tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-238182832024-03-13T06:20:43.946+00:00Ramblings of a NaturalistAs an ecologist and biodiversity researcher and recorder, the author visits a wide range of rural and urban habitats mainly close to his home in Sedlescombe near Hastings, East Sussex, UK. The weblog covers the full spectrum of wildlife, from mammals to microbes. As well as details of encounters with England’s flora and fauna, information on where to see species of interest is often given.Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.comBlogger336125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-33917524797293985112023-10-21T15:24:00.000+01:002023-10-21T15:24:30.289+01:00Mr Richardson<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr.
Richardson was our part-time gardener when we lived at the Green Walk in
Chingford, north London in the 1940s. He
used to come round a couple of times a week for an afternoon’s jobbing
work. As a small boy I would often
‘help’ him with his rather set routine.
He would cut the large back lawn with a huge push mower that purred over
the grass leaving it beautifully striped with silvery and darker green. He would weed the herbaceous borders with
their helianthemums and Michaelmas daisies and the vegetable patch towards the
end of the garden. He had a compost heap
and a shed down there too, the latter filled with all sorts of intriguing
objects like trowels, trugs, spades, sieves, forks, rakes, hoes and long, buff
horsetails of bast. This was raffia
bast, used for tying plants and binding taller stems. There were also boxes and drawers of assorted
nails and screws and a strong smell of creosote used for painting the close
boarded fences around the garden.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The compost
heap was enclosed by large broken lumps of concrete. These must, I think, have come from a
demolished World War II air raid shelter.
Behind it, the remotest feature of the garden, was a mature laburnum
tree which I regularly used to climb so that I could survey the back gardens of
the houses in Mount View Road. I
remembered these from when a V2 bomb landed nearby in about 1944 and blew the
backs of several of the Mount View properties, leaving them like dolls houses
with one side removed. I fell out of the
laburnum once when a dead branch broke, but made a soft landing on the compost
heap though I grazed my head slightly on one of the sharp edges of a concrete
boulder.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the
finest features of the garden was four or five pear trees on the fences to the
east and west of the large lawn. These
had been trained as espaliers, with lateral branches reaching out horizontally,
herring bone style against the fence. In
winter the year’s growth would be carefully pruned back to retain the shape of
the trees and generate fruiting spurs for the summer’s pears.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This reminds
me now of the well-known passage from Czech writer Milan Kundera’s <i>The Book of Laughter and
Forgetting</i>: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 14.2pt; margin-right: 26.05pt; margin-top: 0cm;"><i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One
night, for example, the tanks of a huge neighbouring country came and occupied
their country</span></i><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> [a
reference to the 1968 Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia].<i> The shock was so
great, so terrible, that for a long time no one could think about anything
else. It was August, and the pears in their garden were nearly ripe. The week
before, Mother had invited the local pharmacist to come and pick them. He never
came, never even apologized. The fact that Mother refused to forgive him drove
Karel and Marketa crazy. Everybody's thinking about tanks, and all you can
think about is pears, they yelled. And when shortly afterwards they moved away,
they took the memory of her pettiness with them.<br />
<br />
But are tanks really more important than pears? As time passed, Karel realized
that the answer was not so obvious as he had once thought, and he began
sympathizing secretly with Mother's perspective--a big pear in the foreground
and somewhere off in the distance a tank, tiny as a ladybug, ready at any
moment to take wing and disappear from sight. So Mother was right after all:
tanks are mortal, pears eternal.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Halfway
through his afternoon stints, Mr Richardson would come indoors for a cup of tea
and one of my grandmother’s rock cakes.
He usually wore a waistcoat over a striped shirt and would take his flat
cap off. He sat on a heavy slat-backed
carver chair at the end of the wooden kitchen table and I was always intrigued
by the fact that he had lost a finger on one hand so that he held cup and cake
in an unusual way. The chair followed us
for many years, but gradually fell to pieces and finally expired on a bonfire,
the kind of bonfire Mr Richardson would
have approved of, in about 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Mr.
Richardson, a kindly straightforward man who left a strong impression on me,
lived </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">with his wife </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">(I remember no children) in Willow Street,
Chingford, a small suburban road with terraced houses on either side built
after the railway reached Chingford.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">It
was about quarter of a mile from our house.</span> </p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-53128749851478919332023-10-13T18:44:00.000+01:002023-10-13T18:44:03.825+01:00A trip to Glen More, 1954<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">My first trip to Scotland was when I was sixteen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of the summer term I was asked not
to return to Lancing College, my boarding school, as I was deemed
ineducable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My parents didn’t really
know what to do with me but, somehow, my mother learnt of adventure training
courses run by the Scottish Council of Physical Education (now <b>Sport</b>scotland)
at Glenmore Lodge a Highland centre near Aviemore.<strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;"> The</span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 107%;"> </span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 107%;">Glenmore Lodge I stayed in</span></strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 107%;"> lies some seven miles east of Aviemore, and
was formerly a Victorian hunting lodge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It became a hostel when the Central Council for Physical Education
acquired it in 1947. It later became the Loch Morlich Youth Hostel, and then
the Cairngorm Lodge Youth Hostel (which is its name today) after a newly built<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>National Outdoor Training Centre was opened
nearby in 1996 and was named Glenmore.</span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I set off by myself from home in Robertsbridge, East Sussex with
rucksack and walking boots on the 600 mile train journey, mostly through the
night and was met by coach with others in that fortnight’s mixed group of
students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These fellow travellers mostly
came from Scotland or the north of England but, being fresh out of boarding
school, I settled in straight away.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From Aviemore station we drove through Inverdruie and
Coylumbridge then followed the valleys of the rivers Druie and Luineag to Loch
Morlich on the 7 mile journey to the Lodge itself in Glen More. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The road ran through pine forests both natural
and planted with areas of rough brown grass, moss, bilberry and heather.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the drier parts were close planted with
conifers of even age giving an almost scandinoir film dimension and there were
scattered boggy areas of pale green and fawn. The occasional patches of the old
Caledonian Forest were characterised by the open branched Scots pines quite
different in shape from Scots pines elsewhere in Britain and sometimes
distinguished as <i>Pinus sylvestris </i>subspecies <i>scotia</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Coylumbridge is often said to be a newly built hamlet but it
features on many maps of over a century old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today there is a four star, modern hotel there opened in 1965 on land
granted by the Rothiemurchus Estate and many new buildings housing various
sports and holiday activities. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On past the grey stone of the Aultnancaber hunting lodge,
now a clay pigeon shooting centre, past the layby at the start of the track to what
was the Cairngorm <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sled-dog Centre opened
around 2001 at Moormore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the
conventional sled dog options, floodlit sledging was available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The centre closed in 2020 due, according to
the owners, to global warming though they claimed that snow was not essential
for sled dog action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This heavily
forested area with its rows of evenly aged Scots pines is shown on the map both
as the Queen’s Forest and Glen More Forest but there are often many layers of naming
in the Aviemore area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one of the more
open areas to the south of the road there is the placename Rinraoich over open,
boggy ground with a small 1,000 foot summit nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rinraoich is thought to have been the
location of a heather shieling, once an area of heathy pasture.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Where the road turns south towards Loch Morlich, there is the
start of track on the northern side that leads to the Badaguish Centre
established by The Speyside Trust in 2006 and catering for people with
disabilities. This is essentially cabin style holiday accommodation with a
range of appropriate activities at a site in a remote part of the Queen’s
Forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Visiting the web sites and other marketing manifestations of
the various attractions in the area a curious paradox emerges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The primary offer seems to be the opportunity
to relax and stuff yourself with food and drink in tranquil and beautiful
places, whereas the social intention of the tourist resort dimension seems to
be on activity and vigorous sports and pursuits both outdoor and indoor. The
centre also offers a Speyside Kitchen with a wide range of conventional
restaurant dishes and a few specialities such <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">as locally made<strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> boerewors sausage, popular in southern Africa, with sticky onion sauce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elsewhere fancy names have been coined for
new facilities, the Pine Marten Bar and Scran for example (scran is a Scots
word meaning, among other things, take away food) at the Glenmore Centre. Then
there is a car park near Glenmore Lodge strangely titled the Wanderparkplatz (perhaps
to make German visitors feel at home). It is as though the lovely but
unpronounceable local place names in Scottish Gaelic like Cnap Coire na Spreidhe
weren’t enough vocabularic variation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
short distance further east of the Youth Hostel is the Cairngorm Reindeer
Centre. To add to the etymological circus ‘reindeer’ is a word deriving from
the Old Norse ‘hreindyri’. </span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Not far along from the road from the
Badaguish turn is the sign for Rothiemurchus Centre under Castle Hill some
distance from the Glenmore road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
offers cabin and chalet accommodation to members of the British forces and
associated people and organisations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are also picnic sites, fishing opportunities, cycle trails and
orienteering facilities on or near the shores of Loch Morlich and a large sandy
area called Loch Morlich Beach, said to be the highest beach in the British
Isles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One intriguing feature is a
monument marked at full stop size on the map just north of the road and the
western end of Loch Morlich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Highland Historic Environment Bureau are aware of this<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>but claim to know nothing much else about it
– what in commemorates and how old it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Neither do they have a photo or drawing of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, using StreetView an object like a
sundial cam be seen among the pines in more or less the correct position and is
apparently known as ‘The Queen’s Forest Pillar’ a name presumably connected to
the fact that the surrounding area is shown on the map as The Queen’s Forest.</span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">As outlined above the Glenmore Lodge I
stayed in in 1954 is now the Loch Morlich Youth Hostel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
later became the Cairngorm Lodge Youth Hostel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A new build, Scotland’s National Outdoor Training Centre, a short
distance to the east of Glenmore Lodge, was opened 1996 and appropriated the
one word name Glenmore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This complicated
nomenclature means that many of the maps and other manifestations of the area’s
geography are incorrect and/or out of date, ironic for institutions one of
whose major aims is to teach hill walking visitors how to use maps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The web site of the Reindeer Centre at
Glenmore also claims that SatNav directions will take you to the wrong place –
all part of the magic of the Highlands no doubt.</span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">When we rived at Glenmore Lodge males were
separated from females and we were allocated bunk beds in dormitories of half a
dozen people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very utilitarian with
bland pale blue and cream walls and rough blankets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all had to stow our walking boots and
other outdoor accoutrements and then assemble in the dining room for our first meal
for which we sat on benches on either side of long trestle tables.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we were mustered for briefing before
outdoor activities began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This walking,
climbing, sailing and kayaking I will cover in another chapter</span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">On some of the evenings there were social
activities and I particularly remember everyone singing this song with its
words and tune ringing through the ceilidh on the last evening of the course. </span></strong><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 99.25pt;"><i><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">From Perth up to Dalwhinnie</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">And on to
Aviemore</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">The hills
and aw there splendour</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">Would set
my heart a glow</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">You’ll make
the open highway</span><br />
<span style="background: white; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">And head
for old Glenmore</span></span></i><i><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The tune appears to
be <i>The Lights of Lochindaal </i>a Scottish dance tune about Islay and I like
the version on YouTube<i> by </i>Jack Sinclair's Television Showband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The words I knew are thought to have been
written to the tune perhaps by someone at Glenmore Lodge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The song is a couple of lines short but the last
two lines can be repeated at the end of the verse,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>The hills and aw there splendour</i>
should perhaps be <i>The hills and all their splendour</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "Calibri",sans-serif; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: .25pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite the healthy and invigorating
activities, the young people on the course soon tended to form into male/female
pairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, by the end of the first
week, I found myself increasingly involved with a girl from Edinburgh called
Faye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had very innocent, fully
clothed wrestling matches on her bunk bed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Being an only child and at boys boarding school from the age of twelve I
knew very little about women either mentally or physically and, I am sure, Faye
knew very little about men in those far off days when sexual relations were
still very restrictive and contraception unreliable or non-existent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had never had a sex education lesson or a
biological chat from my mother or father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Faye was a lively and warm young woman with a posh Edinburgh accent and
now, after all these years, I particularly remember the soft and fluffy very
feminine pink jumper she often wore and her bright scarlet lipstick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After we returned to our respective homes
from Glen More we wrote love letters to one another from time to time and hers
would always be drenched in perfume and have SWALK inscribed in that bright
