By late December, the trees around the community garden were mostly leafless. Their leaves now littered the ground creating a mosaic of shades of brown occasionally rearranged by winds. Leafless, though, did not mean featureless. The branches of a tall hawthorn were richly decorated with plump, claret-coloured berries that glinted in the low sunshine and the nearby crab apple sported groups of small round fruit resembling reddish Christmas baubles. Bare branches of a guelder rose held clumps of berries of a surprisingly luminous bright red as if lit from inside (picture at the head of this post). These berries and fruits, formed earlier this year, will provide a well-stocked larder for birds seeking food in winter (more pictures at the end of this post).
It wasn’t all looking back, though, and there were clear signs of the forthcoming season. Leafless hazel stems carried many small, thin, pale green, finger-like growths. These are immature male catkins that will gradually increase in size to form the familiar yellow lambs’ tails ready to cast pollen on to passing breezes; some have already matured in nearby private gardens. Just above the male catkins on the bare branches, a few scaly buds were opening to display small dark red female flowers, often likened to tiny sea anemones. Wind-blown pollen reaching these female flowers from other hazel trees will begin the process of fertilisation and nut formation.
Towards the rear of the garden was a large stand of winter honeysuckle, an unruly twiggy mass liberally sprinkled with pairs of creamy white flowers each with two petals, one smaller and one larger. Emerging from the petals were several long stamens, their ends coated thickly with pale yellow pollen. These flowers are a magnet for insects still about at this time of year, especially on sunny days when I saw a few flies and several hoverflies and bumblebees.
The hoverflies (mostly the marmalade hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus) with their stripy abdomens (silver, black and orange) moved noiselessly about the bush before landing deftly on flowers to feed. The bumblebees (buff-tailed bumblebees, Bombus terrestris) moved quickly from flower to flower buzzing loudly, seemingly hanging from flowers to feed on nectar and to collect pollen that accumulated in sticky lumps on their back legs. These bumblebee workers with their characteristic yellow, white and black hair bands must be supporting a queen that has set up a winter-active colony rather than go into hibernation. Winter-active colonies are a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK, thought to result from warmer winters, the presence of flowers supplying pollen and nectar, and the relative adaptability of Bombus terrestris.
Hawthorn berries
Crab apples. With the mild wet autumn many have already begun to decay
Hazel catkins – the finger-like entities are the immature male catkins and just above each cluster are the tiny red female flowers.
Marmalade hoverfly (Episyrphus balteatus) on winter honeysuckle
Buff-tailed bumblebee worker (Bombus terrestris). Note the pollen she is carrying on her back legs and the way she hangs from the winter honeysuckle flower,
The ivy on our neighbour’s gate post showing the pale flower heads
I was standing in our street, enjoying the gentle warmth of the late September morning sun but I wasn’t alone. Nearby, a large clump of ivy covering the top of our neighbour’s gatepost was alive with insects. For much of the year this ivy is dominated by shiny dark green leaves but from late summer, the woody climber throws up many pale green flower heads mostly from the upper part of the clump. The flower heads soften the look of the ivy and mature into spherical umbels of 20 or so florets, each loaded with nectar and pollen and emitting a sickly-sweet fragrance. This rich source of forage acts as a magnet for insects especially at a time when many flowering plants are shutting down.
A female ivy bee on the ivy flowers, note the pollen collecting on her back legs
When the sun shone, I saw many hoverflies, mostly drone fly (Eristalis) species, some common wasps, a few honeybees and bumblebees and the occasional red admiral butterfly on the ivy flowers but I was hoping for something else. And suddenly there it was, an insect about the size of a honeybee but with a shock of reddish, pale brown hair across the thorax and bright yellow bands around its black abdomen as it tapers to a point. It was also carrying large amounts of chrome yellow ivy pollen on its back legs as if it had collected sunshine (see picture above and at the head of this post). This smart insect is an ivy bee (Colletes hederae), a relative newcomer to the UK, first spotted in Dorset 24 years ago, but now seen across much of England and Wales. Ivy bees are solitary species that emerge in early autumn roughly in synchrony with flowering ivy. Mated females nest in aggregations in friable soil and I saw increasing numbers of the bees over the next few days gathering pollen and nectar from the ivy. This felt like an increase over previous years and I wondered if there were nests nearby although finding them is a matter of luck.
I took photos of the ivy bees and one photo delivered a surprise. This photo contained an ivy bee as intended but also, nearby on another leaf, was a very different insect. It had a bright green abdomen about 1.5 cm long with a prominent brown stripe along its back, very long green legs and antennae more than twice the body length of the creature. This was a speckled bush cricket a flightless insect that consumes leaves from various plants. In daytime they like to bask unseen among vegetation in sunshine, as was this one.
The speckled bush cricket basking on an ivy leaf (a better photo would have shown the speckles that decorate the insect) Clicking on the picture to enlarge it will allow the very long antennae to be seen. The photo has been cropped to remove the ivy bee.
