PORTLAND BILL IN WINTER

Rain.

That's what this winter's been about round here.

And wind.

And high tides.

And floods.

So I've been indoors and, on the whole, have kept away from the cliffs and the sea (they could be lethal) and from the rain which would finish off my camera.

Thus - silence.

Here and there, hawthorn leaves open, alexander seedlings spring up and . . . and I expect all sorts of other things are happening which would be interesting to notice if I could see anything beyond my streaming spectacles. Even when the rain takes a rain break the wind carries on and everything not set in stone keeps dancing. Nothing is still. So it's all a spin of water here and everything's blurred and not very blog-friendly.

But I wouldn't want you to think I've dissolved or have been swept out to sea - so I went to look at Portland Bill. My intention had been to walk between the rock gullies where plants are stiff and protected from the wind. I've been there before. It's interesting to see change . . . or lack of it . . . Except on that side of the headland the sea was rougher than usual and I was scared. It wasn't going to leap over and 'get' me - not at that moment, it wasn't - but there are big rocks missing from the sea, shattered by recent storms. I didn't want to go missing from land. The waves coming in were fifteen or twenty foot high. A ship was ploughing along, dipping in and out of view as it hit even bigger waves further out.

Erigeron glaucus  (I think).
(I'll take its picture again when it flowers.)

Being a coward . . . I pottered round to the other side of the lighthouse where everything was much calmer than it often is in winter and found . . . not a lot.

Which isn't quite true. There probably was a lot but I didn't stay long enough to do much more than photograph a few plants a million times so something would be in focus - and come home.

Proves I exist though!

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Burdock (Arctium)

PHOTOS TAKEN on 28th January 2013

Portland Bill is the southernmost tip of the Island of Portland - which isn't quite an island and which is joined to the mainland of Dorset by a causeway and a bridge.

Other Portland Posts on Loose and Leafy:

The Last Plant in England

Lights and Bells, Mists and Flowers

Sea and Sea and Rocks and Stones and Sea

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WHAT TO EXPECT ON LOOSE AND LEAFY

Hello! It's autumn! And Loose and Leafy is back!

Seasons come and go - and with them readers - so maybe it's a good moment to reaffirm what kinds of posts to expect on the blog.

The top of an ivy-clad elderberry tree. October 8th 2013

Loosely speaking, it's about hedgerow plants and trees. Saying 'Wild Plants' would sound too exotic and too technical and more specialist than it is. Here you will find the very ordinary plants which grow without encouragement along the coast of Dorset in England. The air is warm and sometimes salty so some may not be found further north in the British Isles or in countries with different climates across the world. Hopefully there's a happy contradiction. Those who live in similar areas may feel a warm sense of familiarity with the plants featured - while those living in other zones (colder, hotter, less windy or less sheltered) will get a small taste of what may be for them (for you?) the unusual.

Lichen on the elderberry branch we've been following.
October 8th 2013

But when I speak of 'similar' places, we have to acknowledge this is an especially plant rich area. The first time I came to Dorset I felt I had gone 'abroad'. I had never been to a place with so many plants, so many butterflies or with the kind of cliffs and coastal geology we have here. (After twenty five years in Dorset I reckon I can now say 'we'!) It's a place where fossils lie at our feet and are embedded in our walls and pathways. It's a place where some cliffs are whiter than the more famous ones at Dover and others are bright yellow or a deeply disturbing dark grey. There are quarries and woodlands and seaweed and shellfish and . . . and . . . and . . . !

There are lots of blackberries on the brambles

but their flavour is not good this year.

October 8th 2013

For all that we sometimes get the impression that England is 'full' - that it's almost covered over with cities and streets - there are few large towns within easy reach of the area covered in this blog. Bournemouth/Poole (with a population of around 187,000 on the Dorset/Hampshire border) is the only 'local' conurbation - and that's an hour on the train to the East. To get to Exeter (in Devon) - the nearest big town going west, you have to make an hour-and-a-half's journey by car. (Population about 118,000 - though if you count its wider commuting area the number bumps up to around 500,000). In between, there's part of Devon and much of Dorset. Weymouth, half way along the Dorset coast, has a population of around 65,000. Otherwise, it's small towns and villages everywhere. There are around 415,000 people living in the county (not counting Bournemouth/Poole because it's a unitary authority . . . ). It covers more than 1,024 square miles but I'm not sure how many people in England even know it exists!

So, what will you find if you read Loose and Leafy?

Odd clumps of ragwort are still flowering.

(See the snail on the lower edge of the picture?)