scarlet lipstick on the back of the envelope.</span></strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Georgia",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-75967320371968074352023-04-17T10:57:00.011+01:002023-04-20T11:25:28.716+01:00The Ribes Ramblings<p style="text-align: center;"><i><b>For details of varieties I am growing see end of this post</b></i></p><p><i>Ribes</i> is the scientific name for plants of the currant and gooseberry family. Ever since I was a child I have had an interest in these plants. It started at The Green Walk in Chingford (north east London) where my grandparents lived and to which I was a frequent visitor, staying there for much longer periods after my father went into the army in the early 1940s. I no longer visited The Green Walk and its gardens when, as a family we moved in 1951 to Bush Barn Farm on the outskirts of Robertsbridge, East Sussex.</p><p>The Green Walk had a large garden behind the house and towards the end of the plot there were tidy rows of red and black currants and gooseberries, all of which were regularly pruned by our gardener Mr Richardson and bore reasonable crops of fruit in summer which were welcome in those lean, wartime and post war years. I remember sitting on the kitchen table helping my grandmother top and tail gooseberries with their green, oval fruit veined with white. The dark brown remains of the petals - the front end of the gooseberry - was pinched off between the finger and thumb nails and the operation repeated on the remains of the stalk at the rear of the fruit. They were used to make gooseberry tart and jam. </p><p>I also spent much time crawling around and beneath the bushes and towards the end of my days at the Green Walk spent much time looking for currant clearwing moths whose larvae bore in the stems of the plants. I saw the adult moths on one or two occasions drifting like smoke, or large mosquitoes, among the currant stems. </p><p>In front of the house at Bush Barn Farm there was a field of currants and blackberries about 10 acres in extent. In our first year of residence a group of local pickers was employed to harvest the fruit, but the bushes were subsequently dug up and the area converted to grass pasture. I was allowed to drive an old Fordson tractor during clearance operations and the two farm hands would attach a lentgth of chain to each bush which I would then haul out of the ground with tractor power.</p><p>I thought little about currants and gooseberries until we arrived at Pomfret Avenue in Luton. There was a tiny back garden here and one of the things I thought I might grow was one or two cordons of red or white currants. For some reason the appeal of cordons had lodged in my head somewhere along the way and I had developed an enthusiasm to create them. But we left Luton before I could do anythink g about it.</p><p>My next currant memory was during the years at the start of this century when I worked as a consultant ecologist. Many of the sites I visited had currants (usually redcurrant, <i>Ribes rubrum</i>) particularly along stream sides. Once though I discovered a bush in fruit (see below) close to the old keeper's cottage near Brede High Heath in Brede High Woods, owned and managed by the Woodland Trust. This was possibly a cultivated survivor from the time when the cottage was lived in during the late 1920s or early 1930s.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_PgR14-2JP-dPIDp_RDeapFRtVDURCevSZaQk7DIYwQ_Q7Q0F-Cmeo6i-ocNUw876EkAjVDexsFaLHZkyOw7HPDT8JzR6ELLZpjXhydjsc4tZSAWfS1w44lYZxql492zKBSqAUj908_R2JGSFBePSdBWotfu-sdkpqAM_gNeu7O3aJ_aAAyo/s1670/8a.%20red%20currant.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1258" data-original-width="1670" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_PgR14-2JP-dPIDp_RDeapFRtVDURCevSZaQk7DIYwQ_Q7Q0F-Cmeo6i-ocNUw876EkAjVDexsFaLHZkyOw7HPDT8JzR6ELLZpjXhydjsc4tZSAWfS1w44lYZxql492zKBSqAUj908_R2JGSFBePSdBWotfu-sdkpqAM_gNeu7O3aJ_aAAyo/w400-h301/8a.%20red%20currant.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Apart from this my currant encounters were confined to one or two rather neglected bushes in pots in the garden, brought by Tana when she moved from The Green in St Leonards. And then in 2023 at the age of 85 a sudden enthusiasm for the genus, or at least its fruiting members, arose in my brain. I think, because they seemed ideal plants for patio pots, especially as most had one or more dwarf forms, for outside my French windows where I could see them. I took some cuttings too from one of these St Leonards bushes and they rooted well over the winter giving four more plants to experiment with. I also potted up a layered branch of a wild gooseberry I found many years ago in Churchland Wood. It has rather large leaves and vicious prickles.<p></p><p>Ribes-watching became a major preoccupation after this. Another spur was my purchase, in summer 2022, of a dwarf raspberry called 'Yummy' which seems to have overwintered very well in a pot. Partly too I liked the idea of them because I think my two year old grandson Remi, who visits often, might enjoy the development of edible fruits on reachable bushes. It also gives me the opportunity to train some cordons or double cordons if I have long enough left. If not other members of the family will be able to inherit the plants..</p><p>During March and April 2023 I really started to get into ribesology. First I bought a white currant, then a dwarf gooseberry called 'Giggles Red' , a dwarf blackcurrant, and a much praised variety of redcurrant called 'Rovada'. These came from different nurseries via Amazon and the leaves were mostly in bud, or just breaking. I wondered it the nurseries that supplied them had some way of holding growth back.</p><p>One of our first problems was with the blackcurrant as a family of voles (see below) insisted on tunnelling into the soil of the pot, though they didn't touch the currant itself. The problem was solved by Tana spreading a mulch of urine-impregnated cat litter over the soil. The voles fled.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuYlp-K1K1TNz2ipqqUZdZKuGnBgbcgEnqMdH6FoLiot2gehEcgjHeRmEVaB262q7_c0DsI-SfLc9P3u10rPCjFpqaenro9DsmIgOOdx-8gZKMaBfdjgg0KHY8xyQouNlQP94sA7LtAcA69eu76rus7EAsN1QsiFR3BgkhAvPUomVpmJ2WZc/s627/IMG_5474.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="627" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRuYlp-K1K1TNz2ipqqUZdZKuGnBgbcgEnqMdH6FoLiot2gehEcgjHeRmEVaB262q7_c0DsI-SfLc9P3u10rPCjFpqaenro9DsmIgOOdx-8gZKMaBfdjgg0KHY8xyQouNlQP94sA7LtAcA69eu76rus7EAsN1QsiFR3BgkhAvPUomVpmJ2WZc/w400-h301/IMG_5474.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Some of the St Leonards redcurrants down the garden are coming in to flower.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg9TcHyytmEX2cChq3v35CcVAgWriZSR6G479aH3dCjITCaN0gKUGq4BGZT9m0PKUvDaS8N3DS02sQIdzReTU7WyLfDLHEt2omhRpJ-wjbGH7A6qh347AXVauyMqITzIJyw58toNWr-3AF9LXaH0aNraUxgSguL2pyfz1c8GlchiNSB9KS93g/s1282/IMG_5531.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1282" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg9TcHyytmEX2cChq3v35CcVAgWriZSR6G479aH3dCjITCaN0gKUGq4BGZT9m0PKUvDaS8N3DS02sQIdzReTU7WyLfDLHEt2omhRpJ-wjbGH7A6qh347AXVauyMqITzIJyw58toNWr-3AF9LXaH0aNraUxgSguL2pyfz1c8GlchiNSB9KS93g/s320/IMG_5531.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>And I photographed this wild, self-sown redcurrant bush also down the garden. These are quite common in the Sussex countryside here but rarely, if ever, bear fruit.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIaaaZmf-7qv4qe7ZrUgh7c51okWaFuWj8hQkBKC7H8PuylfLXN94cbr59racr90FJrN-fZvLs5b0gZclRq5DN7oBdTCxY1Davsr9C7vBZoZhXSEZx_QCELebkyWNqBAq6bgN6eY4fjMPfmS7_wEIw7iFv7mL6NNkxphfuSs-IsmtoEb7eA3M/s1294/IMG_5535.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1243" data-original-width="1294" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIaaaZmf-7qv4qe7ZrUgh7c51okWaFuWj8hQkBKC7H8PuylfLXN94cbr59racr90FJrN-fZvLs5b0gZclRq5DN7oBdTCxY1Davsr9C7vBZoZhXSEZx_QCELebkyWNqBAq6bgN6eY4fjMPfmS7_wEIw7iFv7mL6NNkxphfuSs-IsmtoEb7eA3M/w400-h384/IMG_5535.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I continued my researches on 19 April in an attempt to find out why the Giggles series of gooseberries had been so named. The best guess was that it somehow related to 'goggles', an old-fashioned name for the fruit. When I was a boy we often used to refer to gooseberries as goosegogs and one source said that 'gooseberry bush' was a 19th C term for pubic hair, hence the idea of finding babies 'under the gooseberry bush'. The Giggles Series is closely associated with the nursery firm Thompson and Morgan and I think the variety name may have originated with them.</div><br /><p></p><p>Below I have listed our current currant collection and will add to it as occasion demands.</p><p><b>Blackcurrant 'Summer Pearls Patio'</b> Early April 2023. Thompson and Morgan</p><p><b>Gooseberry 'Giggles Red' </b>24 March 2023. Thompson and Morgan</p><p><b>Gooseberry from Churchland Wood</b></p><p><b>Redcurrant from The Green, St. Leonards</b></p><p><b>Redcurrant 'Rovada'. </b>10 April 2023. From <i>Fruits of Perthshire.</i> One of the most popular varieties, . Rovada was developed in 1980 in the Netherlands by L.M. Wassenaar of the Institute of Horticulture and Plant Breeding. It is the product of <i>Fay's Prolific x Heinemann's Rote Spatlese</i>.</p><p><b>Whitecurrant 'Summer Pearls White'.</b> 23 March 2023. YouGarden</p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><br /></p><p>v<br /><br /><br /></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-37382865579268054902022-12-26T22:16:00.001+00:002022-12-26T22:16:42.951+00:00Back again<p>I tottered round our dank and droopy garden this Boxing Day. In the summer we grew, quite successfully all sorts of vegetables on old hay bales. Any remaining were recently covered in snow.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipx8FvJXFGAkc-1zMgNKF3k3wNJRw-lGFj5juwkhNbKwO0vN7M4N7frTEnCtGXLXVxCK4ZkrGR2URvPkO3_kJYRzJaWsrhhPyrmOocemQgBozHkw_kk9g2dr7zCuyW68qnacBa340apBF2lf-NXb4VXx65z_Ir6JnBLk8s-x4uGdGJ62AlwxY/s2736/IMG_5316.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipx8FvJXFGAkc-1zMgNKF3k3wNJRw-lGFj5juwkhNbKwO0vN7M4N7frTEnCtGXLXVxCK4ZkrGR2URvPkO3_kJYRzJaWsrhhPyrmOocemQgBozHkw_kk9g2dr7zCuyW68qnacBa340apBF2lf-NXb4VXx65z_Ir6JnBLk8s-x4uGdGJ62AlwxY/w400-h266/IMG_5316.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>The line oif leaves is garlic - Donetsk Red from the Ukraine and I think they should survive the winter well enough. Under the snow in front of them is a line of very hardy corn salad (or lamb's lettuce) which is one of those plants that slugs find unpalatable as the photo below shows. As salad they are enjoyed by our species and are usually on sale in supermarkets. Ours were sown in late summer but it doesn't look as though they are going to be large enough to be edible until well into the spring..<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWSYYzTsmokwzRaL60zOLGlF79FUuzZnoTd8YVi7VlQVgaefoQFJC8dkx1ufTUw23-53WRqJtf-ri1qDfAwrO2PXM0hdaIAMo820Vbvq3XSzpbs4TBrsRMmgV5FdhwjjY70dncp6WjCqH5_eBKjC3QSncMtuo4UYzjj8UgjJ-LGfEEcBu-JY/s1221/IMG_5354.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1221" data-original-width="774" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWSYYzTsmokwzRaL60zOLGlF79FUuzZnoTd8YVi7VlQVgaefoQFJC8dkx1ufTUw23-53WRqJtf-ri1qDfAwrO2PXM0hdaIAMo820Vbvq3XSzpbs4TBrsRMmgV5FdhwjjY70dncp6WjCqH5_eBKjC3QSncMtuo4UYzjj8UgjJ-LGfEEcBu-JY/w254-h400/IMG_5354.JPG" width="254" /></a></div><br /><div>Not far from these hay bales I noticed that snowdrops are starting to poke through the ground. A little earlier than usual I think.</div><div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0vzA7V6VdV6OWwvYF-nwH02_UB6m-MQbSe4Ax_uXw0PPYQHbGxNDMetJeRiNqGdQ2srQIzokfii6h_TBamwNUUkLV6aF9ro19Nt3uli6Z0B6sqs2AgyryLIhbx6jHsL_kYUTdvsMal2WhbMRu1jfdyMhCeRL0zmYHapjl2QITAhnFA7azT8/s1616/IMG_5355.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1147" data-original-width="1616" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0vzA7V6VdV6OWwvYF-nwH02_UB6m-MQbSe4Ax_uXw0PPYQHbGxNDMetJeRiNqGdQ2srQIzokfii6h_TBamwNUUkLV6aF9ro19Nt3uli6Z0B6sqs2AgyryLIhbx6jHsL_kYUTdvsMal2WhbMRu1jfdyMhCeRL0zmYHapjl2QITAhnFA7azT8/s320/IMG_5355.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div>The moon was quite impressive tonight in a clear sky. The crescent is waxing and will be full on 6th January. It is sometimes known as the 'wolf moon' but we don't have any wolves left to howl at it.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURLdp-SoXd5cOjf5y7M3rpazINUP0FO7RDaYi3vQUWL5_kXjuEpoyeus1WdY3YOHLjWb3yX2TTbVePGQUOomtvCIUFDaI3dHvxm78UuP2FF6UxM-PItT8ewQMIbM3WVr_2mh_5O-T23yRFA0cG6wIKWZww8-7FrlDIusDLo_3RUw31bl8L1w/s965/IMG_5363.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="965" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjURLdp-SoXd5cOjf5y7M3rpazINUP0FO7RDaYi3vQUWL5_kXjuEpoyeus1WdY3YOHLjWb3yX2TTbVePGQUOomtvCIUFDaI3dHvxm78UuP2FF6UxM-PItT8ewQMIbM3WVr_2mh_5O-T23yRFA0cG6wIKWZww8-7FrlDIusDLo_3RUw31bl8L1w/w400-h299/IMG_5363.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><p><br /></p></div>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-48800416715399375082022-05-04T14:00:00.003+01:002022-05-04T15:43:11.682+01:00May 2022<p>1 May 2022. I normally take a walk every day ranging through field, wood, lanes and footpaths within about half a kilometre of home (TQ782188). I always take the camera and usually find something to photograph. Here I thought I might try a sort of daily picture diary.</p><p><br /><br /></p><p>Germander speedwell (below) in flower is now quite abundant. The name 'germander' comes from ancient Greek, via Old French and Old English, and means 'oak leaved'. The leaves were thought to resemble those of oak bu, as you can see in the picture, it is not a very good fit.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPj85pAn-56wxNS9ZNYg4e1yOT0MhW8gDmje19uzBAu0K5wRFCIN-8V6evGs1XXhS03QG7O6TSiQN4PEiFBx5XHdG4PvPWeHzqxwFKTf6Xrhz4pKSjI-bUwyBxRgnfL1_Oxj-KpO8GsjjtEWjBk70uJj0s8yFD4W-8c-105CwPFNGtv4Ms3C0/s1673/IMG_3838.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1118" data-original-width="1673" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPj85pAn-56wxNS9ZNYg4e1yOT0MhW8gDmje19uzBAu0K5wRFCIN-8V6evGs1XXhS03QG7O6TSiQN4PEiFBx5XHdG4PvPWeHzqxwFKTf6Xrhz4pKSjI-bUwyBxRgnfL1_Oxj-KpO8GsjjtEWjBk70uJj0s8yFD4W-8c-105CwPFNGtv4Ms3C0/w400-h268/IMG_3838.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The distinctive croziers of soft shield fern (below) are now unrolling. There are two plants on Jessmond's boundary, one in the north east corner of our garden, I also know of one in Killingan Wood and there is a good colony along the south west part of Killingan Stream.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL5J8WEbbomTLwy1dGz0hO30oVuMDhXsoNK-fMXfNiF4CRPyBeFTVeHysEnV4SXCGMsPGm5aNd0Y3WoiBcwcO2Qw83TTB0sm_bLR5Ln8O9D7h0dtBH9yzUx3tb6TNk63jja5_iuDTEOWsv2yHp0wrV22O3SPz84FdckS-QwKmLELxfD2IH_WI/s1447/IMG_3840.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1447" data-original-width="1137" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL5J8WEbbomTLwy1dGz0hO30oVuMDhXsoNK-fMXfNiF4CRPyBeFTVeHysEnV4SXCGMsPGm5aNd0Y3WoiBcwcO2Qw83TTB0sm_bLR5Ln8O9D7h0dtBH9yzUx3tb6TNk63jja5_iuDTEOWsv2yHp0wrV22O3SPz84FdckS-QwKmLELxfD2IH_WI/s320/IMG_3840.JPG" width="251" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">2 May 2022</div><p></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-6047915909345220802022-04-30T18:28:00.005+01:002022-05-04T13:34:27.420+01:00April 2022<p> April this year has been very dry (the forecasters say we have only had about one third of the expected amount) and some of the plants locally have been showing signs of stress due to lack of water. Insects have been scarce, though I have seen the usual spring butterfly species: red admiral, brimstone, large white, orange tip, peacock, speckled wood and comma (below).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHjQk1y17xhH3O70Emkh5uzVERxlBT-nhidGEbzPhIMTg1Yhz0RMSZW5Qxyqx9petPJCFiRMGFcfMtmE0kPpcBH01fd8lWTiVfth1_vaE0HnKoBklvxEd69M6jCN7IPOKcCDu6Est1sjBlBpg4Jb5L_zoyR3dBaHsQzAi091ZosH6d5-ptGo/s934/IMG_3583.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="934" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCHjQk1y17xhH3O70Emkh5uzVERxlBT-nhidGEbzPhIMTg1Yhz0RMSZW5Qxyqx9petPJCFiRMGFcfMtmE0kPpcBH01fd8lWTiVfth1_vaE0HnKoBklvxEd69M6jCN7IPOKcCDu6Est1sjBlBpg4Jb5L_zoyR3dBaHsQzAi091ZosH6d5-ptGo/w400-h306/IMG_3583.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Some other interesting insects included a female <b>tawny mining bee</b>, <i>Andrena fulva, </i>here pictured on the spurge known as 'Mrs Robb's bonnet', <i>Euphorbia amygdaloides</i> ssp. <i>robbiae. </i>I like the way she has planted her feet neatly on the edge of the flower.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2rBaZcpSIXwf2d5h7HwUg-Kne6ufq89l7PXlbncY3riCxSmZ15mX1_i15mMIpnZm5sYCyQXJmUwAx3PE3aT0pvKM1MKyKgXxFEl7bj9YobojZQRgYw-g_yd3rzO_tP6fLivgH_yLUQYp5wPvcGrEbLWDwnWJcG7PC6dd2L6BGXLNasIf1jQ/s1829/IMG_3337.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1239" data-original-width="1829" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2rBaZcpSIXwf2d5h7HwUg-Kne6ufq89l7PXlbncY3riCxSmZ15mX1_i15mMIpnZm5sYCyQXJmUwAx3PE3aT0pvKM1MKyKgXxFEl7bj9YobojZQRgYw-g_yd3rzO_tP6fLivgH_yLUQYp5wPvcGrEbLWDwnWJcG7PC6dd2L6BGXLNasIf1jQ/w400-h271/IMG_3337.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><i><br /></i></div><br /><p></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-41898917421022267932022-03-09T18:19:00.005+00:002022-04-04T19:03:51.796+01:00March 2022<p><b>1 March 2022</b> It has been a generally rather cold and drab start to the month with the mood not being helped by Russia's war on Ukraine. I am lucky in having a small area of wood, lane and field to enjoy away from the news. In his speech to the Commons on 8th March Ukrainian president <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.6px;">Volodymyr Zelensky </span>said his people would fight in the fields, the forests and on the riversides perhaps indicating how important these places are as emblematic of a home country. However, when the wind comes from the north, rattling the bare branches in Killingan Wood, it is difficult not to be saddened by the plight of those distant people in much deeper cold who have no home left to go back to.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL2LDYHcbdCL_oh8PCPdsmOonJPhIknTCcJAKsAyjLBkupMjKWY8_nAYXl-TuXn0lJpPSkjbJGutyuKQv87Sb7sGx0uV8kGHZKLMdUxy4o4I4C6P7UM1PDUgT06ZJgfq0way2DRuouyhN-C8YGDLvZCs0uF7WWU7vsI0ad_daql1aK9NflDzc/s5472/IMG_2946.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL2LDYHcbdCL_oh8PCPdsmOonJPhIknTCcJAKsAyjLBkupMjKWY8_nAYXl-TuXn0lJpPSkjbJGutyuKQv87Sb7sGx0uV8kGHZKLMdUxy4o4I4C6P7UM1PDUgT06ZJgfq0way2DRuouyhN-C8YGDLvZCs0uF7WWU7vsI0ad_daql1aK9NflDzc/w400-h266/IMG_2946.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>9 March 2022</b> A gratefully warm day at last. There was enough afternoon sunshine to warm my back. On my walk my spirits were lifted by the patches of sunny celandine flowers along the verges of the lane. In the woods the white anemone flowers are a landscape feature and some of them have pink reverses to the petals and occasionally they are wholly pink. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5LqFMhJXkE1EjpNfAQwnIL3NSzHqGhFU8jgjmB9I7pTK9DUiDkvDcfx6Ajgi4oehIR2qi-sLrSH062BWYtzUA3rhEidEiZk-oHW3XmYLZk7ZTtMgyACAgSUysSQLsQT9wqrKCyQc525usqQFL-P5AbE8VXbq99Jdg7Y6QACQtXXqo2PvhrEA/s5472/IMG_3204.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5LqFMhJXkE1EjpNfAQwnIL3NSzHqGhFU8jgjmB9I7pTK9DUiDkvDcfx6Ajgi4oehIR2qi-sLrSH062BWYtzUA3rhEidEiZk-oHW3XmYLZk7ZTtMgyACAgSUysSQLsQT9wqrKCyQc525usqQFL-P5AbE8VXbq99Jdg7Y6QACQtXXqo2PvhrEA/w400-h266/IMG_3204.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>I found several rosettes of heavily spotted early-purple orchid leaves and the <i>Euphorbia robbiae</i> (Mrs Robb's bonnet spurge) is at its best in the patch by Churchland Lane. New leaves are greening many of the trees like this hornbeam.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKhOMCxng_k_YCigPmHvESwFA9J6mvu5Gvr3dVquT3yLLO7e1xYLbX-jeUzrXLr6s7-gLW2KWd9SxIJQGbSSJVuK2gvIMUXkAbZLYnyrA05WfvSLgKucRQP9md0Lj-sR3liPUPGaa0GvxjMrAs89Xx_s9SUSaAIJJ3dY6iPou0maSdOh2_FU/s1905/IMG_2980.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1413" data-original-width="1905" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOKhOMCxng_k_YCigPmHvESwFA9J6mvu5Gvr3dVquT3yLLO7e1xYLbX-jeUzrXLr6s7-gLW2KWd9SxIJQGbSSJVuK2gvIMUXkAbZLYnyrA05WfvSLgKucRQP9md0Lj-sR3liPUPGaa0GvxjMrAs89Xx_s9SUSaAIJJ3dY6iPou0maSdOh2_FU/w400-h296/IMG_2980.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>The garden in brightening up rapidly with several camellias now in flower as well as the <i>Pieris</i> 'Firecrest' at the end of the garden. In my Square Metre Mark 2 I found a small plant of bristly ox-tongue. This is, I think, the first time I have noticed this species in the garden and I wondered where it might have come from. The camellia below is the white semi-double 'Yuki-botan'.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMfAtD0PJZHlG23PpTPtBrE2MRURzbMD9VU6Gs3u1WPxQiRTdfFzC1Ix-gcwzEeQRJfYu1WGlgNh_d2I4NHRzfnBDSGxd0GecBZLLdzcQpk9F87GiCzxP4E06lfTaHwRfUsw_LEdslyiRrJB-oCRUcuT4E2NGeSpUn7Btrl3Hdooi86p6KaI/s5472/IMG_3184.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHMfAtD0PJZHlG23PpTPtBrE2MRURzbMD9VU6Gs3u1WPxQiRTdfFzC1Ix-gcwzEeQRJfYu1WGlgNh_d2I4NHRzfnBDSGxd0GecBZLLdzcQpk9F87GiCzxP4E06lfTaHwRfUsw_LEdslyiRrJB-oCRUcuT4E2NGeSpUn7Btrl3Hdooi86p6KaI/s320/IMG_3184.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>15 March 2022</b> At last the weather feels more spring than winter and today I saw the first brimstone butterfly on the wing - a male. That flake of intense citrus yellow searching the garden air, looking for bluebells and buckthorn is like a flag from a starter - spring cannot be stopped now. In the garden it found our only plant of the grape hyacinth <i>Muscari armeniacum.</i></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJPSlGM3bISJ2H7QAedjm3mmFTPAw4GWbuwBUY3slWS-GtbUoTY0rbVa9dfTX2eQTrYp72bHy7y5ayEpNcjp2iprYrte_XEKeFSBPLDKsuPGe7T3GBl4rkEsvtFGtyZZ6lY0LzH0E8dyTpQGofPvjmfFpsiRxDf_q4FmM4Ld1ua3zm3MBAOU/s1657/IMG_3065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1657" data-original-width="1597" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcJPSlGM3bISJ2H7QAedjm3mmFTPAw4GWbuwBUY3slWS-GtbUoTY0rbVa9dfTX2eQTrYp72bHy7y5ayEpNcjp2iprYrte_XEKeFSBPLDKsuPGe7T3GBl4rkEsvtFGtyZZ6lY0LzH0E8dyTpQGofPvjmfFpsiRxDf_q4FmM4Ld1ua3zm3MBAOU/w385-h378/IMG_3065.JPG" width="385" /></a></p><p>Yesterday I found a large patch pf spring snowflake on the wood bank at the end of Churchland Lane. A surprise as I have been past the spot a thousand times without noticing it. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0B8Fbc9b5gDwMkdM4pNw1Fl-9DAtK2f2HPexIwXq2k_hyiVUkUvzm9tsq74S2vSk1xcDUqxPI6wGW2uun2jKizAFoViM-bgHF4f9ZxI-zV0tBrt2wla-wiN4SH-mSP9U9257Am1rOE2FIPgpFyz65JocBiQMLaFkUPQL1YjaLEoRmaPQ6-WY/s3072/IMG_2927.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2434" data-original-width="3072" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0B8Fbc9b5gDwMkdM4pNw1Fl-9DAtK2f2HPexIwXq2k_hyiVUkUvzm9tsq74S2vSk1xcDUqxPI6wGW2uun2jKizAFoViM-bgHF4f9ZxI-zV0tBrt2wla-wiN4SH-mSP9U9257Am1rOE2FIPgpFyz65JocBiQMLaFkUPQL1YjaLEoRmaPQ6-WY/w400-h318/IMG_2927.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Later I ventured into Churchland Fields where the gorse is at its best and photographed a grey willow that stands alone. One seldom sees a free-standing tree of this species as they are normally muddled up with the scrub vegetation in regenerating secondary woodland.