There’s No Sun Up In The Sky

We are being battered this morning. The wind is bashing things about. The old farm sheds have a lot of loose corrugated iron and the wind can always find it and bang it about. Rain is crashing noisily against the glass in my windows.

Margaret has just rung me (She is Fizz’s owner) and she said, “I want to keep Fizz in this morning, she is going to the beauty parlour today.”and she went on, “I left it as long as I could because I thought it was still a bit cold but I can’t leave it any longer.”

Why? What’s wrong with Fizz?

Well in my experience women have a finer eye for this sort of detail than men do and anyway it is not very nice out.

I may not even walk her today and if I do I won’t take my camera. It is not because of the bad weather but I always feel guilty waiting for her to come back from the beauty parlour.

It must cost a few bob and they go to all this trouble to get a lovely clean, tidy dog and the moment she gets home we go out and roll in mud. I might let them enjoy their clean dog for one day.

I walk Fizz more to give her the stimulation and interest than to exercise her, she could run around on her hamster wheel if she needed exercise. I expect that she will find three hours at the BP stimulating enough for today.

So what to do?

I am going to talk about Bluebells (we will be going to see them soon)

When I was out finding new Speedwells I noticed a few other flowers about. There was a lot of Bugle.

But this is really such a nice flower that it deserves a post of it’s own (when the weather is better)

The other thing that I saw a lot of was The Enemy.

This is not a Bluebell. Well it is not a Hyacinthoides non-scripta, a native British Bluebell.

It doesn’t really look anything like a Bluebell, it is not the same shape. This is a hybrid of the Spanish Bluebell and a sweet and innocent English Bluebell that was seduced because of her innocence.

The key to telling the species apart is normally given as the pollen colour.

Come here you! Show them!

This is what The Natural History Museum has to say,

“The easiest way to tell the difference between native and non-native bluebells is to look at the colour of the pollen.

If it is creamy-white then the bluebell is a native.  If it is any other colour, such as pale green or blue, then it is definitely not native.”

These are native.

So what is this?

“If it is creamy-white then the bluebell is a native.”

No Sir. You are wrong.

Growing in amongst these obvious hybrids there were a lot of white hybrids.

I searched every flower and there was not a trace of blue or green pollen to be seen, every single one was creamy white.

Once upon a  time these flowers would have been shot as spies, they are out of uniform but they most definitely are not Hyacinthoides non-scripta.

This is what a white native Bluebell looks like.

The enemy is at our door and it seems that in many cases they are becoming smarter than us. More vigilance is called for.

Photos of a newly shorn Fizz will be coming up soon 🙂

Contemplating My Navel

Literally the phrase is used to describe somebody who is spending too much time thinking about their own problems but with me, of course, it means something quite different.

We went up to the Bluebell woods today and they were still not quite ready for us, there are plenty of flowers but it is not a sea of blue yet

That is good, it means that we haven’t missed anything. Our Bluebell woods are beautiful and you wouldn’t want to miss them.

A lot of the wood still looks like this..

The flowers are there but they have a little way to go yet.

There are a lot of Bluebells in the hedgerows and tracks around the farm and they are a bit more advanced than this, probably because they get more sunlight.

Our hedgerows seem to retain a lot of the characteristics of ancient woodland,  which they would have been before they were turned into farmland and I see a lot of species that are regarded as “ancient woodland indicators” growing there. Maybe I will do a post about that soon. The Bluebell is one such species.

This is a derelict Sweet Chestnut coppice and this is where we filmed the Boar. I know some much nicer Oak and Beech woods that will also be filling up with Bluebells and we will visit them soon.

So we struck out with the Bluebells, what are we going to do now?

I suggested to Fizz that we might go and contemplate my navel.

She looked impressed.

You probably won’t be much more impressed yourself it is not visually striking.

This is Navelwort.

These first two pictures were taken in February, when I first discovered it.

This is new to me and I have never seen it in flower. I had never even heard of it and that doesn’t happen to me very often so I have been watching it closely. I am very excited about my Navelwort.

It flowers in May and today I saw the flower spikes starting to emerge.

It looks a little bit strange, that is because it is a succulent. Succulents are plants with thick, fleshy leaves and stems that are specially adapted for storing water, like a cactus. They usually live in very dry places and we don’t have many native succulent plants, probably because the UK is a very wet place. This one is special.

It is edible and I have read that it has a very nice flavour similar to fresh lettuce. I haven’t ever tasted it and I will tell you why…

I have actually just been watching a video about edible Navelwort. It started with the presenter going on about what a rare find it was and he hadn’t seen one like this for years and then he ate it.

There is a basic rule when it comes to foraging, unless you are starving, don’t take things that are not abundant and don’t ever take the last one or even most of them. It is common sense.

The Navelwort that I have found is not abundant and most of what I saw in February has been eaten by animals. They don’t respect anything but then most of them are starving.

Another name for this plant is Wall Pennywort (It grows on stone walls) and the Latin is Umbilicus rupestris. It has medicinal uses but I haven’t really looked into that yet and these little flower buds are going to grow into tall spikes of flowers. I will show you when it happens.

