SO HERE IT IS - A BOX TO STICK YOUR FOOT IN

What is a Stuck Foot Post?

Easy.

It's where you stick your foot in one place and refuse to move it till you've seen what you can see - then you post about it.

It's astonishing what you can see while standing still.


Take this picture as an example. There's seaweed at the top of the picture and the retreating tide has left ripples in the sand. There are the feet-imprints of a gull who's been stamping on the spot. Gulls trick worms into coming to the surface by pretending to be rain tapping as it lands on the ground. I don't know if lugworms are interested in rain but on the left hand edge of the picture (quite low down) there's a circular depression. If we were to dig there I think we'd find the head end of of a lugworm underneath. And back up almost to the top - below the seaweed and to the right of the footprints - a beached sea squirt. And this is in only one picture! Stuck footing is about the least energetic form of blogging!

So how about joining in and becoming a Stuck Footer too?

There's a box on the blog alternate months.

Here's the one for 21st - 25th May. (The next will be July.)

(If you see a note which asks you to leave a comment, don't feel compelled. It's an exhortation that comes with the widget.)

To find out more, go to the Loose and Leafy Page about Stuck Footing.

Twitter hashtag - #stuckfootposts
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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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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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NEW APPROACH?

New little hawthorn leaves
and tiny flecks of lichen.
March 25th 2013

I've been having a bit of a crisis. Here am I with two blogs and hardly any posting. Have I lost interest? NO! Am I ailing? NO!

People expect different things from blogs. I don't know what each reader expects when they arrive at Loose and Leafy but it's not a scrap book. There's a point to every post. Which is the rub. I've been out and about and looking at things almost as much as usual but the light has been so low and so many of the days rainy, photographing has been more of a challenge than fun.

But for all that Loose and Leafy is a blog anyone can read, it's also my own record, a kind of index to what I've seen. So if I don't post, I'm missing out. I'll lose my personal thread.

Oyster Thief
(Colpomenia peregrina)
March 14th 2013

SO . . . I'm going to be selfish. There will probably ensue a fleet of random posts. Maybe some will be nothing more than a picture. Bits and bobs are better than silence. Hopefully, this won't be too irritating. If it is . . . you can always give Loose and Leafy a miss for a while and come back when the text is better. On the other hand, you can hang around and, with me, say 'Oh look! There's a duck!'.

This, then, is a catch up with some of the bits. (Bobs will follow.)

When the hedges are dripping and waiting for warmth, one potters off elsewhere - like the seashore.

There have been storms at sea. At one point the cross channel ferry service had to be suspended because waves were too high for the boats to cope. And on shore - huge deposits of seaweed that must have been churned up have been chucked over the sand. Here's an Oyster Thief (Colpomenia peregrina) - a green alga that looks like a bubble. Well, it is a bubble. That's how it gets its name. If it mistakes an oyster for a rock and sticks to it, the air inside can lift them both and they can float away together.

Worm cast at the rear end of a Blow Lug hole.
(Arenicola marina)
About two inches across and high.
March 14th 2013

The tide was out, lug worms were burrowing. They are the moles of the seashore, with the sand and mud excavated from their burrows pushed back in whirls like this. Except these are not endearing little creatures with soft skins and paddle feet - they are fearsome looking worms. Fishermen dig them for bait and I've stopped to chat a couple of times. One day, I'll ask if I can take a photo but they are so disgusting (the worms, not the fishermen!) I feel it would be a bit like stopping and taking photographs of someone who's leg has just been mangled in a machine. Not quite the right thing to do. The ones I've seen (they don't crawl around randomly on the surface, I've only seen them when they've been dug out) have been about seven inches long . . . oh, click the link if you can bear it! Blow lug - Arenicola marina on the Marine Life Information Netowork. (Sorry, they are fascinating. I don't know why I'm being squeamish.)

Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus)
March 28th 2013

Another day . . .  head for a fresh-water lake . . . and a famous bird. This individual, I mean. Not its kind in general. It's a Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus). When I took the photograph, I didn't know there was anything special about it. I just thought 'Oh, there's a nice duck, I'll take a picture of that.'. Later, I found out it's a North American bird that has been hanging out with tufted duck on Radipole Lake (part of an RSPB reserve) for a few years now. When it first arrived, bird watchers got very excited, thinking it was truly wild and had flown (or floated?) across the Atlantic. It's now thought to be an escapee from a collection. I get the impression that this, for bird people, is a bit of an anti-climax. According to the train spotting approach to bird watching (see-it-and-tick-it) it doesn't 'count'. But I reckon it's still a pretty duck, wherever it came from.