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRiP9yoDuTeLByF1G42ANkozgewCGhqCxoRbJGoBU5wcuP8dxbb0CPMIrK1_ictZJvsb5l4yropt-KKxTL3MsvNw8uWKxAHyv2oe7RXct0WxVAM2uNktUyd8Hdig2cg-e4_i2aXiESGnCvD9SlVGUMK0meN5LPA1eFB2yefUYl6quv_2uNb60/s3178/IMG_2952.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3178" data-original-width="3074" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRiP9yoDuTeLByF1G42ANkozgewCGhqCxoRbJGoBU5wcuP8dxbb0CPMIrK1_ictZJvsb5l4yropt-KKxTL3MsvNw8uWKxAHyv2oe7RXct0WxVAM2uNktUyd8Hdig2cg-e4_i2aXiESGnCvD9SlVGUMK0meN5LPA1eFB2yefUYl6quv_2uNb60/w388-h400/IMG_2952.JPG" width="388" /></a></div><div><br /></div><b>20 - 31 March 2022</b>. The spring progresses and there are many dandelions out along the verges. On one I saw a small sallow mining bee, <i>Andrena praecox,</i> the first solitary bee of the year but sadly they seem to be less common than usual. <div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6AOfwdFspaLW4KzQmMk_dWrVKc3YhxLKd3kjUENiFsEhxX-4w2ZEiTnjTZ4JUxUihfW0KUot1bZ3wyu0MCVMbVNds_DpY8h9m38ZlFxpBkeeN2L4OGorOnA5ncCNCvTp24MZQxqNps4eo8eFW8580uRs7eiMWs8Os2l5ONcoj23p1r2BN4Ao/s2460/IMG_2990.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2179" data-original-width="2460" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6AOfwdFspaLW4KzQmMk_dWrVKc3YhxLKd3kjUENiFsEhxX-4w2ZEiTnjTZ4JUxUihfW0KUot1bZ3wyu0MCVMbVNds_DpY8h9m38ZlFxpBkeeN2L4OGorOnA5ncCNCvTp24MZQxqNps4eo8eFW8580uRs7eiMWs8Os2l5ONcoj23p1r2BN4Ao/w400-h354/IMG_2990.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="font-style: italic;"><i><br /></i></div>By 23 March the first black bryony shoots were snaking upwards, horse chestnut buds were breaking and I found an extensive colony of common dog-violet, <i>Viola riviniana</i>, in the north east corner of Churchland Fields. </div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCcVUV2TCdFmSK0oxjU7iu76IgeRrVE3VD8AKLo-3w0OZ-JEEsZjrjP8T7NmzgIAnueUaqfky5ZVCVzY2zTtIy0M78MyAxG1HvROM0Hd3qrZRRHY_99QAvBJyVEc5giJxwKvaIOUc2ED0Idq3IUCSB3G7eIuFtWfLQ5TrDb6c2n1CwswSxP8/s1719/IMG_3085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1356" data-original-width="1719" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvCcVUV2TCdFmSK0oxjU7iu76IgeRrVE3VD8AKLo-3w0OZ-JEEsZjrjP8T7NmzgIAnueUaqfky5ZVCVzY2zTtIy0M78MyAxG1HvROM0Hd3qrZRRHY_99QAvBJyVEc5giJxwKvaIOUc2ED0Idq3IUCSB3G7eIuFtWfLQ5TrDb6c2n1CwswSxP8/w400-h315/IMG_3085.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>The warm, sunny weather continued until 30th March. On 26th I saw my first greater stitchwort flower in Churchland Lane and the first bluebells in Killingan Wood. On 31 March we had hail and snow showers and there was an overnight frost, one of the sharpest in the generally mild darker months. In April we learnt that March had been the sunniest on record in parts of the north and Scotland.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK7g28wq4jGB1ptD6tPqg_j3BTCM5jDPwpfcLrWPatbKhICgyoLNMumkIVhDTGsD0mwNsXzsPfqCzIEL4GHcDRJvZ4u1w7efBYIKmtDWmyh_Y181c3BSmSSSAyoYfPkeKBydGeXLLPzzNPsMGDVUX5iwzG-2-k8nGR_niDF5vzj2B-a9_539U/s2992/IMG_3205.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2371" data-original-width="2992" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK7g28wq4jGB1ptD6tPqg_j3BTCM5jDPwpfcLrWPatbKhICgyoLNMumkIVhDTGsD0mwNsXzsPfqCzIEL4GHcDRJvZ4u1w7efBYIKmtDWmyh_Y181c3BSmSSSAyoYfPkeKBydGeXLLPzzNPsMGDVUX5iwzG-2-k8nGR_niDF5vzj2B-a9_539U/w400-h318/IMG_3205.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /> <br /><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-54776764409795588342022-02-06T16:00:00.036+00:002022-03-03T19:50:12.192+00:00February 2022<p> <b>9 February 2022</b>. Although the daytime temperature has been hovering between 9 and 12 degrees, I managed today to do some useful work in the garden. Quite suddenly snowdrops have appeared on the far side of our lane and there are several lesser periwinkle flowers by the pond. I pottered about in the Square Metre, propping up the <i>Cotoneaster franchetii </i>and pruning hazels, oak, holly and hornbeam into more manageable shapes. On the holly I though I had spotted a leaf mine of <i>Phytomyza illicis</i> but it is very small and I will have to wait a bit to be certain. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj_0Hey7M4oZEVWM6_BQKPix2mUTV9Sua47WC3Cl4bEWwMKUSWKoOn7pqHgoPo0cChrWYs87Y-6d71NiTJlJ5hHnd4bk6Ui8XSNR4LpWY3TDKbD26WokX-Xm0cehHwRGcgs1UwQc_NougA25ewgvU2P6DcZ8I6AJEr1N6vzPIWrau3EGwbdNM=s1231" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="913" data-original-width="1231" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj_0Hey7M4oZEVWM6_BQKPix2mUTV9Sua47WC3Cl4bEWwMKUSWKoOn7pqHgoPo0cChrWYs87Y-6d71NiTJlJ5hHnd4bk6Ui8XSNR4LpWY3TDKbD26WokX-Xm0cehHwRGcgs1UwQc_NougA25ewgvU2P6DcZ8I6AJEr1N6vzPIWrau3EGwbdNM=w400-h296" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinSgpHIXnbczkczs3hz4RkqOHPPlXuTnOnQoshGhecaTthrYGNHKV-Ek8CnoAic5ZzpVjRt9gehctcMm0vo_g1j68B_h7nz4wAVgLVHwGDWAMQDqjNKi1Rhatx7rDTl8Lf9eWh5YF1cxxri2-0RyjDeGPlUr_xXSyS_3lzyUr9w3e58S_TK0A=s1256" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1256" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinSgpHIXnbczkczs3hz4RkqOHPPlXuTnOnQoshGhecaTthrYGNHKV-Ek8CnoAic5ZzpVjRt9gehctcMm0vo_g1j68B_h7nz4wAVgLVHwGDWAMQDqjNKi1Rhatx7rDTl8Lf9eWh5YF1cxxri2-0RyjDeGPlUr_xXSyS_3lzyUr9w3e58S_TK0A=w400-h315" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Rather less conspicuous are the tiny green flowers on new shoots of dog's mercury now appearing in Killingan Wood.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxkj2hltHuDQ6X1Cs-7Pjp6tTFNCkAa1Sh0cayaAzggxQjLehtaa2yP16MuKikUqsdZXuzbpBRyL78btQayiv-QjFBcsRZzhKu3R5JVnIDkyjnqFr4jc_ZyvECqw5nlTebK1IykRa6NxSvwoMnxCV7O2MERks8ARlyDtIsOEvxmXpG_cNQ79c=s1023" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1023" data-original-width="862" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgxkj2hltHuDQ6X1Cs-7Pjp6tTFNCkAa1Sh0cayaAzggxQjLehtaa2yP16MuKikUqsdZXuzbpBRyL78btQayiv-QjFBcsRZzhKu3R5JVnIDkyjnqFr4jc_ZyvECqw5nlTebK1IykRa6NxSvwoMnxCV7O2MERks8ARlyDtIsOEvxmXpG_cNQ79c=w338-h400" width="338" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As well as dog's mercury the new bluebell shoots are starting to green the leafy woodland carpet, though the two plants grow in different places in the wood for reasons I cannot fathom.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIXrekmu63xaXsLU9l3CSL-Qaucj-hEQmiDvexpYCUyKw8CA9CfDe2KKwV3HCs4ndt7nI6CzqBCwTsv6wX4peAnu5do0R-8Vzj3938gjpjZyDUwBChiUZxaUk5BhtHUA0eSkdBXSsZ3SkZgZW-ugMBx1GndGhIQzS0oQi0B7ttah3fjR_40wc=s1549" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1062" data-original-width="1549" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIXrekmu63xaXsLU9l3CSL-Qaucj-hEQmiDvexpYCUyKw8CA9CfDe2KKwV3HCs4ndt7nI6CzqBCwTsv6wX4peAnu5do0R-8Vzj3938gjpjZyDUwBChiUZxaUk5BhtHUA0eSkdBXSsZ3SkZgZW-ugMBx1GndGhIQzS0oQi0B7ttah3fjR_40wc=w400-h274" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Despite the early signs of spring there are still the remains of autumn and winter. Some beech trees have not lost their dead brown leaves but this only seems to be the case with young trees and those that are used in hedging. Leaves are long gone from the larger beech trees.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQrKPnJIUISOGVj6JrAT4JBC5R9RAcaLointxtfTZqUa8PMpOpYZgaoBnhuUpoX_V70MVeUpW0Ach_ZkhEpeINYkT__DfLX_07RBzP7Bd8F96p7rhfsOm188DwqSI8b8QIrpfrM9EyoBK9dLHuqGfepvJzZqQs-BXlsForeZ8jAwCAPqQ51Bw=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQrKPnJIUISOGVj6JrAT4JBC5R9RAcaLointxtfTZqUa8PMpOpYZgaoBnhuUpoX_V70MVeUpW0Ach_ZkhEpeINYkT__DfLX_07RBzP7Bd8F96p7rhfsOm188DwqSI8b8QIrpfrM9EyoBK9dLHuqGfepvJzZqQs-BXlsForeZ8jAwCAPqQ51Bw=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The evergreen shrub <i>Euonymus japonicus or </i>Japanese spindle tree is much used for hedging along our lane and in gardens, but it fruits poorly or not at all. However, I found a fine crop of fruit in a south facing hedge in a nearby garden. Most of the fruit are now just an outer capsule, but the inner seeds covered with a bright orange pulpy aril can be seem in some. In our native spindle tree this aril is "richer in nutriment than the pulp of any native fruit" (Snow, B & D. <i>Birds and Berries</i>). The seed inside the aril is toxic. Robins are said to be very fond of the arils and I imagine the fruit of the Japanese species has similar qualities. Originally from Japan, it was introduced to Britain in 1804. <i>Trees and Shrubs Online </i>says<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "<span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-size: 16px;">It is a handsome and cheerful evergreen much used in south coast watering-places for hedges, where the sea air seems to suit it."</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp2um8iJTx3dXUz-yOLpgXfQ-ToQ1F7LIBIHmOFS-VosWUc86-sPUHwF9LYgL4mcxaACK3_SOFdP3snag8V4AeQxAKkgrjFR11YK1mc2I222nq8NqWOFx1EcCw6oBZXJtTAkUhteEtRzhnls41L7IaA5ieaB5u2HkGbOufbti-ybgeS6OlVQI=s1830" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><strike><img border="0" data-original-height="1294" data-original-width="1830" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjp2um8iJTx3dXUz-yOLpgXfQ-ToQ1F7LIBIHmOFS-VosWUc86-sPUHwF9LYgL4mcxaACK3_SOFdP3snag8V4AeQxAKkgrjFR11YK1mc2I222nq8NqWOFx1EcCw6oBZXJtTAkUhteEtRzhnls41L7IaA5ieaB5u2HkGbOufbti-ybgeS6OlVQI=w400-h283" width="400" /></strike></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">People look out eagerly for the first spring flowers and I also enjoy the earliest leaves like those on the elder below.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ4C57efdCAIeJUkQhbYqS6EJHnk0LA6RAubCaN1xbrDR0ecIl2z1R5_4GTSLBgZktzHP_P0rSJcTAaanP93kGMx9TwV2frj5nRhMskDSohLqBrerJ9wwYlaNZgQ8WaUfIppBhYx7SI6mpGYZAPGIAbD6aMfQh46ez6YbOzfXuWbH_kqrcXq0=s1083" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="1083" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ4C57efdCAIeJUkQhbYqS6EJHnk0LA6RAubCaN1xbrDR0ecIl2z1R5_4GTSLBgZktzHP_P0rSJcTAaanP93kGMx9TwV2frj5nRhMskDSohLqBrerJ9wwYlaNZgQ8WaUfIppBhYx7SI6mpGYZAPGIAbD6aMfQh46ez6YbOzfXuWbH_kqrcXq0=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Honeysuckle leaves also start growing in winter and have now reached a noticeable size.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-NUNUbRX0Z6IY7fwlTeGT2gatuXW038wOCXDRa4jMVOjlbgBWCpSI_uF8yU8HuSLQtKXF2Brs3gg0t19Ci5En4_WquJ29wDe6HTFtM9wpFN-O4Sbe1LyqAu6mTsSuRxNvoajKo-hkyJWKYH6Q6mLaN3sXRrXXzCMscWD3fBR4iUCfNRv_tDY=s1712" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1252" data-original-width="1712" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-NUNUbRX0Z6IY7fwlTeGT2gatuXW038wOCXDRa4jMVOjlbgBWCpSI_uF8yU8HuSLQtKXF2Brs3gg0t19Ci5En4_WquJ29wDe6HTFtM9wpFN-O4Sbe1LyqAu6mTsSuRxNvoajKo-hkyJWKYH6Q6mLaN3sXRrXXzCMscWD3fBR4iUCfNRv_tDY=w400-h293" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Next door the 'tommies', or elfin crocuses, <i>Crocus tommasinianus</i> are outting on their annual display and there are hundreds of flowers in a small front garden. Also the plant has started to seed itself outside the curtilage of the garden plot. Where will this stop?</div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #323232; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIATZJ6nd0V7jqDvzaZ273_cNMBFzJ6GtVIyfbRynAD6RbLGfc2JpLz7easUJe4VrgiilTlbhOqMlTnP4QOx0P8R2JlsZr4jTSzECP1Ptsx2TTONv7QlKbJPTogmBVRTwA503JCJWi5OqzudEJKkA6Vf0oYTmMx7A4pYEy4yOqSr7csBX-rvc=s1393" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1122" data-original-width="1393" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIATZJ6nd0V7jqDvzaZ273_cNMBFzJ6GtVIyfbRynAD6RbLGfc2JpLz7easUJe4VrgiilTlbhOqMlTnP4QOx0P8R2JlsZr4jTSzECP1Ptsx2TTONv7QlKbJPTogmBVRTwA503JCJWi5OqzudEJKkA6Vf0oYTmMx7A4pYEy4yOqSr7csBX-rvc=w400-h323" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>12 February 2022</b> The first spring flower, a rather battered lesser celandine, came out in our lane today. The stalk bisecting the picture is a bracken stem and the black marks on it are, as far as I can determine, the common microfungus <i>Rhopographus filicinus.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHgrzNUDJYYlHAuTMWkH5MghHPiLB_fj9poy_HKOfT1wgykIScPZeqpBpoyfN-HDIDkqttIDYW7giYJe-wQ5Xf-14G1xSq-f8AUVDjzujNfWSKPXS8RvpfMZzdkJq4bbJzFze-HZ9KS5WBmSG0TnMVRSIUuD2EwlxZVEVmqHlcYi_SYpfKAFw=s993" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="993" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHgrzNUDJYYlHAuTMWkH5MghHPiLB_fj9poy_HKOfT1wgykIScPZeqpBpoyfN-HDIDkqttIDYW7giYJe-wQ5Xf-14G1xSq-f8AUVDjzujNfWSKPXS8RvpfMZzdkJq4bbJzFze-HZ9KS5WBmSG0TnMVRSIUuD2EwlxZVEVmqHlcYi_SYpfKAFw=w400-h353" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>16 February 2022</b> The wind has risen and the temperature had risen too, reaching about 12 degrees C. It was wet underfoot and slippery in places as the mud returned. There were coffee-coloured puddles in the lane and deeper pools of cloudy water in the various pits in the wood. Here the bluebell leaves are now making a continuous green ground cover Leaves of wood anemones are also appearing often close to the base of trees where, perhaps, there is a slightly gentler microclimate. One or two are showing flower buds head down in the centre of the frond like small eggs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUF-E2wRUMiHR_Zf2yljD8WlDPIHvsMAVJb7jrnNjeYwX8x3Qkfb2cf5_e4FxrP3DcDL_7rrNTz4snO1PLyEBcZJ6IpgvXHsOMeWoLn9hL2z0emwAgRtxc26eCwU79tzyLj9G6y1-P6QKlIlo8N4v1epQJkULjLg_0aLVyYGk9ds02V1C2IBM=s2238" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1549" data-original-width="2238" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUF-E2wRUMiHR_Zf2yljD8WlDPIHvsMAVJb7jrnNjeYwX8x3Qkfb2cf5_e4FxrP3DcDL_7rrNTz4snO1PLyEBcZJ6IpgvXHsOMeWoLn9hL2z0emwAgRtxc26eCwU79tzyLj9G6y1-P6QKlIlo8N4v1epQJkULjLg_0aLVyYGk9ds02V1C2IBM=w400-h276" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>On the western verge beside the lane I counted four celandine flowers rather outshone by a growth of bright orange jelly fungus (<i>Tremella mesenterica </i> see below) on a small fallen branch. Where the vegetation has been cleared back to the hedge, leaving a wide strip with rich looking soil there are no flowers yet but there are rich green carpets of young goosegrass and dozens of very healthy looking tufts of cuckoopint (<i>Arum maculatum</i>) leaves now reaching some 10 or 15cm above the ground.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcdZMN3IG3dJr4PvxYG133K-aOV87MWfKfuqHnfLeISj0fJat4f_4_8FtqNxlMkkEAdniWvKZl66tfiLuaIkxoKyAOgGY7jBYTUSONDFElhh-mFeojIvEZqloLfPWNUaLR6NJHHzi24V3QkktR-aN58dWQlir2W31Yy-4RL_m6KG4TdXRWgXQ=s1258" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="1258" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhcdZMN3IG3dJr4PvxYG133K-aOV87MWfKfuqHnfLeISj0fJat4f_4_8FtqNxlMkkEAdniWvKZl66tfiLuaIkxoKyAOgGY7jBYTUSONDFElhh-mFeojIvEZqloLfPWNUaLR6NJHHzi24V3QkktR-aN58dWQlir2W31Yy-4RL_m6KG4TdXRWgXQ=w400-h297" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>18 February 2022</b> The storm Eustace, pronounced one of the worst storms in three decades, travelled from the West Country to London and the South East. The MET Office issued a red warning (the highest danger) from 10am to 3pm. At 10.25am the electricity went off for a while and we were left with just the sound of the gusting wind though, at the beginning of the 'red' period it seemed little worse than many winter gales of the past. Later there was some thin guttering sunlight between gusts that bent our garden trees but did not topple any. I was worried about the tall birch tree in the Square Metre, now 18 years old, and I watched as the trunk slalomed in the wind like an ice dancer. It survived undamaged. </div><div><br /></div><div>As the storm drifted away in the mid-afternoon and the danger level fell to amber, I wandered down the garden tottering slightly in the remaining buffets of wind. A few hellebores were out as were primroses and the Tenby and February Gold daffodils. Despite the stormy weather, much seemed to have advanced in the last few days. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV3Mb1lPIS1BHC1f9t4FZkzzNusLi0QcsRnkuRLQlH-k2KcafRGAPGEC6BaAKJqqQIu7q0_4X8i4VjsTawNrGcPH66b5ixaL1_6Sxbt7VZ-saZvUPRCj0Pj8QQru-CFAUX6dPdDj3dBwJXEBOtTR0KUrDQ3s-SYNkkqErQ1RJ23RrtZv_d7QI=s763" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="763" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjV3Mb1lPIS1BHC1f9t4FZkzzNusLi0QcsRnkuRLQlH-k2KcafRGAPGEC6BaAKJqqQIu7q0_4X8i4VjsTawNrGcPH66b5ixaL1_6Sxbt7VZ-saZvUPRCj0Pj8QQru-CFAUX6dPdDj3dBwJXEBOtTR0KUrDQ3s-SYNkkqErQ1RJ23RrtZv_d7QI=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Helleborus orientalis</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZLTbg-2RVTi_31-Y9kGRngT7i2ZfiOUIz4waAVqKO7NoFCQoZcjglCy-wk1ind6AxGUNdyx8Wg57TuHgOnF19qPID5fN0cmLZNo7kF_vsEXXM-fAXjrzxIstKrZiZlrS5gbk0xqx681nmom9Q263aeOS0B1Nc4YYvdXSl3yEIXWGmJ5sr2WE=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZLTbg-2RVTi_31-Y9kGRngT7i2ZfiOUIz4waAVqKO7NoFCQoZcjglCy-wk1ind6AxGUNdyx8Wg57TuHgOnF19qPID5fN0cmLZNo7kF_vsEXXM-fAXjrzxIstKrZiZlrS5gbk0xqx681nmom9Q263aeOS0B1Nc4YYvdXSl3yEIXWGmJ5sr2WE=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjm1unTuwYTiZF4keTE6cmZ2bUV3KjygwECeuemLEv2654Oc-AzKOb8TYP5l3vAC3DK8--GmMOWMOXUuoJjU63MhOGpsR8CjlLGY73iCAqGrsWGLyrz9uewNlGe78wYFmI53fRZUCNwzvNnpSA3z3e38zE8XX_s11-LUbc2Kjj9G-LMCGi9JB4=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjm1unTuwYTiZF4keTE6cmZ2bUV3KjygwECeuemLEv2654Oc-AzKOb8TYP5l3vAC3DK8--GmMOWMOXUuoJjU63MhOGpsR8CjlLGY73iCAqGrsWGLyrz9uewNlGe78wYFmI53fRZUCNwzvNnpSA3z3e38zE8XX_s11-LUbc2Kjj9G-LMCGi9JB4=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div>Apart from a scatter of small branches and twigs the garden had suffered little appreciable damage. In the Square Metre the dead ash maiden had broken and fallen right across the square, where I will leave it. The tree appeared originally at the western edge of M3 and grew for perhaps 8 or 10 years before succumbing to what I thought might be ash die back disease. It remained upright, propped by the lower branches of the medlar, until today. Its continued transformation as dead wood will give me much to think about.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjTIhF8Gl3rUCU3arNjm5L6JQEMqvSElvZFGJ7yewXQHsfnImyWxXwCe6gJo5Js83EtKUFuFKCuKiND5U2joR0jockGNL97RHEJ5l8EDG5HnP3CCbFe4GBUZCXrGHFqm61Tfe51C5V3A9RMHhr6-NswcKgMC-S0fnxFAChnSLxTz0Fh7NdSRJg=s1449" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1037" data-original-width="1449" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjTIhF8Gl3rUCU3arNjm5L6JQEMqvSElvZFGJ7yewXQHsfnImyWxXwCe6gJo5Js83EtKUFuFKCuKiND5U2joR0jockGNL97RHEJ5l8EDG5HnP3CCbFe4GBUZCXrGHFqm61Tfe51C5V3A9RMHhr6-NswcKgMC-S0fnxFAChnSLxTz0Fh7NdSRJg=w400-h286" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>At about 8.15pm the electricity went off again and stayed off through the night of the 19th and the following day until a quarter past midnight on the 20th. I slept in my clothes like a large pink worm in a cocoon of layers of clothes. It was dark and cold, but boredom was the worst problem as we had no radio and the light was too dim to read by.</div><div><br /></div><div>The 20th February was still very windy but, apart from a morning interruption of the mains water supply, life had returned to normal and the news switched back to the Russian threat to the Ukraine, the future of Prince Andrew and the Queen's infection by the Covid virus. Around midday I battled my way through what has now been named storm Franklin to the entrance to Killingan Wood where a large branch of oak had fallen. A huge chunk of the Maryland poplar had blown off into a garden but there was little damage in the part of the Killingan Wood I explored apart from some fallen small birch trees. Later I discovered a large oak that had blown down in Churchland Wood revealing in its broken trunk a large quantity of rich red and brown rot.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWZlZjFAYbjDUMJqZdzD_TsbeFC-bcFI1rCgWv8p0DuUk-mijC_W2BfUbxvmVn67ftpl5ewyGlIYKhBJajyf4fn2PhHD0xNJeKRL330F3uv07yfupPzWyhlDBw7gdqHTX2xsQrFHzBo-XUVgx86syBHTDKoplEpxgFT8I23TCNpKwI113ucrs=s1874" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="1874" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWZlZjFAYbjDUMJqZdzD_TsbeFC-bcFI1rCgWv8p0DuUk-mijC_W2BfUbxvmVn67ftpl5ewyGlIYKhBJajyf4fn2PhHD0xNJeKRL330F3uv07yfupPzWyhlDBw7gdqHTX2xsQrFHzBo-XUVgx86syBHTDKoplEpxgFT8I23TCNpKwI113ucrs=w400-h290" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>I struggled home with the wind roaring like a train in savage bursts through the trees and over the hedge. The weather forecast suggests little change before the end of this month, but in the calm between the storms I found this marmalade hoverfly (<i>Episyrphus balteatus</i>) enjoying an early lesser celandine. The larvae feed on aphids and the adults have been said to be the only fly known to be able to crush pollen grains for food.</div><div><br /></div><div>This verse from a poem by Robert Frost seems appropriate:</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">But the flower leaned aside</div><div style="text-align: center;">And thought of nought to say</div><div style="text-align: center;"> And morning found the breeze</div><div style="text-align: center;">A hundred miles away.