RAM, EWE, LAMB - A WALK IN THE WOODS BY HOLFORD

Sometimes I find I'm so familiar with the area I usually explore, I wish I were somewhere else! And, briefly, I was!

I went for another walk in the Quantocks - this time in a forest . . . or a wood . . . . ? I don't know what the difference is but this wood had a lot of trees in it (which is quite foresty) and I never came to the end of them (which is foresty too). But there was light drifting down through the branches (which is wood-ish) and it was 'magical' not 'frightening' . . . which heads it in the 'wood' direction because, in my mind, a forest has to be at least a little bit disconcerting.

The foot path followed a wide but shallow stream . . . and I followed the path . . . and here are some of the things I saw.

Fungi. Yup. Lots of Fungi. Here are some on a . . . birch? Um. Are they Birch Polypore Piptoporus betulinus? Um . . . They were about seven inches across and there were more above them in a line up the trunk - spaced into little clumps like this one.

And little black balls on a dead tree that had fallen across the stream. (I don't know precisely what these kind are but they are similar (only larger) to the ones I came across in a Dorset Beech Wood.)

And lichen? Yes. Lichen!

And ferns? Yes, lots of ferns. Plenty on the ground and some above our heads. Here's one on the branch of what I think is a Sessile Oak.

Flowers? Yes, there were oodles of flowers.

Here, where the trees are a little thinner and there's a tad more light - a Herb Robert Flower peeping through the leaves of Enchanter's Nightshade! (Which is also a gardener's nightmare.)

And here's a little Wood-Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella).

See oak leaves and blackberry leaves too?

And here's the stream.

And here are Caddis Fly larvae encased by the little pebbles they have each gathered round them for protection. You might like to enlarge this to see better. And have you noticed how clear the stream is?

And sheep? Yes. Since you ask there were sheep in a field on the other side of the stream at a point where it had taken a bit of a dip. So the field was up on a short bank - and there was a single strand of barbed wire around it.

Most of the sheep were quietly grazing, eyes down. But the ram in with them was running up and down bellowing, its huge fleece swaying dramatically as it leapt up onto a small promontory, roared and ran down again.  And for almost every bellow, a smaller call replied from our side of the stream - only high up so we couldn't see who was making it. On and on it went, bellow, cry, bellow, cry. Of course, as soon as I took out my camera, the ram ran down from the highest, most dramatic part of the view, back into the main body of the field. And the moment I began to film . . .  it ran behind a tree. So here is a video of a ram behind a tree bellowing . . . but listen. Bellow, cry. Below cry. (Then I'll tell you what happened next.)

Well . . . as you see, the ram was heading down to the other end of the field. We followed . . . and round a bend . . . there, waiting for him on the path, were the ewe and the lamb he'd been drawing down from the hill. So out he came from the field - under the barbed wire, along a little beach and over a ford in the stream, went right up to them, greeted them; then turned and started to lead them so he could show them the best place to cross the stream.

But when the ewe and lamb reached the water they hesitated and stopped. It was only a short distance so he was already scrambling up the bank towards the barbed wire but as soon as he realised they'd lost their nerve, he returned to them and encouraged them to get their feet wet. And across they went. And once he could see they really were fording the stream, he walked on a little to wait. And once they'd caught up, he led them under the wire and back into the field - where all of a sudden it was perfectly quiet and peaceful and everyone went back to eating grass.

(You might also like simply to listen to the video without watching. You will hear more that way.)

* * *

Places to go for more information

Caddis Fly  - on the Wildlife Trusts site.
Caddis Fly Larvae  (not for the squeamish) in the Life in Freshwater section section of the Field Studies Council site. 

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STICK YOUR EAR IN IT - STUCK FOOT POST FOR MAY

My first digital camera was a phone. I'd decided - perfectly reasonably, truthfully and not even slightly on a whim - that if I could take a photograph of my immediate environment every day . . . I would be happy.

Daisies in the cow-field. Sheep in the field beyond

Not that 'decided' is the right word. I'd known this for a long time. I don't think I had the internet then. I certainly didn't have a blog. I'm not even sure blogs had been invented. But there were simple cameras on what were, to me, expensive phones. And they were expensive. That first mobile phone-camera was twice the price of my new (though basic) smart-phone.

And off I went to take pictures.

Then there was the blog.

Then there was my first 'proper' digital camera.

And now I have the one I have now - which also takes moving pictures; little films.

Long before I bought my phone, I'd wanted to take films. I hadn't wanted to make stories or record events; I wanted to film what I could see while standing still. Specifically, I wanted to film waves at the place where sea meets land in a trickle, not a storm. Just that. But camcorders were expensive. Out of reach.

Green leaves seem brown when reflected in the water because of the tannin.
Eyeworth Pond, Hampshire.

Perversely, when I at last had a camera which also takes films, I began to enjoy sound rather than movement. I'd fix my camera on a scene and film the nothing-happening that I'd dreamed of but when I got my camera home, I'd find it was the sound that drew my attention. Sea sounds different when you listen to it.

So I wanted to buy some really good sound equipment - the kind which would pick up every nuance without being blasted out by a sudden gust of wind. Erm . . . out of my range!

And who would want to listen to my sound recordings?

