A swarming of ants

A quiet moment in Emthree on this our 50^th wedding anniversary, the golden wedding. The rowan and spindle to the east are full of ripe, or ripening, berries.

It was a sultry afternoon and the ants decided to swarm. At first I caught sight of a glitter of wings on my sempervivum tufa rock that sits above the stump that collapsed under me the other day and that the wrinkled ant queens, males and workers were coming up from there.

Some 15 minutes later, when I was sitting down again I heard an almost continuous rasgueado of feathers from the side of the ancient yellow meadow ants’ nest to the east of Emthree. A non-stop flight of queens and males were heading up into the sky southwards from the hill and the bristly scraping sound was coming from a young blackbird that was enthusiastically anting by gathering the unfortunate insects in his beak and rubbing them under his feathers.

After a few photos I returned to my seat only to discover a new congregation of the same species of ant milling about on Butterfly Rock. All these flight episodes began and ended very rapidly – 15 or 20 minutes maybe – and it is one of the very few times I have seen the yellow hill makers out in the sunshine in any numbers.

So far as I could make out the males are small and black (see top right of the picture, on the leaf) and the queens much larger with black thoraxes but yellowish bodies both in contrast to the wholly yellow wingless workers.

The whitethroat isn't there

As I stood in the 9am sunshine yesterday, having just given the tortoise his lettuce, a small  bird flew into the tall Thistle Heath birch.  It was a whitethroat (Sylvia communis), of the most delicate mouse-beige with a paler puffed out throat and breast where it kept all its songs.

It had something white in its beak - a moth maybe - and was trying to dash its brains out on a slender branch while keeping a wary eye on me.  After a few seconds, satisfied with its impending breakfast, it retired to the thicks of the medlar tree.

Sylvia communis can be roughly translated as 'the common woodlander' and, though common enough, it was bird I had not seen in Emthree before.  Though not currently threatened, according to the British Trust for Ornithology "a drought in the western Sahel region of Africa in 1968 caused a 90% drop in the number of whitethroats breeding in Britain; a crash from which numbers have still not fully recovered."

This bird inspired me to take the picture below of the Thistle Heath birch (not including whitethroat), a plant that appeared in the Square Metre in the summer of 2003 

The first Pontania

Heavy rain today and cold for late July. It cleared up in the evening and I was able to do a little further tidying following the great purge of the last two days.

 

Despite my activities there is a good showing of flower: some red (as well as the usual white) herb-robert, self-heal, white clover, square-stalked and perforate St. Johnswort, cat’s-ear, smooth hawksbeard, marsh thistle, mouse-ear chickweed, wood dock and other species. The fleabane is having its best year, but is not in flower yet.

The ferns in Medlar Wood are magnificent, perhaps because they are well-fertilised from above by birds.

On one of the cut sallow branches I found a pale green, hairy, subglobular gall the size of a small pea. Pontania pedunculi I think, but it is difficult to be sure of the identity of the Salix-leaf sawflies without rearing them.

Re-invigoration & biodiversity value

28 July 2009  I have been giving the project a rest for several weeks. During this time many plants particularly the brambles have grown at a considerable rate. In the case of brambles snaking-long primocanes have arched over Troy Track almost preventing access from east to west. Behind the tall birch a marsh thistle has grown to over 3 metres and there are grasses and etiolated phorbs flopping about everywhere.

So I took shears to it all. Shaped up the bramble hedge, cleared the route through to the west and generally made things look tidier. I enjoyed working in the sunshine to re-invigorate the project and even managed to fall over backwards when a stump holding up the seat on the eastern side of Emthree collapsed in a heap of powdered dry wood.

I found a new plant too, a seedling field rose (Rosa arvensis) in The Waste close to Butterfly Rock. A bird sowing no doubt, but a plant listed in our area as an ancient woodland indicator.

29 July 2009  After yesterday’s exertions I concluded that the whole project was overdue for a makeover. Accordingly I ‘shredded’ the birches and the sallow as high as I could reach – about three metres.  (Shredding a tree means cutting the lower branches back to the trunk).

I removed all the brambles along North Wall as they have become very untidy and out of hand, casting Mice & Red into almost total shade. I have concluded that it is best to keep Emthree bramble-free in the future: there are plenty of plants in the hedge to the south of Troy Track.

After this bramble purge I cut the box bush on the northern side of the project using the vertical fall from the old washing line as the limit to which it can grow as this is virtually congruent with the Square Metre’s northern boundary.

