Yellow Snow Alert!

That is what it said on the BBC’s weather page this morning, “The MET office have issued a Yellow Snow Warning for Gloucestershire.”

Don’t eat Yellow Snow!

We had a little bit of English snow last night, it nearly hid the grass and by eight o’clock this morning it was drip, drip, dripping, everywhere. It was still enough to put the Sheep into a tizzy and you can guess what we were up to this morning.

This stupid animal just kept going deeper and deeper into the bramble as I tried to cut a way to her.

I ended up pulling her gently out by a bramble as I just couldn’t get near to her.

It looks cruel but then I am cruel and I would not shy from starting a snowball fight with a little defenceless puppy either.

Heh heh! You need hands to make snowballs 🙂

Unfortunately Fizz didn’t understand the first rule of fight club: You can’t throw snowballs back, you might hit the camera.

Most of the pictures that I took today turned out to be ruined due to me having a snowy and wet camera.

Then we found another Sheep in distress.

This one was so badly tangled it was walking on three legs.

That was all that we needed, the Sheep have to be brought in. So they have been, they are all cleaned up and tucked away in the orchard.

They will stay there now until the end of next week because the farmer is going on holiday and I don’t want the Sheep out while he is away. Next week I am in charge.

Yes. I am in charge of you too.

I put the trail camera out last night.

I had to alter my plans slightly, I don’t want to draw attention to the animals on public land and I didn’t know how much snow we were going to get.

No matter how well I conceal my bait, if it snows the animals will leave an obviously turned over area and tracks all around.

So I decided just to put the camera out on the farm and see if I could catch anything there.

This first video is of a Fox who is disturbed by a U.F.O.

Foxes and Aliens are predictable fodder for a Gloucestershire farm, on a winter’s night.

I didn’t expect this next one. One o’clock in the morning when they should be tucked up in their little woolly blankets, fast asleep. What on earth are these sheep doing?

As far as I can tell a group of them are creating a diversion whilst one of them removes the batteries from my camera and changes the SD card.

What do they want with batteries and what was on that SD card that they didn’t want me to see?

Well that is enough blarney for today.

Some friends of mine have been having dreams and sometimes these dreams have been coming true, not always in a good way.

Now this is the honest truth, last night I dreamt that I was writing about Geum urbanum, in my dream I carefully chose the pictures that I would use (One of them I remember was of a silver Ford Transit van) and I chose the words.

I woke up and I wrote this. It is not quite the same as in my dream (No vans)

Geum urbanum, The Wood Avens

Geum urbanum, Wood Avens is also widely known as Herb Bennet. A member of the Rose family the genus Geum is commonly known as Avens, it is very closely related to the Potentilla (Barren Strawberries) and the Fragaria (Strawberries) a relationship reflected in the shape of the flower.

The species name urbanum just means urban (of the town or city). It is a species closely  associated with man as it grows well on disturbed ground but also the burrs that carry the seeds tend to stick to men and their livestock and so follow them around.

Locally Wood Avens is a plant of woodland edge and hedgerow.

I am going to look at how the small strawberry like flower develops into the hooked burr that is the seed head but first we should have a quick look at the calyx.

The calyx is made up of five sepals. Between each of the large sepals is a small bract called an episepal and they form an additional structure called the epicalyx. The sepals that form the calyx are there to enclose and protect the flower as it develops. The epicalyx just seems to add extra protection.

The flower bud.

The flower has five yellow petals, they are widely spaced like those of the Barren Strawberry. A ring of yellow stamens enclose the green, multiple styles that will become the burr.

As the flower matures the styles turn from green to brown.

The petals drop off, Seeds are developing at the base of the styles and the styles are becoming kinked and hooked at the tips.

All that remains of the flower is the burr which will attach itself to a passing animal and so disperse.

        The whole of the plant is slightly hairy. The leaves are quite variable. At the base of the plant the leaves are quite rounded with toothed edges. They are trefoil, having a large leaf with two smaller leaves set at right angles at the base of the leaf stem.

As you move up the plant the trefoil aspect of the main leaf becomes more obvious.

At the top of the plant the trefoil nature of the main leaf seems to be abandoned and we are left with a single, toothed, lance shaped leaf with the two smaller leaves still at the base of the stem.

 The name Herb Bennet comes from an older name Herba benedicta which simply means Blessed Herb. The root of the plant was once worn as an amulet to protect from evil. It was believed that if you kept the root in your house then Satan could not enter and that a man wearing such an amulet was immune to the poison of beasts.

The root.

The roots were also widely used in medicine, dried and powdered they were used to prevent stomach ills and to cure poisoning and when boiled with wine a cordial was made to protect against plague.

        Taxonomy:

Kingdom: Plantae

Order: Rosales

Family: Rosaceae

Genus: Geum

Species: Geum urbanum

Wildflowers in winter.

Nights spent dreaming of wildflowers are good nights.

Wood Avens or Herb Bennet?

I think that I will go for Herb Bennet just because when I Google Wood Avens there is a certain other wordpress blogger dominating the front page with much better photographs than I can get. Well done mike585.

