned out to be too shy to show up in the picture.

If you have become a Tree Follower in the last two months, I'd be glad if you were to check both you and your tree have arrived safely on the Loose and Leafy Tree Following Page. I'm pretty certain someone's details went missing while I was computer-less. If it was you - very many apologies.

The Link Box is now closed. All 44 links to May Tree Following Posts can be found by clicking here.

Link Boxes are kindly created by Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

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I'm Following a Tree.
Are you?

National Trust for Hardy Monument

Wikipedia for Hardy Monument

Wikipedia for Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy

Wikipedia for Battle of Trafalgar

Wikipedia for Thomas Hardy the Novelist - who also lived locally.

For more information about Tree Following, go to the Loose and Leafy Tree Following Page.

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MUD

Sometimes rocks are holey because they are softish.

As they wear through the years,

harder stones and fossils fall out. 

Sometimes it's the other way round.

There are some aspects of time and geography which fascinate and elude me. If I'm cold, I wouldn't walk a few hundred yards down the road looking for a better climate. Wherever we live, we take it for granted that the temperature in one street will be the same as the ones either side of it. But, if the temperature of every street is the same as the ones which runs parallel and near, how can some parts of the world be incredibly hot and others way below zero? I can see that a cloud might run out of rain - but can I catch the moment when water comes to the boil?

This rock holds different kinds of memories.
Some are shells but there are also
long things which might be . . .
might be the muddy casts of burrows
and root holes?

Some changes have gradations so slight, the difference between one and the next is imperceptible. There are others where things change from one state of being to another in single or multiple lurches. Some can be explained by chemistry or physics. Others not. What about accent? From left to right on a map, Devon, Dorset and Hampshire are in a row. They have no big-deal borders like rivers and mountain ranges - just road signs. But they have their own, distinct, accents and elements of dialect. How can that be?

With some rocks, it's not so much that they
contain stones but that they are themselves
made up of several kinds which means
different parts wear away in different ways.
Here, some are cracking and flaking.
Others are eroding more evenly.

And dinosaur footprints - I have no trouble understanding that mud, given time, can turn to rock (and vice versa). But how can a footprint in it stay undisturbed long enough for it to be set in stone for ever? Imagine being a dinosaur wandering across some mud and  yours being the last feet to walk there for millennia! Imagine how odd it would be to have such significance and not to know it! But how can it be that no-one ever goes there again? Or that winds, rains and tides don't blur or rub them away? It's eye-wide-opening, awe-inspiring stuff!

Dinosaur footprints have been found on Portland and on the Isle of White. I'm always hoping I might find one (or a few - can you imagine that!) where I walk. No such luck! The kind of pre-history I clamber over is made from shells and different kinds of rock which have folded and squashed and muddled together and which are constantly cracking and eroding to reveal new layers.
That a shell sinks into mud and stays there for ever; that, I can understand. But footprints?

If, in the future, people find human footprints,
maybe they will be as interested
in our various kinds of footwear
as I am in the different kinds of rocks.

Remember in the last post, I mentioned that a great groove had been dug in the path down to the sea and that it seemed to lead to a burrow? Well, the first dig seems to have set a trend. The route is getting more and more churned. Whether dogs are scrabbling for rats or what . . . I don't know . . . but there are little holes and pits all over the place and the step created by the rut has collapsed into an even steeper step. Rain and feet are taking their toll too. It looks as if someone's foot has gone right through the ground into a burrow below. Mud is oozing into the crack, filling and distorting it.

Our footprints will say something
about the routes we took.
Did we go up and down the same track
or did we go home a different way?

Someone, or some people, informally maintain the path. Somebody must bring secateurs when the brambles stick out too far. Sometimes it looks as if someone has scattered cindery stuff to keep the grip underfoot. I don't imagine the path will be abandoned . . . but, what if it is? What if it gets too slippy and too much of it collapses into burrows? Other paths nearby, paths which run parallel with the sea rather than down to it, have cracked and fallen away taking great chunks of mud and footprints with them.

The nice thing about being bewildered by time is that you can imagine almost anything happening. If a dinosaur pottered along and no-one went that way again - what if our path is abandoned and human footprints are preserved the same way? The earth is soft and flakey. I expect rain will slur everything to mush . . . but . . . what if it doesn't?

If our footprints are preserved, they may
 tell stories of how evenly we
balanced our weight, how different kinds
of footwear gave different grips.
They may indicate emotion
"Oh, help, I'm slipping!"

