Witches' broom on birch (left). Willow catkins ( right). Foulshaw Moss is a lowland raised mire, coastal, close to Morecambe Bay. Late last century, this landscape would have looked very different, a plantation including Scots Pine. Osprey nest in Scots Pine, amongst dead trees that spike the mire, telling of that time. There’s a zone of birch carr, skeletal and decaying, succumbing to fungal rot. Like trees shattered by war: a landscape in a Paul Nash painting. Then the sun gleams and glistens on the watery mire which burgeons with life.
Moss, mire, peat bog. Sphagnum mosses hold water, like sponges. Sphagnum cuspidatum, an aquatic moss, is known as ‘drowned cat’. Its vivid green spells danger, the danger of deep water from long-abandoned peat workings. These pools have hidden depths, and secrets. The nymphs of the white-faced darter live most of their lives under-water, attached to stems of vegetation, encased, until the nymphs break free of their exuviae to morph into darters, to take wing, to mate and die.
Sunlight catches bubbles on the surface of pools, bubbles and the thick jelly of frogspawn with dark flecks of tadpoles. Close-up, they look like abstract paintings.
Sunlight catches bubbles on the surface of pools, bubbles and the thick jelly of frogspawn with dark flecks of tadpoles. Close-up, they look like abstract paintings.
In spring, the trees of birch and willow carr are beautiful. Birch with the dark clots of witches’ broom, a fungal response to Taphrina betulina. Foulshaw is lowland raised mire regenerating, being brought back to moss. Dead birch, their roots in water, are stark and jagged. The blasted Moss. Hoof fungus take hold on birch as the dead trees decay. A trunk is patterned with bracket fungus. Life in death, the trees decay as the seething pools spawn.
In March, seeds of last summer’s bulrush drift on a chill wind. The sun illuminates the seed-heads of bulrush (Great Reed Mace, Typha latifolia) and reeds ( phragmites).
March is a season of catkins. The rich bronze of bog myrtle catkins, the silver buds of willow that burst into gold and shed their pollen. Birch catkins are small and slender, less spectacular.
Back at the car park, birds gather on the feeders crammed with peanuts.
In March, seeds of last summer’s bulrush drift on a chill wind. The sun illuminates the seed-heads of bulrush (Great Reed Mace, Typha latifolia) and reeds ( phragmites).
March is a season of catkins. The rich bronze of bog myrtle catkins, the silver buds of willow that burst into gold and shed their pollen. Birch catkins are small and slender, less spectacular.
Back at the car park, birds gather on the feeders crammed with peanuts.
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