Ivy in early autumn can be a paradise for insects but it’s not an entirely safe one. In the low autumn sunshine, strands of spider web strung across the top of the ivy stood out like telegraph wires and later I saw a spider catch a fly and kill the unfortunate insect. Given the mass of insects that frequent the ivy at this time of year, it is hardly surprising to find spiders taking advantage of this bounty.
The mass of insects on the ivy also helps pollination of the ivy flowers. Each pollinated floret produces a round black berry, a rich food source for hungry birds in winter.
Spider and prey (there may be two spiders or one and part of another in the picture along with the fly prey, see comments below)
Two bumblebees on an ivy flower umbel. The upper is a tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum) the lower probably a buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)
There’s a narrow passageway not far from our house running between rows of private gardens, it’s probably an ancient right of way. The path itself is lined by stone walls, wooden fences and mixed vegetation and it provides a useful cut-through towards the town centre. It’s usually very quiet but one morning in late August I encountered an unexpected commotion. Several chunky insects with yellow and black markings were flying repeatedly back and forth across the pathway. There was much high-pitched buzzing and they sounded angry. I felt as though I was intruding on some private dispute. I approached cautiously in case they were wasps but when I got close enough, I could see their eyes, large and round and set high on their head, clearly hoverflies. (see video below and picture towards the bottom of this post)
The source of the aggravation turned out to be one or two ivy flower heads that had matured early and, that morning, were caught in a pool of sunshine. There were plenty of ivy flower heads along the path but only these had opened, sepals peeled back, revealing stamens and the rich source of pollen and nectar afforded by ivy flowers and loved by these hoverflies.
With their nervy, continuous movement they were difficult to count but I estimated that there were perhaps six of the hoverflies. Based on their distinctive black and yellow striped abdominal patterns and fringes of bright yellow hairs they were all the same species, Myathropa florea, and all males. They seemed to be obsessed with feeding so that each time one managed to get to a flower head another would try to take its place leading to much angry buzzing and circling about.
One of the hoverflies on an ivy flower head
I watched the insects for a while and eventually realised that I was not the only spectator. A perfectly constructed web hung across nearby vegetation not far from the ivy flowers and the spider was looking on. The arachnid was nearly lucky when one of the hoverflies blundered in to the web. It struggled for some time before managing to extricate itself and return to the feeding frenzy.
The spider and one of the ivy flower heads with one of the hoverflies
I came back a few days later and found a much quieter scene. The ivy flowers were still there, caught by the sun as before, but all I saw were a few drone flies (Eristalis sp.) feeding quietly. The Myathropa must have found a better place to forage.
Myathropa florea is a common species whose lifecycle includes a larva living in stagnant water in holes in tree stumps and crevices between tree branches. The larva is often described as a rat-tailed maggot from its long tail, a breathing tube able to reach the water surface.
One of the hoverflies with a marking resembling the Batman logo on its thorax. Look at the area above where the wings emerge to see this. See below for a picture of the Batman logo. This picture also shows the position of the eyes as discussed earlier in the text.
The species is commonly referred to as the “Batman hoverfly” because, although the yellow and black markings are rather variable, some individuals, especially in the summer, have a marking on their thorax resembling the Batman logo.
Batman logo
As Robin would have said, “Holy hoverflies, Batman!”
It was mid-June before I noticed the ragwort. I came across the plant growing in one of the old passageways, the narrow paths lined by old stone walls that criss-cross the older, southern part of Totnes. Ragwort is an opportunist, able to colonise almost barren places, and there were at least two plants, one or more growing out of the top of the wall and another from the junction between the wall and the path. Both plants were already quite tall with thick green stems and finely divided leaves, each stem topped by a mass of immature flowers exhibiting hints of yellow. I found several more plants in our street including one tall specimen growing from the pavement near the wall outside a house. This example sported a large cluster of mature, bright yellow, daisy-like flowers (see picture at the head of this post), with insects coming and going taking advantage of this rich forage source.
Mature ragwort plants growing out of the top of a wall. The plants are about a metre tall.
Later that day, my wife Hazel told me she had seen a moth, bright red and black, near the ragwort in our road. She thought it was a cinnabar moth, linked strongly to the plant. Two days later, she saw another moth of the same species in the same place. She has an impressive and uncanny knack of spotting wildlife so I decided to go out myself to look for the moths, hoping that some of her stardust might rub off on me.
I didn’t see any of the moths near the ragwort in our street but when I went to look at the plants in the old passageway, I was in luck. As I approached the ragwort growing from the wall, a bright red and black moth fluttered away disturbed by my arrival and I had a brief sighting of a second. The first moth settled among the plants that form a loose covering of the wall allowing me to take some photos that confirmed this was a cinnabar moth.