October 8th 2013

You'll find pictures and descriptions of a very, very small part of a wonderful county. And when I say 'very small' - I mean VERY! Most plants I show are within fifteen minutes walk of each other. Sometimes I merely stand still and write a post about what I can see without lifting a foot. (The 'stuck foot' posts.) Over and over, we'll return to the same trees to see their leaves unfurl and fall,

Down on the beach - I think this is a piece of eelgrass.

October 6th 2013

the same beaches to see what's been churned up by the tide,

the same view to see how it changes through the year.

The view we're following.

By placing the ruins of Sandsfoot Castle centre scene it's easy to compare

the seasons of plants and trees through the year.

This photo was taken on the 3rd October 2013 - verily a season of mists and mellow murkiness.

Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) on brambles after a sudden shower.

October 8th 2013

We'll notice pollinators and other insects in the bushes.

Sometimes we'll take a look along the pavements of urban areas, take a trip into Bournemouth or Weymouth to see how plants survive the traffic

There are a surprising number of flowering plants bang in the middle of our towns and cities.

This plant is growing wild on the top of the carpark attached to a large supermarket in the centre of Bournemouth.

July 11th 2013

and, sometimes, we'll find interesting surprises - would you believe that this too is Dorset?

Abbotsbury Sub-tropical Gardens.

October 7th 2013

Watch out for a later post when we'll explore more.

I'm looking forward to your company through the autumn, the winter, the spring and beyond!

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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.

BEWITCHED BY BLUE

Chicory Flowers

I could do nothing but post about chicory.

Here it grows up to about four foot high.

Hoverfly on Chicory Flower

I am not the only one who loves it.

Bee on Chicory Flower

Though my admiration does not extend to bathing in its pollen.

Willow Herb

There's a lot of blue and pink and purple around at the moment. The sky switches between blue and grey. If you look into sun-glare, it looks quite dramatic.

Except for leaves dropping from the tree in the autumn,
new ones arriving in sprin
and growing again through the summer,
this view stays much the same through the year.

This is looking up to where these plants grow.

I'm pretty much alone . . . but not quite . . . look behind me and a solitary herring gull swims away.

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THE LAST PLANT IN ENGLAND

If you keep walking and walking in England, you will eventually come to the sea.

If you arrive at the Welsh or Scottish border first, keep going - and the same, eventually, applies.

In some places, land takes a while to dissolve and you will find yourself sinking before you get to the swimming. In others the swimming is pleasant. You arrive, take off your clothes, put on your swimming gear, paddle out - and off you go. (Assuming you can swim.) In others, if you don't stop, you fall off.

Portland Bill is the fall off variety. There are a couple of boat cranes but no way down for swimmers. Which is lucky - for you'd be sucked under, drawn out or smashed up if you tried. The sea here is dangerous. The waves can be massive. The waters are always strong and choppy. The currents famously powerful. Do not be deceived by that blue view.

If you arrive by walking along the East Cliffs, you can find yourself ankle deep in flowers. Keep going, past the last lighthouse . . . and you are in one of the Dorset other-worlds.

I did that. I kept walking till I had to stop. If you look up to the right (in the picture above) there's a fence. This part of the world is popular with industries like the navy . . . QinetiQ  . . . I'm not sure who's up there (though I expect there's a notice) but . . . even if I could get over those rocks, I would have to turn back.

But I can't.

Which is why I am searching here for the last plant in England. In other places, geographically, the first is also the last, but at the end of Portland Bill - it is definitely the last. You can come from only one direction . . . then, unless you are to dry out or bake or freeze (not literally - but it does get very cold in winter) or be blown into tatters . . . you have turn back.

But where is that plant? How can I find the last plant in England if there isn't a plant in sight?

Scan round.

Nothing.

(The lighthouse isn't a plant.)

I walk ahead . . . and look behind in case there's something I've missed. Yes! There's a splodge over there - about a foot of something flat on the ground.

I go closer. A plant!

By putting the camera behind it, we can see the world as it sees it.

But only at home, when we are out of the glaring light . . .












have enlarged the picture . . .

and have zoomed in . . .

do we really see what's really there

I'd missed what I'd walked on.

Do you know the poem 'Cats Sleep Anywhere' by Eleanor Farjeon? . . . 'Cats sleep anywhere, any table, any chair. Top of piano, window ledge, in the middle, on the edge . . . '? That's what plants do too.

And the plant? Greater Sea-spurrey - Spergularia media 

And, even though they are small . . . they flower . . . which is what this one was doing, all to itself and to a multitude of little, easily walked on, neighbours. (Not that the place was exactly crowded with people - for all that a few minutes walk away there's a cafe where you can buy a cup of tea and an ice cream.)