In England, there are probably few of us who have problems with the idea of evolution but I realise this blog is read by people across the world so it may be worth adding a post-script. When I say how extraordinary I find it that footprints can be left undisturbed for so long that they have time to get set in stone - I say this in the same way as I might look at a seed and wonder how on earth it could possibly turn into a tree. I say it in awe and with excitement, not in disbelief. If ever you get a chance to see the bendings-over, the scrolls and folds of rocks in the cliffs at Charmouth and Lulworth, you will easily see how old fossils and rocks can land up on top of newer ones - something that must be very puzzling to people digging from top down instead of seeing the earth in cross-section.

What's more, there must be a wonderful unwritten history of what people made of fossil deposits in the hundreds and hundreds of years before Darwin. Mary Anning sold fossils. She didn't discover them. What did people make of the skulls and teeth of the unknown creatures that have been falling out of these cliffs for as long as the sea has been beating against them? They didn't suddenly appear in the nineteenth century. By then (and by definition) they had been there an awful long time!

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Human footprints from pre-history on Formby Beach. Thanks to Tim at Notes of Nature for the link.
Extra link - February 11th 2013 - Landslide at Lyme Regis (Dorset) - 300 metres of cliff have fallen. If you look at the picture, you'll see some of the geological layers.

IT CAUGHT MY EYE AT THE BEGINNING OF AUGUST

Crocosmia (Montbretia) on a cliff beside Portland Harbour (Dorset)

I've just returned from a holiday in 36 degrees centigrade. (29 degrees in the shade.) When the plane touched down on our return to Dorset, it was greeted with a shower so brief we might have numbered the drops if we had bothered to stop to count. Instead, we breathed deep. Grass! We could smell grass instead of dust!

There's nothing wrong with dust - it's just that green grass is . . . is . . . a bit more refreshing than dust. There's nothing wrong with hibiscus. Indeed, it smells delicious. But where the air was hot and the ground dry, few plants flowered untended. The Gardens of Babylon are remembered after centuries. Gardens are special where there are no hedgerows.

Ragwort beside Portland Harbour (Dorset). See the bee?

On the bus from the airport into Bournemouth roadsides were bright with ragwort - all of it happily looking after itself. Beside the train track, buddleia bloomed on the hills. How would Babylon have compared?

Buddleia and ragwort clash. They are not one of nature's best combinations. But there they were. If I came from a place of heat and dust, I expect I'd sniff the air as I arrived and delight in it just as much for home is home is home.

However could they have missed this when they televised the Olympic sailing?

But I was not born in Dorset so the air, the plants, the light, the sea - they bowl me over as an incredible luxury still, even after twenty five years.

Being without my camera was a condition of my going - one I willingly accepted for there are ways of seeing and of being. So there are are no holiday photos - only coming home ones. And what a home to come home to!

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PATHS AND THINGS

Blackthorn blossom is far from covering
the bushes yet
but it's beginning to bulk up;
a few clusters now
rather than an occasional flower.

Writing this post has been something of a struggle. I'd decided to write about paths - paths for humans and paths created by animals (mostly by dogs, foxes and badgers round here). It gives a bit of context - something which, I think, is often missing on Loose and Leafy. From time to time I try to make up for this but doing so has challenges. For one thing, I am privileged to have access to such a rich and varied environment, the wider scene could easily nudge out the detail - and it's the style of this blog that I focus on small details. (Leaves - rather than trees; what one can find without moving a foot.) Another challenge is that, because this is the internet, I prefer to be hazy about some locations. I say 'some' because several are utterly distinct and some unique! There's no getting away from the silhouette of Portland! And, finally, Dorset is such an incredibly beautiful and interesting area, Loose and Leafy could easily become an outpost of Tourist Information; an advertisement for wonderful holidays.

Writing a post about paths hit all these challenges, plus three more. One, that I took so many photos for it, I'd have needed to change the name of the blog to 'Trodden Ground'. Two, that there are other things I wanted to fit in today - it is spring, after all! The third challenge is that there are paths interesting enough to include in a wider-context post but which aren't, I find, the richest source of material for Loose and Leafy.

Never mind - here goes with a random selection and a truncated version. We'll start wide - and narrow down.

This, clearly, is the route of an old railway line. You can see the remains of a long platform on the left. A few years ago, someone proposed re-introducing trains and tracks. It would have been a lot of work and a lot of expense but the man who brought forward the idea had a lot of enthusiasm and, I think, saw it as an ecological idea - a way of encouraging people to use public transport (even if privately operated) rather than cars.

The vegetation along here does not look exciting at present but there are lots of brambles and gorse.
In the summer the air vibrates with heat and pollinators.
Quite a few small flowers - like vetches and cranesbill - grow along the sides.