Well that is it for today. We did see a lot of other wildflowers and we romped about in fields of golden yellow but those are other posts 🙂

Bluebell Woods

It was a blistering hot July day yesterday.

Any animal with any sense was lying down in the shadiest place they could find.

Fizz was out in the farm fields with me and a couple of tennis balls and we were having a splendid game of “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.”

Lots of water and rest stops were required.

In fact there wasn’t very much else going on at all, just resting and drinking water, I needed a plan.

I know a place where it is very cool and this seemed like a good day to visit. We are going to the Bluebell woods. Yes, to see Bluebells.

This is Sweet Chestnut coppice, well, it is what remains when the coppicing is abandoned.

I am not a big fan of this type of woodland. Sweet Chestnut is not native to the UK and it supports very little insect life, almost none and without insects you don’t get many birds.

This tree is also the arboreal equivalent of Rhododendron. It has one of the largest leaves of any tree in the UK and casts dense shade. When the leaves fall they create a thick leaf litter that is toxic and inhibits the growth of other plants.

Even when Sweet Chestnut is actively coppiced there is very little Spring growth as you would find in native coppice woodland, just a thick blanket of dead toxic leaves.

I do like coppice woodland, native coppice woodland is a wonderful wildlife habitat but it is important to know that not all coppice is the same. Hazel coppices well, Oak, Birch and Willow are the best wildlife trees that we have but diversity is the real important issue and the more species of tree a wood supports the more life it will support. Monocultures of non native species are an ecological disaster.

Having said that, some of my best friends are Sweet Chestnut as part of a mixed woodland it is welcome in my world. It has good nuts.

A Sweet Chestnut coppice is a nice place to visit on a sweltering summers day and a hard place to survive in.

The plants that do thrive here are the Spring flowers, Wood Anemones, Lesser Celandine and Bluebells.

We have come to look at the Bluebells.

This is all that remains of the Bluebells that carpeted the floor of this wood a couple of months back but this is an important part of the Bluebell story.

There is much more to Bluebells than the showy display of flowers in early May. The story starts with the tiny green shoots that pierce through the leaf litter in January and it ends here with these seed pods full of shiny black seeds that will be tomorrows Bluebells.

Well, we didn’t come here to write the Bluebell story, we will do that on a cold January day when there is little else to gladden our hearts. Today we are just collecting some photographs.

Today looks like another scorcher, the plants are buzzing with life, there is lots to see and write about and Fizz and I need to get out there and work on our tans. 🙂

The Crepuscular Hunter

Bluebells, Fallow Deer and Ancient Beech Woodland.

Crepuscular: Animals most active during twilight. (Dawn and dusk)

I wasn’t going to show you these pictures, just because they are not very good. Taken at 5:30 in the morning they are not good pictures of a Bluebell wood and they are not good pictures of a Fallow Deer.

These pictures are a small part of the reason that we get up before dawn and make our way into the forest but it is very hard to photograph because the light is so poor.

But I want you to know what it is like so…

The best thing to do when you look at these pictures is to close your eyes and let your imagination go to work.

Open your eyes for a minute, I just want to set the scene and give your imagination something to work with.

Fizz is on the lead, she is quite happy to be on a lead and she has to be because there are Wild Boar about. Fizz chases the sheep on the farm if she gets a chance, she doesn’t hurt them just chases them round but if she did the same with a sow boar with piglets she would get hurt. The Boar would not hesitate to protect her young.

We have been walking for an hour and about twenty minutes earlier I had been thinking that perhaps I was being over cautious and should let her have a run. Just then I saw an animal in the woods, I think it was probably a deer but all I saw was an animal on the edge of the wood jump back and disappear into the shadows.

Don’t get the wrong idea, I have no fear, this is a magical wonderland for me. I used to own woodland in East Sussex and there were boar on the land. I often slept in my wood. I spent ten years watching them and have had many encounters. I have never ever seen any aggression in the animals and my experience is that they have the disposition of deer and are very difficult to approach. We don’t get to see boar today just a deer.

Close them.

And open.

You need to be able to smell the forest. The air is very still and only slightly cool. We left home in shirt sleeves, it is going to be very warm in another six hours and you wouldn’t want to be carrying a coat.

Bluebells have a sweet scent and when you are surrounded by thousands of them, well… you can smell other plants in the forest as well as the trees and the soil but the Bluebells fill the air, the only thing that I can think of that I like better is Honeysuckle. This is the forest.

Then there are the birds, they are singing their little hearts out and every so often the song is punctuated by the hollow, echoing, rap of a Woodpecker.

There he is, a young male Fallow Deer browsing amongst the Bluebells, what a perfect thing to see.

(Male? I have seen his penis sheath, picture three. You can click on my pictures to enlarge them. With experience you will learn to look for these things)

He is stepping out onto the forest track.

And that is our lot. He has seen us.

I like wild animals.

Goodbye beautiful animal and thanks. I hope that I remember this moment forever.

And that is why we get up so early in the morning. I wanted you to know, even if I can’t photograph it.

What a lucky animal and what a beautiful place to live.

Come on Fizz, we have got adventuring to do.

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…..