It’s Botany! It’s not Walkthebloomin’Dogany!

It is hard to write a nature blog in January. Today I have been focussed on botany but for all of her admirers I will start you off with a little walkthebloomin’Dogany.

Fizz has a new game. I throw the ball and she chases it. Then, when any proper Dog would bring it back to me with a wagging tail, Fizz lies down and waits for me to catch up and tickle her before she will give it up.

Is that what your Dog does?

No! I didn’t think so.

We went up to the wood today to see if the Lesser Celandine was going to flower in January. No chance. The flower buds are there but they haven’t grown at all.

I am not really surprised, it didn’t flower until late February last year and although I am hoping it will be earlier this year, I didn’t really expect it to be a month earlier.

Now I will just show you this little fungus that I found. This is Scarlet Elf Cup.

It isn’t a great example so I am not really going to write about it. I know where we found it and I will look out for better samples. It is a nice splash of colour in an otherwise drab post.

Another wildflower that is on the cusp is Dog’s Mercury

These are not the flowers but the buds, they are not ready to open yet.

The most exciting thing that has happened to me in the last couple of days (Shut up! Fizz!). The most exciting thing has been finding these beautifully marked leaves of the Arum maculatum.

It is quite common to find blotched markings on the leaves of Wild Arum but when I came to write about it, I kind of let that information slide. I didn’t have the photographs to illustrate it, so I left it out.

I leave a lot of stuff out of my posts for exactly this reason. Nobody ever comments, “Hey Col, you didn’t show the development of the seed pods.” I didn’t have the pictures but I am aware of what I leave out and I will get the pictures next time around.

This is the youngest Arum maculatum that I have ever photographed.

Today I wrote about a wildflower with evergreen leaves, well evervariegated leaves and I will show you in a minute. I had to delve back into my picture from last year and I found a lot of good stuff for this flower, that I had taken last January.

While I was there I had a look at what else I was doing last January and these next pictures are from exactly a year ago.

It is quite funny really, regular readers will understand what I mean. It seems that the season dictates my actions. A year ago today I was messing about in the woods.

I was pretty sure then and still think so today, that although it is indistinct, that is the print of a Wild Boar.

..and I got a lot of Fallow Deer.

The other thing that I found amazing, exactly one year ago, guess what was in the garden?

Yes! Bumbarrels! They hardly ever visit but at exactly the same time last year.

BTW. This time last year the weather was a lot worse than it is now.

So today I wrote about a wildflower called Variegated Yellow Archangel. I know that it is a bit of a mouthful and the Latin doesn’t help. I am writing about it now because it is evergreen and although the flowers are a long way off you very well may see the foliage now. It is quite distinct and easy to recognise.

Before I show you the variegated variety let me just show you this.

This is our native Yellow Archangel.

and the Non-native.

Lamiastrum galeobdolon subsp. Argentatum, The Variegated Yellow Archangel.

Variegated Yellow Archangel is a type of Dead-nettle. Also known as Garden Archangel, it is a close relative of our native Yellow Archangel looking quite similar but with variegated leaves.

It is a garden escapee having been introduced into this country in the 1940’s and first recorded in the wild in the 1980’s.

It was introduced as a ground cover plant as it has attractive variegated leaves that are evergreen or semi-evergreen. It spreads by runners and covers areas quickly.

In the UK it is considered to be invasive and a threat to our ancient woodland plant species but just how invasive it is remains a question still unanswered.

This Archangel doesn’t seem to be having a great impact on our ancient woodlands. It seems to prefer the woodland edge and not to be spreading into the woods. My own observations are of Lesser Celandine, Wood Anemones and Bluebells growing freely amongst Variegated Yellow Archangel and the plant does seem to be restricted to the edge.

The seed produced by the plant is said to be infertile and this limits it’s ability to spread into new areas. Most commonly, when it is introduced into a new area it is the work of man, either deliberately introducing it to beautify our woodland or through the dumping of garden waste or soil. New plants can arise from just a small piece of root.

Summer leaves appear to be mostly green, marked with silver but winter foliage is often quite red.

However the colour can vary quite a lot.

The leaves are quite hairy on the top surface and less so underneath.

That is the winter foliage, in April the flowers arrive.

Like other Dead-nettles the flowers grow in whorls around a square, central stem with the lower ones opening first.

The petals are fused into a corolla that forms a tube with a hood above the opening and a three lobed lip. the central lobe of the bottom lip is striped with orange markings.

The hood is quite hairy.  Under the hood there are four stamens, two long and two short.

In the centre of the stamens there is a downward pointing spike. It’s purpose may be to trigger the release of pollen when it is touched by an insect. The flowers are a source of nectar and pollen.

       

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Plantae

Order: Lamiales

Family: Lamiaceae

Genus: Lamium

Species: Lamium galeobdolon subsp. Argentatum

Wildflowers in winter 🙂

Botany Schmotany!

There is an Angel looking over you. That flower is poisonous. Spit!

The Deer Hunter

Well, it took six nights but in the end we did get results from the trail camera.

I have lots of beautiful animals to show you tonight.
(Deer Hunter Fizz)

But it is a beautiful day and we are not in a hurry to get to the woods.

The Winner!

Dog worn out, now we can get on 🙂

Here is some of the stuff that we found in the wood.

As soon as we found the camera I could see that we had a result. I can tell what animal has been at the bait. The ground was very disrupted and all of the bait had been taken (Peanuts, Raisins and Sheep Feed) except the bread. So no Boar but I guessed Deer. I was gutted that I couldn’t leave the camera out there but I had run out of batteries. The camera had died, it told me there were 189 videos but the last 50 of those were dud due to low battery power. No matter we got some good stuff.

Don’t despise the little Fox. I would be pretty fed up if I had found 189 videos of him but I didn’t. This is a beautiful wild animal that we rarely get a chance to watch.

There is actually a stack of food there that the Fox can eat, he is just being fussy. This video was from the night before the Deer turned up and there was plenty left for them. That is bread that he is playing with in the video, I put out quite a bit but I hid it under leaves.

The Bluebells are coming up. They are not early, they won’t flower until they are supposed to in April but they always make an appearance around about now. I love the way that they pierce the leaf litter.

We found a bulb that had been rooted up (we replanted it) I was surprised by how big it was.

I have heard it said that Boar uproot and eat Bluebells. I spent a long time looking for evidence of this in my Bluebell wood in East  Sussex and I never saw any evidence of Boar eating Bluebells. They had ample opportunity and so I conclude it is an untrue slur on the Boar.

This next leaf is Variegated Yellow Archangel. It is one that I want to write about for Easy Wildflowers (probably next) so I won’t say too much about it. The leaves are about now and are easy to recognise, they actually remain all winter.

This is another one that will not flower until April, when it does it will look like this.

Now for something that will flower in January (I hope). This is Lesser Celandine. My first pictures last year were February 24th.

Look, flower buds. These could easily open this month.

Okay, beautiful wild animals now. Plenty of video, just watch what you like. I could watch them all night.

Come on then Fizz, it is a long way home.

Me and my shadow.

That’s enough of that 🙂

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…..