</div><div> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3iUfNH4CSqwPdYsN-Ac-K5SCQ0JZhan7PwMJjcDSajt82UoT3LmWkl-1s1n3Vw0Cjgpo2dQUlBn4G7l24mJX1yn3BumYM5WVdGiceMQTlnm2vIn_HQmFCRDqxoseBHJlc28XmAnRrSu7CoFE_91IQePZfz_IiQyN8BZjV_OaHzOyIszp3h-0=s1357" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1132" data-original-width="1357" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3iUfNH4CSqwPdYsN-Ac-K5SCQ0JZhan7PwMJjcDSajt82UoT3LmWkl-1s1n3Vw0Cjgpo2dQUlBn4G7l24mJX1yn3BumYM5WVdGiceMQTlnm2vIn_HQmFCRDqxoseBHJlc28XmAnRrSu7CoFE_91IQePZfz_IiQyN8BZjV_OaHzOyIszp3h-0=w400-h334" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><b>24 February 2022</b> Around 4 o'clock in the morning I woke to hear on the radio that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia had started. Huge commentary all day on the media highlighting how this might lead to a different world with currently unknown characteristics. My almost daily walks to Killingan Wood or Churchland Wood acted as some sort of antidote to the alarming news from the east, but I am too old now to be greatly worried, though I feel for those who are, or will be, adversely affected.</div><div><br /></div><div>Little Oaks has some very early flowering daffodils and I discovered a surviving <i>Iris reticulata</i> in a tub. Normally they do not seem to survive outdoors in British conditions. There were also some <i>Cyclamen coum</i> flowering in a shady spot underneath some fir trees.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjr4KzJaR_DW5CyVJPXDgjEI0ISDaFSMQRYtvgdHKrGR72MlCC1zYSBa9TdzEcUo_HX6ardvjt_eDz4FTBKpIisGYbqAzfBZg426aj0pab4UmwwH_LX1EU-HEyWbczTqCfKJvuu04vNHYGSXLHBW3de7t_hVofEEbwqikWaKdj0q2VBwFuFLkw=s1356" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="1356" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjr4KzJaR_DW5CyVJPXDgjEI0ISDaFSMQRYtvgdHKrGR72MlCC1zYSBa9TdzEcUo_HX6ardvjt_eDz4FTBKpIisGYbqAzfBZg426aj0pab4UmwwH_LX1EU-HEyWbczTqCfKJvuu04vNHYGSXLHBW3de7t_hVofEEbwqikWaKdj0q2VBwFuFLkw=w400-h336" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjecBrkuSlHCF6Qok33vlPwhlTffQ432SxL7-EABtRiUqSCzZzu7x_gdn-9cUX4HwaDgMWxPYANhfxDF32mIQLaDIOzD8H7-mehCRnLW2wWGnhLzuzY0ddXeAGCmI8tKqXhFTT7s8EDTOCupI6lOflrTgAC_xBjRjWQc_E2XhfAADJt45Qe5tQ=s1397" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1219" data-original-width="1397" height="349" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjecBrkuSlHCF6Qok33vlPwhlTffQ432SxL7-EABtRiUqSCzZzu7x_gdn-9cUX4HwaDgMWxPYANhfxDF32mIQLaDIOzD8H7-mehCRnLW2wWGnhLzuzY0ddXeAGCmI8tKqXhFTT7s8EDTOCupI6lOflrTgAC_xBjRjWQc_E2XhfAADJt45Qe5tQ=w400-h349" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>28 February 2022</b> One of my granddaughter's 18th birthday: sadly it looks like troubled times ahead and I hope her generation will be able to construct a more peaceful world.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Watching the development of the conflict in Ukraine, especially seeing the pre-school refugee children, brings back many memories of a similar period of my own life. I was born in 1938 in Chingford on the north eastern outskirts of London, so World War II started when I was one and a half and went on until I was seven. I remember most of the things we are seeing on TV now. The German bombs that nearly demolished our house, the barrage balloons and fighter aircraft overhead, the food rationing and immense journeys with my mother on slow, overcrowded trains. My father disappeared into the army and I did not see him again until the war was over. Only in later life did I appreciate the stress my mother must have been under contemplating the possibility of invasion, with a small child and a husband in harm's way in some unknown overseas place.</div><div><br /></div><div>People today say how children are being traumatised. Apart from the fact that nobody seemed to use that word in those days, I don't think I was unduly affected largely because I had scarcely known anything other than wartime conditions. I felt okay so long as I was close to my mum. Air raid sirens do, however, tend to wake me up with a start and I have memories of having to go and sit in crowded underground shelters in the middle of the night with frightened people. Since the Ukraine war started my concentration has been poor and I think some deeply buried memories of those early years of my life have arisen in a subconscious but disturbing way. In 1939 we had six years of war ahead without husband or father and more years of subsequent austerity. It wasn't really until the 1960s came along that the clouds seemed to lift and what fun that was. In the war my mother used to like a tune called <i>We'll gather lilacs </i>by Ivor Novello<i>.</i> I hated it, but now I understand: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>We'll gather lilacs in the spring again </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> And walk together down an English lane </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> Until our hearts have learned to sing again</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>When you come home once more. </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvC8gz-cq88</div><div><br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-60835759880633001722022-01-06T19:34:00.032+00:002022-02-03T19:26:54.332+00:00January, 2022<p><b>31 January 2022</b> The end of a cold, dry month though with few frosts, all of them light. The lack of any significant rain for many days is, I think, affecting wildlife locally. Hazel catkins seem slower to expand, I have seen no celandine flowers, fallen leaves remain on the woodland floor like a fluffy, dry eiderdown. Still, there have been plenty of things to see and record.</p><p>We have several mahonias in the garden and these provide nectar rich flowers from November to February inclusive. One of the most magnificent is <i>Mahonia x media </i>'Buckland' which flowers right through December and January.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7IrU8tKwhmyJMHXSfakcy_0bZyDfL6kAkAhT9fOqnfHbI2RxiVC7mo6Ayh5ngt8N-rPqgUuUzKaLipBkccuFh5lwr_hjKX1zMTRteokjNIW9T8O5gFluGPV9-LPgtwBFy1hyOYCjkpsiBYSQtpnHi_9lWISS2dDJjEY4tL1T-38VWOt3pqEM=s1282" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1282" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7IrU8tKwhmyJMHXSfakcy_0bZyDfL6kAkAhT9fOqnfHbI2RxiVC7mo6Ayh5ngt8N-rPqgUuUzKaLipBkccuFh5lwr_hjKX1zMTRteokjNIW9T8O5gFluGPV9-LPgtwBFy1hyOYCjkpsiBYSQtpnHi_9lWISS2dDJjEY4tL1T-38VWOt3pqEM=w400-h335" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Rather more modest but still an attractive plant is <i>Mahonia japonica</i> which flowers here from late January through March. It often attracts bumble and honey bees and blue tits raid the flowers for nectar, or I assume this is what they are finding.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVvs2Oh_8eMghItgdn1tOkQbWWwhiZbZ7sQflwwCl7zWRVZ3n9r6hsLutZitzkbD0gSmzAlx06pgxV41RWyrwgaxePyAlBjbKQkWZSUfne261PGaGorCAPM_JcmAXU85eb62i8FhyYFQuORf3rImTIE_f800oZ28Xee8FIdoec1Q7NKIciv68=s1790" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1355" data-original-width="1790" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVvs2Oh_8eMghItgdn1tOkQbWWwhiZbZ7sQflwwCl7zWRVZ3n9r6hsLutZitzkbD0gSmzAlx06pgxV41RWyrwgaxePyAlBjbKQkWZSUfne261PGaGorCAPM_JcmAXU85eb62i8FhyYFQuORf3rImTIE_f800oZ28Xee8FIdoec1Q7NKIciv68=w400-h303" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The hedges along the eastern side of Churchland Lane contain an extraordinary variety of plants and I am gradually trying to put a name to all of them, natives and non-natives alike.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgA3tZVgi0ww2Wy3gceX54t_lbybkA4rFAW8YVYhxB7BQnNNld5ivbPLkShPj5wUaLVD8AWfXQ2uoQ4OD-mRJEl3MxqKDLN2LQovgRWb4mcNKZcyT2eHCr5kK1LvzKVbCF3GFXzRBW4hc_vC-zTFX5e9JsubStgKrrm-sVmBN4aqoONA7vbJKY=s2175" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1523" data-original-width="2175" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgA3tZVgi0ww2Wy3gceX54t_lbybkA4rFAW8YVYhxB7BQnNNld5ivbPLkShPj5wUaLVD8AWfXQ2uoQ4OD-mRJEl3MxqKDLN2LQovgRWb4mcNKZcyT2eHCr5kK1LvzKVbCF3GFXzRBW4hc_vC-zTFX5e9JsubStgKrrm-sVmBN4aqoONA7vbJKY=w400-h280" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The pale green mid-section of the hedge above and bordering Cherry Croft is <i>Pittosporum tenuifolium</i>, a New Zealand endemic but widely planted, particularly as a hedging shrub. The darker green on the right is English ivy and, on the left, <i>Euonymus japonica</i>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1KRbY2HTWFq5TCP4QqVpGKs3wWoy7FMnWsp4t4i6SDW-Hyo1bLSDtS62sB6-TakcKBdmPU5rBdn8xk-2sCTfBX5XuY6wRLOda67yoMI2bQOn3a33vVuGseQOScECZCOFf36lO4WfYt-KgYMW8CoLQzT_PVO6-YIlJ5t-wVzl-duJG4WfjKoY=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1KRbY2HTWFq5TCP4QqVpGKs3wWoy7FMnWsp4t4i6SDW-Hyo1bLSDtS62sB6-TakcKBdmPU5rBdn8xk-2sCTfBX5XuY6wRLOda67yoMI2bQOn3a33vVuGseQOScECZCOFf36lO4WfYt-KgYMW8CoLQzT_PVO6-YIlJ5t-wVzl-duJG4WfjKoY=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Another stretch of hedge a bit farther along shows how low cut, or young, beech and hornbeam retain their dead leaves in winter. The warmer brown examples on the left are of beech and the greyer ones on the right of hornbeam. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The self-sown cotoneaster behind our shed is still bearing a fine crop of berries (see below). I think it is <i>C. simonsii, </i>the Himalayan cotoneaster. 'Himalayan' seems to vbe a bit of a misnomer as the native home of the species is the Khasi (or Khasia) Hills between Bhutan and Bangladesh in Assam, India. The fruit are reputed to have a nasty taste which is said to be the cause of their remaining so long. However, I am not at all certain the the taste buds of birds operate in the same way as ours. My granddaughter and I sampled the brries and, while they were somewhat tasteless, they could not be described as unpleasant.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfVkJgo9HviV6W5pYeXs3MPwvmXj7qevvhRPiQOuIYsEqAiC3kLe4dEPxSCfn3MtaKL7ue1u5q-8YzZfNjZDBDK5nzT6z8Z7W_QQxyWm0tjP9FaTkismiaC1PteFtcURZOtNAphPicNWy2l7T9bSVxIYdjMzDl61h1OsaOLHsytjRZ8IwnSDA=s2350" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1626" data-original-width="2350" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfVkJgo9HviV6W5pYeXs3MPwvmXj7qevvhRPiQOuIYsEqAiC3kLe4dEPxSCfn3MtaKL7ue1u5q-8YzZfNjZDBDK5nzT6z8Z7W_QQxyWm0tjP9FaTkismiaC1PteFtcURZOtNAphPicNWy2l7T9bSVxIYdjMzDl61h1OsaOLHsytjRZ8IwnSDA=w400-h276" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: times;">In a wander down the lane towards Saul-Hunt's I discovered a fine clump Italian lords-and-ladies, <span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: green;">gigaro chiaro, </span><i style="color: green;">Arum neglectum </i><span style="color: green;">ssp. </span><i style="color: green;">neglectum</i><span style="color: green;">. </span><span style="color: green;">There</span><span style="color: green;"> are several places up the lane to the north and I expect this one has spread down from there. I wrote much more about arums in this blog on 2 December 2017</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><b style="color: green; font-family: arial, verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6IvM_wTQzRvwqJBlNXIh_JNnMXGVPkn5Z245_Pa2H6EXOtOLU3k8y0QRjNGfOKviczpT7tNdhqPf5NCFP_KQ7vKilFb-VsZWib-TKCx04bJTxlSyV4UtaSyfGCx0W_-_pcYaghGr5r71c1ESuFx71pxyzZiuJDlCTSSu7T3vLS4uRqaitceA=s2156" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1530" data-original-width="2156" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6IvM_wTQzRvwqJBlNXIh_JNnMXGVPkn5Z245_Pa2H6EXOtOLU3k8y0QRjNGfOKviczpT7tNdhqPf5NCFP_KQ7vKilFb-VsZWib-TKCx04bJTxlSyV4UtaSyfGCx0W_-_pcYaghGr5r71c1ESuFx71pxyzZiuJDlCTSSu7T3vLS4uRqaitceA=w400-h284" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: green;"><span style="font-family: times;">A bit further south I found a small, self-sown bay tree (<i>Laurus nobilis</i>)a species not common in the wild. The leaves resemble laurustinus, which grows not far away, but the smell of the bay gives it away</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><b style="color: green; font-family: arial, verdana, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhAXTdVERtWGCnUifO1zHQEd4rbdkkqjUhXNHiGRJ8yQKSqcHEI4zJxXODkOjaALKWui9rR7b_ch_mi0cSm2PChTvpbcmk2tGVeDeQQS0EDAq3V1uzr2-mpqTT_FATd8ZvfwChTPNtNj9YQqeNkgsjc4yAvOrVdHiTVdJ93AXuvnjiiwBXtUE=s1401" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1291" data-original-width="1401" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhAXTdVERtWGCnUifO1zHQEd4rbdkkqjUhXNHiGRJ8yQKSqcHEI4zJxXODkOjaALKWui9rR7b_ch_mi0cSm2PChTvpbcmk2tGVeDeQQS0EDAq3V1uzr2-mpqTT_FATd8ZvfwChTPNtNj9YQqeNkgsjc4yAvOrVdHiTVdJ93AXuvnjiiwBXtUE=w400-h369" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In my survey of the hedges along Churchland Lane, I have had another go at the various 'false cypresses'. On the east side of the lane along the boundary of Jesmond is a very solid length of Leyland cypress, <span style="color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;"><i>Cupressus × leylandii</i>. I found some small, empty cones on this which almost certainly indicates that this is the Leighton Green clone, <i>C. x leylandii </i>is a hybrid between the Nootka cypress (<i>Cupressus nootkatensis</i>) and the Monterey cypress (<i>C. macrocarpa</i>). The name 'Leighton' is from Leighton Hall in Powys where the first Leyland cypress was raised.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #4d5156; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNraZPdG9juYRlKo6ZsYkCQ_Ij0nyjxxCSynt8_bUfCcE55D93XsmsPxSy1rrlyvb1lEhrnEfsMTnewNTxtlhBXUAI-e_UgsHtQMG6cVDzt_0Jk7miDyR1FA-Ur55w_yXEO-IAP-fMcbg8uvvny_cs6qCdfKUqu5Ej46yejPzVo0zMKIx0Kcw=s1945" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1418" data-original-width="1945" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNraZPdG9juYRlKo6ZsYkCQ_Ij0nyjxxCSynt8_bUfCcE55D93XsmsPxSy1rrlyvb1lEhrnEfsMTnewNTxtlhBXUAI-e_UgsHtQMG6cVDzt_0Jk7miDyR1FA-Ur55w_yXEO-IAP-fMcbg8uvvny_cs6qCdfKUqu5Ej46yejPzVo0zMKIx0Kcw=w400-h291" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I end this January's account with a photo of the seeds of old man's beard poised to provide splendid material for the soon to be constructed local bird's nests.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6PiWNeF-9FKzXNFvK83r3aGzCmJnkSg5VaBVWibXZFyFFEzaGv0W0RAVns5Hsr0u2lHaLpDMe_4GgUTWx5RYPjE_Hd6YTq3qC36BVHEH2slS7UCMCs4wInuBSdOMHinnP8ywnIVrUesPo1GFrkvuO23qyfVjBkubiQS3rXf7bs0YEFnyOjTk=s1139" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="1139" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6PiWNeF-9FKzXNFvK83r3aGzCmJnkSg5VaBVWibXZFyFFEzaGv0W0RAVns5Hsr0u2lHaLpDMe_4GgUTWx5RYPjE_Hd6YTq3qC36BVHEH2slS7UCMCs4wInuBSdOMHinnP8ywnIVrUesPo1GFrkvuO23qyfVjBkubiQS3rXf7bs0YEFnyOjTk=w400-h251" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></div></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>21 January 2022</b> While the earth, covered in dead autumn leaves, waits for the green sprinkles of spring, the leaves of stinking irises (or gladdons), <i>Iris foetidissima</i>, make lovely sunshot fans. This is a plant that continues to increase locally.</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiR6ylw4PIed27BRC9WoVKFmUygOB6gwe3uXzOJdyGLCZ724HbO3UL2OnP-8w6H1uj0fIzw_KCM3oS7tb2wsHPGf9fAp9h7xvAblsAqsE0dVNezTjMLyHcdEWsnivqc85X8duFZVuN5JRDouABApksNj4h8X2URf40ZMKCd3qfIMljCU1441Hw=s1878" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="1878" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiR6ylw4PIed27BRC9WoVKFmUygOB6gwe3uXzOJdyGLCZ724HbO3UL2OnP-8w6H1uj0fIzw_KCM3oS7tb2wsHPGf9fAp9h7xvAblsAqsE0dVNezTjMLyHcdEWsnivqc85X8duFZVuN5JRDouABApksNj4h8X2URf40ZMKCd3qfIMljCU1441Hw=w400-h339" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Another plant that comes into its own in winter is a large variegated Persian ivy, <i>Hedera colchica</i> Dentata Variegata. Here it has climbs high up an oak tree in our garden and makes a good winter shelter for small birds and, no doubt, various insects.<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWXamAvJNT5YWHDCFneVZ5ky38ZZ4RzzgOMHbNmXSaQ9UNXlFRyYeiNyjmy3gEuWy-7Zkm69jgGNLQfZY3Ho4R0q12_8ndLrzqN3KckvqVludxExBY-U9rMhCERif9S9aNjO6v8SoXw5EFr2cP3-EetJLrttz4jPGRiIvxhH6kPFw-EccPPRA=s1190" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="1190" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWXamAvJNT5YWHDCFneVZ5ky38ZZ4RzzgOMHbNmXSaQ9UNXlFRyYeiNyjmy3gEuWy-7Zkm69jgGNLQfZY3Ho4R0q12_8ndLrzqN3KckvqVludxExBY-U9rMhCERif9S9aNjO6v8SoXw5EFr2cP3-EetJLrttz4jPGRiIvxhH6kPFw-EccPPRA=w400-h290" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>If I walk around the footpath that passes to the south of Saul-Hunt's paddock I often see their free range chickens, brown feathered bundles like animals in a child's farmyard. Although we often don't treat them very well, they are endearing creatures as they walk jerkily across their patch looking for seeds and insects.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqAca6TNKctUSN6xPRi0tu5rvED19rZ8FxpY2cHruCDibswJzQ71cMdFSr5pv5_35jd3k0MDspWhhVIxmE2Dix7cIg9KZjlhMANJlAXfaeGJf_o2qMK32F3oVs-t-xGxf5jdEauZw9HPySPEUXnvttdxvM4QL6MaCXcrhzCEekfG89fpXwCvk=s1155" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1089" data-original-width="1155" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqAca6TNKctUSN6xPRi0tu5rvED19rZ8FxpY2cHruCDibswJzQ71cMdFSr5pv5_35jd3k0MDspWhhVIxmE2Dix7cIg9KZjlhMANJlAXfaeGJf_o2qMK32F3oVs-t-xGxf5jdEauZw9HPySPEUXnvttdxvM4QL6MaCXcrhzCEekfG89fpXwCvk=w400-h378" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A little further on there is long overlap board fence. The local badgers can't be bothered to go round this and have dug a hole under it. Such animal runs are known as 'smeuses'.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipB8OEgI5qdFZjqXuiiUkv3idpS1Q1iJGMkScSejGhFsNvbqrUM-VOSW7boCU2NEXFyWmNxFwdZsvMo5djmPlHTwc2yzbGwxFHvUS5yONOiw22XzAP_c00h2iqC8qlG1OYE71g6XK3QDmsZ_-umIl3s9lIJLHqlb3BgQRYyRhliBzfGL3ZMog=s2390" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1727" data-original-width="2390" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEipB8OEgI5qdFZjqXuiiUkv3idpS1Q1iJGMkScSejGhFsNvbqrUM-VOSW7boCU2NEXFyWmNxFwdZsvMo5djmPlHTwc2yzbGwxFHvUS5yONOiw22XzAP_c00h2iqC8qlG1OYE71g6XK3QDmsZ_-umIl3s9lIJLHqlb3BgQRYyRhliBzfGL3ZMog=w400-h289" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In winter natural patterns become more obvious as there is not so much to see. I liked this debarked branch (below) with snake-like markings, perhaps trails of insects that lived under the bark when the branch was alive or recently fallen.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiB1ZmoDOSnEIZO9UXyqvubeYsSaNP0UgXhVa5OmOTtxY2rs-djayU2ife_TYTJe7ZaGjeaw25-2PQV3CNObpJrKYdBC-GZgVEFr7pGlGE4kzlEevUtJ2QP6N5AIksXlIfJ6g1Mlym3G8QjxVxeezlWw_o7mlrk0jq8YXbEYc27AG9skJWIMU4=s2105" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1090" data-original-width="2105" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiB1ZmoDOSnEIZO9UXyqvubeYsSaNP0UgXhVa5OmOTtxY2rs-djayU2ife_TYTJe7ZaGjeaw25-2PQV3CNObpJrKYdBC-GZgVEFr7pGlGE4kzlEevUtJ2QP6N5AIksXlIfJ6g1Mlym3G8QjxVxeezlWw_o7mlrk0jq8YXbEYc27AG9skJWIMU4=w400-h208" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>20 January 2022</b> A sequence of frosty nights and sunny days has slowed the onset of pre-spring. In the lane new tufts of nettles are showing and it will soon be time for nettle soup, zuppa di ortiche.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2QLTxziTWS_NSX_f5GTYFP80Du9zpOqTa_UJEYKYFsTTK1pMLlbAQf_Z586pEGkyOaPdw6Hs-cVhNqSK4EQGD57Bth8Zy6UYSXw1A3TpOTj54-LgsM8TWri3Y1aOFNYOz210Gq-qWCkFJvsmvz7L-_N21OdrUN5nWxRLAA2yRcxJlTu83fgg=s974" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="974" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2QLTxziTWS_NSX_f5GTYFP80Du9zpOqTa_UJEYKYFsTTK1pMLlbAQf_Z586pEGkyOaPdw6Hs-cVhNqSK4EQGD57Bth8Zy6UYSXw1A3TpOTj54-LgsM8TWri3Y1aOFNYOz210Gq-qWCkFJvsmvz7L-_N21OdrUN5nWxRLAA2yRcxJlTu83fgg=w400-h309" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>A few bluebell leaves poke through the ground ahead of the main flush and I wonder if they sare hybrids with Spanish bluebells or have some other genetic quirk.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQuKtO2lc0m02IbH50lGVrg_PfZscHTRZj74VOUjBuo82P9rWgMXGZSUdRDUDqchudB-Filqsp8GpRaiRadhbYUVLRGeIAUnW14YhyumGd3dxqMsfY9KXJQ2MtwfDnCe-2aDizp3y66_vPgckAgvqIxM0hU4_PX-jP1YaWb5ngDkl_7EInCyY=s1023" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="1023" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQuKtO2lc0m02IbH50lGVrg_PfZscHTRZj74VOUjBuo82P9rWgMXGZSUdRDUDqchudB-Filqsp8GpRaiRadhbYUVLRGeIAUnW14YhyumGd3dxqMsfY9KXJQ2MtwfDnCe-2aDizp3y66_vPgckAgvqIxM0hU4_PX-jP1YaWb5ngDkl_7EInCyY=w400-h326" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>In Killingan Wood I found what looks like a bush of Highclere holly, <i>Ilex x altaclerensis</i>.(see below). Some of the leaves look like the cultivar Cameliifolia as illustrated in Johnson & More, Collins Tree Guide, but in online picture the leaves of Cameliifolia are spineless, or almost spineless. The Killingan Wood bush may be a hybrid between our native holly, <i>I. aquifolium</i>, and one of the Highclere cultivars of which there sre probably many in local gardens.