Cinnabar moth showing the red and black markings (the sun was very bright that day reducing the impact of the colours)
the same cinnabar moth but in a less sunny position showing more realistic colours
At this time of year, cinnabar moths have recently emerged from pupae to mate. The mated females then lay eggs on the underside of ragwort leaves. The eggs hatch into larvae which go through several stages developing into caterpillars, with distinctive black and yellow stripes. The caterpillars feed by eating the ragwort plants before digging themselves into the soil to spin a cocoon, overwinter and pupate, emerging the following year as an adult moth.
I thought it should be possible to see the moth eggs at this time of year if I looked carefully so I went to investigate the ragwort near where the moths had been spotted. I looked under several leaves but was unable to find any eggs. This may have been because I was already too late as when I first looked, there were one or two small larvae on one plant and a few days later, some of the leaves on the same plant were covered in masses of small caterpillars. Presumably there had been mass hatching of eggs and based on their yellowish colouration, these were early-stage larvae. They matured quite quickly as when I returned five days later, the caterpillars were fully grown with black and yellow stripes. They had also dispersed consuming much of the plant as they went and leaving just the bare green skeleton. The other plants in the passageway were also being consumed by larvae and in a few days all the ragwort plants there were skeletal.
the upper part of one ragwort plant showing the immature flowers and the dense clusters of immature cinnabar caterpillars
the mature black and yellow cinnabar caterpillars have spread out and consumed large parts of the plant
there is not much of the plant left by now, just the main and some side stems and some of the caterpillars have clustered on the remains of a side shoot that they are gradually consuming
another picture showing the remnants of a plant with caterpillars
Ragwort with its yellow flowers is an attractive plant lighting up our summer as well as being an important source of pollen and nectar for a wide range of insects. The plant has, though, acquired an aura of danger and some people believe ragwort should be removed wherever it appears. It is undoubtedly dangerous for horses and cattle, causing severe liver damage and death if consumed. If ragwort grows in their fields, horses avoid the plant and don’t eat it but should ragwort get into hay for winter feed, this can be fatal. For this reason, ragwort often suffers from systematic “pulling” of plants growing on farmland.
a faded common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum) feeding from ragwort flowers
There is some concern that ragwort is also poisonous for humans but the risk seems to have been overblown and it would be necessary to eat large quantities for harm to occur. Removal of the plant apparently to protect humans still occurs unnecessarily but judging from the speed with which the cinnabar caterpillars consumed the plants I saw, allowing nature to take its course might better. It would also allow this important insect food to flower. To read more about these issues, click here and here.
Putting aside the controversial aspects of ragwort, a stand of the plant with its sunny yellow flowers is an impressive sight. The 18th century poet, John Clare, was inspired by the plant and expressed many of its beauties in his poem “The Ragwort”. Here is part of the poem:
Ragwort, thou humble flower with tattered leaves I love to see thee come and litter gold, What time the summer binds her russet sheaves; Decking rude spots in beauties manifold, That without thee were dreary to behold
The poet and essayist Edward Thomas, was also impressed by the plant. He wrote about how, one summer, he came across ragwort on the Sussex Downs:
There a myriad oriflammes of ragwort are borne up on tall stems of equal height, straight and motionless, and near at hand quite clear, but farther away forming a green mist until, farther yet, all but the flowery surface is invisible, and that is but a glow. (South Country 1909)
I was intrigued and puzzled by this description, partly as I hadn’t heard the term oriflamme before. Apparently, the oriflamme refers to the sacred flag of the Kings of France used to lead soldiers into battle in the Middle Ages. I had some difficulty appreciating this metaphor especially when I read that the oriflamme was blood red and attached to a gilded lance. Then recently, we drove to Torquay, and in many places by the roadside, I saw ragwort plants, their bright yellow heads on tall narrow stems, like flags on poles. I realised I had been too literal and began to see what Thomas had been thinking.
Extending his metaphor, I remembered some years ago going to the WOMAD Festival in Reading where one of my abiding memories, apart from the music, were the many rows of colourful flags on long poles, another myriad oriflammes. Click here to see some pictures.
January turned out to be a very mixed month for weather this year. Frost started the day on several occasions and sunny days were rare events. Perhaps the most notable feature was the passage of storms Eowyn and Herminia across our area bringing high winds, very heavy rain and several instances of thunder and lightning including one in the night disturbing our sleep.
