Yeah, You And Whose Army?

Fizz has been having a few problems with the livestock today, I’ll tell you about that in a minute. The day starts with feeding the animals.

It’s probably best not to mention what Fizz had for breakfast, that might have been what started her off.

Even before Fizz gets fed and before it gets light, the early bird gets the worm.

The Robin tried to land on my arm last night but it was getting dark and I didn’t see her coming, so suddenly there was a lot of fluttering as she tried to perch on my arm and taken by surprise, I moved my head quickly and I think that I said, “Hello” and I scared her off. This morning we were friends again.

There have been a couple of notable birds on the feeder this week. Long-tailed Tits have been here for the last few days. They don’t visit very often so it is nice to see them.

They arrive in small flocks and feed together. I have counted eight of them on the peanut feeder at the same time and you can hardly see the feeder for feathers. A very beautiful little bird.

There was also a Woodpecker on the feeder today. I haven’t seen a woodpecker since the little ones fledged last summer so I am hoping that she will start visiting regularly again.

Goldfinches are back in their charms. They disappeared late in the summer when the thistle seed appeared but they will stay here now.

Then it was time to feed the Sheep. They have really taken to this idea of being fed and when they see me they come running, it doesn’t matter if I have got food or not, I might just be taking the Dog for a walk.

This is a rubbish, short video but you will get the picture.

I cut the video so short because the camera was shaking, I wasn’t scared, just common sense really.

They are eating pellets, well it says “Sheep Food” on the sack that I get them from.

They are all enjoying their food except for that white one at the front, that one is always focused on me. I think that this must be the Bull Sheep (if there is such a thing). It is the one that I observed in my last post and it is always in front and always the first to approach me.

As Fizz would say, “Remember this face.”

It says she is number 00127 on the green tag but I just call her “The Bull.”

So I went back and fed the birds some more and played with Fizz in the garden. Then I was cold so I went and got some breakfast and coffee.

Then it was time to walk the Dog.

Remember that I said it doesn’t matter if I have got food or not, they come running when they see me.

Oh! That army. Col! They’ve got an army.

You can stop that.

The Bull is interested in my Dog as well as me.

Well, I rescued Fizz from the Sheep and we had a nice walk and a game of ball, on the way to the woods to check the trail camera.

Now I would like to have some kind of reference to nature in my blog posts. There is not going to be a wildflower bit at the end of this post because I have been having major problems with my new operating system. It is fixed now but it took me all day yesterday and I am behind.

One little nature observation though…

Wild Arum, Arum maculatum is coming into leaf everywhere. We won’t see the spathe until April, it spends a long time as a leaf but it is still nice to see another little sign of spring.

Things are not going well up in the woods. The camera has been out for four nights and all we have seen are Foxes.

This is a very nice Fox but I have watched 150 videos of Foxes and I wouldn’t mind seeing something else.

That was just one video that I more or less picked at random. It has a nice atmospheric sound track.

As we walked back to the farm we could see them all waiting for us.

It was time to run the gauntlet once again.

There were familiar faces in the crowd.

I think that I better lock the door tonight when I go to bed 🙂

Fruits of the Forest (not)

Fizz and I went back into the Jungle today to search for the fruit of a particular plant, the Arum Lily.

It has become a bit overgrown since our last visit and the  fruits haven’t been easy to find but by now they should be bright red and they should stand out a bit..

and stand out they did.

The berries of this plant look so inviting. They always remind me of Toffee Apples, glazed fruit on a stick. They are of course extremely poisonous and could kill you but they burn the mouth so it would be very difficult to eat enough to harm yourself.

Something obviously does eat them as we found quite a few like this.

Arum maculatum is a wonderful plant, not really a flower at all it is a complex and effective fly trap.

I wrote about the mechanism of the fly trap back in May and you can see that post here..

The Heart of Darkness

So we have been to the jungle and we have come back unharmed. Not stung or poisoned or even ate by Flies and we are going home to batten down the hatches, there is a storm coming.

Come on Poochy.

The Heart of Darkness?

Wild flowers don’t come much wilder than the Arum Lily.

The sap of Wild Arum is not just deadly, it is violently so. It burns and blisters, causes inflammation and swelling. It is so effective that nobody ever dies from consuming this deadly poison, they spit it out.

That said it is still one of the most reported causes of plant poisoning at hospital A&E’s. You know when you have ate it.

Here is Arum lying discretely amongst my salad leaves (Wild Garlic), be careful when you forage.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

It is a flower that people can’t help noticing and so it is a flower with many names. Lords and Ladies, Cuckoo-pint, Devils and Angels, Cows and Bulls. These names are all references to human genitalia given because of the plants striking resemblance to the male and female parts.

Of course this was before the days of the internet when people didn’t have such a clear idea of what things actually looked like.

Such names bring to mind sniggering boys and giggling girls, good natured fun from a time of innocence.

Let’s have a closer look at The Adders Root.

What you are looking at is not actually the flower. The flowers are hidden deep inside. You are looking at a complex fly trap because it is flies that pollinate the Arum. The plant traps them and then it lets them go again that they may visit other flowers.

The brown central spike is called a spadix. It’s purpose is to produce a smell to attract flies that breed in dung. The spadix also produces heat raising the temperature by up to 15 degrees celsius. The green leaf like structure that surrounds the spadix is called the spathe. It’s purpose is to entrap the flies and drop them down to the flowers below. It secretes a slippery coating that the flies can’t grip and they slide down.

At the base of the spadix lies a complex arrangement of flowers, totally enclosed by the spathe and escape proofed.

At the top of the trap there is a cluster of hairs derived from sterile male flowers. It’s purpose is simply to block the flies escape. When the plant has finished with the flies these hairs will wither releasing them to take pollen to another Arum that will put them in a new trap and use them just the same.

Beneath the trap hairs lie the pollen producing male flowers. They will dust the flies after they have pollinated the flowers below and before they are released.

The important seed producing female flowers sit at the bottom of the trap welcoming the flies with their fresh pollen. These flowers will become the spike of bright red berries  that remain when the spathe and the rest of the spadix have withered.

These berries are extremely poisonous and I have read that just one berry might be enough to kill a child. Take care and educate them.

When to see Wild Arum:

The leaves appear in February. Large and glossy and distinctively arrow shaped it is good to familiarise yourself with these. For quite a while this is all that you will see of the plant.

The fly trap doesn’t appear until late in April and when it does it is quite short lived. You should find these in late April and May.

Once the seed is set the spathe withers and the leaves die.  All that is left is a spike of green berries. These slowly turn orange and then red. It is a fruit of the autumn.

Where to see Wild Arum:

You will find it in the place your mother told you not to go.

If you go looking for it then think on what the term “Wild Flower” really means and make sure that you see it before it sees you.

 

Take care.

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…..