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXveZzESENfpXXAhNscO1fIv76TPUoOKnjXepKj73OTNmmhuAI_zuPGgd0dTQFYokZpypoUqmrgVaUUvflsc_uoby0cqgEYGokYdi27qLmVvn52bteI6FPD0fffRMNifyFHa_S8l0MaaqJ5X0ENPsB738Wu-FR4jGgNazq6vnJJNt3cmM3g3s=s1573" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1297" data-original-width="1573" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXveZzESENfpXXAhNscO1fIv76TPUoOKnjXepKj73OTNmmhuAI_zuPGgd0dTQFYokZpypoUqmrgVaUUvflsc_uoby0cqgEYGokYdi27qLmVvn52bteI6FPD0fffRMNifyFHa_S8l0MaaqJ5X0ENPsB738Wu-FR4jGgNazq6vnJJNt3cmM3g3s=w400-h330" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><p><b>17 January 2022</b> Cold nights but sunny and cool days. A badger has been digging for worms in the newly exposed stretch of verge alongside Churchland Lane</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjL5C9S1QyrI_KHBI1Z0yras3aQACMrYfkRaxEga2xk0b8hXsOLT5zfyMSFXhz7W7rXwfiRpB4Ib-2KklSEUPgvE_hb_6G35iS4777-gQ-GVJNuNnShTVaNIYOkIw622qwwsxDr6DFo3BD9F-V85751pfisA_3sE72kxiWTSh7AoAArIJPl7Wk=s685" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="685" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjL5C9S1QyrI_KHBI1Z0yras3aQACMrYfkRaxEga2xk0b8hXsOLT5zfyMSFXhz7W7rXwfiRpB4Ib-2KklSEUPgvE_hb_6G35iS4777-gQ-GVJNuNnShTVaNIYOkIw622qwwsxDr6DFo3BD9F-V85751pfisA_3sE72kxiWTSh7AoAArIJPl7Wk=w400-h318" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Birds are warming up for the breeding season. The robin above was in full song in a hazel bush (with developing catkins in the background), a tawny owl was hooting in Churchland Wood and a great spotted woodpecker drumming in the trees along the stream on the western side of Churchland Fields.<p></p><p>The hazel catkins in the picture above mostly are closed, though higher up the bush they are starting to open (see below), while on the opposite side of the lane, in another bush, they are fully open.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhkbmkSbkdv42LN-50e-1qOE8R6dAK0fdXqDw5Nz9-BumRtfqYcxtjv4XAqyPJ0iChZpLBvIdEY7Ni5OvUlxw40VmOd4X6NdPsdUilTo6olO94_gV2-KBnuPNaFqOp5QQo3HOzXQDxqPJZFencoKSAosElDPLK1LVrDoitxguQwSB8eGD-ZlJg=s1211" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1211" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhkbmkSbkdv42LN-50e-1qOE8R6dAK0fdXqDw5Nz9-BumRtfqYcxtjv4XAqyPJ0iChZpLBvIdEY7Ni5OvUlxw40VmOd4X6NdPsdUilTo6olO94_gV2-KBnuPNaFqOp5QQo3HOzXQDxqPJZFencoKSAosElDPLK1LVrDoitxguQwSB8eGD-ZlJg=w400-h281" width="400" /></a></div><p><b>14 January 2022</b> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9rIdKhjkcXm117dc_VytLVXYMpHtDN24H3_QG061XmZLo6Nc7P78ltoaBR5iLjrhBhKH8K4XnfCUgEOyWKUQegxrl-KfZwst-LjjiJoDpMNO7WvdyOfSfLTpR7QqcUzau19z7IENpWMcAKLY02KhgYueR10xndO36epLiYiUVIDH1f1lB1Do=s2676" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1760" data-original-width="2676" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9rIdKhjkcXm117dc_VytLVXYMpHtDN24H3_QG061XmZLo6Nc7P78ltoaBR5iLjrhBhKH8K4XnfCUgEOyWKUQegxrl-KfZwst-LjjiJoDpMNO7WvdyOfSfLTpR7QqcUzau19z7IENpWMcAKLY02KhgYueR10xndO36epLiYiUVIDH1f1lB1Do=w400-h263" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>A sharp frost overnight whitened the grass in Churchland Fields and covered creeping buttercup leaves in my second Square Metre with Ice crystals like a scattering of sugar.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRPUEiiwOpSzmM8E4C66nsr8b13YKvpoWjcvobHmh8Nx2UBiK8YaFy49BzxaEXk7COjdhpggt8rK6XD_iXCHawE5ns4jS90O-73JjW2uCnA_ifq1wZi76C84J4szRoeYEK5HDYY-IaXwUjiOrk3QLn5LYW_owINTA-wkGHWL7av9pLFAQaUtQ=s1182" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1182" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhRPUEiiwOpSzmM8E4C66nsr8b13YKvpoWjcvobHmh8Nx2UBiK8YaFy49BzxaEXk7COjdhpggt8rK6XD_iXCHawE5ns4jS90O-73JjW2uCnA_ifq1wZi76C84J4szRoeYEK5HDYY-IaXwUjiOrk3QLn5LYW_owINTA-wkGHWL7av9pLFAQaUtQ=w400-h296" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>I noted two leaf mines in a frosted bramble leaf halfway down the garden. I am pretty sure these have been made by the larvae of the tiny moth <i>Stigmella aurella</i> (there are some similar species that mine bramble leaves). The larvae and pupae can survive frosts and, if occupied mines are brought indoors and kept in a jam jar, the moths like sooty, black sparklets will emerge often quite quickly.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZBWu9df7QopBK6ORKKm6fSgZOfUBjfSzpInJB9VQ0FQ_rz9lZII362JBx1EtPYZzvqTpBHj-eJE3qNpcepw9mVVDXbWD3UMj2enCVCisEYKXFXFL6vK_EPF-cis-hbGd9a8glU5YavkOMRxx5SR5sofmxmWecf1k-FCmdhGB-ENDTCTIgWcY=s1544" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1397" data-original-width="1544" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZBWu9df7QopBK6ORKKm6fSgZOfUBjfSzpInJB9VQ0FQ_rz9lZII362JBx1EtPYZzvqTpBHj-eJE3qNpcepw9mVVDXbWD3UMj2enCVCisEYKXFXFL6vK_EPF-cis-hbGd9a8glU5YavkOMRxx5SR5sofmxmWecf1k-FCmdhGB-ENDTCTIgWcY=w400-h363" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div>I had a moment of delight when I found a single dandelion in full flower despite the hard weather. As Wordsworth wrote:<div><br /><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>To me the meanest flower that blows can give</i></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.</i></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjA-TSm-B6tPcDS_wi4wicWnwKecDLISFb1uR6vDWpycFTwIj1SkK4BaK7WqLWpx8z4e2tMiXCxc4EJ_dvxM3WXXlXUMan3Lg6ofT_7GuYMFD7eKV1zdshWS_2OWPg0vaTYprkikj7F__xgDmVtFcTqZ6dASKVmyHMHV5YpLP6J_xAOELKzGfg=s1179" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="826" data-original-width="1179" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjA-TSm-B6tPcDS_wi4wicWnwKecDLISFb1uR6vDWpycFTwIj1SkK4BaK7WqLWpx8z4e2tMiXCxc4EJ_dvxM3WXXlXUMan3Lg6ofT_7GuYMFD7eKV1zdshWS_2OWPg0vaTYprkikj7F__xgDmVtFcTqZ6dASKVmyHMHV5YpLP6J_xAOELKzGfg=w400-h280" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b>13 January 2022</b> I often wonder why some red berries are consumed by the birds much faster than others. Those of rowans or hawthorns are stripped very quickly, for example, but black bryony and holly berries often stay in place well into the new year and there is a small bush in our lane of a rose cultivar covered in hips this mid-January (below).<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhykpuKNwToh2XiH_v6j1nHJRu5FvmKd1yc29LtezxwTbGend6nHxWjMPE0S68qbjAtWa_oQvG65JjJVxr6eMfN5v_5zmW2Ihct-G82FYw-heccivzHQnV0maBhAu7hmwIR9fPdrzFyc0M9qNh7cVTDCi9-xmwCqeTv_jOqJ9kFVDYeSIv5Zss=s855" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="855" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhykpuKNwToh2XiH_v6j1nHJRu5FvmKd1yc29LtezxwTbGend6nHxWjMPE0S68qbjAtWa_oQvG65JjJVxr6eMfN5v_5zmW2Ihct-G82FYw-heccivzHQnV0maBhAu7hmwIR9fPdrzFyc0M9qNh7cVTDCi9-xmwCqeTv_jOqJ9kFVDYeSIv5Zss=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>One of my favourite books <i>Birds and B</i><i>erries</i> by<b> </b>Barbara and David Snow (T & A D Poyser, 1988) says that black bryony berries are eaten, usually after they have been on the vine for some time, by blackbirds and thrushes, though robins will occasionally tackle them though they are rather too large to swallow in one go.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiURsh2jqI_BEiw1CdLlmbIgCHoQbnoxPhULt3a9rAn_3A1Ixub9_gDVkDkmbfsCfv27Ed5DQGlciaKoJhgeAWSHWWeMUTEyZ9LsyiXdW9bCRUWu1vb1JM8PkNhoEedDCWQcKJeqLbpcexWkJn925eD3gZ5Q2p4EqQ1W9gPLY3RG8oCCl2Tz90=s1450" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1450" data-original-width="981" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiURsh2jqI_BEiw1CdLlmbIgCHoQbnoxPhULt3a9rAn_3A1Ixub9_gDVkDkmbfsCfv27Ed5DQGlciaKoJhgeAWSHWWeMUTEyZ9LsyiXdW9bCRUWu1vb1JM8PkNhoEedDCWQcKJeqLbpcexWkJn925eD3gZ5Q2p4EqQ1W9gPLY3RG8oCCl2Tz90=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Black bryony berries (below) are toxic to humans but perhaps simply rather unpalatable to birds. The problems with humans and, presumably with other mammals, is that the berries (and root tubers) are full of calcium oxalate that forms tiny needle-sharp crystals that can penetrate skin and cell walls causing irritation which can be dangerous internally.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiFDQYpXTYgmpX1czvOzUHQp0sL_i13_y8YgiI260Atej3-POb00qv0HDI7V6YVc5GR-_2rXzMjsa7yRqE86UMPCA2cvIcqFWDA9hB3aCG-tkNqOg6qDWnGBjoRmop7t5iA3RjAe2sFefInUaWHHc1WPN6CfCUFlGS8dvR5htrk-IgkT6Ok9Mw=s1140" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="774" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiFDQYpXTYgmpX1czvOzUHQp0sL_i13_y8YgiI260Atej3-POb00qv0HDI7V6YVc5GR-_2rXzMjsa7yRqE86UMPCA2cvIcqFWDA9hB3aCG-tkNqOg6qDWnGBjoRmop7t5iA3RjAe2sFefInUaWHHc1WPN6CfCUFlGS8dvR5htrk-IgkT6Ok9Mw=w217-h320" width="217" /></a></div><br /><p>Two hollies in particular have caught my eye this autumn and winter . One was an example, probably of garden origin, with an exceptionally rich crop of berries hanging over a fence in Broad Oak Brede (below). </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiC2_qKcq0twDNCHjbs8UHAGSpG1P6saAexBPajkGC5bIaX9nu8dgyPGbbyPoCDsjl5GIhAlBQSNswTIXem9jMpb-joh4T_3KckiBZqehkO3Jf8u36oIxy9vCZArBeGY5RcUaXjZEO11J-Czf68fDCIiE4AHuHzwJWRRrfWEpLxzslonDEkcSI=s1569" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1231" data-original-width="1569" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiC2_qKcq0twDNCHjbs8UHAGSpG1P6saAexBPajkGC5bIaX9nu8dgyPGbbyPoCDsjl5GIhAlBQSNswTIXem9jMpb-joh4T_3KckiBZqehkO3Jf8u36oIxy9vCZArBeGY5RcUaXjZEO11J-Czf68fDCIiE4AHuHzwJWRRrfWEpLxzslonDEkcSI=w400-h314" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>The other is a young plant on the fringe of my Square Metre project where it has been bird-sown from the overhanging medlar tree (see below). It looks like a form of Highclere holly, <i>Ilex x altaclerensis</i>, Judging by the shape and texture of the leaves and the prickles it is probably a hybrid between a garden form of Highclere holly and our native species, what is known as introgressive hybridisation. The <i>I. x altaclerensis </i>of horticulture is a hybrid between <i>Ilex perado</i> (probably from Madeira) and our native species. It is widely planted in gardens usually as a variegated clone with almost or completely spineless leaves. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCBBBH-QNaD_4eEbA37ZdFDKXkdzprDthy1zN542HgYbEmhtQ6Vx6Jgx5pNT6o4hVfmhyMnndLuJPfR1yZkI13UVSgf7SRbMfc_JI2rWhQmcsXyCcwJa1WRf5FecVVGKmkujkv3QN9yMOSFQAs6KN4fWQC1EoYSiNH25GFNA1U6EzW5yH3tUQ=s1290" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1290" data-original-width="1236" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhCBBBH-QNaD_4eEbA37ZdFDKXkdzprDthy1zN542HgYbEmhtQ6Vx6Jgx5pNT6o4hVfmhyMnndLuJPfR1yZkI13UVSgf7SRbMfc_JI2rWhQmcsXyCcwJa1WRf5FecVVGKmkujkv3QN9yMOSFQAs6KN4fWQC1EoYSiNH25GFNA1U6EzW5yH3tUQ=w384-h400" width="384" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><b>10 January 2022</b> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhvJzbRn-tCkg9qazxKheFgJaMMYbQ5PRIWDaWa_qT8j0a5gVGfwGbwW1AjPu1md7SpICyxftlhjf9_XIwz3ZJefHBdAd4_GthQc3k5gHxCsm0VQxgHWN8MHBF_R0eQMiloRt64PEIrQ7hD_QAp_FbbpUruMJdM4WfFLkY2ceq-ow2cFfMgSKM=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhvJzbRn-tCkg9qazxKheFgJaMMYbQ5PRIWDaWa_qT8j0a5gVGfwGbwW1AjPu1md7SpICyxftlhjf9_XIwz3ZJefHBdAd4_GthQc3k5gHxCsm0VQxgHWN8MHBF_R0eQMiloRt64PEIrQ7hD_QAp_FbbpUruMJdM4WfFLkY2ceq-ow2cFfMgSKM=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>A lot of my 'ramblings' are now confined to Churchland Lane (above), the unadopted road to my house. It is a cul-d-sac 833 metres long and it rises from 60 to 75 metres to the north of the East Sussex village of Sedlescombe. There are good views to the west as far as the forest ridges to the north and south of Battle. The horizon in picture below shows the highest part of Dallington Forest some 8km (5 miles) to the west of the lane with Sedlescombe parish church in the foreground.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhs7ZVYzDBZQrkEPKrzlSG-_L7u65gxXlzkAGzmOL_WqAq6cTdJoT-6j-sPd7PtkrYlMg_Xnk2nzdYpWOLtJeka5C4EH5Z0Iwkyx-igDMcNaQFeiBgYt79uYhm81Cf4Xj2yX1AeollSonJWs5-YFczXNdx11lBCi2k8B0sTgBVW4LGVXG9kZIs=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhs7ZVYzDBZQrkEPKrzlSG-_L7u65gxXlzkAGzmOL_WqAq6cTdJoT-6j-sPd7PtkrYlMg_Xnk2nzdYpWOLtJeka5C4EH5Z0Iwkyx-igDMcNaQFeiBgYt79uYhm81Cf4Xj2yX1AeollSonJWs5-YFczXNdx11lBCi2k8B0sTgBVW4LGVXG9kZIs=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I also like the view, also to the west, across Churchland Fields to the bright buildings with their mix of evergreen and deciduous trees on Sandrock Hill. They often catch the afternoon sun.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUjbX5-QcRJHK9La2hbcTrmFoo55DbPD_EjY425wTmU0E7nALJ8kL0vT5TLkSY6bPzdCNYmM4T-2O8A79HG6B9vUtZe4ghzDO7FU8KNFc1n7gq56azehgB5kq-1ghTfiSWLed_bQJPrk1-VT_7BOo17D2DjEl1gnpB6pMuFsAWvyR49mxVWbc=s2315" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1148" data-original-width="2315" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiUjbX5-QcRJHK9La2hbcTrmFoo55DbPD_EjY425wTmU0E7nALJ8kL0vT5TLkSY6bPzdCNYmM4T-2O8A79HG6B9vUtZe4ghzDO7FU8KNFc1n7gq56azehgB5kq-1ghTfiSWLed_bQJPrk1-VT_7BOo17D2DjEl1gnpB6pMuFsAWvyR49mxVWbc=w400-h199" width="400" /></a></div></div><div><p><b>8 January 2022</b> Cold, hard rain all day and all night. I didn't venture forth. Instead I took this picture, blurred with rain, through the French windows out into the patch of garden I spend much of each day contemplating. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKhe_bj5EPytsIKKQz6jY942GrXmXw3BhbM6m5I7n17JxX_JBsH5mN32th7lATVq-Yedo2n4OI7D79qyVicDgmxbEI1q5AYs4hF9_lrX3HS-UPKnv_OkiSjjCktdnSRkXWujI_4Gyt7D9zCSNFsqMJmzPPQjY9EEAezgHJ2AEZ0R2t5Fo01Vs=s2736" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="2736" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKhe_bj5EPytsIKKQz6jY942GrXmXw3BhbM6m5I7n17JxX_JBsH5mN32th7lATVq-Yedo2n4OI7D79qyVicDgmxbEI1q5AYs4hF9_lrX3HS-UPKnv_OkiSjjCktdnSRkXWujI_4Gyt7D9zCSNFsqMJmzPPQjY9EEAezgHJ2AEZ0R2t5Fo01Vs=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I wondered where the birds I usually see were sheltering. The commonest species (I don't have bird feeders) are blackbirds, hedge sparrows, wrens, robins, thrushes, wood pigeons and magpies. All the finches, except that occasional goldfinches and bullfinches, have disappeared and, of course, there are buzzards and things flying overhead that I cannot see. Indeed when the windows are covered with raindrops and my glasses are dirty I cannot see very much at all. It's cold indoors too.</p><p><b>6 January 2022</b> A sharp overnight frost leaving a white sheen over the lawn and silvered fallen leaves on the wooden ramp outside my window.</p><p>The terminal leaves of the spurge <i>Euphorbia amygdaloides </i>ssp.<i> robbiae</i> (Mrs Robb's bonnet) start to expand, in their bent over way, at this time of the year like narrow hop cones and contrasting with the old, darker green foliage. In a few weeks they will have grown into flower heads. This is one of the earliest signs that things are starting to move towards spring.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhon8oBnljw3jEFqfpAgNMDHd50OYL4Fi2tuQhGgtfUzbEThsS2CTbmYd6pbGisvwnUY77cN2enfGVYPCcjUqQgdvLJ07ovI5Cx6ta1IHoNJtMeAiZkmg2aTvox9Ur-s9s0dSYQ3ZIMqigqMDBlICrDTNenp_PNmkq2aFd04bD0WmXp6LnnWik=s1571" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1297" data-original-width="1571" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhon8oBnljw3jEFqfpAgNMDHd50OYL4Fi2tuQhGgtfUzbEThsS2CTbmYd6pbGisvwnUY77cN2enfGVYPCcjUqQgdvLJ07ovI5Cx6ta1IHoNJtMeAiZkmg2aTvox9Ur-s9s0dSYQ3ZIMqigqMDBlICrDTNenp_PNmkq2aFd04bD0WmXp6LnnWik=w400-h330" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><b>5 January 2022</b> A sunny, mild morning. In the hedge on the eastern side of the lane I found a single plant of <i>Berberis darwinii</i>. Though not very obvious, I was surprised at the number of times I must have walked past it without noticing it.</p><p>We have a very active thrush, perhaps a pair, in the garden that looks as though they will soon be starting to build a nest.</p><p><b>3 January 2022 </b>A change of walking route took me right to the end of Churchland Lane (nearly half a kilometre from home). A few metres up Hurst Lane, in the front garden of Tresco, I stopped to look at the fragile blossoms on the winter flowering cherry, <i>Prunus x subhirtella '</i>Autumnalis Rosea'.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7BzX2xdxAND7_ueRLddl9f9gDesoXX5D3deBBFV_mR5J41b52Vf2gK4AvIQr5Oad5JIaUuqPhgCGSxhjn9XYf8ismCTY4oPm8aUe4XsWi8ZmBdthVyfEO2VGmXBkSQNx8nFrJw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1276" data-original-width="1672" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_7BzX2xdxAND7_ueRLddl9f9gDesoXX5D3deBBFV_mR5J41b52Vf2gK4AvIQr5Oad5JIaUuqPhgCGSxhjn9XYf8ismCTY4oPm8aUe4XsWi8ZmBdthVyfEO2VGmXBkSQNx8nFrJw/w400-h306/IMG_2473.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This cherry is a very long-lived species and there are some massive and very old specimens in Japan where it originated. <span style="font-family: times;">There<span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">is, for example, an 1800 to 2000 year old tree called the Jindai Zakura in the grounds of the </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"> Jissō-ji temple in the community of Hokuto</span></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"> in Yamanashi prefecture</span></span>.</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: times; vertical-align: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: times;">Some stones of this were taken into space by NASA and circled the earth for 8 months. One of those which germinated produced flowers with six petals instead of five.</span></span></div><p></p><p><b>New Year’s Day, 1 January 2022</b></p><p>Must get more done this year.</p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">On the western side of Churchland Lane there is a 30 metre stretch of verge that has been cleared right back to the
hedge. This has left a 2 metre wide stretch of somewhat disturbed, dark and
rich looking soil with a variety of low growing plants and the saw-shattered
stumps of young trees and shrubs. A distinctive feature on New Year’s Day was
the many shiny green tufts of emerging <i>Arum maculatum,</i> cuckoopint, leaves perhaps a hint that
this newly uncovered section of this verge will reveal much of interest in
coming months.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOIERSdnwlvhVRkSBAd8D0QfCHLt0usWntfyZb7LodXIPBp_IfQnqplJbcIjlKMZxDzHiBNBIIklIINQwsbGJCHjP28Pt1arvZCFYlNTnzW4JQGlWzaNDsaMSjXI35HU_fcke0Pw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1411" data-original-width="1640" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOIERSdnwlvhVRkSBAd8D0QfCHLt0usWntfyZb7LodXIPBp_IfQnqplJbcIjlKMZxDzHiBNBIIklIINQwsbGJCHjP28Pt1arvZCFYlNTnzW4JQGlWzaNDsaMSjXI35HU_fcke0Pw/w400-h344/IMG_2470.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In the garden the pink, single camellia (<i>Camellia × williamsii</i> 'J.C.
Williams') always the first, has started flowering. My late wife used to refer
to this as "her camellia", though there were many more varieties in the garden. I
assume it was because she could see it from the kitchen window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wintersweet (<i>Chimonanthus praecox, </i><span style="color: #2a3235; font-family: Roboto; font-size: 12.5pt; line-height: 107%;">là
méi</span>) in the flowerbed where the old shed used to stand is in full
flower and casting its powerful scent on the air on milder days. This year it has perhaps the best display I have seen but the blossoms turn
to a dowdy speckled yellow if there is much frost (so far this winter we have
had only one or two nights of light frost and today the temperature reached 14<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">°</span>C,
very high for the time of year).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgczBSeWjW7grD-68m8JIsitpvRzzfynDdtqVkx0Opr-eEXK_XU7htBhBmaSkbrCxMOyTzxkn2alc0VdCiH2yYpPOHfGvTJ0PXibAZm_ReYqYHlubenXMNstV5kB-SxG_uDAsNEVRV8r6SOTD6vYwgoUhQ47_PjRxg551rWynDd2FQpFwPbqCI=s1732" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="1732" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgczBSeWjW7grD-68m8JIsitpvRzzfynDdtqVkx0Opr-eEXK_XU7htBhBmaSkbrCxMOyTzxkn2alc0VdCiH2yYpPOHfGvTJ0PXibAZm_ReYqYHlubenXMNstV5kB-SxG_uDAsNEVRV8r6SOTD6vYwgoUhQ47_PjRxg551rWynDd2FQpFwPbqCI=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Wintersweet is found wild in China where it is also widely grown, both for its winter scent and various medicinal properties. The flowers can be sprinkled into tea.</span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Killingan Wood was calm and damp, a silent army of grey
trunked hornbeam trees, with a carpet of decaying fallen leaves braided by
muddy tracks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On my walk I saw very few insects. Over most of my life warm
winter days like this have seen numerous small swarms of many insect species that are adapted
to flying only in the winter months. But they seem to have gone.