I think the train enthusiast was taken aback by the vehemence of opposition. This path is incredibly well used. Finding a moment when there aren't people in view is very difficult, especially on a sunny weekend, Sometimes, parts of it get so crowded it is hard to find a route through. I took photos of it being busy - locals going to and from town, walkers, joggers, people with tripods and binoculars who'd come to spy birds, and children learning to ride bikes they were bought for Christmas which have been brought back out again now the weather is getting warm - but as I avoid pictures of people when I can, I decided to show you what it looks like in a calm moment. The person in the distance and the shadow of a cyclist can represent all those who use it. They are good symbols. It can be a peaceful place to walk but there are also conflicts between cyclists who think it's a 'proper' road and people on foot - who don't.

This is part of The Hamm -
the path which runs along the causeway to Portland.
This may not seem hopeful ground for plant watching but . . .
just wait!
Before long, there will be a sea of pink thrift along here.

This area, down in a dip and surrounded by Holm Oaks,
is genuinely short of plants all year round.
In part this is because of the trees.
In part because it's a good place for people to
clamber about a bit or
to abandon supermarket shopping trolleys.

Here's a way to the sea. The reeds are a bit higher than I am.
(I first showed this photo on my other blog, Message in a Milk Bottle.)

Here's a way I never go! It's a way made by animals. I doubt even children go down here.
As well as foxes and badgers - rats and squirrels take advantage of these cuts.

Here's the path between the elders we are following.
In the winter, there's room for children.
Already though, vegetation is beginning to crowd in.
Before long, it will be almost impassable.

The elder shoot we have been following (up on one of the branches) has hardly changed. Others near it are growing faster. I'm glad I chose this shoot though because it means I can keep taking pictures of the lichen as well - Common Orange' (Xanthoria parietina).

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One of my first incentives to follow the progress of a particular tree or patch of ground was when some of the trees round here were cut back in what seemed to me to be a brutal and haphazard way. I was concerned rot would get into the bare and ragged ends of small branches. Some were on trees I recognised. But there was one tree - with beautiful twigs, chestnutty red, which I simply couldn't identify. Not in a way I could be confident of.

I am on Twitter and a friend there suggested silver birch. I said I'd go and look at the lower part of its trunk once the undergrowth had died back for winter. I could never get there. It is as protected as effectively as the sleeping princess was by brambles and briers. Just before the nettles grow up and the leaves break out to make the trunk invisible as well as inaccessible, I've managed to zoom in (hurray for cameras!) and get a glimpse.

Looks right?

And another ID problem. As I've mentioned before, I find it difficult to tell the difference between maples and sycamores in their variety.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a book which may help with this because it has examples of the different shapes of their seeds. The ones on the tree where this twig grows will be specially lovely. (I know from passed years.)

It will be a long wait. These leaf buds seem pretty static.

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I'm Following a Tree

Are You? 

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If you have posted recently about the life of a particular tree you are 'following', let me know and I'll put a link here.


On the Edge Gardening
Warts and All
(Beech)
Lichfield Lore
Sticking it Out
(Cider Orchard)

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THE DOG WHICH SAT AT MY FEET

As I’ve mentioned before, many of the plants and bushes and trees on this blog have been photographed alongside what used to be a railway line. In some places it is now earth, or grass or stony ground. In others it has been tarmacked and turned into a comfortable footpath and cycleway. More and more people are travelling along it; in and out of town; or taking it in as part of the Southwest Coast Path which runs the 630 miles from Poole in Dorset to Minehead in Somerset. This is good. Of course it is; except I preferred it when hardly anyone went that way.

Last Saturday, I was walking along this section with a couple of friends when we found ourselves almost in step a few yards behind a man with a small, brown, broad shouldered, fighty-type of dog.

I went back to take this photo today. (June 24th 2011)
It began to rain so you'll have to imagine the sun is
blazing down and caterpillars are sun-bathing on the path.
Apologies for that.
None the less, you can see,among other plants,
Elder, Buddliea,Bramble
Holm Oak,Viper's Bugloss,
Alexanders,
Gorse, Hawthorn and Blackthorn
- all in just this one glimpse.

I don’t usually like this kind of dog. Their owners generally insist they are friendly; but, if they bite, their jaws lock and they don’t let go. Sometimes they are lethal. Sometimes they frighten me. Always I am wary.

This dog was a sort of exception. Whereas most dogs like this charge along on a long leash or run anxiously loose, this was well trained. It was not on a lead but when any other dog came by, the owner called to it and it walked by him on the side away from potential friendliness or confrontation until the passing dog had walked on to a safe distance. There was no barking, no chasing and sniffing. It was all very orderly.

It was also funny. Once the command had run out of purpose, the dog would trot round behind its owner in a kind of peep-o game.

“Where have you gone?” the man would ask, looking about - but the dog was always somewhere in the near circumference of his heels.

After a while, we were distracted by caterpillars - bright green and yellow ones - and lots.

