Nature Notes

AUGUST - SEPTEMBER

What's in a name? When is a plant a weed and when is it a beautiful flower? A recent conversation with a group of nine and ten year old boys and girls elicited one or two interesting responses to this question but one of the boys gave a perfect answer - "A weed is a plant that is growing in the wrong place" . Being in the wrong place and becoming a weed or garden menace is often the case with some wild flowers that, despite their beauty, spring up unexpectedly in various parts of the garden. These plants are usually those with highly developed survival mechanisms involving invasive root systems or clever forms of seed distribution such as the explosive seed cases of bitter cress or field forget-me-nots; fruits like blackberries that when eaten by birds enable seed to be deposited well away from the parent plant; seeds with parachute or propeller type devices such as those on dandelion and field maple. In some cases it is not even the plant's ability to respond to its environment which allows it to spread but rather it is simply serendipity, as was the case with the Oxford ragwort. This plant owes its widespread distribution to the fact that up until the introduction of the railways in the mid 19^th century the plant's range had been limited to the Oxford area but with the introduction of the railways, and the plant's propensity to grow on railway embankments, it was not long before the swirling air currents, created by passing trains, gradually spread the plant around the country.

Two of our more beautiful wild flowers, which are not blessed with such super powered propagation talents, nor are they as adaptable to soil type, are betony and viper's bugloss. Betony, which is a perennial, has reddish purple flower heads and in days of yore was used as a general cure-all, can be found in one or two spots locally such as behind the signposts on Dayseys Hill opposite the junction with Green Lane. Viper's bugloss, which is a biennial, prefers chalky or sandy soil and grows up to 36cms, has long stems of pale blue flowers, which are highly attractive to bees, and it takes its name from the fact that it was believed to act as an antidote to the bite of a viper. If either of these two flowers popped up in your garden you would almost certainly be delighted and it is highly doubtful that you would call them weeds.

When passing by in a car, Dayseys Hill meadow looks for all the world like a grassy prairie but take the trouble to stroll down the centre path and it will become clear that the maintenance and cutting programme adopted by the parish council, when it took over the responsibility some six years ago, is really beginning to pay dividends. In May and June it was full of self heal, white and red clover, buttercups, grass vetchling aka crimson slipper, purple tufted vetch and yellow vetchling.

By early July it was the turn of creeping cinquefoil, meadow cranesbills, spear thistles and the common knapweed, aka hardheads, with their flowers just beginning to colour, promising an eye-popping purple haze across the meadow by early August. The annual cut of the main meadow will take place in late August or early September which will allow sufficient time for seeds of the numerous species to ripen

In the meantime all around the village whether on roadside bank, by hedgerow bottoms, along footpaths and bridleways or across Outwood Common there are masses of beautiful wild flowers - a gift of nature for all to enjoy. 

 

Mike Johnson  

 

JUNE 

Spring is always a difficult season to predict and this year it has been a classic case in point. We had some very warm, dry days in February, then lashings of rain in March, followed by some frosty days with snow and sleet in the first week of April. Then in the second week it was the turn of hail storms accompanied by thunder and lightening. For the first time in four years the freezing weather caused major damage to blooms on garden trees such as magnolias and camellias when the frost turned the flowers brown overnight. However, out in the fields, along the roadsides and in woodland the native flora remained relatively unaffected and, as a result of the warmer than average conditions in February, many wild flowers were well ahead of their normal schedule. Indeed, by the last week of March, observations made during the course of two short walks revealed a total of fourteen species of wild flowers in bloom including Bluebell, Primrose, Ladies Smock, Sweet Violet, Wood Anemone and Lesser Celandine to name just a few. By the end of the first week of April the Wood Anemones in Hornecourt Wood were an absolute picture covering broad swathes of the woodland floor like giant white duvets. The Lesser Celandines have also done extremely well with carpets of their gold, star shaped flowers glinting along the hedgerow bottoms and on roadside verges - there is a particularly large, dense patch on the bank at the junction of Millers Lane and Scotts Hill, which just glows in the sunshine.