This will affect birds and spiders as well as the many small creatures that
must have fed on their fallen bodies and earlier stages. The consequences for biodiversity
are unknown.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many writers reflect on the decline of the cuckoo, or the pearl
bordered fritillary, but this morning I would like to pay homage to an absent
friend: <i>Gymnometriocnemus brumalis</i> a winter flying, non-biting midge.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe, if we have a cold spell, there will be a belated
emergence, but I hope 2022 will not be the year when we have to say goodbye to
this small winter flying insect.<o:p></o:p></p>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-RUQZutYGl-rGgpakKEJsUHyRQpRHlh-tgWEjGqpC7LP8f-nM5QCoZLQ_DcAR_6eghRLpe42PwRlcrwPCpDZWrTscF5LPGCe2P11n2zpZr8OW_LdZMvq4pRzI1Z77PaLWjm0Yw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="394" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-RUQZutYGl-rGgpakKEJsUHyRQpRHlh-tgWEjGqpC7LP8f-nM5QCoZLQ_DcAR_6eghRLpe42PwRlcrwPCpDZWrTscF5LPGCe2P11n2zpZr8OW_LdZMvq4pRzI1Z77PaLWjm0Yw/w400-h209/BHW+Gymnometriocnemus+brumalis+1+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br clear="all" />
</div><br /><p></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-60703809642495642302021-03-31T17:17:00.001+01:002021-03-31T17:17:57.445+01:00Last day of March 2021<p> It is warm but a thin mist hangs over the countryside on this last day of March. The forecasters say it is partly composed of dust from the Sahara desert. Here is the view from Churchland Wood across the plough to the distant Fairlight ridge buttressing against the sea. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZaISwMZLzYMzl6kejTSbrLNnucyvGdpIJ8klz2e-2il0L_sg_Qb9mn7PVYgGbAj_MvEpu-hvZs76CHcrCHTYrPsUXCmSb5hJ4oDSbeig9IqRjYg2mSSkBFsHhug9Gyl4eE1mwg/s2048/DSCN1326.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPZaISwMZLzYMzl6kejTSbrLNnucyvGdpIJ8klz2e-2il0L_sg_Qb9mn7PVYgGbAj_MvEpu-hvZs76CHcrCHTYrPsUXCmSb5hJ4oDSbeig9IqRjYg2mSSkBFsHhug9Gyl4eE1mwg/w400-h300/DSCN1326.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Birds are now very active nest building and, as I sit at my lap top, I can see the magpies coming and going from their nest in a rowan tree. Sometimes the pair go and perch on top of the tallest tree in the garden, a wild cherry, from where they can get a 360 degree view.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7RS5Umo1fzABdk0TLm-IeMyGsCkpkCzx4SqegcWMorcHTC-sCvebMPhO_orDCIOXj-TKNmP9dqBXpZ64QfNC6vETWtF36aKTPD3HGCHEKOLTjsSEy9CtCZBV6gPNb0wje6Pk32w/s2048/DSCN1313.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="2048" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7RS5Umo1fzABdk0TLm-IeMyGsCkpkCzx4SqegcWMorcHTC-sCvebMPhO_orDCIOXj-TKNmP9dqBXpZ64QfNC6vETWtF36aKTPD3HGCHEKOLTjsSEy9CtCZBV6gPNb0wje6Pk32w/w400-h289/DSCN1313.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Often the woodpigeons, who also nest in the garden, get there first.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWFQsqiDbV__utI93ns7-QfUfAOxi1cpXU4PEoQFb7nUUTp-x2tuXAPLUzXPTZdgNPxswgH0pHFax_vNzzpUZWlDTnKPWXCk4fAxCxIsHYCRWJvmIHIH803s5nvW-pNWIINFRNA/s1699/DSCN1307.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="1699" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrWFQsqiDbV__utI93ns7-QfUfAOxi1cpXU4PEoQFb7nUUTp-x2tuXAPLUzXPTZdgNPxswgH0pHFax_vNzzpUZWlDTnKPWXCk4fAxCxIsHYCRWJvmIHIH803s5nvW-pNWIINFRNA/w400-h303/DSCN1307.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We have a large area of lesser periwinkle (<i>Vinca minor</i>) under the hawthorns halfway down the garden. This effective ground cover is currently sprinkled with flowers, but these seem to appear in much greater quantity around the edges of this periwinkle area. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5OsOrQnTOOeKn2rXuVma744F1dQGi8ph-pCboR3nu3pLcBxvGcX8bJwpBWZstvjUDTM3DKiOy63y18yN11U8kusIQhW8lmh1ReZZmYGIDKldJ1XK8WHvHLBbdQYjxLajwEh6mw/s2048/DSCN1315.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1560" data-original-width="2048" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq5OsOrQnTOOeKn2rXuVma744F1dQGi8ph-pCboR3nu3pLcBxvGcX8bJwpBWZstvjUDTM3DKiOy63y18yN11U8kusIQhW8lmh1ReZZmYGIDKldJ1XK8WHvHLBbdQYjxLajwEh6mw/w400-h305/DSCN1315.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-73850819026945668732021-03-20T17:05:00.000+00:002021-03-20T17:05:54.793+00:00Two new arrivals<p> In an obscure corner of the garden the light caught a small conifer maybe 5cm tall. An adventurous seedling that is probably a yew, but possibly something else<span style="font-family: inherit;">. The leaves go all round the central stalk, though I expect this is just a </span>characteristic<span style="font-family: inherit;"> of a seedling. In </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Bean's Trees and Shrubs</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> it says of the mature plant "l</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">eaves spirally attached to the twigs, but by the twisting of the stalks brought more or less into two opposed ranks." This made me look more closely at the mature yews in the garden with their bipinnate branchlets unlike the newly found seedling.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqt36oC-ExGsk1yjRjxolhHX7tTyk7FldUQ1TqoytndyGi935lFVRGUNJV_iuwPga13vHH88EXdlAAWMDZ0YTQBUjsJRsWo-Bm0mIp3eb2W7VaL3xceD-7HeQZDmGDOil1xZTxw/s2048/DSCN1290.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="2048" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqt36oC-ExGsk1yjRjxolhHX7tTyk7FldUQ1TqoytndyGi935lFVRGUNJV_iuwPga13vHH88EXdlAAWMDZ0YTQBUjsJRsWo-Bm0mIp3eb2W7VaL3xceD-7HeQZDmGDOil1xZTxw/w400-h316/DSCN1290.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>Not far away from the conifer there is a mound, the remains of many bonfires. Tana grew potatoes on this last year and there is a fine selection of weeds each summer, well nourished by the chemicals in the ash. Wood ash is a variable substance but usually composed mainly of calcium carbonate. However, there is often around 4% potash and 1% phosphate plus various trace elements. But I digress, the find of the day was a solitary flower of coltsfoot (<i>Tussilago farfara</i>) growing on the side of the mound.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2eIIZS8yC_po1exmsLnR9bVechxBfqawx8-bR3SCgiL81USE4JetzPuaQHpDEueEdXcVjU4sYJrMV_SEXTnFDZYPuXAXmaipdbPpaCmcDAew8X1X09PDicOLo5C_dk7f-vyMSDA/s2048/DSCN1286.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1459" data-original-width="2048" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2eIIZS8yC_po1exmsLnR9bVechxBfqawx8-bR3SCgiL81USE4JetzPuaQHpDEueEdXcVjU4sYJrMV_SEXTnFDZYPuXAXmaipdbPpaCmcDAew8X1X09PDicOLo5C_dk7f-vyMSDA/w400-h285/DSCN1286.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>Coltsfoot flowers appear at this time of year before the large leaves (shaped vaguely like colt's feet) and they are not at all common in our immediate area, preferring heavy clay soils. I have never seen any in or near our garden. A piece of root might, I suppose, have been brought in from somewhere else, but that seems unlikely. As it is a native plant, arrival by seed would seem the most probable explanation. </p><p>An infusion of the leaves was once widely used as a remedy for coughs and, in some places, the dried leaves were used as a substitute for tobacco and smoking it was said to help asthma sufferers. The plant is also used to flavour coltsfoot rock made, over the last hundred years, to a secret recipe by Stockley's Sweets of Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire. The aniseed/liquorice flavour is said to be 'strangely addictive' and it appears to be quite popular still.</p><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><p></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-2828947042126064512021-03-18T16:03:00.003+00:002021-04-13T01:01:09.540+01:00Vole and daffodils<p>Tana put some scraps out on a log just outside our back door the other day and it was not long before they attracted the attention of a vole, a bank vole, <i>Microtus glareolus, </i>kindly identified by British mammal expert Dr Mark Hows (It is not easy to distinguish them from field voles, <i>Myodes agrestis.) </i>It was a very nervous animal but I was just able to take a snap of it through the rather smudgy glass of the kitchen window. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIySK4YteoT4GXPxXYJ24g6dC3-FxWCXEAlrRiY225_asnbxpFemCJgUzu_ARTjouAJQeOP54XzpD0-U3WauZAKjgqjEDxF19_-O1-BHPxMF6D1EkjqJc0jSBq6IYdyuOsestN1A/s1809/DSCN1282.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="1809" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIySK4YteoT4GXPxXYJ24g6dC3-FxWCXEAlrRiY225_asnbxpFemCJgUzu_ARTjouAJQeOP54XzpD0-U3WauZAKjgqjEDxF19_-O1-BHPxMF6D1EkjqJc0jSBq6IYdyuOsestN1A/w400-h308/DSCN1282.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On my trip down the garden I was pleased to see a trio of wild daffodils (<i>Narcissus pseudonarcissus</i>) in flower. They have slightly drooping two-toned flowers and mine have now survived for many years with no attention. Those below had arranged themselves together like Three Little Maids from School.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIEnVspvwaeIadpPOOCZ8b29mUf4A0gtYS9pwV4JSlFh1DLK8O1FNjyw9ywjK02vYOOA8cE52nz7UYpmZiZZGibfbRFWfYCtgHp_YttwwbixjeyyCE6MRkR1UI0WEz_ZBX_XWmg/s1837/DSCN1284.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1374" data-original-width="1837" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzIEnVspvwaeIadpPOOCZ8b29mUf4A0gtYS9pwV4JSlFh1DLK8O1FNjyw9ywjK02vYOOA8cE52nz7UYpmZiZZGibfbRFWfYCtgHp_YttwwbixjeyyCE6MRkR1UI0WEz_ZBX_XWmg/w400-h299/DSCN1284.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-89158697663310984782021-03-13T17:55:00.001+00:002021-03-13T17:58:29.925+00:00A few flowers<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuv3LUK3_8LdzikX68sVwdDKm5CgUnd1U61phWIpdYTUKLmKubCai55oDQbPk71iki5x0xWZS1M_00Y3NpRkuxpm922pDi9kbIai3rbMveJftc3hx3v6P6qBGkYTk78dMwL84_AQ/s2048/Viola+reichenbachiana+2003a.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuv3LUK3_8LdzikX68sVwdDKm5CgUnd1U61phWIpdYTUKLmKubCai55oDQbPk71iki5x0xWZS1M_00Y3NpRkuxpm922pDi9kbIai3rbMveJftc3hx3v6P6qBGkYTk78dMwL84_AQ/w400-h300/Viola+reichenbachiana+2003a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Still a windy day but quite pleasant, though cool, in the sunshine. I noted several 'heralds of spring ' in flower today - lady's smock (below), alexanders and, above, early dog violets (<i>Viola reichenbachiana</i>). Tana saw some wood anemones while on a walk.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbj25gGcubYOC2izq_eL35XIz0V_BBBTqoupbjGLnWkMU_I0ECLur9lQRJiZN8knm9KuGgmDlIXKmVut0l5-V-oty4aK2iedJqmNJqmZ5POi5_9ABxqhyxLy5kteEaDLa975Few/s2048/Cardamine+pratensis+20030415b+001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwbj25gGcubYOC2izq_eL35XIz0V_BBBTqoupbjGLnWkMU_I0ECLur9lQRJiZN8knm9KuGgmDlIXKmVut0l5-V-oty4aK2iedJqmNJqmZ5POi5_9ABxqhyxLy5kteEaDLa975Few/w400-h300/Cardamine+pratensis+20030415b+001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Our colony of Tenby daffodils continues to look in good condition and, unlike other daffodils locally, have been unaffected by the recent gales. The photo below shows that all the flowers face south.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE3tj-RIysMSAVKcrnZVYOSmKbNSX2F7XrZ8xX1BmIMXsAYMTcZsY19Qbyf6vGDL0tCqWWsjX0c3UMJzXBD7ZiOPDMvnKbyciMZ_2fVpD_jrbpg7K-7rtsX2kAZVsbZvm7cbHArA/s2048/DSCN1274.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE3tj-RIysMSAVKcrnZVYOSmKbNSX2F7XrZ8xX1BmIMXsAYMTcZsY19Qbyf6vGDL0tCqWWsjX0c3UMJzXBD7ZiOPDMvnKbyciMZ_2fVpD_jrbpg7K-7rtsX2kAZVsbZvm7cbHArA/w400-h300/DSCN1274.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-54256530191825597632021-03-11T15:44:00.006+00:002021-03-12T13:53:46.687+00:00March winds<p>There is some hopeful anticipation that the current boisterous weather will win the next storm name on the 2021 list - 'Evert' (a short form of the German name Eberhard most frequently used in Sweden and The Netherlands). Here the wind came in strong gusts overnight and during the following day, with heavy rain showers. Sitting down the garden in the middle of the day, I was surprised that I could hear many birds singing over the deep roaring of the wind, like treble voices over a bass choir.</p><p>Great masses of air boomed over the garden from the south west keeping the tops of the trees in Churchland Wood (which I can see from my window) in constant motion. Bright sunshine picks out much of the detail: there are fading hazel catkins, goat willow flowers and the magpie's nest in one of the rowan trees. The birds are nowhere to be seen and may be sheltering in their insecure looking twiggy retreat, or perhaps they have a foul weather hideaway somewhere nearby. Most mammals are hiding too but one grey squirrel went hopping over the roof of the hut.</p><p>The two tallest trees in the garden are a wild cherry grown from a fruit I found in Orlestone Forest many years ago and the silver birch in my Square Metre project, The uppermost branches of the cherry are permanently bent over to the north, pushed that way by successive storms I suspect, especially as the trunk does not seem to move in the wind.. The birch, on the other hand grows ramrod straight though it sways, often quite violently in the wind.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIl_YUMDJbwGvowfL4H4AZvi91vZLthyEck8hY-E-_9yiAU3ElvkMyonRAmAPM2ZThz0ks-3wqBMu31qIolg6tv-r3K0zlqp1u5oZl6HQXQsz2WfZCpOMzp2H7UNwQcL4VIH-2cQ/s2048/DSCN1269.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1977" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIl_YUMDJbwGvowfL4H4AZvi91vZLthyEck8hY-E-_9yiAU3ElvkMyonRAmAPM2ZThz0ks-3wqBMu31qIolg6tv-r3K0zlqp1u5oZl6HQXQsz2WfZCpOMzp2H7UNwQcL4VIH-2cQ/w386-h400/DSCN1269.JPG" width="386" /></a></div><br /><p>An unusual effect of the wind is the way the path to the wood is strewn with pink camellia petals as though for some Oriental festival. The petals are being blown down from a <i>Camellia </i>'Garden Glory' which has been in bloom since early January and still has many more flowers to come.</p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-21251755384084413562021-03-08T13:05:00.009+00:002021-03-10T12:19:58.457+00:00The mouse and the cherry stones<p><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">Underneath a large wild cherry tree (<i>Prunus avium</i>), in a small open area enclosed by protruding roots, I found a large horde of cherry stones. Each one had a hole chewed in the top. These holes had been made by a wood mouse, or mice, (<i>Apodemus sylvaticus</i>) to extract the kernel within. In summer the ground beneath this tree is strewn with fallen fruit and I wondered if the mice had collected these, maybe eaten the pulp, and then stored the cherry stones for later use. Though there were no stones that had not been opened, considerable effort must have been involved in making such a large midden, so maybe each one was brought from a store concealed nearby and dropped outside once its contents had been consumed.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjg-mf_eSMVSsE7xrmCNqnOR8UHwthXhol1INSDC-lHqXa8PQ1SOcrwwujCGIGhbfK4gZOETUfnoZxSNiEy_yNljpHszlYOg3NWNDfOjXau8XL97LvKN0TmU5JhbQdp3wtoJYKcQ/s2048/DSCN1260.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1599" data-original-width="2048" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjg-mf_eSMVSsE7xrmCNqnOR8UHwthXhol1INSDC-lHqXa8PQ1SOcrwwujCGIGhbfK4gZOETUfnoZxSNiEy_yNljpHszlYOg3NWNDfOjXau8XL97LvKN0TmU5JhbQdp3wtoJYKcQ/w400-h313/DSCN1260.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;"><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></p>As well as wood mice, cherry stones can be holed by dormice and voles although the markings made by the animals' teeth around the rim differ for each species. There are a several illustrations of this online; a good one is at: <a href="https://ptes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/chewed-nuts.jpg">https://ptes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/chewed-nuts.jpg</a></span><p></p><p><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">Cherry stones have a reputation for toxicity as they contain amygdalin which converts to cyanide in the body if ingested. The amount of amygdalin in the kernels seems to vary considerable and there is a wide range of commentary on the Internet as to their relative danger to humans. One commentator claims that</span><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;"> </span><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">"A single cherry yields roughly 0.17 </span><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">grams of lethal cyanide per gram of seed, so depending on the size of the kernel, ingesting just one or two freshly crushed pits can lead to death". </span><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;">Others recommend they are used to flavour cherry jam.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 15.9991px;">However, according to Adriano Chan et al., mice are more resistant to the effects of cyanide than humans (see </span></span><span><span style="font-size: 15.9991px;"><a href="https://tinyurl.com/2snymrvy">https://tinyurl.com/2snymrvy</a>) so it would appear that our wood mice have not been in danger of poisoning themselves.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, stixgeneral, serif;"><span style="font-size: 15.9991px;"><br /></span></span></p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-76765278106689554992021-03-07T18:59:00.006+00:002021-03-11T19:12:19.053+00:00An episode on the Isle of Sheppey<br /><br />In February and March 2021 I read <i>The Sea View Has Me Again. Uwe Johnson in Sheerness</i>, a large book (733 pages) by Patrick Wright that plaits the life of the eminent German writer Uwe Johnson with a description of the past and present of the Isle of Sheppey in general and Sheerness, one of its main towns, in particular.<div><br />Uwe Johnson was born in Kammin on the Baltic coast in German Pomerania, (now Kamien Pomorski and in Poland). The area has had a complex history having been fought over by Germans, Poles and Swedes. During World War II German rocket launchers were stationed on Chrząszczewska Island (formerly Insel Gristow) that lies immediately to the west of Kammin and to which it is connected by a bridge. After the war, most Germans left Kammin and were replaced by Poles. The Johnson family moved to Anklam in German West Pomerania and also close to the Baltic with its winding rivers, lagoons and seacoast. These estuarine, rather bleak landscapes and equally bleak histories are thought partly to have attracted Johnson to live in a house in Sheerness overlooking the Thames Estuary for the last ten years of his life. <br /><br />Patrick Wright is an author, historian and Emeritus Professor of Literature, History and Politics at King’s College, London. Among other things, Wright’s book (which has been highly praised by many critics) describes the numerous eccentricities of the Isle of Sheppey and its people, many of which did, or would have, attracted the interest of Uwe Johnson. I would like to add a Sheppey episode of which Patrick Wright is unlikely to have heard but which, I think, may have amused Uwe Johnson. <br /><br />In the early years of the current century I took up the study of mosses and joined the British Bryological Society (BBS). Shortly afterwards I learnt that the BBS were conducting a survey of the bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) of arable fields. Most of these are in decline due to changes in agricultural practices. In order to improve records of their current distribution I was invited, in 2004, to join a November field meeting to look for as many of these species as we could find in stubble fields on the Isle of Sheppey. The fields chosen were to lie fallow all winter with the bryophytes therefore undisturbed (except by visiting bryologists). <br /><br />Our small party of half a dozen enthusiasts gathered on a cold but bright day in a stubble field to the south of Eastchurch in an elevated position more or less in the centre of the island. It was cold with a wind from the north east. To find and study the various bryophytes that flourish in stubble fields requires searching on hands and knees, high powered magnifying glass in one hand and maybe a handbook and/or notebook in the other. It is cold and uncomfortable work and I wondered how many people from Eastchurch or elsewhere were troubled at the sight of full-grown men and women crawling across the windswept fields in prayerful attitudes, especially as we were quite close to one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. <br /><br />The day was made more exciting by the arrival of a group of researchers from the University of Lancaster who were studying people who indulged in unusual pursuits and, clipboard in hand, a young woman asked questions and took notes about my interest in almost invisible ephemeral mosses despite weather and other seemingly negative circumstances. <br /><br />One of the target species for the day was <i>Bryum klinggraeffii</i> which I had never heard of. Nevertheless one of our party called out that he had found some and I went and inspected the moss that bore such an interesting name. And there on the bare soil were a few small tufts of green between the rows of the prickly cut ends of summer corn. After a quick dissertation on the visible and distinctive features of the tiny leaves and stems of this diminutive plant he drew my attention to the small, reddish tubers hiding in the moss and which, because of their shape and colour, had won it the English name of ‘raspberry bryum’. These tubers, only about ¼ millimetre wide, often occur only on the moss’s rhizoids below ground and have to be searched for in loose soil (sometimes known as the ‘diaspore bank’). <br /><br />The specific name for this moss was coined by W P S Schimper, an Alsatian botanist, who formally described the species in Hugo von Klinggräff’s 1858 book <i>Die höheren Cryptogamen Preussens</i> (The higher cryptogams of Prussia). Klinggräff was a 19th century German botanist who specialised in bryology. Both Uwe Johnson and Hugo Erich Meyer von Klinggräff were born in neighbouring provinces of Pomerania with Baltic coastlines, both in places where Germans have been replaced by Poles and German by Polish. I like to imagine that Klinggräff would be pleased that people were finding ‘his’ moss in fields on the island where his celebrated fellow Pomeranian had once chosen to live. Had they met I think they would have had much to talk about and I think Uwe Johnson might even have made an entry in one of his notebooks. <br /><br />A small memorial of this day’s moss hunting in the bare, winter countryside on this estuary island can be found on the National Biodiversity Network’s web page for <i>Bryum klinggraeffii</i>. If one zooms in to Sheppey there is a small cluster of dots marking records of the species made in 2004 in the arable fields around Eastchurch.</div>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-14239793414760948242021-03-06T17:09:00.002+00:002021-03-06T17:09:26.904+00:00<p>The old sallow tree in the middle of the garden died last summer and is now sporting a fine crop of <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Daedaleopsis confragosa</i> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">the<b> </b></span><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px;"><b>thin walled maze polypore</b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"> or </span><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 16px;"><b>blushing bracket</b>, the second name referring to the pores (botanically described as 'daedaloid') on the underside that 'blush' pinkish if they are pressed with a finger. The fungus is often found on willows and sallows (<i>Salix </i>spp.) but also occurs on many other trees where it causes white rot.</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg095U9CtY3I4LTQU34KLApllIlW0VzNmVY_TfeOi3zC_7hO6LY7cGkoaaUlV34Jeqk3tlB0XQ3IUF-IXBtha0OOyzQ9AOXZ36Vc1Y5MunDSOG0D1MBQjnK9iV8UWq1xrXhpi-QEQ/s2048/DSCN1251.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1589" data-original-width="2048" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg095U9CtY3I4LTQU34KLApllIlW0VzNmVY_TfeOi3zC_7hO6LY7cGkoaaUlV34Jeqk3tlB0XQ3IUF-IXBtha0OOyzQ9AOXZ36Vc1Y5MunDSOG0D1MBQjnK9iV8UWq1xrXhpi-QEQ/w400-h310/DSCN1251.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The fungus is named after Daedalus, a Greek architect and inventor who was commissioned by King Minos to build the labyrinth on the island of Crete. Author James Joyce sometimes used the name Stephen Dedalus or Daedalus in an autobiographical sense perhaps referring, among other things, to the labyrinthine qualities of some of his writing. 'Confragosa, simply means 'rough' and refers to the upper sides of the brackets.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTI0H8ntcTCGRolDBHSSLLG7K0GXqJaEwSa6eSSwZ3yFSfo71mSRMa8K5xGgiMxbb2rgMdIyoACYFeLN472gKbI811k6eiP7F1T9AUCst_oZjIwJ3548km7Vsdxd1JpZfpKUnToQ/s1429/DSCN1250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="1429" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTI0H8ntcTCGRolDBHSSLLG7K0GXqJaEwSa6eSSwZ3yFSfo71mSRMa8K5xGgiMxbb2rgMdIyoACYFeLN472gKbI811k6eiP7F1T9AUCst_oZjIwJ3548km7Vsdxd1JpZfpKUnToQ/w400-h280/DSCN1250.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-19771974006002988392020-08-07T16:59:00.003+01:002020-08-07T18:05:28.420+01:00Enchanter's nighshade<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuEN72rG5kwV4dQgWXsRhuXdOHVXdkFglMDLDv0l17TkAdJlGZi_0RJIizgmqjsoIL9XLlECxMetfygFQyy0uURXaXz8b76qgs4lrLaa7gl3tZ_qEclOwSwwoP9CTxAQAvZ7yTA/s2048/DSCN1152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1948" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnuEN72rG5kwV4dQgWXsRhuXdOHVXdkFglMDLDv0l17TkAdJlGZi_0RJIizgmqjsoIL9XLlECxMetfygFQyy0uURXaXz8b76qgs4lrLaa7gl3tZ_qEclOwSwwoP9CTxAQAvZ7yTA/w487-h512/DSCN1152.JPG" width="487" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;">Enchanter's nightshade (<i>Circaea lutetiana</i>) is once again flowering here and there in our garden and local woods. It is a small and modest plant with delicate pink and white flowers followed by small burrs, each containing a seed, which cling to one's trouser legs.</p><p>It appears to have very few virtues as an edible or medicinal plant but most people wonder how it came by its mysterious English name. This has been much discussed in various online places but generally it seems to have originated in the 16th and 17th century when many of the great European herbalists were writing about the medicinal and magical properties of plants. Among other things they explored the works of classical authors like Dioscorides (<i>De materia medica</i>, AD 50 -70). He wrote of a plant called 'kirkaia' in Greek which becomes 'Circaea' in Latin and can be translated as Circe's (plant). Quite what this was seems uncertain but enchanter's nightshade is one candidate.</p><p>The French name for Enchanter's nightshade was, at the time of the 16th and 17th C herbalists, 'circée' and this is still current in France, Italy and French-speaking Switzerland. The herbalists assumed this associated the plant with Circe, the enchantress of Homer's Odyssey who attracted Ulysses's men with her siren song then used a magic potion to turn them into pigs. The derivation of circée as a plant name may be correct but I have not seen any direct evidence that this was so. There are, however, some accounts of the plant being used by women to arouse men, though this may not pre-date the 16th century.</p><p>When the French herbalists were writing they often called Enchanter's nightshade 'circée de Paris'. This was not only because the plant grew commonly in the Paris area (and elsewhere in most of France) but to distinguish it from upland enchanter's nightshade (<i>Circaea alpina</i>) known in French as 'circée des Alpes'. Circée de Paris was written in Latin as 'circaea lutetiana', the second word deriving from 'lutetia' a Roman name for Paris, and Linnaeus used this when formally describing the plant in his <i>Species Plantarum</i>.</p><p>All that more or less explains the enchanter's part of the name, but why 'nightshade'? This is quite simply because the plant was thought to be a nightshade due to the shape of its leaves resembling woody nightshade (<i>Solanum dulcamara</i>). Gaspard Bauhin the 17th C Swiss botanist called it <i>Solanifolia Circaea (</i>nightshade-leaved circée<i>)</i> for example. </p>Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-91820091193276303202020-05-17T17:19:00.002+01:002020-05-17T17:32:34.497+01:00Things on hornbeam leavesI seem to have been doing well with hornbeam leaves this year, especially as they do not normally seem to produce anything very exciting. My first discovery was the tiny galls of the mite <i>Aceria tenellus</i> in the axils of veins in several leaves of the hornbeam cordon in my Square Metre, as well as on the edge of Killingan Wood up the lane. There are only a few records of this species from Sussex and I expect it has been overlooked rather than being generally scarce.<br />