I chose a quiet day in the third week of the month to walk up the lane I have been visiting over the past year. It was very still, quite cold and a ceiling of thick, grey cloud spread out above. Lower down, pale mist hung in the air, making long views indistinct and muting colours and sounds. The mist penetrated wherever it could, coating surfaces, depositing droplets of water on leaves, a truly dank day (see picture at the head of this post).
muted colours and indistinct long views
When I reached the start of the lane, I paused by the old quarry to listen to the song of the birds as they moved about in the trees high above. Around me one or two hazel trees drooped downwards covered in immature greenish catkins, still firmly closed. Elsewhere in the town, some hazel catkins had been opening to expose their golden pollen-loaded lamb’s tails, perhaps these were in more sunny locations. There was more bird song to accompany me as I proceeded up the lane and at one point a wren appeared close by on a low bush. We exchanged glances and the tiny bird churred noisily at me before flying off in anger.
the lane with ferns in the mist
Along the lane, ferns still dominated the look of the lane-side banks. The fern fronds hung elegantly downwards creating a mobile green decoration that trembled in the light breeze. Increasing numbers of fleshy primrose leaves were showing along the sides of the track and many heart-shaped lesser celandine leaves were also apparent, their darker green decorated with varying amounts of a lighter grey green. Neither plant exhibited any flowers yet. A few celandine blooms had been evident on sunny days by the sides of town centre car parks so I thought it couldn’t be long before they also showed along the lane. It wasn’t all stasis though and at least two clumps of very fresh cuckoo pint leaves had pushed through the soil along the banks that border the lane. Shield-shaped and a shiny bright green, these few cuckoo pint leaves were a clear sign of seasonal change.
some of the first cuckoo pint leaves
I stopped to listen to the sounds of the lane, a mixture of low traffic noise from the bypass and running water in the valley below. My reverie was, though, suddenly interrupted by a noisy clattering of branches in the trees above. I thought it must have been a large bird leaving its perch. All I could see when I looked up were more branches swaying about until further movement highlighted a grey squirrel leaping between branches, as skilfully as if it were a monkey.
Around the half way point of my walk, I began to hear short bursts of a rapid drumming sound coming from somewhere ahead. I know this drumming sound well, it is characteristic of a woodpecker. At this time of year, it is thought to be part of a male bird’s behaviour defining his territories. As I walked onwards, the sound increased and when I paused to listen properly, I realised that there were most likely two birds. The drumming seemed to come alternately from two directions each with a different timbre. It seemed as if the two birds were communicating and perhaps agreeing their territories. There are three species of woodpecker in the UK but this loud drumming behaviour is thought to come from the great spotted woodpecker, a distinctive black and white bird with bright red patches.
The behaviour of the woodpeckers felt, to me, like a signal. Even though that day was dominated by wintery cloud and mist, the birds knew that the seasons were shifting and when I walk up the lane in February, I expect to see more change. I also hope to have news of the wooden owl which when I walked past in January, was still covered by a plastic dustbin.
lesser celandine leaves showing the darker and paler green markings
Something about the dawn sky caught my attention that morning when I first looked out of the window. A break in the cloud cover above the hills to the east radiated an unusual honey-coloured light and I wondered what might follow as the sun gradually approached the horizon, although still hidden from view. I looked out again at about 7.40 and was rewarded with a fine show of colour to the south east, the sky above the hills a striking reddish pink when I first looked. I tried to focus on the red but it changed as I watched, gradually taking on an orange hue before fading to a yellowish white light that spread across the sky to the south east. These colour changes were both subtle and transient making them difficult to comprehend but for a few brief moments, I felt I was experiencing the movement of the earth. The red/orange light that lit up the sky that morning results from the selective scattering of the blue light in sunlight as it passes through the earth’s atmosphere to reach my observation point. As the earth turns, the path of light through the atmosphere changes. This changes the scattering of the blue light resulting in the colour variations I saw. (for a more detailed discussion of these colours, click here)
The sun eventually rose above the hills to the south east about half an hour later. At this time of year, late December, the sun approaches the end of its southern journey across the sky before pausing on the solstice, then beginning to move northwards again. After the solstice, the shortest day of the year, days begin to lengthen, light gradually returns and we can look forward to the eventual arrival of spring.
I was keen to see how the lane I had been walking up for several months was changing at this pivotal time of year. I had planned to look on the day of the solstice because of its importance as a time of transition, a time of looking forward and backwards, but given the weather forecast I decided to walk on the preceding day, December 20th.
The bank of green leaves (three-cornered garlic) by the side of Maudlin Road, Totnes. To the left, slightly uphill is the lane I have been walking.
Looking about as I walked down the road from our house, much of the plant life seemed to have shut down but near the start of the lane, a roadside bank told a different story. Here was a fresh-looking mass of pale green, thin, strap-shaped leaves. The leaves might have been mistaken for grass but when I broke a piece off a leaf, I detected a mild oniony smell, for this is three-cornered garlic. Attractive bell-shaped white flowers will appear very soon, borne on triangular stalks, and for me this plant is an early sign of the new year.
Storm Darragh had passed through south Devon earlier in the month, removing any weak branches and remaining leaves from the now skeletal trees. The lane felt much more open with light being able to penetrate more easily, though with the cloud that lay overhead that morning, this was a flat wintery light and colours were muted and contrasts low. Along the track, the leaves that had fallen in large numbers covering the surface last month were now damp, brown and decaying.
The ferns that line the lane with the harts tongue ferns showing well.