I also hay-cut a section of The Waste on the south west side to allow more light and air onto the yellow meadow ant’s nest, which is still going strong.

My exertions certainly made the project look lean, spare and spacious and, to the tidier parts of my mind, under control with much better insolation of the original Square Metre. I feel a bit uneasy about this need to, as it were, control the wilderness, but perhaps it is deep in our human nature and I am sure it will enhance the area’s biodiversity.

I think the expression ‘biodiversity value’ when applied to an area might be better than ‘biodiversity’ as this seems to be just a count of species number. An island, for example, with a few species but mostly endemics would have a higher biodiversity value than an arable field with probably rather more species.

Gladdon (Iris foetidissima)

The stinking iris, or gladdon, has started flowering for the first time in Medlar Wood.

Although quite large the flowers are easily overlooked and are sometimes blue rather that yellow.

These plants are bird sown from the medlar tree above and the flowers will, in winter, be followed by fat pods of red berries.

I have never heard what I would regard as a satisfactory explanation of its name 'stinking iris' as no p[art of it seems to smell of anything much.

The attractive plant bug Grypocoris stysi crept out on to one the standards as I stood admiring this plant.

Budding hawthorn

A couple of days ago when I was looking for rabbit damage I noticed that the hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) seedling in Medlar Wood was already showing green and ready to burst.

This is several weeks ahead of normal bud break time despite the fact that it has been a fairly cold winter.

However, I am sure this is not global warming.  Maybe young plants for some reason come into leaf earlier, though I cannot see how this could be an advantage.  It would seem to make them more vulnerable to hungry browsers and late frosts.

A cold winter

Yesterday there was some of the heaviest snow for several years and it persisted today, though with intermittent thaws. It did not seem to have covered Emthree to a remarkable depth and was melting quite quickly when I visited.

However, this is said to be the coldest winter for many years and it will be interesting to see if there are any manifestations later in the year that might be attributable to this.

Dung cannons (Pilobolus crystallinus)

I put some of the rabbit pellets in a damp box and they have developed a fine vestiture of the dung cannon fungus (Pilobolus crystallinus).

There is a much better picture here.

This humble microfungus must be one of the world's most remarkable plants.  The little black spore capsules on the top of each thread-like, crystalline stalk can be fired for up to 2 metres and can accelerate from 0 to 45 mph in the first millimetre of flight - apparently the second fastest accelerator in nature.  The pressure in the stalk below the capsule can build up to an astonishing 7 kilograms per square centimetre (100 pounds per square inch) to enable this.

Pilobolus is also the name of a celebrated American dance company (one of the founding members studied the fungus with his father when he was young). They are an amazing group as their web site www.pilobolus.com shows and somewhat more elegant than my crop of fungi on rabbit dung.

I feel quite pleased, however, that close scrutiny of a rabbit dung pellet has opened such interesting doors.

Some winter finds

Now the weather is milder it is easier to do some work in Emthree and yesterday I started to clear back some of the long and untidy grass that has been blanketing the ground since last autumn.  Underneath it is thick with moss and I discovered some tubers on the base of one of the stems of common figwort (Scrophularia nodosa).

The ones lower down the stalk had been attacked by a white mould or mildew and looked dead, but the smaller upper pair were still in good shape.

These tubers (which are perfectly normal structures rather than galls caused by an external agent) were much used in the past against conditions like scrofula (hence the scientific name Scrophularia) and hydrophobia.  In the latter case it was recommended that the dried tubers were powdered and sprinkled on bread and butter after which one was supposed to take a long and energetic walk wearing far to many clothes for comfort.

Another discovery was a scatter of rabbit droppings along the mossy top of the yew log on the edge of Medlar Wood.  Positive evidence that they are still active in Emthree.

Varied seed heads

Now the coldest winter here for several years and today with hard frost.

Everything in Emthree is brown and silent, clamped in winter's icy vice.  I expect the consequences next spring and summer will be better than if we had had a mild winter though.

Dead stems and seed heads provide some interest and it is useful, say, to learn what perforate St. John's wort (top above) or common figwort (lower above) look like in fruit.

Christmas surprise

On a quick visit on a sunny Christmas Day I was pleased and surprised to find several groups of the shining ink cap (Coprinus micaceus).

Although it often comes up in grassy places it is a species that grows on decaying, often buried, wood.

