Ribbons of Lace

As mentioned previously this is the second of two blogs that has been tossed around for a bit before publishing and dates from Sunday, 16 June 2013.

Driving through the local lanes in June, one of the sights that always grabs me are the ribbons of white fluffy Cow Parsley flowers that coat mile after mile of verge. The white inflorescences of the Cow Parsley when viewed en-mass like this, gives the impression of being miles of white lace stretching ever onwards. Just like someone has dropped a roll of lace that has kept unwinding into the distance, as they try to catch the reel and tame the escaping lace.

Ribbons of Cow Parsley – 16 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Cow Parsley flowers are born in complex umbels, where the main spokes of the inflorescence bear groups of smaller spokes, seemingly held together by a ring of purplish bracts. The florets are then at the end of these smaller spokes, which produce this gently rounded structure. The flowers are made up of five uneven sized petals, the largest of which is at the top of each floret, giving them a distinctive pentagonal shape. Then the florets on the outside of each of these tiny umbels have had this central petal further enlarged, so as to give these small umbels a pentagonal shape as well. Put all of these tiny flowers together and a large rounded umbel is produced, mixed these with a pair of white anthers that rise above the each flower and an amazing fluffy lacy effect is produced.

Cow Parsley Lace – 16 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato More!!

Having pulled my hair out and bitten my nails to the cuticle while writing an article for publication, I’ve been tossing a couple of blogs around for a while without actually finishing either – so here is the first from way back on the Tuesday 04 June. Enjoy!!

There are some jobs that are just perfect, especially ones that involve sitting on the top of a cliff when the sun is shinning, there was no wind blowing and the only task you have is to count sea birds that are clinging perilously to a rock face!! Wow! Sometimes the days are just brilliant!

So there I was sitting on top of a cliff at Nunnery Point, part of St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve, where the sun was shining, and the sky was blue. The sea was almost dead calm, just a gentle roll and so very blue, like that of petals of a Cornflower. This blue changed slightly as the sea swelled gently making the blues deepen and lighten as the light reflected slightly differently from the surface. These two facts together, with the warmth of the sunshine, made the scene almost hypnotic, one that you would want to loose yourself in and so one where the call of a Siren could almost have been believed in. Even the passing of a cargo ship hardly altered the regular rolling of the sea, producing just a gentle ripple that rolled out from the ship and combined with this gentle hypnotic roll.

The Longstone – 04 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Dragging myself away from the hypnotic effect of the sea, to the task at hand – counting, in fact counting Guillemots and Razorbills. Mmm – so count the black dots against a grey or white background. Luckily most of the birds are confined to the the white areas of guano, while the grey areas that may camouflage the dark birds mainly lack bodies, but still need to be checked. OK – sounds simple enough, but where to begin and how to recognise which areas have already been counted. “Now is that the crack I counted to before or not!!” It was supposed to be so simple!! But have I counted that crowd of birds been counted before or not?

The Rock – 04 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Having practised a few times and having sorted the rock into what I hoped where easy to identify areas, I began to count again. One, two, three, four….. Hang on you’re not a Guillemot, your a Razorbill, so one, two, three …… “Excuse me, are there any Puffins here?” asks a passing visitor – oh ho hum!! “Just a few. Best time to see them is at sunrise or sunset, I think” Now where did I get to – one, two, three…… And so the day progresses. Counting gets easier, providing the interruptions are few, luckily the birds seem to be on my side for once, they don’t move around much, just a few stretches of the wings or a niggle with their neighbour, as they incubate their egg. These few stretches though allow for some amazing glints of iridescent blue within the feathers to be revealed, as the sunlight catches them. Wow! This makes the Guillemots and Razorbills more than just plain black and white birds, but gives them something special, a view just for the person who was looking at that specific moment.

Guillemots – 04 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Thoughts from a Hillside

Finally the beginning of June saw some good weather, so for the first Sunday of the month we were making the most of it and found a place in the sun, part of the way up a hill, over looking Loch Leven and the associated  RSPB wetlands. Here with the bright blue skies and sunshine, the temperatures were warm enough to make the water shimmered gently in the afternoon heat. With the temperatures rising gently, it might mark the final arrival of spring, now that June is here and summer is not supposedly not far away.