This is a misleading picture.
The coot's feet were much whiter than they seem here.
March 28th 2013

Sometimes, as I've said often before, there's an enormous advantage in not knowing things because whatever you come across is exciting and new. You may remember how bowled over I was when I first noticed Coots' feet. (Coot - Fulica atra.) Apart from their extraordinary shape, I was stunned by their blueness. Yesterday, I was stunned by their whiteness. The blue tint shows more in this picture than seemed to be there in real life. It was the palor which struck me. That and that it was happily slurping up white bird excrement. (I didn't stay to find out whether this was its own or somebody else's - I'd noticed the merganser by then.) So - next task - which you might help me with . . . do coots change the colour of their feet from blue to white in the winter?

And the last of random images from my 'what I've been looking at' post . . . Wall screw-moss (Tortula muralis).

Wall Screw-moss (Tortula muralis). March 28th 2013

Oh, dear. A scrap book post. But that's life in erratic weather.

The Hooded Merganser (and a whole load of coots)

can be found at the RSPB reserve at the Radipole Lake and Reserve 

in Weymouth, Dorset.

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CARDING THE SEA

Autumn on the land - so in the sea, it seems. Around this time each year, the sea gathers armfuls of seaweed and eel grass and places it on the beach. In other years, I might have said 'thrown' but, as with finding lots of red admirals on the ivy - much depends on the day, the moment you look.

On 15th October, the sea was gentle. Great lumps of seaweed and eel grass were bobbing about in the shallows. I don't know whether you are familiar with carding wool (this is not a digression) but before wool can be spun, the strands have to be pulled straight. To do this by hand, you spread threads from the fleece over a grid of pins which stick out from a rectangular piece of wood which has a handle. Then you pull a matching 'carder' across it, over and over, till the 'grain', as it were, is smooth and straight. A deft realignment of the carders lifts the wool from the pins. As it comes away, it is rolled into a sort of tube called a rolag. A fleece, when it comes from the sheep is oily and smelly and, most likely, has bits and bobs of debris - straw and the like in it. Getting it ready for spinning is hard work on the arms but gentle on the wool. Mid October - and the sea wasn't hurling weed onto the shore, it was carding it - gently disentangling the threads, laying them out on the beach and rolling them (or, perhaps, nudging them, there are no exact parallels) into piles.

The short video below shows it happening.

Some of the seaweed clumps waiting to land are still attached to their 'holdfasts'. (A holdfast is a sort of foot which keeps the plant anchored to its rock.) These, in my mind, are the seaweed equivalents of 'staples'. Sheep's wool grows in clumps - staples. The length of the wool in the staple is one of the factors which determines the quality of the yarn made from it and, hence, the cloth. Mixed with these, and in different states between whole and broken, are strands from other plants. It's a right tangle. A tangle waiting to be 'carded'.

Watch the gap between the piles of weed on the shore. First one thread is drawn from the sea and straightened. The next wavelet pushes it a little further out of the water and attaches another strand to it. You'll get the idea. (Watching full screen helps.)

And here . . . in stills . . .

15th October 2012

This is dried and broken eel grass being sifted out of the sea.

15th October 2012

With each wavelet, other seaweeds are nudged against it, then pulled straight as the sea sucks out.

15th October 2012

As the sea brings more, it pushes what's already there into piles.

15th October 2012

More and more variety, in various stages of a seaweed 'autumn'

15th October 2012

Until everything that will come ashore with that tide is drying above the water line.

Then . . . well . . . then there are so many piles along the beach they join in an ugly, decaying ridge. Then it all gets sucked back out again. We'll ignore that for the moment and enjoy it in its fresh colour.

* * *

It's raining. I can't update the view I'm following while it rains so here's one from the first of November.

November 1st 2012

I began following this view on 21st September.
To see what it looked like then see the post
'Following Trees and Views and Willow Herb'
* * *

P.S. I've not yet put links with this post. So far, the demonstrations of carding I've found seem to have been made using clean and fluffy pre-carded wool and internet explanations about the word 'carding' seem, to my un-botanical mind, to be muddling teasels with thistles. However . . . if I can find links to clear and relevant information which doesn't confuse me - I'll add them here.

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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

* * *

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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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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