Bullocks crowd about the cattle grid by Kendal Race Course, they'd decided it was a drinking trough. Lambs are always irresistible and here are particularly striking creatures. Black ears, black knees as if they've knelt in the muck, and startling eyes with Goth make-up.
We're bound for Warriner's Wood on an annual quest to find toothwort. But there are distractions along the way. I hear tell of toothwort by Romney Bridge, below alder trees, toothwort of a purplish hue.
Must go and investigate.
We're bound for Warriner's Wood on an annual quest to find toothwort. But there are distractions along the way. I hear tell of toothwort by Romney Bridge, below alder trees, toothwort of a purplish hue.
Must go and investigate.
Many of us will be watching Wild Isles with wonder. And BBC offers a range of complementary programmes, including Radio 3, The Listening Service: Wild Isles Wild Music. Tom Service is joined by naturalist Mark Cocker who gives a wake-up call to all of us.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k
To heed the message, to act upon it, you have to feel it deep in the heart and coursing through the blood. If anything can do that perhaps it's WIld Isles which is superb in so many ways.
I was listening to skylark, now in full song. And that lovely bubbling call of curlew. A stonechat called and another perched on the same tree it chose for a display post last year. Tom Service's half-hour programme is one of his most thought-provoking. His exposition of George Fenton's theme music for Wild Isles is insightful and he considers how we hear the music of the wild, if we hear it, if there is wild in 2023.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k
To heed the message, to act upon it, you have to feel it deep in the heart and coursing through the blood. If anything can do that perhaps it's WIld Isles which is superb in so many ways.
I was listening to skylark, now in full song. And that lovely bubbling call of curlew. A stonechat called and another perched on the same tree it chose for a display post last year. Tom Service's half-hour programme is one of his most thought-provoking. His exposition of George Fenton's theme music for Wild Isles is insightful and he considers how we hear the music of the wild, if we hear it, if there is wild in 2023.
There's the mewing call of a buzzard over Warriner’s Wood and the yaffle of a green woodpecker. The trill of a nuthatch sounds and chiff-chaff call. Bluebell leaves are abundant and several flower-buds will soon open. Dog’s mercury is in flower and mosses are verdant. Last April we had watched brimstone butterflies in the wood, today they zip by as we cross the Scout Scar scrub. Warriner's Wood is peaceful, only the two of us listening to birdsong in this coppiced wood full of hazel and fallen cherry brought down by past storms and in slow decay, the dead-wood habitat important for invertebrates.
Finding toothwort in April is becoming an annual quest. It appears where mosses are thick and lush, often at the foot of hazel. Toothwort does not make chlorophyll but takes its sustenance from a host tree like hazel or elm. It’s a pale pink, so pale it lurks amongst dead oak leaves and sometimes only the tip of it shows as it pushes up from deep amidst mossy branches. If we could see beneath the herb layer, down into the leaf mould and into the earth we might see more of its subterranean beginnings. A tiny spider runs across my hand, no it’s a tick- or it was. I squash it quickly. That’s what comes of a close-encounter with toothwort down amongst the mosses. My favourite image shows the weirdness of toothwort, a fallen hazel catkin and a serpent-like branch with raised black blotches. Some species of fungus, I'll investigate. Cuckoo pint appears but no spadix show, the leaves are blotched with dark markings Arum Maculatum is its Latin name.
Blue tits are startled to see us approach the tree thick with ivy where they're nesting in its shelter. The verdancy of the herb layer is beautiful, as sunlight pours down through slender trees still in bud.
For a writer, there are always other influences at play and this spring it's WIld Isles and, most recently, Wild Isles WIld Music. That wistful theme music by George Fenton has echoes of all that is being lost to us in the Natural World. I sensed that in hearing the bubbling call of a curlew flying over what is now a building site at Brigtsteer RIse and used to be pasture where barn owl and kestrel hunted, where meadow saxifrage flowered.
On Bank Holiday Monday I went to Romney Bridge in search of toothwort and found it across the RIver Kent from the Shell Garage, not the ancient woodland habitat I associate with this saprophyte. It grew beneath a mature hornbeam which had shed its catkins all about the toothwort. 'Caterpillars' a little boy at SIzergh called them, and why not. Hornbeam grow along the river bank, one with last summer's feathery seed-heads intact, most coming into catkin and the first few leaf buds opening. So, if you don't know toothwort look for it beneath a hornbeam approaching Romney Bridge, it appears each spring. It's rare or scarce in the UK, drawing nutrients from a host tree often in deciduous woodland. Apparently a river bank is not an unusual habitat. I wonder why toothwort surrounds this sole hornbeam, other trees had none.
For a writer, there are always other influences at play and this spring it's WIld Isles and, most recently, Wild Isles WIld Music. That wistful theme music by George Fenton has echoes of all that is being lost to us in the Natural World. I sensed that in hearing the bubbling call of a curlew flying over what is now a building site at Brigtsteer RIse and used to be pasture where barn owl and kestrel hunted, where meadow saxifrage flowered.
On Bank Holiday Monday I went to Romney Bridge in search of toothwort and found it across the RIver Kent from the Shell Garage, not the ancient woodland habitat I associate with this saprophyte. It grew beneath a mature hornbeam which had shed its catkins all about the toothwort. 'Caterpillars' a little boy at SIzergh called them, and why not. Hornbeam grow along the river bank, one with last summer's feathery seed-heads intact, most coming into catkin and the first few leaf buds opening. So, if you don't know toothwort look for it beneath a hornbeam approaching Romney Bridge, it appears each spring. It's rare or scarce in the UK, drawing nutrients from a host tree often in deciduous woodland. Apparently a river bank is not an unusual habitat. I wonder why toothwort surrounds this sole hornbeam, other trees had none.
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