The species is sometimes said to be edible and is not poisonous as such.  Like other members of the genus it does, however, have an adverse effect if eaten in combination with alcohol and is therefore best avoided.  It is small and hardly worth it anyway.

Midwinter's Day

The shortest day brought a fine, sunny afternoon, but the Square Metre looked drab and tangled after a quite long period of frost and wet.

One of the most striking objects was a fan of leaves made by a plant of stinking iris (Iris foetidissima) growing under the medlar tree.  After flowering they produce red berries which, clearly, are eaten by birds who later void the seeds.  We have three plants in the study area that have originated in this way, but you have to be able to see a youngish plant flat on to get this pandanus-like effect.

Stinging nettle midges

Better weather but rather cold and soggy underfoot. There is an animal track of pressed grass across Emthree from the south east corner to Midsummer Pond, quite clear now I have let the grass grow longer.

Today I took some of the bamboo canes from higher up the garden that have died after flowering and used them to make short palisades round the heathers and various young trees and shrubs that may be vulnerable to rabbits and even deer.

The upper part of each cane has twiggy outgrowths and these provide additional protection. Anyway, we’ll see how it works. I also put a single cane up against the young ash tree by Ash Edge as this might deter rabbit attack too.

While ferreting about in Medlar Wood, I found one of the retained nettle plants heavily infested with galls caused by the midge Dasineura urticae – a new record for the project.

The Square Metre's fifth birthday

15 September 2008.  The project is five years old today.  It is a warm September morning.  There are purple knapweeds, yellow hawksbeards and St John's-worts, also yellow, in flower.  There is a late greater bird's-foot trefoil, a few purple self-heal and the cerise cockade of Cornish heath.

Various flies visit the flowers, bending and shaking the stalks. A cranefly (Tipula paludosa) bumbles about in my mini-Malaise trap.

The project area seems crowded now because of all the things I want to keep and so different from the first photo I took (below) just after initial clearance.

In the other world 15 September 2008 was a dark day on the global finance front.  The major American investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and there were many other manifestations of what the media frequently call 'global financial meltdown'.   I am sure we will be affected in one way or another but, hopefully, I will have another five years watching my square metre.

16 September 2008.  A cool, evenly grey day withy the temperature hovering continuously at around 60 degrees F.  There is a cluster of common bonnet toadstools(Mycena galericulata) with caps the colour of the clouds on the old log by Troy Track where the lizard used to sit.

On the last of the bramble flowers there were sleepy wrinkled ants (Myrmica ruginodis) searching for nectar and pollen and transmitting messages with much waving and mutual stroking of their antennae.

Planet Terracotta is dry again and there are now several moss species among the bittercress and grass seedlings - something for me to identify in winter.

My mini-Malaise trap is still not being very successful and today caught nothing.  There are very few insects about, but I was pleased to a see a fine hoverfly, Rhingia rostrata, on my late-flowering knapweeds.

A birch bolete (Leccinum scabrum)

The appearance of a birch bolete by the western edge of the square metre was quite a surprise.  It was the largest of the fungi so far recorded and, as it is quite close to the birch tree on Thistle Moor, it would seem that it has had time to form a mycorrhizal association with the tree roots and produce a fruiting body.

The birch tree only appeared as a seedling in 2004 and is  now maybe four metres tall.  It has already been host to several microfungi, leafminers, sawfly larvae and other flora and fauna and is a good illustration of how one plant can support a whole community of biodiversity.

This in turn should boost the invertebrate count with beetles and flies associated with larger fungi of this kind.

Hoary willowherb flowers

Today the first flowers appeared on the hoary willowherb (Epilobium parviflorum) that arrived this spring.

One of my books says this is a plant "preferring damp places on limy soils" however, it is growing in a dry place on acid soil in the Metre.  It looks quite healthy, but is small for its species.

With broad-leaved, square-stemmed, American and rosebay, we now have four willowherbs in the project area and all are in flower.  I will have to look for hybrids as this is a very promiscuous genus.

White admiral butterfly, Limenitis camilla

The highlight of today was the appearance of a white admiral butterfly in Emthree.

I think there is one butterfly in the garden and I saw it first yesterday from the windows of our house as it flew round the back door.  Today I saw it again several times, mostly at bramble flowers.  Then, as I was heading to feed the tortoise, it rose up from Emthree and circled round briefly before soaring majestically over the hedge.

I was not able to get a photo, but the one above shows a rather worn example in a local wood nectaring on hemp agrimony.