The ferns that line large parts of the lane showed few effects of the season. The harts tongue ferns in particular, appeared to still be growing well and perhaps even putting on new leaves that glistened in the low grey light. I paused to listen to the sounds along the lane: small birds sang high above and they were visible moving about in the trees, noise from traffic on the by-pass filtered across the valley and a light breeze meandered down the lane occasionally, rustling the ferns that murmured in response.
In keeping with the time of the solstice, I came across symbols of both the past year and the forthcoming one. Berries were the main indicator of the past year and, along the lane, I found maturing green ivy berries (see picture at the head of this post), black tutsan berries, a few holly berries, and some bright orange berries that I was unable identify without any more clues such as leaf shape (see pictures below). These different berries provide important winter food for birds who will consume them over the next few months, spreading the seed in their droppings. Ivy berries, for example, contain as many calories as Mars bars (weight for weight, according to the RSPB).
Looking to the forthcoming year, leaves of primrose and lesser celandine were pushing through the leaf mould along the edge of the track. The pale yellow flowers of primrose are already evident in our garden so they should be showing along the lane before too long to be joined by the brighter yellow celandine flowers. Last month I mentioned seeing a few pale green immature catkins on the hazels. In the intervening weeks, these immature catkins have erupted all over these trees like natural Christmas decorations.
Perhaps the most significant indicator of the season, though, was the same as last month: an almost complete lack of flowers along the lane. All I found were a few red campion flowers on a grassy sheltered area by a fence near the end of the lane in the same place as last month but now accompanied by a tallish plant with yellow dandelion-like flowers, probably one of the sow thistles.
I had hoped to report progress on the carving of the wooden owl from last month but when I reached that part of the lane, I found the owl wrapped firmly in blue plastic. I have no idea what has happened and I shall have to wait another month to see whether the mystery is revealed.
Tutsan berries
Bright red berries, difficult to identify without more clues such as leaf shape.
Leaves lay by the side of the road as I walked down to reach the lane I have been visiting for the past few months. A large sycamore tree across from our house was the source of the roadside decoration and a few more leaves fell as I paused to look. Many of the leaves lay flat on the wet road, here they were mainly a uniform dark brown, well on their way to forming a slippery leafy sludge. Some, though, stood out, their greens, yellows and pale browns caught in the morning light, each leaf exhibiting a different pattern, each expressing a different personality.(see picture at the head of this post)
Further along, some uncultivated land contained all that was left of a group of umbellifers, probably hogweed. Their skeletal remains stood in a vague row, pale brown traceries of dry stems and flower heads, some still holding lozenge-shaped seed pods.
The mid-October sunshine that morning was welcome but deceptive. Recent weather had been very wet and when I reached the lane, the track and surrounding trees still showed evidence of the previous day’s rain. I pressed on up the lane, still mostly green but with a few hints of seasonal change, some curling browning leaves, plumes of bright colour on other trees and one a striking overall yellow. The track itself was quite muddy and strewn with increasing numbers of fallen leaves (photos below). By the side of the path there were a few flecks of pink from campion and herb robert flowers, now looking rather sad. One white bindweed flower stood out, home briefly for a foraging bumblebee.
I stopped to listen to the sounds of the morning: water running in the stream that follows the valley bottom, leaves rustling as a gentle breeze passed, the occasional flick as another leaf fell from one of the trees, some birdsong including the insistent trill of a wren and later the mewing of a buzzard circling overhead. Also, although it’s not a sound, almost below the level of conscious detection I thought I could smell the odour of decay.
the fern-lined green tree-lined tunnel
The green tree-lined tunnel was dark, dank, and muddy with ferns dominating as always but I saw plants growing here that I had previously overlooked probably because there had been so much else to see. Spiky, glossy, green holly grew in several places as did hawthorn; ivy crept surreptitiously across any surface it could find. There were, though, some new emergences. Wall pennywort pushed its slender stems and small dimpled leaves through the soil banks in several places. The leaves will grow gradually and cover some areas next spring. Also, on the soil banks was a creeping plant with opposing pairs of oval, fleshy green leaves. This is opposite leaved golden saxifrage a plant of dark, wet places and it will flower early in the new year. Extensive mats of this plant grew further along the lane in the very wet areas. Both the pennywort and saxifrage featured in my March walk when fully grown so, as the year moves on, we are beginning to see annual cycles. (photos below)
Beyond the green tunnel, the track became a conduit for water running off nearby fields following the recent heavy rains. Among the trees lining this very wet path was a large holly bush, distinguished by splashes of reddening berries. I wonder how long these will last? Will the birds take them or will they go for early Christmas decorations? Interestingly, this holly had many non-spiky leaves unlike others seen earlier. Spikiness in holly leaves seems to be a natural variant and some say that leaves become spiky to deter grazing animals. There are deer about in the nearby woods but I can’t see why this particular bush would be spared animal damage.