When I am out with family or friends, they get annoyed if I spend too much time taking photographs of leaves and trees and tiny, familiar-but-interesting-to-me plants. The camera has only to appear and groaning begins.

In a post called 'One thing I have realised ', Jen at Muddy Boot Dreams amplifies on a comment I'd made after reading a post called 'What to do with all those pictures?'. I'd admitted that I don’t pay enough attention to snap-style photos . . . people, places, events; when I am old, they are the pictures I will treasure - not twigs here and pebbles there. None the less, I find it hard to take pictures of people. For one thing, I am not very good at it. For another, I shy away from taking portraits without permission. And I don’t like forced smiles, funny faces or set expressions either - so pictures for posterity are neglected . . . 

So, there we were, looking down at the ground in a communal kind of way. “Here’s a caterpillar. Here’s one. Here’s one. And another!” Until, in the end, I could bear it no longer. Out came my camera.

We’d forgotten the dog. The call of its owner to step aside from the path only gelled into sense when the dog trotted up and sat very goodly at my feet, right between my toes, right on top of the caterpillar I was focusing on.

I don’t know why he had chosen that moment to switch allegiance, or put himself in my confidence. But, there he was, happily sitting on ‘my’ caterpillar. I gave him a stroke (I think he was a he) called a friendly remark to the owner - and put my camera back in its bag.

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Yesterday, I went for a walk on a track which leads off the old railway line - where there is nothing between it and the sea except eroded cliff.

(Today's photo shows a white, cloud filled sky and drizzle. The path looks a lot more tempting when the sun shines on it! Keep imagining blue sky and sunshine!)

See what I mean about yesterday's blueness?
But even then it was raining from time to time.
Surprising drops falling from an apparently cloudy sky.

The playground noise of happy children floated across the water. A flotilla of training boats was speeding towards the sailing club; experts leading the way, novices in the middle - and extra adults following for safety behind them.

But there were no green and yellow caterpillars.

Two other kinds though. They seemed to be sun-bathing on the parched, hard and cracked earth.

Here they are.

Oak Eggars - Lasiocampa quercus

Oak Eggar (Lasiocampa quercus) Caterpillar
23rd June 2011

Here's a link to see an Oak Eggar Moth

There was also a caterpillar of the Lackey Moth - Malocosoma neustia

Caterpillar of the Lackey Moth  (Malocosoma neustia)

A few weeks ago, they looked like this

April 27th 2011

(This is a link to the post where I show their tent-nursery.)

This is a link to see what the Lackey will look like when it's a moth.

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A short while back Laura at Patio Patch (in relation to the post about a walk to the sea and back) asked what we would have come across if we had gone further. What’s there depends on the tide so I’m beginning a series of posts about what you would see if you went to a higher path (parallel to the rocks and little coves) so you can look down without getting your feet wet.

This is the first of these posts.

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I DON'T LIKE FLOWERS

I don't like flowers. They have their place, of course. They look good in vases and there wouldn't be seeds without them. But when I think about what I like to have around me - it's bark and leaves. Between them, it's hard to choose. My first instinct was to plump for leaves. Then I thought about trees in winter. They look just as good as their summer selves so maybe my final, finely tuned decision is in favour of bark. Though I feel uncomfortable with it because leaves and stems are what I like to take photos of and I'm always moved by the little hairs that show up in pictures but which we rarely notice otherwise - and the veins and wrinkles and shapes that we may examine from time to time, or be startled by when the sun shines through them but which, most days, we ignore. (Of course we do. We none of us have time to work through a forest, leaf by leaf.)

It's a funny time of year for flowers round where I live. The burst of spring yellows and blues is over. Alexanders are tipping, as is the Hawthorn (May). Sloes and apples are clearly in place. Indeed, sloes are already their full size - though green. Thus, we have autumn embedded in summer.

Locally, tall, white, umbrels are what catch my eye most. Some are lovely. On others, the individual flowerlets are so densely packed they resemble nothing more than sickly cow pats on sticks; or perhaps white picnic plates.

Rape plants gone wild stand out splendidly from the dull, decaying mess and then there are buttercups - I like buttercups.

And the problem, for me, is exacerbated because I find yellow and white hard to photograph.

White flowers lose definition and yellow glares back so glaringly, images of petals get splodged with horrid white patches.

There are masses of garden bloggers who show white and yellow flowers, apparently without difficulty, but for me it's a labour. And for someone who doesn't even like flowers much, who prefers leaves and stems - it isn't even a labour of love.

So . . . in this post . . . I'm getting it over with. A flower post of white and yellow flowers which took hours to construct because I kept having to go and try again until any showed up at all.

I hope you enjoy it.

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And you might like to tell me (and each other) - are you a flower person or someone who would you prefer to kneel in long grass and peer up at its seed heads against a blue, blue sky?