Early June update

 

18 May 2008  7.30pm and the sunlight filters through from the north west. It is quite cold.

I have weeded the heather area.

A flower is about to open on one of the three plants of cut-leaved cranesbill (Geranium dissectum) in Submespilus Assart.

Tops have been nipped from one of the rosebays and the perforate St Johnswort. This can only have been done by deer, though I could not find any footprints.

19 May 2008  The figwort has started flowering now. The one behind Bittercress Moor is almost as tall as I am.

A centaury plant seems to be making it to the north west of Midsummer Pond. Not the sunniest place in the project, but bare ground which this plant likes. This is the first I have seen in Emthree since October 2006.

The smooth-rush wands have been rather pushed over towards the pond, maybe just an effect of wind.

It is clear and cold.

20 May 2008 Everything is growing with great speed and vigour – I need to spend time, lots of time at Emthree but I think it will be okay for a while during my busy period.

Petals are falling from the medlar on to Mespilus Assart and Planet Terracotta – small white hearts.

21 May 2008  I have at last done some serious labouring. I tied back the brambles and physically pushed them into North Wall and the box bush where the thorns have, for the moment, held them fast.

I have also lightened up the heather and hornbeam in The Waste and on Bittercress Heath. Despite the volume of arisings I have removed in the last four and a half years, I am sure the land is more fertile that when I began the project and things can be smothered rapidly at this fast-growth time of year.

Heath speedwell (Veronica officinalis) is in flower now and pink is showing on the bud on the campion in The Waste. I have found new shoots on the gipsywort, now in its third season and seemingly not minding in the least that it is not growing in a wetland. The only plants struggling a bit are the square-stalked St Johnsworts (which appear, once again to be suffering some sort of fungal attack on the leaves, distorting them and somewhat stunting the growth) and a ragwort that has keeled over.

Mosquitoes, Anopheles plumbeus, are everywhere and biting well if they get the chance.

22 May 2008 I bought some new shears and have been keeping Bramble Hedge and other unruly spots in order.

The red campion is now fully out: later than larger plants but determined to make it.

The soft-rush (Juncus effusus) has produced many of its brown flower burrs three quarters of the way up its stems and I wonder if any of the little Coleophora moth caterpillars will make their cases among them.

Creeping buttercups are putting up a respectable show of flower for the first time since this project began. In the past they have been rather shy flowering.

23 May 2008 The central leaves in the cat’s ear rosettes look as though they have been frosted because of the dense white hairs and I am not sure they are entirely healthy. The flower buds on their long green stalks seem fine though.

24 May 2008 Search as I might I cannot find any smooth tare plants in Emthree whereas in previous years they have been quite a feature in their modest way.

During the night there was heavy, pond-filling rain and Planet Terracotta has its lake again. I wish it was a turlough: such a nice word.

27 May 2008 More rain: some places have had one and a half times more than the average for the whole month of May.

Planet Terracotta is full of water to the brim and it is too wet and cool to feel enthusiastic about doing anything.

One of the cat’s ear buds is showing yellow, so it really is quite an early plant to flower.

28 May 2008 Still trapped by work. I wandered down the jungle-wet garden to feed the tortoise and have a quick look at Emthree.

The rain had borne the sorrel stalks over in great green and pink loops so that their heads touched the ground. All lay in the same direction like worshippers of the rain gods. I was reminded of the piece of music ‘Shaker Loops’.

31 May 2008 Still warm, wet and growing. Two wonderful cat’s-ear flowers out today and more flowers on the campion in The Waste.

Rough meadow grass (Poa trivialis) is coming into its own now.

A queen carder bee likes the common figwort flowers and a queen hornet zooms across from time to time.

1 June 2008 Today I gave Submespilus Assart South its monthly cut with scissors. It had grown a lot since the beginning of May and a surprising number of plants bore flowers: creeping buttercup, wavy bittercress, herb-robert, annual meadow grass.

2 June 2008 A visit to take the first day of the month photos I forgot yesterday.

The wildness and wet continues and Emthree is a jungle.  11^th June (haymaking) will be, I keep telling myself, the day of reckoning.

4 June 2008 At last I have a little time. Emthree is having a big summer and I have had to make some serious inroads into the burgeon.

I hand grazed the western arm of Troy Track from Midsummer Pond to my seat. I tied up the knapweed on the north west corner of the Metre and the wild rose with it with it as disentanglement seemed likely to be difficult.