Further on, I came to a sunny clearing, lined by brambles earlier in the year but now dominated by two huge spreads of ivy scrambling over trees. The ivy was covered in flowers and their distinctive sweet odour perfumed the air. It attracted many insects, mostly wasps. I searched in vain for ivy bees but with the recent poor weather, the ivy bee season seems to be over.
The ivy flowers are contained in umbels of 20 or so individual flowers arranged in an almost perfectly spherical array. Each flower shows five-fold symmetry in the arrangement of its sepals and stamens. The anthers are exposed on the surface of the sphere so that the umbels appear yellow at a glance. I can’t help but marvel at these examples of the beauty contained in the non-human world.
An umbel of ivy flowers with a marmalade hoverfly. Note the five fold symmetry of the individual flowers, the spherical nature of the umbel with anthers around its surface,
While I was gazing, a pretty hoverfly with bands of black, yellow and silver-grey along its abdomen landed to feed from the ivy. This was Episyrphus balteatus, also known as the marmalade hoverfly. This odd name is said to derive from the thick and thin black bands on the body of the fly which remind some people of the thick and thin cuts of fruit in marmalade. I also see the yellow and silver-grey bands and think of the golden shred and silver shred marmalades made from oranges and lemons respectively.
One last thing. When I stopped earlier to listen to the natural sounds of the morning, I was surprised to hear another noise, one that I recognised as a train hauled by a steam engine and coming from the other side of town. The noise from the engine increased to reach a peak when it blew its whistle before the sound gradually died away. There is a heritage steam railway, the South Devon Railway, with its terminus in Totnes and I presume that this train had just left the station. We don’t normally hear the sounds of these steam trains so the particular atmospheric conditions must have been favourable that morning.
leaves along the lane
wall pennywort leaves, some tiny, pushing through the soil bank
Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage leaves, spotted with rain water. These are the basal leaves from which flowers will grow in spring.
holly bush with red berries and mostly non spiky leaves
It’s the middle of September and the morning starts with a cloud free, translucent blue sky. It’s not a summer light, though, and when I look out of the back windows of our house a pale mist hangs low to the north east roughly charting the course of the river as it snakes though the town. For a short time, the mist takes on a pink tinge from the sun rising behind the eastern hills. The effect is short lived and when the sun appears above the hills, it spreads a bright light across the trees in the valley below our house highlighting the clear signs of autumn in the yellow leaves now covering the silver birch trees.
Later that morning, I walk down our road to reach the lane I have been visiting over the past few months. The air is warm with bright sunshine as I walk along the road and a large stand of honeysuckle in a nearby passageway is trying to hang on to summer. It’s sweetly fragrant and full of life with a white butterfly and several common carder bumblebees flittering about the flowers.
The same cannot be said for the lane which is cool and dark and still showing signs of the severe cutting it suffered a few weeks ago. The lane runs roughly southwards but on its eastern side, the land rises steeply and there are many trees. At this time of year, the sun is in the east and quite low in the sky so that its light mostly fails to reach the lower parts of the lane and the green tree-lined tunnel.
In a few places, the trees do allow the sun to penetrate like a searchlight, creating aerial pools of brightness, highlighting parts of the path and nearby vegetation. In one of these pools of light I notice several yellowish insects flying about or basking on illuminated leaves, enjoying the warmth. There are at least three similar individuals and photos taken while they bask identify them as hoverflies (photo below). I watch them hanging in the air sometimes hovering one behind the other, each a small yellow blur, each aware of the others. Sometimes they appear to be looking in my direction, are they aware of me or am I imagining this? Perhaps they are simply aware of a large new object in their vicinity and need to update their internal map?
There are few clear signs of autumn along the lane. Some brown leaves litter the track, the beginning of the crunchy multicoloured carpet that will form here in a few weeks’ time. It is more the absences that speak of autumn, especially the near complete absence of flowers. Of those still left, the cyclamen are showing well and in increased numbers and in a sunny clearing, I come across an umbellifer having put on new growth, most likely hogweed at this time of year. Its attractive white flowers are proving popular with common wasps (photo below). Here and there, bindweed clambers across vegetation with its white trumpets showing and one of these flowers has attracted a pretty, well-marked hoverfly, Meliscaeva cinctella (photo below). I watch it for a while but eventually it has enough of me and flies off.
There is, though, one plant that makes up for the dearth of flowers at this time of year and that is ivy. This climber grows prolifically in several places along the lane but for most of the year it remains an understated, slightly sinister presence concealed by its dark green shiny leaves. As autumn approaches its personality changes and it cloaks itself in pale green flower heads each containing many small flowers (photo below). Each flower eventually opens exposing five yellow pollen-loaded stamens. The flowers are a rich, late season, source of pollen and nectar for insects and will eventually mature into black berries, important food for winter birds.