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A WALK FROM THE BEACH

These yellow bladders belong to Spiral Wrack (Fucus spiralis) OR (!) suggests another Ispotter - Bladder Wrack (Fucus  Vesiculosus)

I suspect I have too many photographs for this post. But the purpose behind it is to take you from a beach, up a narrow path, to the top of a little cliff beside Portland Harbour in Dorset. To walk it, it would take about three minutes - unless you stopped to look at some of the plants and creatures on the way, which is the theme of this post. What I introduce you to is very selective for the number of plants and birds and shell fish and seaweeds and insects . . . pretty much infinite!

Egg Wrack - (Aschophyllum  nodosum)

Many of the rocks on this little beach are covered in seaweed but others, further back from the water, are bare.

We don't have enough words for stones. This is larger than a pebble but smaller than a bolder. I'm trying to think - the rough, exposed bit in the foreground . . . about two and a half feet high? If this weren't supposed to be a blog about plants I could do post after post about the variety of rocks on this one little story-book-style beach.

This is a massive cliff about thirty-five miles to the west of 'our' beach. You can see the passing of millennia in its stripes. Our little beach is not dramatic like this. Its cliff is a toddler in comparison. But wander a little way along (there are lots of little ins and outs) and you can find yourself sinking in a sticky grey mud of a kind which makes the cliff above dangerous. It's at Charmouth - more or less where the study of fossils began. Many of the rocks on our beach have imprints of the fossils that have fallen out of them - like this one on my other blog.

Back to where we were. We'll walk up the path from 'Our Beach' . . .

I've mentioned before how many of last years blackberry leaves have stayed on their bushes through winter. I took this photo on 27th April 2012. Since then, the rains and winds we missed in the autumn and winter seem to have come all at once so I anticipate this leaf will have blown away by the time I go back to the path.

Here is a close up.

Hoverflies are beginning to make their appearance.

Close up -

This one being Myathropa florea - which may make this a good moment to mention the identifications on this post.

I have sought help from two sources. One is from the members of Ispot - where identifications can be made at the same time as a visual resource is being built up by the Open University. As always - if you haven't already taken a look . . . do so!

This time, I've had the additional help of Chris Webster who has a wonderful collection of hoverfly photos on the site 'British Hoverflies'. (There's a link in the tab for IDs at the top of the blog.)

This may also be the moment to wander off the path even further to mention National Insect Week, 25th June - 1st July. (There's currently a banner link at the top of the sidebar.) There will be more information about this nearer the time.

I'm beginning to sound like a notice board!

Dandelions - wonderful from start to finish. Beautifully shaped leaves, wonderfully cheerfully, bright yellow flowers which turn into clocks. Everyone likes to take pictures of the clocks. They are a bit overdone. I realise that. But the reason they are over-photoed is because . . . well, just look!

How can they be resisted?

Close to the top of the path - is the clump of elderberry trees I'm following. Now rains have come, the lichen which has been bright yellow throughout the dry weather, is rapidly turning green - it's what it does!

Common Orange Lichen - Xanthoria parietina - turning green because the air is damp.
When we have dry weather again, it will go back to being bright yellow.

The leaf we have been following since it was a shoot is difficult now to get to because of the undergrowth which has grown in the way. It's also smaller than the other leaves opening around it . . . but it's still visible in the crook of the V shaped branch straight ahead.

And at the very top of the path we have come up

alexanders (with the yellow flowers) dandelions (with their clocks blown away) and fennel (the feathery leaves). If this year follows the pattern of other years, chicory and vipers bugloss will grow here too in the summer.

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TREE FOLLOWING

This is such a long post already, I'll do a double catch up of tree followings next week.

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ROUND A ROCK

This morning, it was cold; very cold. The frost was patchy but, when I went down to the sea at around twenty to ten, it was . . . finger chilling cold.

But the light was lovely.

I would usually aim for a little more variety in a post than there will be in this - but I fell in love with the colour and texture of seaweed on one rock.

I've been scrolling through these pictures over and over. I should get bored because they are all of the same thing. But I don't. I don't know why - I just don't!

I hope you like it too.

This little pool on the top of the rock is about two inches across.

And this is the next rock along. Same seaweed - different arrangement; a sort of skirt round the bottom!

While behind me - is the sea; with three Brent Geese swimming in the path of the sun.

I'd like to have taken the rocks home with me. I'd like to have taken the sea!

(But I think I'll need a little more in the way of storage before I'll try that! Indeed, I'd need a world full of garden sheds!)

This post is supported by Argos.

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