On the beach

We went on Sunday because the weather forecast was good but the day turned out to be cloudy and cold. Never mind. We all found something to do - Frog listened to his ship-to-shore radio, Fearne paddled, and Rachel, Dog and I went beachcombing.- and we had this pebbly beach in East Devon almost to ourselves.

Fearne and her trusty bucket, soon to be filled with carefully chosen pebbles

 

Ellie with something crunchy

The tideline was a mixture of beautiful bleached driftwood and plastic rubbish

 

The tideline

The contents of the tideline - plastic bottles, shoes, cartons, rubbers gloves, bags . . .

But behind the tideline . . .

Nature's border, as good as any cultivated flower-bed. Hemp agrimony (pink), purple loosestrife and fleabane (yellow) taking advantage of the dampness created by a tiny stream trickling out of the cliff

The vivid flowers and berries of poisonous woody nightshade

Alien buddleia colonising the cliff face

And a cabbage-like plant (in the foreground) that I haven't identified yet. Can anyone help?

Thanks to Rachel for the first three pictures and the last one and for the loan of her camera

Oh no, not more thistledown pictures

Sorry, I can't help it. It's all over the place this year and it's SO fluffy.

Motorway noise, wind turbine and phone mast

When I wake this morning it’s cold – 53 outside according to my weather station. The reason is clear when I climb the hill with the dog: the wind is north-westerly. I don’t mind though. That means it’s blowing towards the motorway, not away from it, and I can’t hear a thing. I can see the little vehicles whizzing along but they are completely silent.

The village

I think of the wind turbine about which the village has protested and won. I’m not sure why they were so vehement. It would have been a long way away from the village and I can’t believe they would have heard anything. Perhaps they thought that other turbines would follow. How though are we supposed to get our energy? (Sorry I'm so unsupportive. I probably haven't forgiven the village for refusing to have the phone mast near them so that it was plonked near us instead.)

The phone mast near our house

Everywhere they are harvesting at the moment and the noise on Saturday afternoon, what with Frog strimming as well, was extraordinary.

Harvesting

Shooting stars

You still have a chance to catch those shooting stars. August 12 – tonight – is the peak this year apparently (not 11 August as I said). Frog and I saw a goodly few last night in the twenty or so minutes between the sky getting dark enough and the cloud cover rolling over.

The weird and wonderful world of fungi

Already the mushrooms and toadstools are starting, and it looks like being a good year - they seem to like hot summers. I used to pick and eat wild mushrooms until Frog had an upset stomach after one batch. He says it wasn't my fault and that they were either fly-blown (filled with fly eggs or maggots) or shouldn't have been eaten with alcohol but I'm not sure that makes me feel any better.

Nevertheless they are fascinating things and always remind me of fairy tales.

Here is a selection of fungus pictures that I've taken over the years.

This I saw this morning on an oak tree, each shelf of fungus a good 12 inches wide. I thought at first that it was discarded polystyrene.




Discarded polystyrene?

This oyster-like growth - also huge - I saw one May inside a dead tree (that was on its side). Why I was looking inside a dead tree, I have no idea.

Inside a dead tree trunk

These are, I think, parasol mushrooms. They were scattered all over a field one September.



Parasol mushrooms?


This slimy inflorescence appeared on our lawn one October.

On the lawn

Speed you well

Tiny speedwell kept attracting my attention as I walked the dog this morning, perhaps because it was reflecting so perfectly the colours of the sky.

There are several types of speedwell, all of which have numerous medicinal uses. This is field speedwell, the most common, ‘served as an emergency food, eaten in times of famine’ according to one of my reference books. It flowers throughout the year. The leaves of all speedwells can apparently be dried and made into tea.

According to my Oxford English Dictionary the name 'speedwell' is at least four centuries old (first recorded in 1578) and the result of the plant's 'fugacious' petals - ie petals which drop off easily. I prefer to think of the name as well-wishing.

Thistledown

Thistledown blowing in the wind

I’m really proud of this picture. The wind was blowing hard so I had to hold the plant steady with one hand while taking the picture with the other, and I was worried that the seeds (as they flew off the thistle-head) would come out blurred - but they haven’t. Clever camera.

It might have looked even better though if I'd taken it from further back.

Enclosures

I mention in The Vineyard (earlier post) the enormous changes – good and not so good – that have happened in Devon over the last four decades. One not-so-good change has taken place over the last few months only.

Devon is famous for its hedges. Sometimes these were planted and sometimes they were created when the land around was cleared, which makes them irreplaceable fragments of ancient forest. They are full of insects, birds, animals and wildflowers and, if properly maintained, can be stock-proof as well.

You maintain them by ‘laying’ them every few years. This means partially cutting through the trunks of trees and laying them sideways so that they sprout thickly upwards from the side of their trunks, the trunks and the sproutings forming a dense tapestry. Here is part of the hedge around our garden being laid this February.

Our hedge being laid

Recently however, in an attempt I think to preserve the hedges (which have been disappearing at an alarming rate since the Second World War), farmers have been given grants to fence them.

Sometimes the end is left more accessible, as here.



A fenced hedge with a more accessible end (left of picture)



But sometimes the hedges are completely enclosed, as here.



A hedge fenced on all sides

How will they be reached for maintenance? Will anyone bother? Once the trees get too big they can no longer be laid and the hedge is lost.

How is the non-burrowing wildlife to get out and how is it to roam? More often than not the fences mean that there is no way between the fields of different landowners.

And what about people?

When he could no longer wander the countryside of his childhood because of the Agricultural Revolution and its ‘enclosures’, the poet John Clare went mad with grief.

Teasel

A ten-foot-tall teasel leans over the path as I walk this afternoon. I haven’t noticed it before. Its flower-heads are the same size as the head of a small cat.

I always thought the flowers (when dried) were used for carding wool but Charles Coates’s The Wildflowers of Britain and Ireland says that they were used for ‘teasing’ the nap on cloth. My Oxford Book of Wild Flowers says that this was woollen cloth (hence my confusion perhaps) and that it was special cultivated variety of teasel with extra-prickly bracts (flower-bearing leaves) that was used.

Goldfinches love the seeds, and if you’re lucky enough to see these little gold and red birds twittering around a plant, you’ll understand why a flock of goldfinches is known as a ‘charm’.

Wishing on a star

I like my nature as wild as possible. I find it comforting. It puts things in perspective. On our overcrowded island wild nature is increasingly hard to find but one place you can still find it is the night sky.
    Every year around 11 August the Earth passes through an asteroid belt and there are more shooting stars than usual This year the moon is in a darkish phase at the time so its light won't spoil the view. So, next weekend if you can stay awake and if the sky is clear and if you live somewhere where you can see the stars, do have a look.
    And if you spot a shooting star, have a wish. It will come true.