I found ivy growing in the early part of the lane with some flowers open attracting common wasps and, in the sunny clearing, there is a huge bank of the plant covered in flowers still to open. Along the minor road I follow to walk home, however, I found a bank of ivy in the front of a private garden. Many flowers were open and the bush audibly buzzed with insects in the warm sunshine, mostly common wasps and hoverflies. The flowers also emitted a sickly sweet odour, the plant’s way of attracting insects and among these were a few brightly striped bees carrying lumps of yellow pollen on their back legs. These are ivy bees (Colletes hederae, see photo at the head of this post and below), the last solitary bee to emerge in the UK each year and a clear sign of the changing season. I was pleased to see them as I have had few sightings of these insects so far in Totnes this year. With their rich pale brown-haired thorax and bright yellow-banded abdomen they carry reminders of the autumn leaves to fall and the sunshine of summer.
To round off this autumn themed story, I want to mention a poster I saw that day pinned to a wooden post at the start of the lane. The poster (see photo below) was advertising the “Mabon Equinox, Bardic Ceremony” to take place in a woodland glade near Dartington at the coming weekend.
The autumn equinox, one of two similar occasions each year when daytime and nighttime hours are roughly the same, took place on September 22 marking the astronomical start of autumn. Days get increasingly shorter after this equinox as we move towards the dark days of winter and perhaps that’s why so little is said about the autumn event.
The Mabon Equinox is a modern pagan version of a ceremony held to celebrate the abundance of the final harvest and to give thanks for our blessings and personal achievements. Some also see Mabon as a time to connect with nature and its cycles. Connecting with nature and its cycles might do us all a bit of good and we might appreciate more clearly our dependence on the rhythms of the non-human world.
Autumn leaves
One of the hoverflies I saw in a pool of sunshine. With its wings covering the markings I found this difficult to identify but an expert told me that it was Episyrphus balteatus, known as the marmalade hoverfy,
A common wasp on the umbellifer (probably hogweed)
Hoverfly (Melicaeva cinctella) on bindweed
Ivy growing in the front of a house along a minor road showing the flower heads with their small flowers. The flowers are mostly not open in this view. A common wasp and an ivy bee are visible in this image. The picture below shows some open flowers on the same stand of ivy
An ivy bee feeding from ivy flowers. The open flowers with stamens are visible in this picture.
The back of our house looks north across a valley towards St Mary’s Church in Totnes. Several mature trees grow in the valley each with its own personality of shape and colour. I often gaze at the trees watching how they change with the seasons, also looking for the birds that move furtively among their branches. One morning in the third week of August I looked out and noticed that the overall green of one of the tall silver birch trees was starting to be flecked with yellow. A nearby sweet chestnut tree was also dotted with pale green spiky spheres, the large seed capsules of the tree. Were these the early signs of autumn? After all, the weather had been very changeable with rain and cooler temperatures and people had begun to talk about seasons changing.
If these were the early signs of autumn, I wondered how this would be reflected in the lane I had been visiting over the past few months? All was not what I had expected though when I reached the lane. The first section had been cut back, vegetation on both sides of the track mowed down and overhanging branches hacked off. There was very little left and any late season flowers had been destroyed. A few large white trumpets of bindweed had survived and some white snowberry fruits were also visible (photos below). The large burdock bush that I have mentioned several times before had been mostly cut down but a few flower heads had survived, some with their purple brush of florets (photo below), attracting a bee or two. Some seed heads (2-3cm across) covered in their hook-tipped bracts were maturing. These hooked bracts allow the dry seed heads to stick to animal fur, potentially distributing their seed but they will also stick to clothing. The mature seed heads are often called burrs and, as a child, I remember throwing them at other children to stick to clothing or even hair. It is also said that the inventor of Velcro was inspired by the stickiness of burrs.
Some burdock flower heads, one with florets the other two maturing towards burrs. Note the hooked bracts covering the flower heads
It was a shock to find the lane so heavily strimmed but I wasn’t surprised that it had happened, humans do the oddest things. Presumably, someone had been concerned with keeping the path clear, unimpeded for walkers and dogs, but the effects on the non-human world are likely to be profound, taking away much needed late season food for insects and birds. It really wasn’t necessary to cut the lane in this way, surely the human and non-human worlds can learn to live together and understand one another’s needs?
Thankfully, the green tree-tunnel was intact and remained an enticing mixture of gloom and dappled light. Ferns dominated the sides of the path, their fronds hanging gracefully downwards as if this were an elegant Victorian parlour. In a couple of places, as I walked gradually upwards, I came across shocks of colour that stood out like street lights in the dark. First was a spear of shiny bright orange-red berries glowing among the leaf clitter on the sides of the track (see picture at the head of this post). This was the fruit of cuckoo pint, the end result of the weird pollination mechanism of this plant. Further on, peeping out from behind the shiny dark green leaves of hart’s tongue ferns were some cyclamen flowers, brilliant white with a slight pink tinge. This is the autumn flowering cyclamen listed as a wild flower in the UK but also popular with gardeners.
cyclamen flower
I emerged from the green tunnel to a path thickly lined by leafy trees and shrubs lending varying degrees of light and shade. There were few flowers about and the only one in quantity was herb Robert, a creeping, clambering plant liberally studded with small pink starry blooms, some of its leaves now a bright red. This is so common in the wild and also a prolific garden weed that we tend to overlook it but it was proving popular with the few insects about, including one furrow bee.