I don't know why we blog. Sometimes bloggers blog about why they blog - and the answers are never very satisfactory - especially given the amount of time and effort and creative thought that we put into them. We blog because we blog. We take pictures whether or not we put them on the internet. And every so often I go out and fix my camera on a singing bird or a rattling mast and record the sounds they make.

Oddly, despite this being a solitary activity, I always have people in mind. Would they be prepared to listen to noises while looking at nothing happening? So I've kept these little sound clips short. For me, they are too short. I get them home and listen and wish they would go on and on instead of stopping almost as soon as they start.

I'm about to move on a step. After today I'll make my sound pictures longer. It doesn't matter whether anyone other than me puts them up on a screen and is entranced by the rustle of a leaf or a lawnmower in the distance. It doesn't matter any more than it mattered when I took photos every day without knowing that anyone else in the world did the same.

But longer films are for the future. The 21st will be a Stuck Foot Post Day. So I'm posting my latest short stuck-foot soundscapes. For ordinary Stuck Foot Posts I move my eye. I look down. I look sideways. Twist to see a little behind me. But these 20 - 30 second clips aren't just Stuck Foots, they are Stuck-Eyes too; stuck eyes so all that goes on is what one is hearing while standing still to see.

The first is from the 4th of April. The village is Milton Abbas in Dorset. I struggled with this because there are cars in the frame; but those I filmed with no content other than chimney tops take the sound so far out of context they no longer make sense. The roar at the beginning is a car moving away. The voices you hear are people in the kitchen at the pub I was standing near. I like these 26 seconds. They are life.

The second is staring at a cow field at Fritham on the edge of The New Forest (Hampshire) on the 13th of May. The Forest Trees are several yards behind me - mostly oak and out of sound-shot. I was standing under some kind of tree with needles instead of leaves and in front of a hedge I didn't pay too much attention to. The cows, dissobligingly didn't moo but birds did sing. That's the funny thing. You think you are watching cows when really you are listening to birds. Or maybe it's that you are listening to birds when really you are watching cows. Here are 38 seconds of both.

The third is on the same day, about ten miles from the cows at the River Black Water. In this clip we spend 47 seconds listening to the Black Water meandering its way through the forest. Eventually it will join with others in the Lymington River. (Not to be confused with various other River Blackwaters.)

And finally The Valley of Stones. So we've gone back in time to 27th April. The reason I've put this one out of sequence is the silence. We are on open grassland. No birds other than one lark. Larks don't like trees. Then the lark stops. This clip is 30 seconds. (The slight roaring throughout is, I suppose, the camera desperately trying to find something to listen to.)

If you aren't able to watch film clips on your computer, I really do apologise - but sound posts don't happen often. And if you are able to listen through earphones - maybe that's the best way to immerse yourself in the moment and hear it all at its best.

Are you a Stuck-Footer? Would you like to know more about Stuck-Footing? 

Then go to the Loose and Leafy Stuck Foot Page to find out more.

If you too have a Stuck Foot Post

a box for your links 

will open at 7am on 21st May and close at 7pm on 25th May (UK time)

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A WALK AT THE END OF WINTER

Peeping between trees in annoying rain.

For all that we are trying to celebrate spring, for all that blogs are full of hellebores and hopes of blossom, I feel we are straining at the leash. We aren't there yet. Daffodils may be nearly over but they flowered in late winter rather than in spring. There may be primroses on the hedgerow banks but they are like little beacons of what's to come. Birds may be noisier than they have been over winter but they aren't in full voice yet. Not here they aren't. Indeed, the mornings seem to be getting darker. Perhaps we will be skipping summer this year. The trees won't properly open their leaves or bother with autumn.

Plants, trees and creatures may have been knocked back by unusually strong winds and wet weather. I don't think it's the same all over the country. 

Horsetails - Equisetum arvens

Even only a few miles away from the sea I came across a bank of horsetails more advanced than I've ever found them here. And it's bound to be subjective too. Even if everyone else smells spring in the air - I don't. To me, it's still late winter. The light is almost consistently dull. Rain un-refreshing. The ground cold.

The pictures in this post are from last week - when beetles unexpectedly took over the blog. Nature can move fast at this time of year and has moved on a little since then. But I wouldn't want those of you who live in cities or in other parts of the world to miss out on this last fling of cold weather in the English countryside. But I do hope it will be the last of the dull-light posts. Or second to last! I've been to visit my tree-following tree - and, guess what? The sky was overcast. You'll see pictures of it on the 7th - which is the day after tomorrow - Monday

Are you too ready with your tree-following posts? I'm hoping the link box will come up of its own accord at 7 in the morning UK time. Scheduling can sometimes go wrong so, if it doesn't appear straight away, don't worry. I'll be hot on its heels to put it in manually.

March 25th 2014

Snails in this tree, partially protected by thick ivy stems, still seem to think it's winter.

Posts about Horsetails closer to the sea. You can tell by the dates they grow later here.

April 25th 2013

May 2nd 2011

AND REMEMBER!

I'm a Tree Follower

ARE YOU?

It's not too late to join us in following the progress of individual trees through the year - garden trees, park trees, hedgerow trees, wild trees.

Let me know if you'd like to be added to the list of tree-followers and put a link to your tree following posts in the link box here on Loose and Leafy on the 7th of every month. (Nobody is obliged to post about their tree every month but the more you post, the more we know - it's in your hands.)

SEE YOU ON THE 7TH!

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