Loch Leven Wetlands – 02 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Sitting on the hillside looking down towards the lake, the trees are now all in leaf producing a mixture of greens from the spring green of newly emerged leaves through to the dark rich greens of summer. The bank of green was highlighted by the occasional Bird Cherry that was covered in long white inflorescences and the odd Rowan with umbels of cream flowers. In front of the trees the Bracken has begun to unfold their new fronds and hide the dead brown stalks of last year. Scattered amongst these spring green fronds were the bright blue flowers of the Bluebell, producing distinctive contrasting patches of colour.

Sheep Sorrel Carpets – 02 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

In patches where the Bracken had recently been cleared, the ground was covered by carpets of Sheep Sorrel that were now covered in reddish orange flowers. When first looked at the flowers of Sheep Sorrel look like small brightly coloured pustules, as they crowd round the central stem. But in fact they are actually simple flowers, lacking properly developed petals that en-mass produce this distinctive reddish orange carpet. The area was then highlighted by clumps of Wavy Hair-grass, with their rich green needle-like leaves, topped by the the metallic spiklets of flowers that will shortly open out to shimmer and shine in the sunlight.

Wavy Hair-grass – 02 June 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Return to Murder Moss

This blog was written with the idea of illustrating it with a number of pictures from last Saturday’s visit to Murder Moss on one of the most beautiful days of this year so far. Having down loaded the pictures it was to discover that my small pocket camera, designed to capture the moment had decided to malfunction at a most inopportune moment!! As a result I’ve pondered for a while about whether to post this blog at all, as there are no good illustrations to go with it, but I hope that the writing stands on its own, without the addition of the pictures. Enjoy!

Finally managed to returned to Murder Moss after a break of over seven months. A place, which I’m sure you know by now is one of my favourites, on what turned out to be one of the best days of the spring so far. A day when the the sky was an amazing blue colour, spotted by fluffy white clouds that scudded quickly across. Luckily at ground level that wind wasn’t blowing and for once the place was still, almost balmy in the sunshine, though there was still a bitter nip in the background, just to remind me that winter refuses to totally let go its grip of the weather.

Even though it was now the end of May, the vegetation was still hovering back as it had been at the beginning of May last year. The new greens had still failed to take over from the faded dead remains of last years vegetation, and the Willows still only had a hint of a green to colour their bare twigs.

This new spring look was most obvious on the edge of an area of Reed, where the remainder of last years growth had produced tall white, almost ghost like stems. These stems seemed to form a sharp boundary line, behind which they floated like an ethereal reminder of the previous year, yet to be blown away by the rush of this springs new growth. In front of this boundary was a carpet of dark green formed from this years new growth of Meadowsweet, which had currently failed to produce anything more than a low cover of leaves. Even so the promise was there with new fresh clumps of bright yellow Marsh Marigold flowers, currently one of the few plants that had made it into flower this spring.

Feeding Stations

We revamped our bird feeding station last weekend, as the original is getting a little fragile and since the loss of the washing line we’d lost a number of hanging spots for feeders. So the revamp involved adding a new post that allows room for both seed and Niger feeders.

The new feeders had hardly been filled and stopped swinging, before the local population of birds were investigating the new food source. To begin with it was the usual regulars, such as the Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits and Chaffinches, who took to the seed feeder with great gusto. Exploring gingerly to begin with, before recognising the opportunity and diving head first into find their favourite snacks. Have to say that these are fussy birds, picking out and dropping all the bits that don’t fit their fancy! It would seem that sunflower seeds are their favourites, before anything else in the mix. They sit there picking out the sunflower seeds, in order to reach these they just throw out everything else. So I’m very glad we got a feeder with an attached tray, as this gives the birds a second chance at all those seeds they didn’t fancy the first time around. The biggest culprit at this fussiness are the Chaffinches who happily sit and throw seeds away for most of the day. I’m not at all unsure that one or two of the male Chaffinches are not in danger of becoming portly to say the least, as they sit on the feeder for long periods of time, if undisturbed, eating whatever is available and takes their fancy while throwing the rest out.

Once the seed feeder had almost been emptied in only a matter of a day or so, the feeders began to pick through those pieces that they fancied slightly less. This time throwing the discarded bits off of the tray and on to the ground below. Joining the mottle crew above, we also have the addition of a Dunnock, who moves round the tray very much like a like a jerky wind up toy. Yet again we have a species that has failed to read the bird book and come to feed on the feeder when they should just be a ground feeder. Below the feeder we now have a new population move in in the form of the local Pheasant and his lady friend, who have discovered an easy new source of food, that doesn’t have the risk attached of being shot while feeding!

