Hanky Panky

Ha! I have heard it said that “the Devil makes work for idle hands,” maybe he does, I don’t know about that. Today we are going to talk about Monkey Business, of the botanical kind.

I just want to mention the star of today’s show.

Pretending to be Old Nick himself, this beautiful little innocent is one of our ASBO lambs. Born into the wild, this one has survived. I just met him about an hour ago and I was struck by his inner beauty.

I wish he was mine 🙂

Let’s talk about flowers (and hanky panky)

Primroses are lovely.

No question about that.

The Cowslip is so tall and strong.

Handsome even, that is just another word for beautiful.

But…

Should we leave them alone together?

I don’t know how much that you know about the birds and the bees but if you leave Primroses and Cowslips alone together then there is a very fair chance that they will get up to Hanky Panky.

This is a flower called the False Oxlip, real Oxlips are very rare and a species in their own right. A False Oxlip is the result of a liaison between a Primrose and a Cowslip. We are not here to judge.

It seems to me to be a very beautiful offspring.

His mum was not what I would call a looker.

But I noticed his sister.

Beautiful animals.

Hazel & Co.

Yesterday, I couldn’t help noticing that the catkins had opened and that coincided with my latest flower post, so that is my theme for today.

(Hazel)

That is the male flower. Like a lot of hermaphrodite plants  the female flowers open after the male catkins, a clever ruse to avoid self  pollination and it will be weeks before we see any of these little red flowers.

The thing that I don’t get is that all of our local trees operate on the same time scale. All off the male flowers will start to open now and distribute their pollen and it will be a month before we see a single female flower. What a waste!

We would get a lot more Hazel nuts if the trees could get their act together.

Never mind, on with the theme 🙂

(Blackberry)

(Dandelion)

(Speedwell)

(Strawberry)

(Holly)

(Bluebell)

(Scabious)

Deep breath…

(Pimpernel)

(Willow)

(Celandine)

(Nightshade)

(Violet)

(Clover)

(Silverweed)

(Betony)

(Cowslip)

There’s too many! I can’t go on.

Okay.

(Nose-In-The-Air)

(Kingcup)

(Groundsel)

(Thistle)

(Campion)

(Avens)

(Marjoram)

(Coltsfoot)

(Snowdrop)

(Bartsia)

(Ragwort)

I have to stop there. There are loads more but I’ve still got to do the General.

Sorry Rabbits.

Stachys sylvatica, The Hedge Woundwort

Hedge Woundwort is native to Europe and much of Asia, it can be found all over the UK with the exception of the Scottish Highlands.

A woodland plant it is most commonly found in woodland edge and hedgerow habitat. It is a member of the Mint family and sometimes called a  Dead-nettle, although this one is not a Lamium.

Purple flowers grow in whorls above a pair of opposite leaves. The flower spike can be a metre tall.

The stem is very distinctive , being square and hairy with well defined purple corners.

        The leaves grow in opposite pairs up the stem, there is no basal rosette. They are heart shaped and hairy, with sharply toothed edges and grow on long flattened stalks.

        The leaves have an unpleasant smell when crushed, possibly a defence against being eaten.

The flowers take the form of a tubular corolla emerging from a calyx of five pointed sepals. They have a hood and a three lobed bottom lip.

Each flower contains four stamens and a single style.

The bottom lip of the purple flower is marked with white.

Woundwort also has it’s own bug.

The Woundwort Shieldbug (Eysarcoris venustissimus) is usually found on Hedge Woundwort but occasionally on other Dead-nettles such as White Dead-nettle.

If you have Woundwort growing near you then it is well worth keeping an eye open for these attractive little bugs.

Woundwort is pollinated by insects and it is a favourite of Bees. It also spreads from underground runners.

As the name suggests Woundwort has long been used in herbal medicine as a cure for almost anything. It is said to be particularly useful to stop bleeding and in the field a few leaves can be applied to a cut as a plaster, it is said to be effective.

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Plantae

Order: Lamiales

Family: Lamiaceae

Genus: Stachys

Species: Stachys sylvatica

Wildflowers in winter.

 

Animal Magic

“Just like that”

It’s your destiny

The Swallows have fledged, or at least they are fledging. They are still in the nest today but they have been out and they can fly.

It has taken me a few days watching and all that you get are a couple of short video’s but for me, my understanding and the pleasure that I got from watching them makes a few days just a drop in the ocean. It was time well spent.

Anyway you should be glad that you don’t have to watch the whole twenty hours of video, that I now have to sort and delete from my machine to free up space.

Here are the best bits.

Yesterday morning there were five birds on the nest, there were five birds on the nest and then there were four birds on the nest. I had missed the very first flight and only realised when number five returned to the nest.

This first video starts with the mother calling for them to leave the nest, there is a little comic interlude of the way that they follow flies, their little heads bobbing in unison and in the last bit the second bird to approach the nest is the returning chick. Does he bring food back or do the others just think that he has?

This next video shows them leaving the nest and returning. They spent most of the day fluttering around inside the little alley way that has become their home and by the end of the day they were all settled back on the nest but this is fledging. Today I think that they have ventured outside and seen the blue sky but they still return to the nest.

These birds have made me think a lot about nature as a whole thing and about life and death in the wild. The caterpillars that I am trying to raise are falling to the parasitoid flies that these Swallows depend on for food and survival. The parents have done a really good job of raising them given the wet weather we have been having. I have often looked out in the pouring rain and wondered how they are managing to raise a brood and now this, flight.

I am so in in love and in awe of them and so damned jealous.

I am jealous because they get to eat those delicious crunchy flies, or perhaps because they can raise offspring in a matter of weeks and not the 26 years it usually takes us. Maybe I am jealous of something else altogether…..