The large black bryony is not doing well this year. There are only two or three climbing shoots and the leaves are sparse with an unhealthy yellowish tinge.

The first bramble flowers are out and I found a white-lipped snail nearly 2 metres up the Thistle Moor birch. The hoverfly Meliscaeva auricollis was seeking nectar and pollen on the cat’s-ear flowers.

6 June 2008 A second cat’s ear is flowering. As tall-stalked dandelions they are very beautiful flowers.

The first ever creeping cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans) flowers have appeared in The Waste. The plant was first seen in Bittercress Heath in October 2006. It then sent one or more runners along Hazel Edge and the these first flowers have opened in Great Plantain Desert, over one metre from its original site.

7 June 2008 I trimmed the bramble hedge dividing Emthree from The Meadow this evening. It is developing very well and is almost as good as any hedge now. The brambles are flowering and rushes are poking through at the western end. There is male fern too in several places giving a variety to the texture and there are also knapweed, hogweed, cock’s-foot and nettles growing up through.

I wonder how it will develop and suspect that woody plants will eventually take over.

Mid-May update

 

16 May 2008 The smaller birch has many wiggly leaf mines but the larger tree does not seem to be similarly affected.

The black bryony is now about one metre up its pole.

18 May 2008 7.30pm and the sunlight filters through from the north west. It is quite cold.

I have weeded the heather area.

A flower is about to open on one of the three plants of cut-leaved cranesbill (Geranium dissectum) in Submespilus Assart.

Tops have been nipped from one of the rosebays and the perforate St Johnswort. This can only have been done by deer, though I could not find any footprints.

21 May 2008 I have at last done some serious labouring. I tied back the brambles and physically pushed them into North Wall and the box bush where the thorns have, for the moment, held them fast.

I have also lightened up the heather and hornbeam in The Waste and on Bittercress Heath. Despite the volume of arisings I have removed in the last four and a half years, I am sure the land is more fertile that when I began the project and things can be smothered rapidly at this fast-growth time of year.

Heath speedwell (Veronica officinalis) is in flower now and pink is showing on the bud on the campion flower in The Waste. I have found new shoots on the gipsywort, now in its third season and seemingly not minding in the least that it is not growing in a wetland. The only plants struggling a bit are the square-stalked St Johnsworts which appear, once again to be suffering some sort of fungal attack on the leaves, distorting them and somewhat stunting the growth, and a ragwort that has keeled over.

Mosquitoes, Anopheles plumbeus, are everywhere and biting well if they get the chance.

22 May 2008 I bought some new shears and have been keeping Bramble Hedge and other unruly spots in order.

The red campion is now fully out: later than larger plants but determined to make it.

The soft-rush (Juncus effusus) has produced many of its brown flower burrs three quarters of the way up its stems and I wonder if any of the little Coleophora moth caterpillars will make their cases among them.

Creeping buttercups (see picture above) are putting up a respectable show of flower for the first time since this project began. In the past they have been rather shy flowering.

Darkness all day

 

The first herb-robert flower is out – a white one as they all are in the garden. The medlar is flowering too, though there are still many unopened buds.

The Waste, Mice & Red and Volepasture are all grass stalk verticals like torrential green rain.

A queen hornet plunged into the grass behind Bramble Hedge.

In the hottest part of the day a moth flew round the Waste and the Square Metre.  I am pretty certain it was a small yellow underwing (Panemeria tenebrata) and, as the larvae feed on mouse-ear chickweed, there is plenty to attract it to Emthree.

This small yellow underwing has a wonderful scientific name, especially the 'tenebrata' part.  This is a word that reverberates like rasgueado played on a theorbo.  Our English equivalents like 'dark' and 'shadowy' have a soft sound recalling the oblivion of night, sleep or death, but 'tenebrata' gives simple blackness a complex, vibrant energy like that of the dark matter that pervades the universe (so they say). Use of this word makes darkness seem far from deadness; it denotes a living darkness full of mysterious sound and movement.

The generic name, Panemeria, means 'all day long' so Panemeria tenebrata can signify darkness all day, an apocalyptic vision encrypted in this small moth whose future, like that of so many invertebrates, is far from secure.

As St Augustine said quae peccato tenebrata non est (which sin is not dark) and I am sure he would have called trashing the planet a sin.

I know the real reason for the generic name is that the moth is day-flying and that  'tenebrata' refers to the dark shading of the forewings.  Nevertheless ....