I THINK WE'LL HAVE SOMETHING PRETTY

I expect it happens to you. You are pottering along and something catches your eye. So you take its picture. You potter further, begin a project and it starts to rain. You notice this. You snap at that. It's all beautiful but it doesn't amount to a post.

But these are memories which can't be lost. The world wasn't created blog-sized. It's both bigger and smaller than that; bigger and smaller than anything that can be expressed.

So this post is a bundle of pretty things.

First up a Passion Flower.

Where I live, passion flowers are not wild plants but this one has bunged its way through a fence, tangled itself with burdock, bramble and teasel - escaped! There are other plants round here which have done the same thing - honeysuckle, crocosmia, Spanish bluebells.

Next up, a Marmalade Hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus). I'm so bowled over by its wings I have this little creature as my desktop picture.

Clicking to enlarge recommended!

And it's very little - a little less than a centimetre and ever so thin. Much thinner than, say, the Batman Hoverfly (Myathropa florea) or the bright and substantial Eristalis tenax. (While I'm going on about hoverflies - remember this one a Sphaerophoria scripta? - Oddly long instead of strangely small and thin.) (The usual caveat - I don't know what I'm talking about and rely heavily on fellow iSpot members for IDs.)

The trouble with the picture above though is that it obscures the white in the stripes. Here's the same little creature prancing around on the same flower. Because it's moving, the picture of it is blurred. But I like its elegance as well as its stripes.

And now to the beach where the sea has been chucking up red seaweeds.

There's a kind you can find here and hardly anywhere else in the UK. It's called 'Solieria's Red String Weed'. Isn't that a wonderful name? (Solieria chordalis.) When I first came across it in a book I misread it and for ages thought it was called 'Soldier's Red String Weed' and constructed a complete image of a soldier tying his boots with red laces.

I'd quite like to find out this is what this one is - but it's more likely to be Gracilaria bursa-pastoris. (It's amazing how wise one can seem when spouting Latin possibilities.)

So we'll finish with the prosaic. Sticking up above the brambles and framed by ivy is a dead branch of . . . oh! bother! What is it a dead branch of? Elderberry? It's got lichen on it, whatever it is.

Isn't ignorance wonderful?

The less you know, the more possibilities there are.

Tweet

Do you know my other blog, 'Message in a Milk Bottle'?
A photo a day. Mostly plants and trees but not exclusively so.
And you can have the pictures sent directly to your inbox if you wish.
How's that for a bargain?

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.

Tweet

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.

* * *

TREE FOLLOWING

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

Tweet

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.

Tweet

THE WIND DROPS AND THE SUN COMES UP

It has  been very windy recently. Even when it hasn't been raining, the wind has been making every plant, every stalk, every leaf - everything tremble. (Even me!) Not the weather for photos.

But this morning . . . a lull. A day for a quick stuck-foot stop. (This is where I keep my feet planted in one place - and see what there is to see.)

Ten past ten. The sun is up (though low). The wind has dropped. Down to the beach. It's a bit glarey, looking east!

But at my feet - Rock Samphire (Crithmum maritimum)

And . . . I don't know what this is. I know I don't like it though, so I look up

to the top of the bank above the path . . . . from where the little black seeds of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) are falling onto the rocks and, rather astonishingly . . .

germinating through the remains of old reeds.

Where . . .

an old teasle (Dipsacus fullonum) has fallen too.

And, below the rocks, on the sand itself

seaweed in dog-walkers tracks. The greeny one, I'd guess is Toothed Wrack (Fucus serratus). The twiggy bits - more reeds (Phragmites communis). But the red threads . . . I daren't hazard a guess about the red threads - red seaweeds have me completely beat. (Too many look too much alike!)

Tweet

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.

Tweet

SEAWEED PART TWO

I know it's a bit odd to post a whole load of pictures without saying anything about them. However, while I'm not wanting these to get too dislocated from the time they were taken, I don't want to mislead by labelling them wrongly either.

At the moment, my printer isn't working properly. When it's back to normal, I'll take these pictures to the Nature Centre and ask for help in checking what's what! Then - I'll return to these seaweed posts and add labels.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy seeing these plants as much as I do.

Last week, I posted photos of leaves and fronds (I expect there's a better technical term - that's something else I need to find out) which had been detached by the sea or the season from wherever they have been growing during the year and had been washed up on the beach by the sea. This week, we're looking first at sea plants attached to rocks on the beach.

Like this

And here's a close up. Aren't they remarkable?

The plant above has found a place high on a rock. I don't know if it's ever covered by water or just spray-washed. It's the kind of thing I'd find it hard to check in person. I can hardly sit at the foot of the cliff and wait for the tide to come in. By the time I knew the answer, I'd be drowned - so I wouldn't be able to report back to you. I need to find a book!

And here's an independently minded individual which sits like a King of Shellfish (see them?) on its castle. This plant must be happy to be submerged by the tide. What a strange life!

In other places many varieties crowd for space.

I was going to count how many there are on this rock but realised I was getting confused. At different stages they change appearance. For instance, leaves which are flat grow the balloon-like bits (technical term to be learnt!) which are fun to pop and make it look like a completely different plant. I'm also uncertain how much colour is affected by light. Can the same plant change colour depending on the light available to it?

There are other confusions. This little snail looks bright and vulnerable.

Draw back - and we can see why bright yellow turns out to be good camouflage.

Flat Periwinkle (Littorina obtusata) on Fucus vesiculosus

It's also interesting to find leaves out of context. Amidst this pile of this and that seaweed a . . .

a Sycamore leaf!

It's non-stop variety and colour. Story books give the impression that seaside and seaweed are almost synonymous but that's as daft as expecting to find apples in spring or snowdrops in summer. The sea and its contents (don't quote me!) seem to have their seasons too.