Warmer spells of weather have encouraged some butterflies to pupate and there have been local sightings of Small Tortoiseshell and Orange Tip, the latter being some three weeks earlier than usual which matched the early flowering of one of their food plants Ladies Smock aka Cuckoo Flower, although still a little too early for the flowering of their other primary food plant Garlic Chicory. These early appearances are not good for the butterflies concerned and there is growing evidence that changes in horticultural and agricultural practices, pollution, habitat destruction and continued warming of the seasons are having a dramatic effect on the populations of many species, some of which are close to extinction. A report from the charity Butterfly Conservation shows that one third of all species in the UK are gradually moving north and that the Comma butterfly is moving at a rate of six miles each year. On the other hand it is not all bad news; various species of birds and insects are moving north from the European mainland into the UK as demonstrated by the appearance, in recent years, of the Little Egret, Harlequin Ladybird and the sightings of Basking Sharks in our coastal waters.

This spring has also been a good one for the appearance of some of nature's oddities. Albinism is not rare in nature but it is still uncommon, however, Outwood seems to throw up more than its fair share. There is a pair of white squirrels that can be seen regularly around Wasp Green Lane. White bluebells can be spotted by the eagle eyed at a number of sites around the village such as in the woodland near High Stiles and on the western edge of Hornecourt Wood. Similarly, there is a patch of white Ladies Smock, rather than the normal pale pink variety, on Bletchingley Lane just south of Brandsland Wood. Yet another odd example of the way in which white colouring can creep in is shown by a Blackbird that regularly visits the garden digging for worms. This bird which jauntily sports a large patch of white feathers across the shoulder seems to be a member of a family in which, for some years, white markings regularly appear in the offspring; sometimes they have flecks, others a large splash and some are of the ordinaire variety - all black. Just like the seasons nature is difficult to predict.

Mike Johnson 

 

APRIL

The sap is rising and after a prolonged dry and sunny February we are slowly but steadily moving from winter into spring. The buds on some trees and shrubs are breaking and at the time of writing, the second week of March, the woods and hedgerows are already glowing with a distinct green haze; Lesser Celandines can be seen glistening in the sunshine along with delicate pale-yellow Primroses and, in one or two protected spots, the first Wood Anemones have come into flower.

The birds too are on the move with Blue Tits, Robins, Wrens and Dunnocks, amongst many others, busily searching for suitable nesting sites. Frogs have also woken from their winter hibernation and, as is generally the case, if they have hibernated on land, they move back to the ponds in which they were originally spawned. The first clue to their presence in the garden pond was in early March when two or three kept breaking the surface of the water with the tops of their heads and then disappearing again looking for all the world like stealth submarines on manoeuvres. However, on March 11th the pond suddenly became a churning mass of mating frogs and by the following morning there was a large clump of spawn.

There are four species of frogs in the UK, although the one that can be seen across the whole of the country and much of Europe is the Common Frog, also known as the Grass Frog. The other three are all members of a group known as Green Frogs: the Marsh Frog is found in Kent and East Sussex; the Edible Frog which was originally introduced in 1837, is restricted to Surrey, Essex and Middlesex and the Pool Frog was only recently reintroduced into a secret site in Norfolk. Common Frogs, which can live up to eight years of age, have a skin colour that varies from grey-green through to pale yellow and shades of brown and they have the ability to change colour to suit their environment. They have brown eyes with black horizontal pupils and the typical adult female is between six and eight centimetres long and weighs on average 22 grammes. The males are smaller than the females and can be distinguished by the colour of their bellies, which are grey in males and brownish-red in females, and also by the bluish-black pads on their fingers, known as nuptial pads, that become more pronounced during the mating season. Females lay between 1000 and 4000 eggs which take between 30 and 40 days to mature into tadpoles although the length of time can vary, taking longer in periods of cold weather. Tadpoles have rasping teeth and feed on algae, small insects and other tadpoles. They first develop gills but, at about nine weeks, they grow their hind legs followed by front legs at around eleven weeks; they next develop lungs requiring them to surface regularly in order to take in oxygen. Gradually the tail is absorbed and the tadpoles then become froglets and leave the water to feed and hide in the grass: this process of metamorphosis takes between 11 and 14 weeks and is usually completed by early August. Tadpoles are eaten by birds and fish and when they develop into froglets they are easy prey for foxes, birds, badgers and hedgehogs, so that only between one and two per cent of the original eggs make it through to adulthood.

The frog population in the UK has been declining for some years partly as a result of a disease called "redleg". This disease, first identified in the early 1980's, has resulted in the death of millions of frogs across the country, however, the good news is that it does not harm newts, toads or lizards. Elsewhere in the world, there is a fungal disease which is killing 80% of all amphibians that are affected. Once again the good news is that scientists, in New Zealand, have found a cure. Let's hope it helps to control the spread of the disease and protects the frogs in the UK for future generations.

Mike Johnson