Herb Bennet is in the news today because the burrs are out and I am having so much fun with them.

The seed head is in the form of a burr with lots of little hooks they are supposed to stick to the fur of passing animals and so disperse.

I have to test these things out.

But let’s start at the beginning.

I don’t think that there is a great deal to be said about it so this will mostly be pictures.

Herb Bennet, Geum urbanum also known as Wood Avens. It is a member of the rose family (Rosaceae). It is a plant of shady hedgerows that flowers (I got my first photo this year on the 12th of March) from May to August.

In folk lore it is said to protect you from venomous snakes and rabid dogs and in Herbal Medicine it has long been used as a cure for snake venom and dog bites, so that is pretty straight forward.

On with the flowers.

 

(12th March)

 

 

Ouch Ouch Ouch!

We have been exploring in the Stinging Nettles today.

We were looking for a companion for Treacle and we had a singular lack of success.

Stinging nettles are probably not my favourite wild flower. They are very nice and important to wild life but yes, you have guessed right, it’s the pain thing.

Urtica dioca

So let’s start with the Small Tortoiseshell. We found hundreds of them.

But these are all overly small Small Tortoiseshells, early instars. They move around the nettles as they grow and keeping them supplied with fresh nettles and cleaning up the old ones (without throwing the baby out with the bathwater)would be a nightmare.

I am just not ready for that kind of commitment. When these reach their fifth instar they will split up and go off alone to find somewhere to pupate and that is when we shall try to catch them.

Now as quick as I can, I just want to show you some of the wonderful things that we saw while we were getting stung.

This lovely Common Carder Bumblebee on Bush Vetch didn’t sting us.

This is a Green Veined White drinking from Creeping Buttercup.

Some wildflowers:

Herb Robert.

Herb Bennet or Wood Avens.

Herb Fizz.

Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill.

“Knots in May” The lovely blossom of the May Tree (Hawthorn) Back to insects and this is the invasive Harlequin Ladybird.

This is one of our threatened native species, the very pretty little seven spot.

Last one for tonight. I took lots of pictures of this little beetle and it will probably get it’s own post soon. This is the Red-headed Cardinal.

And that has got to be it for tonight because I am sleepy.

May is May

Today was beautiful and so Fizz and I went on a flower hunt.

I had promised to take her to see the Bluebells and there is an old Sweet Chestnut coppice not far from here that should do the trick. So that is where we are heading. On the way we are going to look for flowers.

We don’t just want any old flower, we want new ones that we don’t recognise. We want to learn something. So off we go.

This is the track up to the Badger sett. I left a camera out there last night and I want to pick it up on the way.

The first wild flower that catches my eye is Herb Bennet. I know this one and I have photographed it before but these are nice fresh flowers and I can’t resist taking a few shots.

Next it is pick up the camera and it is disappointment again. This main sett has so many entrances and I am just trying to find one that is being used. There seems to be a lot more badger activity in the fields behind the farm but if there are going to be cubs they would be here.

This time we got nothing. A Tramp in the Woods, that’s all.

There is more disappointment to follow as we make our way along the track.

One of the things that I particularly wanted to do today was photograph the female of the species St. Mark’s Fly. It is called that because it usually appears around St. Mark’s day, April 25th and the adult flies only live for about a week so the window of opportunity is quite narrow. They have gone and I have missed that one, never mind, I’ll get it next year.

The white flowers that line the track are Cow Parsley, flies seem to love it.

Okay this is more like it. This is a flower that I don’t recognise. Just what we were looking for.

I think that I know it is a Crane’s-bill because the flower looks exactly like one that I do know well, Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill but this one doesn’t have dove’s feet.

Now I have to take lots of fairly boring pictures of the leaves, the stem, the form of the plant. I have to get as much information as I can and I will find out what it is when I get home.

That is cool and now I know that this is Cut-leaved Crane’s-bill, Geranium dissectum. I am happy now, I have learned something.

The next flower that we see falls into the same category as the first herb. We know what it is but it looks too good to pass it by.

Herb Robert.

We are nearly at the woods now but first we have one more flower.

It is a Comfrey but I am not sure which one.

Now I just have to spend a little bit of time looking at these flowers

Beautiful. Gardeners love Comfrey and grow it as a green manure. I think this one is Russian Comfrey.

Now I am seeing weird geometric patterns everywhere.

Okay that is just Ribwort Plantain.

Come on Fizz, let’s go see the Bluebells.

The wood is beautiful and peaceful. Birds are singing and it is still and warm. It would be very easy to fall asleep here.

Stupid dog, look at the pretty flowers.

Leaving the wood (I will do a separate post on Bluebells) the next flower that we see is Wild Arum.

Not really a flower but you know that. (it’s a fly trap)

We headed back through the fields towards the farm.

The Dandelions are all spent now, any yellow that you see in the field is Buttercups.

Here we found our final flower of the day.

Red Clover.

And that was the end of our flower hunt.

Tomorrow is another day.

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…..