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My next discovery was of quite a few empty mines of the <b>small purple hazel </b>moth <i>Paracrania chrysolepidella </i>(it also feeds on hazel), an attractive, Nationally Notable class B, early flying micro.</div>
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While examining these I noticed a strange corkscrew like gall on a leaf edge (see below) which turned out to be that of another mite, <i>Aceria macrotrichus</i>. According to the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) there is only one British record of this (from the Midlands). There were no Sussex records in the databases of the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre. As well as the corkscrew-like structure there are vermiform swellings along the veins in the underside of the leaf and slits on the upperside from which the mites can leave</div>
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The next day I was looking to see if there were any more of these galls. There were not, but I found the considerable mass of eggs (see below) that some insect had laid on the underside of a hornbeam leaf. After arrival at home they started to hatch into tiny caterpillars, so I have put them on the hornbeam cordon down the garden in my Square Metre project. </div>
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Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-24428742710620659442020-04-05T18:26:00.000+01:002020-04-05T18:26:20.530+01:00Two comfreysPart of our garden is carpeted with <b>creeping comfrey</b>, <i>Symphytum grandiflorum</i>.<br />
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The white, tubular flowers are very attractive to bumblebees and must be nectar rich. This picture was taken on 5th April and the plant had been in flower for well over a month, helping the bumbles to get off to a good start.<br />
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Most species of comfrey have had many medical applications in the past, but these are best avoided as plants in the <i>Symphytum</i> genus have been shown to be somewhat toxic.<br />
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We also have a colony of <b>Hidcote comfrey</b>, <i>S. x hidcotense, </i>with blue and white flowers but the same creeping habit. I think this must have been the plant Kenneth Grahame wrote about in Wind-in-the-Willows: "Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white, crept forth to take its place in the line."<br />
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<br />Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-75274449077331024812020-03-26T19:42:00.000+00:002020-03-26T19:42:30.566+00:00Onion loopsOne of the most delicately beautiful phenomenon of this rising spring are these arching leaves of wild onion (<i>Allium vineale</i>). It seems to me an uncommon shape in our British flora. These are just outside my Square Metre project and I think they may produce heads of bulbils this year. The first wild onions appeared under the medlar tree a short distance away many years ago where their bulbils were probably dropped by birds. They are slowly advancing eastwards towards the Square Metre itself but have never 'flowered'.<br />
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A relaxing half hour can be had by contemplating these onion loops and listening to John Adams <i>Shaker Loops</i> at the same time.</div>
<br />Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-62140679705290312332019-12-29T17:45:00.001+00:002020-01-26T16:36:37.015+00:00ChurchlandChurchland is roughly the area I can reach on foot from my home. Further details will follow but my general intent is to make it a series of searchable notes on the small part of the High Weald lying to the north of Sedlescombe Street. My house, South View, is close to the centre of a rough pentagon of tarmac roads at OS grid reference TQ782188. It is on Churchland Lane which runs as a unmade road towards the village, then a footpath, then a made road through Balcombe Green and finally down to the main road through the village via Long Lane. It more or less cuts the area I call Churchland in half while to the west there is a series of fields known generally as Churchland Fields and a wood to the east of our garden called Churchland Wood.<br />
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<b>Plants (Plantae)</b><br />
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<b>Flowering plants, conifers and ferns</b><br />
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In this flora of Churchland plants are arranged in alphabetical order in their groups by scientific name. I have included wild plants and the cultivated plants that can, in most instances, be seen from the roads or the footpaths. I will add to it from time to time but it will be ages (or never) before all the species that grow in Churchland are listed. All a bit like train spotting. Nomenclature follows <b>Stace</b> (2019). <i>The New Flora of the British Isles, 4th edition</i>.<br />
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<i>Aquilegia vulgaris </i>- Columbine. Occasional as a garden escape. Along 90 metre footpath TQ78371938, in gateway on Hurst Lane TQ78211943.<br />
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<i>Arum italicum</i> - Italian lords-and-ladies. There are two species of <i>Arum</i> in Churchland. This one and <i>A. maculatum</i> (see below). <i>A. italicum </i>with plain leaves (often knows as subspecies <i>neglectum</i>)<i> </i>is found wild in Britain only in the southern counties, usually near the coast.. Unlike <i>A. maculatum</i> the leaves emerge in autumn. There is also a variety with whitish veins in the leaves (often known as subspecies <i>italicum</i>). Plants with both plain and veined leaves occur here and there in Churchland, often originating as garden throw-outs. There is a patch outside Jessmond in Churchland Lane with both plain and veined leaves.<br />
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<i>Anemone nemorosa</i> - Wood anemone. Common in many woodlands, especially on clay soils.<br />
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<i>Arum maculatum</i> - Lords-and-ladies. Also known as cuckoo-pint and wild arum. Unlike the above the leaves appear in late winter or early spring and often have purple spots. It occurs in woods and hedgerows across the area.<br />
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<i>Asplenium adiantum-nigrum</i> - Black spleenwort<br />
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<i>Athyrium filix-femina</i> - Lady-fern<br />
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<i>Asplenium scolopendrium</i> - Hart's-tongue fern<br />
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<i>Buxus sempervirens</i> - Box. Widely planted in gardens for hedging and topiary.<br />
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<i>Chrysosplenium oppositifolium</i> - Opposite-leaved golden-saxifrage. Occasional in ditches and damp places.<br />
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<i>Cupressus lawsoniana</i> - Lawson's cypress<br />
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<i>Cupressus x leylandii</i> - Leyland cypress. Common as a hedgerow shrub and sometimes allowed to grow tall, e.g. by the car port at Woodstock in Churchland Lane. There is a variegated example with some creamy white shoots among the green in the hedge at Dino's in Churchland Lane close to the junction with Hurst Lane<br />
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<i>Equisetum arvense - </i>Field horsetail<br />
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<i>Berberis</i> - Barberries<br />
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<i>Bergenia </i>sp. - Elephant ears. One plant on the edge of Killingan Wood. Probably <i>B. crassifolia </i>from Siberia.<br />
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<i>Blechnum spicant</i> - Hard-fern<br />
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<i>Calocedrus decurrens</i> - Incense cedar<br />
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<i>Caltha palustris</i> - Marsh marigold. Scattered in the wild in Sedlescombe. Occurs in the pond in Tresco, Churchland Lane and the pond in Red Barn Field.<br />
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<i>Chelidonium majus</i> - Greater celandine. Has occurred as a casual in Churchland Lane.<br />
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<i>Clematis vitalba </i>- Traveller's joy, Old man's beard. Churchland Lane in the hedge where South View meets Little Oaks. There are many garden <i>Clematis</i> species, hybrids and varieties grown in the area.<br />
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<i>Dryopteris affinis</i> - Golden-scaled male-fern<br />
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<i>Dryopteris carthusiana</i> - Narrow buckler-fern<br />
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<i>Dryopteris dilatata</i> - Broad buckler-fern<br />
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<i>Dryopteris filix-mas</i> - Male-fern.<br />
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<i>Ervilia hirsuta</i> (formerly <i>Vicia hirsuta</i>) - Hairy tare. I have only seen this in the garden at South View where it is a persistent weed in flower-pots.<br />
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<i>Ervum tetraspermum</i> - Smooth Tare. Common in gardens and along hedgerow bottoms as well as in tough open ground.<br />
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<i>Eschscholzia californica</i> - Californian poppy. Widespread in gardens.<br />
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<i>Ficaria verna</i> - Lesser celandine (formerly <i>Ranunculus ficaria</i>). Common along waysides, hedgerows and field edges as well in more open parts of woodland where it can flower as early as mid-January. There are four subspecies recorded in Britain.<br />
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<i>Griselinia littoralis - </i>New Zealand broadleaf, New Zealand privet.or kapuka in Maori. An evergreen shrub often used for hedging, especially near the sea. There is a mature hedge of this species (with some beech mixed in) by Churchland Lane along the front fence of The Pantiles.<br />
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<i>Helleborus argutifolius</i> - Corsican hellebore. Only in gardens in Churchland.<br />
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<i>Helleborus foetidus</i> - Stinking hellebore. Cultivated in gardens but not recorded in the wild in Churchland.<br />
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<i>Helleborus orientalis</i> - Lenten-rose. Only in gardens in Churchland.<br />
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<i>Hyacinthoides x massartiana.</i> This is the 'Spanish bluebell' commonly encountered as an escape in and around gardens. It is a hybrid between the true Spanish bluebell, <i>H. hispanica</i>, and our native species. Distinguishing the Spanish bluebell from <i>x massartiana</i> needs care.<br />
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<i>Hyacinthoides non-scripta, </i>bluebell. A widespread and common species in most woodland in the area. Its scientific name has changed several times over the years and there is also much confusion with the Spanish bluebell with which it hybridises (see above). Stories are frequently published about the danger to our native bluebells from this hybridisation but this does not appear to be a threat in Churchland.<br />
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<i>Hylotelephium telephium</i> ssp. <i>fabaria</i> - Orpine. (Formerly <i>Sedum telephium</i>). Grown in gardens but also quite widespread in local woods and hedge banks. In Churchland it occurs in one place on the eastern bank of Hurst Lane.<br />
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<i>Ilex x altaclerensis</i> - Highclere holly. Frequent in gardens, usually as one of the variegated forms. A plant of the variety 'Golden King' (in fact a berry-bearing female plant) occurs in a hedge at Cherry Croft on the eastern side of Churchland Lane.<br />
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<i>Ilex aquifolium - </i>Holly<i> </i><br />
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<i>Juniperus communis</i> - Common juniper<br />
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<i>Larix decidua</i> - European larch<br />
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<i>Mahonia</i> - Oregon grapes. Various species and varieties of <i>Mahonia</i> from North America are grown in Churchland gardens. Their yellow flowers in autumn, winter and spring provide important nectar and pollen for the bumble bees that fly in milder weather in the winter months.<br />
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<i>Lotus corniculatus</i> - Common bird's-foot-trefoil. Common in pastures and often on old lawns.<br />
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<i>Lotus pedunculatus. </i>Greater bird's-foot-trefoil. Common in longer vegetation and damper ground than <i>L. corniculatus.</i><br />
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<i>Myriophyllum aquaticum</i> - Parrot's-feather. An aquatic plant from South America found in the wild in many ponds where it can suppress native plants. Pond at Tresco, Churchland Lane (needs checking).<br />
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<i>Osmunda regalis - </i>Royal fern<br />
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<i>Paeonia officinalis</i> - Garden peony. Several plants along Churchland Lane opposite Little Oaks gateway. Widely grown in gardens.<br />
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<i>Papaver somniferum</i> - Opium poppy. One plant occurred on a heap of brick rubble in the garden of Acorn Chalet in the early 21st century. It did not persist.<br />
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<i>Petasites pyrenaicus</i> - Winter heliotrope (formerly <i>Petasites fragrans</i>). A plant from the Mediterranean area with scented flowers in winter. Only the male plant is known in Britain but it spreads vegetatively and causes problems on roadside verges and elsewhere as its large, round leaves suppress smaller native plants. It is difficult to eradicate other than by using weedkillers. Occurs in various places in Churchland and usually flowers well at the point where Hurst Lane joins the A2244.<br />
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<i>Picea abies</i> - Norway spruce<br />
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<i>Pinus sylvestris</i> - Scots pine<br />
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<i>Pittosporum tenuifolium</i>. Known as kohuhu, black matipo and tawhiwhi in Maori, but there does not appear to be an English name apart from New Zealand pittosporum. There is a plant in the mixed hedge of Glendale in Churchland Lane. easily distinguished by the undulate margins of the bright green leaves.<br />
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<i>Polystichum aculeatum</i> - Hard shield-fern<i> </i><br />
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<i>Polypodium vulgare</i> - Polypody fern<br />
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<i>Polystichum setiferum</i> - Soft shield-fern<br />
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<i>Pteridium aquilinum </i>- Bracken<br />
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<i>Ranunculus acris</i> - Meadow buttercup. Widespread in Churchland in open places.<br />
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<i>Ranunculus auricomus</i> - Goldilocks buttercup. Scattered in woodland in Churchland. This plant is apomictic and has a large number of agamospecies of which around 60 have been described but many more await description.<br />
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<i>Ranunculus repens</i> - Creeping buttercup. Common everywhere often in dam open places. A persistent weed in gardens.<br />
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<i>Ribes nigrum</i> - Black currant. One plant recorded from Killingan Wood. Widely grown in gardens<br />
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<i>Ribes rubrum</i> - Red currant. Frequent in woods and widely grown in gardens.<br />
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<i>Ribes sanguineum</i> - Flowering currant. One plant in Churchland Wood. Widely grown in gardens.<br />
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<i>Ribes uva-crispa</i> - Gooseberry. Recorded as a wild plant in Churchland Wood. Widely grown in gardens.<br />
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<i>Sedum album</i> - White stonecrop. A frequent escape from gardens on walls and gravelly paths. Sometimes used on green roofs.<br />
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<i>Sempervivum tectorum</i> - Houseleek. This and its varieties plus some other houseleek species are widely grown in Churchland gardens.<br />
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<i>Symphoricarpos albus</i> ssp. <i>laevigatus</i> - Snowberry. Introduced from western North America. The plant naturalised in Britain is ssp. <i>laevigatus</i>. There is a vigorous plant in a garden at TQ78351927 to the west of the footpath.<br />
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<i>Symphytum grandiflorum</i> - Creeping comfrey. Occurs in gardens and sometimes escapes. Can start to flower in January and is very attractive to bees.<br />
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<i>Symphytum x hidcotense</i> - Hidcote comfrey. Occurs in gardens.<br />
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<i>Tellima grandiflora</i> - Fringecups. From North America. Has sown itself for many years in the garden at South View in Churchland Lane.<br />
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<i>Taxus baccata - </i>Yew. Widely self-sown into local woodlands and frequently planted both as a free-standing tree and for a hedge, or topiary. There is an Irish yew, <i>Taxus baccata </i>'fastigiata'<i> </i>by Churchland Lane on the boundary between South View and Little Oaks.<br />
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<i>Viburnum tinus</i> - Laurustinus. An introduced evergreen shrub from the Mediterranean area that has pink or white flowers in the colder months of the year. Itr is often ravaged by the viburnum leaf beetle beetle <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Pyrrhalta viburni. </i>Laurustinus leaves have things called ‘domatia’ in some of the
underside axils of some of the leaves. These domatia consist of clumps of
small white hairs and act as shelter for a species of mite called <i>Metaseiulus
occidentalis</i>. Apparently these mites eat the eggs of the red spider mite, <i>Tetranychus
urticae</i>, which are very damaging to plants and laurustinus can therefore be
of value to gardeners for control of this pest.</span><br />
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<i>Viburnum x bodnantense.</i> A group of hybrids between <i>Viburnum farreri</i> and <i>V . grandiflorum</i>. The first to be propagated was raised at Bodnant gardens in North Wales in 1935. The pink and white flowers appear on bare branches in midwinter and have a strong perfume. There is an example on the south west corner of The Pantiles' garden by Churchland Lane and also one in the garden of South View..<br />
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<i>Vicia sativa </i>ssp. <i>nigra</i> - Narrow-leaved vetch. Common in hedgerows and rough grassland.<br />
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<i>Vicia sativa</i> ssp. <i>segetalis - </i>Common vetch. Occasional in hedges and rough places.<br />
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<i>Vicia sepium - </i>Bush vetch<i>.</i> Common in hedgerows and rough places.<br />
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<br />Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-37291277634294370612019-08-30T17:36:00.002+01:002019-08-31T17:29:31.010+01:00The Square Metre 19 July to 22 August 2019<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt; text-indent: -108.0pt;">
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<span style="background: white;">The photo below shows many of the features </span><span style="background: white;">in the Second Meadow that are mention in this post. </span><span style="background: white;">The stone row </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;"> just to the left of centre is Cynthia's Ridge. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;">Travelling clockwise the flat area to </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;">the right is the Dust Bowl. The dark circle at 3 o'clock is Second Meadow Pond. Just below</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;"> this is the singled Eastern Dandelion just above the ragwort plant both growing </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;">in </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;">what I call Conservation</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;"> Lawn. At about 7 o'clock there is the cardboard Amazon</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;"> square and at about 8 the western dandelion between two non-interference grass tufts. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;">The grey brown area to the left of these is where the woodchip from the entrance path </span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;">encroaches. At about 11 o'clock past the fern and the irises the black bryony climbs up into the darkness and already</span><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;"> has a few yellow autumnal leaves.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -108pt;"> In the top right hand corner the trunk of the mature birch tree growing in the original Square Metre can be seen</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">19 July 2019 Quite
cool with rain approaching: its first intrusions could be felt in the
wind. A muscid and an ichneumon sat each
on its own rock in Cynthia’s Ridge, presumably enjoying the stored warmth. There was also a fragment of snail shell on
one of the rocks indicating a thrush had been in action. Second Meadow Pond was half empty again. Many of the sorrel seedlings are marked with
red to a greater or lesser degree.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">20 July 2019 Heavy
overnight rain has wetted the Dust Bowl and given the seedlings a better chance
of survival. There were two springtails on the</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" kind="click" style="text-indent: -106.35pt;">Post settings</a><span style="background: white; text-indent: -106.35pt;"> pond and a </span><b style="text-indent: -106.35pt;"><span style="background: white;">cream spot ladybird</span></b><span style="background: white; text-indent: -106.35pt;">,</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; text-indent: -106.35pt;"> </span><em style="text-indent: -106.35pt;"><span style="background: white;">Calvia
quattuordecimguttata</span></em><span style="background: white; text-indent: -106.35pt;">, on a
hogweed leaf. One living feeler of ivy
has reached Second Meadow Pond.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">21 July 2019 Warm
again – good growing weather. Three <i>Rhagonycha
fulva</i>, </span><b><span style="background: white;">red
soldier beetles</span></b><span style="background: white;">, and a male social wasp
on hogweed flowers. A red blood worm
tumbling through the water in Second Meadow Pond plus a dead burying beetle (<i>Nicrophorus</i>
sp.) in the grass. I wonder what it had been burying.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">22 July 2019 There
are green aphids on some hogweed stems and a potter wasp on the flowers. I am letting a few grass clumps develop
naturally in the Second Meadow in the hopes that they will grow into an
interesting feature. The first
harvestman of the year appeared in the vegetation north of Troy Track.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">23 July 2019 It
is getting very hot and the hogweed is drooping slightly. Noted some worm casts in the Second Meadow.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">24 July 2019 The
hottest day on record in Great Britain.