“Room for a small one?” – Siskins – 22 May 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

The other new feeder is the Niger feeder and this one was soon taken over by Siskins in particular. For the first day or two there were maybe three Siskins but by the end of the third day this had rocketed to a maximum of six at any one time. It soon became clear also that the Siskins had a pecking order with the brightly coloured males at the top, taking preference over all the rest. Now when I first saw the others I had assumed that they were all the less brightly coloured ones were females. But having observed them for a while I’m not totally sure that they were all only adult females and wondered whether some of them were in fact juveniles. Some of the speckled and streaked Siskins behaved as though they were begging for food, specifically from the adult males. So far I have not seen this begging behaviour to another female looking birds. The behaviour involves the more speckled birds fluttering their wings and gaping their mouths open towards the males. Either way, whether females or juveniles they weren’t getting much shot, as the males refused to feed them or take much notice at all of these birds. As for the males, they also only have limited liking for each other and at regular intervals a spat would break out between one or two of them, which would see a them fly up in a flurry of feet and feathers.

Siskins – 22 May 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

A Ducklings Tale

Talking of spring over the last few posts and hoping that it will arrive here shortly, leaving those cold reminders of winter along way behind, I was recently reminded that spring was coming if only by small steps at a time, while staring out of the window at work the other day. At that moment from out of the sun’s glare there appeared, the my first sighting of a group of ducklings for this year. In fact there were nine active balls of fluff that called themselves ducklings, accompanied by an ever watchful and proud mother.

Mother and Clan – 10 May 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

At this stage the ducklings were still just small balls of fluff, less than a handful worth of duckling each, but so full of life and energy. They were still of a size that wandering too far from the bank meant that the current caught them in a second and had them off downstream before you could blink. They then had a stiff battle to swim back upstream against the current to return to the family fold, which usually involved them keeping close to the bank and out of the main current as much as possible.

Ducklings are no different to any other youngster, where the world is a wonderful place full of new sights and sounds to be explored and at such a young age they seem oblivious to the dangers of the world at large. This lack of instinct for danger was illustrated so well, while I was observing out of the window, when the ducklings soon became the focus of interest for a passing Crow. The Crow had landed close by on the bank and took a serious interest in the group of curious ducklings, watching closely their mad frantic movements with growing hungry intentions for having a duckling or two as a mid-morning snack. Mother ever alert, especially to the curiosity of the Crow and its intentions, herded her clan in tight against the bank and out of easy grab reach. Here she kept them safe for as long as the Crow was present, not letting them wander away from her protective eye. Soon the though Crow realised that an easy snack of duckling was not going to be forthcoming and went off to hunt a mid-morning snack elsewhere.

 

Always on Watch! – 10 May 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Bringer of Spring – the Lesser Celandine

I have always admired this plant – the Lesser Celandine. It’s the torch bearer of spring, lighting the way towards those supposedly bright sunny days of summer with an early splash of golden yellow across the still bare backgrounds of green, when much else is still wrapped away against the remaining cold of winter.

Lesser Celandines – 06 May 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

The Lesser Celandine is a plant of the weather, when the sun shines the flowers open to display their iridescent yellow petals that seem to fluoresce in the sunlight, but then hide them away and close the flowers tight when it becomes cold and cloudy. Maybe this is best expressed by William Wordsworth, in the first verse of his poem that is dedicated to this plant – The Lesser Celandine:-

“There is a Flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, ’tis out again!”

In a spring that has seen such a long cold extension of winter; when it has only been in recent weeks that there has even been a hint of the warmth or the sunshine of spring to grab hold of and with which to announce that winter is over. So to have the blooms of the Lesser Celandine been few and far apart. Then suddenly as the temperature has risen a degree or two and the sun has decided to shine, there they are, as if by a miracle, masses of these flowers are to be had. They have suddenly gone from single lonely blooms to sheets of bright inflorescent yellow, over the dark green heart-shaped leaves that frame the display and had sat there silently waiting the star of the show to appear.

Lesser Celandines – 06 May 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

No sooner have the flowers opened and brought their brightness to the world than the weather will begin to take its toll. Soon the brightness begins to fade, the yellows bleach to white, and the stars of the spring fall into a tattered bedraggled state as petals whither and fall. All that will soon be left of the beacon that burned so brightly, is a spiky ball of browning seeds and the background of green heart-shaped leaves, all of which will soon be lost amongst the sprouting vegetation of the summer, to await silently for the calling of another spring.

Here Today and Gone Tomorrow

This is the second blog from last weekend’s trip to the North Pennines.