In an open section of the track, growing almost as an understory and easily missed was the picturesquely named plant enchanter’s nightshade, in my experience a sign of early autumn. It has many tiny white and pink flowers held on hairy stems and well worth stopping to look.
enchanter’s nightshade
In places, a few surviving tutsan flowers were attracting insects and I saw one common carder bee feeding. Brambles, previously covered with flowers, were now dominated by their succulent black fruits and a few hazel nuts had fallen from the tree.
The track ended and I followed a minor road back to our house but on the way there were a few spikes of purple toadflax, attracting more common carder bees. Nearby, a tall horse chestnut tree hung across the road, and among its browning leaves were clusters of large spherical, spiked seed capsules. Inside each of these will be several beautiful shiny brown seeds each about 3cm across. These are colloquially referred to as conkers in the UK and were another important part of late summer children’s games when I was growing up.
So, there was definitely an end of summer feeling on this month’s walk with fruits forming and few flowers remaining, the beginning of the “season of mellow fruitfulness”.
bindweed
snowberry
herb robert flower with furrow bee (Lasioglossum sp.)
blackberries
hazel nuts
purple toadflax with common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum)
It was the second week of June when I made my way down our road to reach the country lane I have been visiting over the past few months. At this time of year, red valerian grows prolifically from walls at the side of our road, its frothy pink flowers creating a summery almost Mediterranean feeling (see picture at the head of this post). The weather, though, did not completely share this feeling and although the sun shone brightly the air felt quite cool.
Roigh chervil growing through other vegetation along the lane
I reached the lane and began to walk up the first more open part. The prevailing look was still green and lush although the monochrome was now leavened by the white flowers of tall umbellifers standing above the other vegetation. These were mostly the more delicate flowers of rough chervil with its feathery leaves but there was at least one clump of the more robust hogweed. This is usually very popular with insects and notable for its large, rough leaves and tall stature.
Also growing among the vegetation along the path were several spikes of one of my favourite wild flowers, hedge woundwort. This, another insect favourite, was already exhibiting its claret-coloured flowers with their white scribbles.
Hedge woundwort with its claret coloured flowers and their white scribbles
Towards the end of this open section, I came across an imposing plant with a slew of large triangular green leaves, some up to 30cm in length, spilling on to the path. Flower stalks, as yet without flowers, were also shooting upwards and I recognised the plant as burdock. In the past its huge leaves were used to bind wounds and burns and also to wrap pats of butter. There is much to say about the flowers but I’ll return to that when they open.
Burdock growing by the side of the track
As I examined the burdock, marvelling at its extensive growth, I detected a fragrant sweet scent filling the air. Looking about, I found I was standing below an elder tree with many mature creamy flower heads. In my May visit, I had wondered about the smell elderflowers made but now my query was answered.
I walked on, entering the section of the lane enclosed by overhanging trees. Here the air was cooler and the trees admitted, at most, a dappled light. Ferns, now their mature dark green colour, dominated but further on, nestling among fern fronds I found some bright yellow flowers with five petals and impressive masses of yellow stamens, looking like so many solar powered glow sticks. These distinctive flowers occurred in groups above large fleshy green leaves and this is tutsan (Hypericum androsaemum) a plant of shady habitats. Having found it here on the lane I have since seen it in many other places around the town.
Tutsan
The name, tutsan, apparently comes from the old French toute saine for all healthy referring to the healing and soothing properties of the plant. Tutsan is related to St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) a plant known for its therapeutic effects on mild and moderate depression. Interestingly, preparations of tutsan are also used in Spanish and Portuguese folk medicine, to treat depression.
Bramble flowers
Dog rose
Lush growth of umbellifers along the track
The path became more open again and stretches were characterised by large numbers of white flowers on extensive stands of bramble, on dog rose and on clumps of umbellifers. With all these flowers and on a sunny day, I expected to see insects but there were few about. A speckled wood butterfly appeared In a sunny section and rested for a short time allowing me to take a photo before a second appeared and the pair flew off together. On a nearby fern, I saw a smart black hoverfly (Cheilosia variabilis, the experts helped me with identification). The lane ended and I walked down a quiet minor road back to our house. The sides of this minor road were lined with red valerian and I found a brightly marked hoverfly (Syrphus sp.) moving about on the stems of the plant. (see below for pictures)
These were interesting observations but to see so few insects in summer is very surprising and I am becoming concerned that there has been a crash in the insect population, perhaps related to our very wet spring coupled with our general treatment of nature. It is still too early to know.
Philip Strange Science and Nature Writing 