Here it reached 32.5° in the shade.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">26 July 2019 Thunderstorms
overnight and heavy rain that refreshed Emthree after the heat. Politics has been as lively as the weather
with Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister and appointing what looks like a
very right-wing cabinet.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">28 July 2019 Much
cooler and showery, irrigating much of Emthree.
There are busy gatherings of insects on the hogweed flowers now.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">29 July 2019 Windy
and rather cool. The first </span><b><span style="background: white;">knapweed</span></b><span style="background: white;"> is in flower.
There was a visit from a </span><b><span style="background: white;">meadow
brown</span></b><span style="background: white;"> butterfly. The grass tufts in Second Meadow are now
starting to differentiate but I do not think they will anthesise this year. </span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">30 July 2019 We
have moved my little gardening seat back further into the Brambly Hedge area so
I can get more into focus with my close-focus binoculars (now essential
equipment). There are many solitary
wasps among the hogweed flower visitors and a scorpion fly put in an
appearance.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">1 August 2019 Light
rain today. A large black beetle in the pond.
Creeping buttercup in flower. I
surveyed the area with my old Zeiss monocular which allows very close
focus. I selected a few more plants of grass
to be given a kind of zen landscape treatment.</span><span style="background: white;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">2 August 2019 I have three square metres now: the
original, what I call ‘The Waste’ to the south of it, and the Second Meadow to
the west of these. There are many
insects jostling on the hogweed flowers and male and female <i>Gasteruption</i>
seem more abundant than usual. I noted a marmalade fly, <i>Episyrphus balteatus</i>
drinking from Second Meadow Pond. The
eastern dandelion leaves are being attacked by the rust fungus <i>Puccinia
hieracii</i> but so far it does not look too debilitating.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">3 August 2019 The seed pods of the gladdon irises
in Medlar Wood hang like green hand grenades.
There was a visit from a speckled wood butterfly. An ivy shoot has started to climb the trunk
of the birch up a rough patch of bark.</span><br />
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<span style="background: white;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; text-indent: -106.35pt;">A
small hedge woundwort plant on the western edge of the Second Meadow has had most
of its leaves eaten during the night.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">4 August 2019 This would have been (and was) our 60<sup>th</sup>
wedding anniversary. There was an orange
rowan berry like a punctuation mark on the Conservation Lawn in the Second
Meadow. Meadow Pond was only half
full. The black bryony up its iron pole
is quite splendid: a bright green column of leaves hiding still green
berries. Some of the leaves have dark
brown blotches, probably caused by the fungus <i>Cercospora scandens</i>. </span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">5 August 2019 Honeybees quite frequent visitors
to knapweed flowers. A large white butterfly
made a visit. The spindle suckers are
heavily infested on their lower leavers by the yellow spots caused by the scale
insect <i>Unaspis euonymi</i>. There has
been a small amount of rain and the eastern dandelion has, perhaps as a
consequence, cocked up its leaves at an angle of about 45°.</span></span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">6 Aug 2019 Cool and
showery but much action on the </span><b><span style="background: white;">American
willow-herb</span></b><span style="background: white;">, <i>Epilobium ciliatum</i> with
some aphids attended by a wrinkled ant.
The aphid is, I suspect, <i>Macrosiphum tinctum</i>. There are a few yellow spots on some of the
hornbeam cordon leaves, maybe a fungus – I will have to wait and see if they
develop.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">7 August 2019 The
western and eastern dandelions in the Second Meadow are quite different in
character. The eastern has more shiny
leaves that often stand up at 45°, whereas the western one has nearly matt leaves
of slightly paler green that lie flat.
The eastern also has markedly red streaks on the midribs of the leaves,
but there is little red in the case of the western one. Cooler and showery.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">8 August 2019 Still cool
with mist and rain on the way. I weeded
out sorrel seedlings from the Dust Bowl and cleared round the self-heal plant
near my seat. Found another small
ragwort plant near here. This really is
gardening with wildlife – but why not?
Co-operating with nature.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">9 August 2019 Just
before 3pm and earthworm emerged on Troy Track into the full sunshine of a warm
afternoon. It did not seem to like it
much and hid most of its body under a low grass tussock. Overnight there had been heavy rain which
might have flooded the worm holes or otherwise tempted it out. Shortly afterwards a young <b>grass snake</b> poked
its head out, tongue flickering, from the bottom of Brambly Hedge and after it
had tasted the air slithered back again.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">10 Aug 2019 A summer
gale with winds of around 50mph. More
sound than fury. The tutsan berries are
turning from orange-red to black. With
the continuing wet there are many small seedlings appearing in the Dust Bowl.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">11 August 2019 The tallest
stem of the </span><b><span style="background: white;">American
willow-herb</span></b><span style="background: white;"> has decided to lay flat on the
ground but still looks healthy. Troy
Track is also developing a surprisingly g=rich flora despite regular trampling. Calm after yesterday’s high winds but much
leaf and twiggy litter. The dead ash
sapling must have broken at the base and is leaning westwards with its burden
of small-flowered sweetbriar in the upper branches. There was a black and scarlet <i>Necrophorus</i>
burying beetle drowned in Second Meadow Pond (I would not have thought it had
much to bury) and a 4<sup>th</sup> instar green shield bug on one of the small
ashes.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">12 August 2019 Frequent
overnight showers. Ground quite
wet. Many hogweed flowers but little
else. None of the vast quantity of birch
seeds on the ground seems to have germinated.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">13 August 2019 Grass
clipping across Conservation Lawn today.
I thought about taking up drawing and painting but decided the next day I
would not be good enough. The eastern
dandelion I have named ‘Shuttlecock’ and the western one ‘Green Star’, this latter
has the shorter leaves of the two and today a perfect white fluff feather was
caught under one of the leaves.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">14 August 2019 Heavy rain
all day and very cool for August. I
stayed indoors.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">15 August 2019 The <i>Rosa
</i>sp. hip has turned greenish orange as it begins to ripen. There are also some glandular hairs on the
hip pedicel. Sammy saw a grass snake in
the garden to the west of Emthree and also reported a frog from the nearby
tortoise pen potato patch. The two
dandelions continue to differ: the easterly is losing some of its leaves to the rust fungus (<i>Puccinia hieracii</i>): the western specimen has none of the
fungal speckles and its leaves still lie quite flat on the ground. Very mysterious the ways of dandelions.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">16 August 2019 Incoming
rain from the west. The figwort in M3 is
flowering again and another ’Lammas’ shoot has appeared on the cordon oak. This particular oak branchlet has extended
three times so far this season.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">17 August 2019 At Emthree
I am fishing for thoughts and like the sun on my back. The eastern dandelion leaves are standing up
even more proudly now, perhaps because of the wet weather. Another difference from the western plant is
that the eastern has slightly undulating lead surfaces whereas in the western
they are completely flat. The plant with
shuttlecock leaves will direct rainwater to the centre of the crown more
efficiently than the plants whose leaves lie flat. There was a dead worm beside one if the
self-heal plants.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">18 August 2019 Emthree is
getting more like an arboretum every year.
The hornbeam is still growing strongly and is over 2 metres tall (it
will be cut back to 1 metre in autumn).
One of the hazels has extended nearly as much. The rose hip has lost all but one of its
sepals and a green shield bug is still about.
One of the hogweed umbels
attracted a congregation of solitary wasps.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">19 August 2019 A small
female sawfly, black with a yellow body, busily explored every leaf of the
easterly dandelion. Black muscid flies
pursued their various dispositions on the stones of Cynthia’s Ridge – an ever-changing
drill. I caught glimpses of something
blue beside the red stone. It proved to
be a chewed-up petal of some nearby flower.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">20 August 2019 Flowers
out: hogweed, knapweed, self-heal, <i>Epilobium montanum</i>, <i>E. ciliatum</i>,
herb robert. The rust fungus continues
to pull down the easterly dandelion.
There was a small shining copper orange beetle on a knapweed leaf. A flesh fly drank from Second Meadow Pond.
Fifteen years ago the area was much busier and on 20 August 2004 I spoke of the
grasshopper and ground hoppers that were abundant that summer. There are none so far this year.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">21 August 2019 A </span><b>scarce
snout-faced hoverfly</b><i><span style="background: white;"> Rhingia rostrata</span></i><span style="background: white;"> and a </span><b><span style="background: white;">bumble bee
hoverfly</span></b><span style="background: white;"> <i>Volucella bombylans </i>on knapweed
flower (and another on 22<sup>nd</sup>) and a black spider hunting wasp <i>Anoplius
nigerrimus</i> resting (they are usually in perpetual motion) on a stone on
Cynthia’s Ridge. Warm and summery again.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"> I
have started a new experiment by placing a rectangle of cardboard 35 x 27cm
(used to send me a book by Amazon) on the ground on the south west edge of the
Second Meadow and where I can easily see it from my seat. The idea is to study what happens to it. Today a </span><b><span style="background: white;">kite-tailed
robber fly</span></b><span style="background: white;"> <i>Machimus atricapillus </i>rested
for a while on the rectangle – a new record for Emthree. I also noted some bright blue glittery thing in
the grass nearby and discovered it was part of the thorax and body shell of, I
think, some kind of fly, like an empty, blue crab shell on a much smaller
scale.. I reflected, as I often have, on
the large quantity of dead insects that must rain down to the ground every day to be
hoovered up by flesh eating scavengers – birds, shrews, spiders and other invertebrates.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">22 August 2019 Warm wind
from the south-east. There are many butterfly
species about in the wider garden.
Emthree was visited by an exploring-for-hibernation-place </span><b><span style="background: white;">peacock</span></b><span style="background: white;"> and there
was a ragged </span><b><span style="background: white;">large white</span></b><span style="background: white;"> on Brambly Hedge. The first
Lammas shoots on the oak cordon have been quite severely damaged by the </span><span style="background: white;">powdery mildew </span><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0cm;">Erysiphe alphitoides</span></em><em><span style="background: white; border: 1pt none windowtext; font-style: normal; padding: 0cm;">. </span></em></div>
Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-58089489345068203422019-07-20T23:37:00.000+01:002019-07-20T23:37:16.330+01:00Highlights from June 2019Despite the dry weather the fungus season seems to be starting with species like this<b> petticoat mottlegill</b> <i>Panaeolus papilionaceus</i> (the pair on the right) popping up in Churchland Fields, Sedlescombe (TQ7818).<br />
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It has been an exceptionally good year for flowers on the<b><i> </i>gladdon</b> (aka <b>stinking iris</b>) <i>Iris foetidissima </i>that is becoming increasingly abundant in our garden. Such a rich flowering should produce many splitting pods of bright orange seeds to enliven the winter garden.</div>
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There are two plants of <b>great mullein</b>, <i>Verbascum thapsus</i>, by our front hedge and for a few weeks one supported about a dozen <b>mullein moth</b>, <i>Cucullia verbasci</i>, larvae. These have a warning colouration so that birds don't go for them and feed openly in daytime. They pretty well shredded the one plant of the two out there, but it recovered and flowered well after the caterpillars had gone to ground to pupate thereby ensuring a good supply of seed and plants for future moths to lay their eggs on. When I see caterpillars like this it always makes me wonder how the moths find the right plants, especially when they are not very common..</div>
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Patrick Roperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05656486045726647263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23818283.post-43325842003115955762019-07-18T00:15:00.000+01:002019-07-18T18:57:59.159+01:00The Square Metre, 13th June to 17th July 2019<br />
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">13 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I found a bud on the <b>small-flowered sweet briar</b>,
</span><span style="color: black;">Rosa micrantha</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I had not expected it to have any flowers this year and it is very late.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">14 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The more westerly of the two dandelion plants consists
of two rosettes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: black;">Myathropa flora</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"> rested on vegetation in the shadowy back of Submespilus
Assart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This sometimes known as the <b>Batman
hoverfly</b> because of the pattern on the thorax<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not very convincing to my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is also called the <b>dead head hoverfly</b>,
because of the resemblance of the markings on the thorax to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a skull.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The <b>goosegrass</b> is flowering.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">15 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the roses at the back of the Square metre is
affected by leaf roll ‘galls’ of the sawfly </span><span style="color: black;"><i>Blennocampa
phyllocolpa </i>(see below)</span><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">, while
the rose at the front of Troy Track has many silvery leaves</span><span style="color: black;"> </span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">which
may indeed be silverleaf caused by the fungus </span><span style="color: black;">Chondrostereum
purpureum,</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"> though
the plant seems a little small to host this fungus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I watched a flesh fly for some time as it
foraged among the wood chip near my feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Eventually it came and settled on my leg and then on my hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seedlings continue to increase in the Dust
Bowl.<o:p></o:p></span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">16 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I photographed the sawfly leaf rolls spotted
yesterday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the </span><span style="color: black;">Epilobiums</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"> is in flower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I make
it <b>broad-leaved willowherb</b>, </span><span style="color: black;">Epilobium
montanum</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"> but there
are many hybrids of this species with close allies.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">17 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A spider has spun a very fine web across the terrine
pond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Underneath there was at least one
springtail on the meniscus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
seedlings continue to increase in the Dust Bowl and I found a colony of yellow
Psyllids under a leaf of the cordon oak.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">18 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Massive thunderstorms overnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another stone for the stone row.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This time from Killingan brick pit.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">19 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Quite warm and steamy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A second hawthorn bug crawled about the vegetation.</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"> Something
has eaten most of the western dandelion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One flower out on the small flowered sweet-briar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dust bowl now quite wet after heavy rainstorms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wood dock as been arched over by a
clinging black bryony bine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lammas
shoots (somewhat early) are developing on the cordon oak.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">20 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The western dandelion has been further eaten
down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was warm after overnight
showers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The water in Second meadow Pond
is turning dusky green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ivy has become a
dominant ground cover in many areas<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">21 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another Midsummer Day but cool and cloudy with a frost
warning for parts of Scotland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seedlings
are now appearing in the Dust Bowl and getting away well in the damp weather.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">22 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Much detritus in Second Meadow Pond.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the nearby empty snail shell had fallen
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">23 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Little is now left of the western dandelion and the
leaf eater has started on the eastern one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yellow is showing on the marsh bird’s-foot trefoil flower buds. Very warm
and humid.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">26 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The marsh or great bird’s-foot trefoil (</span><span style="color: black;">Lotus pedunculatus</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">) is starting to flower.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;">27 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Showed Clare Blencowe (manager of the Sussex
Biodiversity Record Centre) Emthree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
collected macro and micro fungi and trampled on the dandelions and seedlings in
the Second Meadow, but without doing any noticeable damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She found a couple pf toadstools on a chunk
of chestnut wood in the Square Metre itself and was able to identify them (and
have it confirmed) as </span></em>the <b>white-laced shank</b> (<i>Megacollybia
platyphylla</i>): a new record for the Square Metre.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are aphids
on the knapweed and Clare found a blackbird’s eggshell in Second Meadow.<o:p></o:p></div>
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2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The heat is gathering
strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are many mosquito larvae
in the pond and I found a leaf mine on the figwort which might be <em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">Liriomyza huidobrensis</span></em><em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; font-style: normal;">.</span></em><em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">29 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the hottest June days with
the temperature here reaching 29.5°C but more elsewhere in UK.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">30 June 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The end of another month and
still quite hot. I saw two white admirals (or maybe the same one twice) glide
over brambly hedge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a pair of
clippers I have been creating a ‘conservation lawn’ to see what permanently
very short sward might do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially
it covers the area I can reach easily from my seat and is the area on the
southern part of the Second Meadow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Today there was a light snow of birch
seeds with every breeze and I found a leaf mine in a leaf of the easterly
dandelion.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">1 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There was an interesting
article in <b>New Scientist</b> of 22 June 2019 entitled </span><span style="background: white; color: black;">A regular visit to the park is good for
you</span></em><em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It demonstrates
that spending 2 hours a week in nature improves health and says “just sitting
on a bench will do”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With all the time I
spend sitting in Emthree I must be astonishingly healthy.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">Two birds, blue tits I think, flew up as I
approached Emthree today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were I
suspect, drinking at the pond in the Second Meadow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b>Self-heal</b> flowers have joined <b>greater
bird’s-foot trefoil</b> along the Metre side of Troy Track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <b>ragwort</b> and eastern <b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dandelion</b> on the conservation lawn have
leaves touching now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Closer to the westerly
dandelion are two beautiful fallen feathers: steel blue on the narrower half,
black on the wider, with a white central quill.<o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-style: normal;">The pond surface is peppered with floating
birch seeds.</span></em><em><span style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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2 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A little cooler now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I observed a <b>white strap sober </b>moth, <i>Syncopacma
larseniella</i>, a gelechiid associated with great bird’s-foot, a plant that is currently flowering across The Metre<sup>3</sup>. This was recorded on<sup> </sup><span style="background: white; color: black;">1<sup>st</sup> July 2004 and its identity confirmed by dissection of the
genitalia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am confident that this new
sighting will be of the same species.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
was also a </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">brown darkling
beetle</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black;"> (<i>Lagria hirta</i>) sunning itself on a
hogweed leaf and an attractive, yellow banded sphecid was exploring the Troy
Trackside jungle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beetle was a new
record for Emthree.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">3 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If I am quiet,
I can hear the breeze in the trees, small birdsong and the cooing of a pigeon,
occasional wing flutters, the hum of insects, a distant engine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are also small clicks and tappings from
the undergrowth roundabout of unknown origin, a tiny spaced out percussion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I can hear the swish of blood in my brain
like an endless sea surge. </span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">A fine </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">cossus hoverfly </span></b><span style="background: white; color: black;">(<i>Volucella
inflata</i>) rested for a while on a leaf of the cordon oak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is said to be associated with sap runs and
goat moth (<i>Cossus cossus</i>) trees and to favour ancient woodland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">There are
18 flower heads of </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>greater bird’s-foot trefoil</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black;">, mostly on the side of Troy Track that bring their own melody to
Emthree.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">4 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The wood
inside the cherry log decays faster than the outside bark leaving an undamaged
tube of dark reddish brown marked with the characteristic cherry lenticels. There
are also several pale brown, polished cherry stones scattered across the Second
Meadow and brought, no doubt, from the wild cherry tree further down the garden. Lots of
debris in the eponymous pond today and it was only half full again.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">5 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Leon
came down to see Emthree today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has a
major interest in grassland and owns three hay meadows in Ellenwhorne Lane.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">6 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Visits
from a hoverfly, probably <i>Merodon equestris</i>, a large white and a small
skipper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quite warm and dry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have not seen any </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">rough meadow-grass</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black;">, <i>Poa trivialis</i>, this year but there is plenty of <i>Agrostis.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The side of troy Track is now dominated by
knapweed, hogweed and </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">marsh bird’s-foot
trefoil</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black;">.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">7 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Early
morning rain has wetted the Dust Bowl and saved its seedlings from drying up.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">8 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
watched a black fly, a small muscid, running constantly through an area of
short grass of Conservation Lawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
would stop from time to time, perhaps to feed, but made no attempt to fly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the hazels has grown quite tall in the
last month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I shall grow it as a single
stemmed tree.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">9 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No notes
just a silent visit.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">10 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Birch
seed everywhere: on leaves, on bare ground, on stones, on water in Second Meadow
Pond (which has an almost subterranean toadstool growing beside it)..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A young robin joined me briefly in Emthree.</span><span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black;">11 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Quite
warm and sunny. </span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">There is white powdery mildew
</span><em><span style="background: white; border: none 1.0pt; color: #444444; font-size: 11.0pt; padding: 0cm;">Erysiphe
alphitoides</span></em><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on the new oak leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bent grasses in anthesis are at about their
best and there are still a few red campion flowers dotted about.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">12 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> The</span> first hogweed flowers have opened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are pale pink rather than white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Birch
seeds continue to shower down and there<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>are drifts of them in some places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They land on my clothes and even get into the eye pieces of my binoculars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a tiny brown toadstool<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>beyond Cynthia’s Ridge, but the one by the pond
does not seem to be developing further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The decaying wood at the southern end of the new cherry log has been
hollowed out but some creature and now is a drift of sawdust.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">13 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cooler
and cloudy but still pleasantly warm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Dust Bowl needs rain for the seedlings, but everything else is
fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Second Meadow Pond was half
empty again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hogweed is more fully
out and the flowers are now white rather than pink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I clipped the grass on conservation lawn – I would
say there are five or six grass species in the sward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The easterly dandelion is picking up now with
two or three small but uneaten leaves spreading outwards.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">14 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Something
has once again attacked the dandelions reducing both to about a third of their
former size.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever has also eaten
some of the new leaves of the ragwort on Conservation Lawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <i>Epilobium</i> in Medlar Wood is
flowering now and I identified it as another <i>E. montanum</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While examining it I discovered a small but
interesting colony of aphids on one of the developing seed pods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They appear to be <i>Aphis epilobii. </i></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">15 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>No
overnight visitor, so the pond remains full and the dandelions and ragwort have
not been further eaten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are dark
chocolate purple egg rafts of mosquitoes on Second Meadow Pond.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt; text-indent: -108.0pt;">
<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Looking
at a big pouch mine (probably <i>Pegomya solennis</i>)<i> </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">common
sorrel</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> I spotted towards the back of M3 some
swollen, bright green, unopened red campion flowers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are caused by the Cecidomyid midge <i>Contarinia
steini.</i></span><i><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">16 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Quite
hot again. Visits from a </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">red
admiral</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">, a pair of</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> meadow browns</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> and, on blackberry flowers in Brambly Hedge, a male
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">gatekeeper</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hogweed
flowers attracted a </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">greenbottle</span></b><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"> (<i>Lucilia </i>sp.), a solitary bee and a <i>Gasteruption</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These latter are gangly parasitic wasps from
the Gasteruptiidae family whose hosts are the larvae of solitary bees.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
found a powdery mildew I think is <i>Erysiphe heraclei</i> on hogweed
leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like frost on the undersides.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">17 July 2019<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
first harvestman of the season made its way cautiously across the vegetation on
the northern side of Troy Track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> In the Square Metre </span>I
photographed a constellation of birch seeds trapped in a spider’s web (below).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><br /></span><span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;"></span>
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<span style="background: white; color: black; font-size: 11.0pt;">.</span><span style="background: white; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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