Saturday had been bright and sunny and spring like but that was just to be a taster, by Sunday the clouds had thickened and sunk down towards the hills and the air held the promise of rain to come. In the course of a single night the North Pennines had gone from light and airy, with so much promise to dark and brooding, as though a storm was brewing in the distance, just waiting to burst upon the scene.

Heading towards Warcop, the moors behind were dark and menacing, highlighted only by the odd patch of snow remaining and showing no sign that spring was approaching. Now the occasional Dandelion flower along the road verge was a yellow beacon in the gloom, as the clouds swirled and moved above. The darkness of the hills behind seemed to make the green of the improved meadows close by seem bright and almost shine by comparison.

Warcop Fells – 21 April 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

The gloom of the day seemed to put a dampener on the movement of life, for even the lambs in the surrounding fields failed to cavort, preferring to remain close to the shelter of mother. Not everything was hidden though, for above there soared a Buzzard, moving as if it was as light as a feather in the chilly breeze. Round and round the bird soared, not noticing the approaching weather or that spring had taken a break, just lost in search for the next meal!

Warcop Fells – 21 April 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Signs of Spring

This and the next blog date from my trip to the North Pennines last weekend, 20 and 21 April.

Saturday was a bright spring day where the sun had enough warmth to it when out of the wind, enabling me to sit on a bench and bake in the heat that was contained in the new rays. The wind though still had a strong winter chill to it, reminding me that winter hadn’t totally fled the scene yet. This reminder of winter was further enhanced by the patches of snow that were still around on the slopes of the nearby moors.

A Snow Patch at the County Boundary (around 590m asl) – 20 April 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Riding up the South Tyne valley behind the characteristic squeaks rattles and shakes of a narrow gauge engine, is a perfect way to appreciate the beautiful views of the surrounding hills as they roll up from the river to the fells behind. The hills are sculpted by the highlights and shadows formed from the splashes of sunshine. From the train track the land dropped gently down to the river through a number of wet, rushy meadows, that are still dominated by the various browns of winter. Rising up the hills opposite, the hillside is first delineated into neatly walled fields, still green but old and tired, showing no signs yet of the new growth to come. Interrupting the neat lines of the walls, are the skeletal outlines of trees still wrapped fast in the blanket of winter, occasionally highlighted with the dark green of a lone conifer or a square of planted conifers. Very rarely there is the odd sign of spring where a Willow is found covered in pale yellow catkins. Finally rising up the hillside to the wilder heights above, various shades of brown from areas of rough grass and Heather dominate the final stretches of hillside up to the bright blue skies.

Looking Across the South Tyne up to Ayle Common – 20 April 2013 (Copyright Carol Jones)

Not all though is still wrapped tight in the blanket of winter, close to the line the odd spot of life can be seen. Poking out from amongst the tussocks of grass, still covered with the dead remains of last year’s growth there are spots of bright yellow in the form of Lesser Celandine flowers, shining like small stars in the spring sunlight. Accompanying these are the odd patches of much paler yellow Primrose flowers, raising their heads to proclaim the arrival of the warm sunshine. All of which promises the return of new life that begins to awake to the call of the warmth in the spring sunshine.

New Toys!!

Got a new toy for the camera recently – a remote switch and as tonight has been the first night in over a fortnight where the skies have been clear, it was out to try our first attempts at night sky photography, and what a beautiful night it was. – Cold, crisp and clear, so that the stars were bright and alive. It almost felt that they could be plucked out of the sky and marvelled at in your hand.

After a few abortive attempts, including problems of getting the camera and tripod pointing in the correct alignment, on what was a very dark night, with fingers that quickly became numb and clumsy with the cold, I’m quite impressed with the results – though I think that 30 seconds is a bit too long as the stars appear slightly elongated.

One of my favourite constellations is Orion, so as its soon to disappear below the horizon for another summer, it had to feature again. Tonight it was definitely a classic view of Orion, the sky was clear enough to pick up all the stars forming this constellation and the variation of the colours was just so easy to see. So I love this photo, as the colour of the stars shows up really well, especially the orange of Betelgeuse.

Orion – 30 March 2013 (Copyright Ross Lockley)

But for impressive, it has to be the capturing of Comet Panstarr before its lost to our view. In this picture the Comet Panstarr can be seen as the slight smeary star, (down and left of centre) as it sinks slowly into the fog and light pollution from Galashiels, on the horizon.

Comet Panstarr – 30 March 2013 (Copyright Ross Lockley)