Gladdon

A break from rants for a picture of one of my favourite British wildflowers, Gladdon (Iris foetidissima, also known as Wild Iris or Stinking Iris).   Unlike may of its garden cousins the flowers have such subtle colours, a real beauty.

The plant itself is common and easily found along the North Downs but seeing it in flower is more difficult.  It usually has three or four flowers on a stem but usually each only opens for a day especially in hot weather.  I noticed this particular plant growing in dense scrub on Park Downs on Monday with the first bud just opening, by today all but one flower was going over. 

What makes me angry, I - Beans!

Not beans as in food but their cultivation, at least in the Banstead area which I suspect is pretty representative of most farms elsewhere.

The picture above shows a growing crop of Broad Beans.  The average gardener would be doing well to have such weed- (and insect-) free rows of plants.  These are however not in a garden or allotment but are part of a large field of the crop in Banstead.  I have been walking the edge of this field for years and this is the culmination of many years application of herbicides to the field until they have successfully eliminated the vast majority of weeds,  the second picture show what is probably the weediest area with just a few plants of a Fumaria sp.

I have addressed this subject before in this blog and expressed my sadness that agricultural success is associated with the loss of all ground cover and my anger that the associated pollution is largely uncontrolled. Such conditions obviously has an impact on the insect population and for those that survive, the recent insecticide application has probably done for them.  It is noticeable that there are few bees pollinating the flowers in this field today.

Of course the response is that we need our farmers to be as efficient as possible in order to produce cheap food for the supermarket or for cattle feed.  I suspect that the majority of the population would agree, again something that saddens me but then I am biased.

BUT this is not enough for farmers and politicians.

A couple of weeks ago the BBC ran this story, it beggars belief!!!  Giving them wildlife conservation grants to allow them to kill plant and insect life destabilize the soil all because the unwitting plants provide a bit of nitrogen into the ground that will save the farmers money on fertilizer.
To requote from the BBC:  "We think including this measure is very positive for the environment" Andrew Clark, NFU.  Well they would wouldn't they?

The whole thing is made worse when you read this sort of report.  Angry, moi?

What we have lost, I - House Martins

I live in a bog-standard semi-detached house in the middle of a long row of similar houses in the centre of Banstead, when we moved in thirty years ago I was chuffed to find that our house was blessed with several House Martin nests.  Not only that but most houses in the street had nests and although a few misguided homeowners seemed to enjoy knocking down the nests as the birds were building (they make such a mess you know) most appreciated their presence.   One of the highlights of the year was the anticipation of their reappearance in the spring and summer evenings sitting in the garden were enhanced by watching these birds together with Swifts hawking insects overhead.

Alas no more, the number of nests dwindled over our first ten years here until one spring none appeared, a sad year (around 1992).  I also witnessed a similar pattern around my parents home in south London. Apparently this was a reflection of a much wider decline across much of northern and central Europe since the 70s.

Obviously one wondered why!  To quote from the RSPB page devoted to the species and addressing the decline: "They require rain to produce wet mud for nest building and for encouraging the abundance of insect prey, but cold weather prevents them feeding  Large-scale mortality is regularly recorded during and after periods of bad weather, during both breeding and migration.  On the other hand, hot and dry weather can result in mortality though dehydration and heat stress."  This seems to suggest that climate change may be the important factor.

I had always wondered where they found mud for their nests locally because there was/is precious little surface water or muddy ponds locally but I am not aware that anything has changed there.  In addition, at spring and autumn migration there are still plenty of birds passing through, just not stopping!

My opinion (of course I have to have one) is that their food source (flying insects) has dried up.  Bats, Swifts and Spotted Flycatchers have all shown a similar decline in this area, is it just coincidence that they all have the same diet?

Of course you have to then address the disappearance of insects:  climate change or farming practice? Watch this space!

Can we come out yet?

I had to include a picture of a nest, unfortunately not taken locally but in the Mediterranean where thankfully, there are still large numbers of House Martin and their presence on buildings are more than tolerated and there are still a lot of insects (although that is changing year by year in many places). 

A long time in anger

It is two and a half years since I posted anything here (should remove blog from title).  This is not because I have not been out and about, not because I have had nothing to say but because each time I sat down to write a new entry I became angry!   

I know I have I have reached the age where grumpy is an apt if inadequate description of my state of mind (I find that I can hardly pick up a newspaper without wanting to scream) and so I felt my anger was perhaps a little unjustified and my entries did little to help my condition or anyone who read them and I therefore stopped.

In the intervening period my condition has not changed and my "therapist" tells me that the best way to treat my condition is by expressing the anger and its cause. I have lived in Banstead for over thirty years and in that time much has changed regarding the local wildlife, some things for the better but mostly for the worst.  In addition certain news items recently have really made my blood boil and are so relevant to the title of my blog. Therefore I have decided to use the blog to try and explain my anger and highlight what I think is wrong with the world (especially around Banstead) in the context of natural history!!!  I know there are people out there much more capable than me to do this but who cares.  

I apologise in advance to anyone fed up with rants especially since what follows is likely to be full of ill-informed, poorly-researched personal opinion and hypocrisy.  However it may help my anger and enable me to die a happy man!!  

Farmland birds in decline!

Shock, horror, can't think why!

Clathrus ruber - science fiction?

Sometimes the natural world throws up sometime totally off the wall and I think that this is the case with Clathrus ruber, a fungus related to the more "normal" Stinkhorns although it bears no similarity in appearance to them.

More like a mockup of a brightly-coloured geodesic dome for use in Dr Who!

My photos were taken this week, in of all places Banstead High Street where it has been appearing roughly at this time each year for at least the past three years on what was originally a pile of wood chippings. I never seem able to capture a perfect mature specimen, the one in the upper picture is starting to autodigest and the other has only just burst out of its"eggskin".

Like Stinkhorns it has a fetid smell and attracts flies as confirmed by the second picture.

Looking it up I find it is a native of the Meditteranean but has been spreading northwards in Europe!Definitely an oddball!

Harvest time in Banstead

Tis the "season of mellow fruitfulness" * in north Surrey (and time for my irregular farming rant!) a season we associate with the golden browns of sun-ripened crops!

On Canon’s Farm, to the south of Banstead, the cereal crop was harvested quite a while ago but now it is the turn of the largest crop this year, Flax.

Back in April the fields were prepared for sowing in the traditional way (!), wipe out by spraying with systemic weed killer followed by light cultivation rather than ploughing and then seed drilling. Sadly this included the fields that had been under set aside for many years, these were not even cultivated but the seed drilled directly into the blasted soil.

With our unusually dry early summer, there was considerable variation in germination across the fields and in places the crop is rather sparse compared to some years.

A stroll over the fields two weeks ago showed the tell-tale tractor tracks that indicated that soon it would be harvest time. The fields had again been sprayed with total weed killer, presumably to enable uniform ripening of the seed by ensuring all plants were dead! Within 48h green had disappeared now all is a uniform brown no doubt the crop will be cut in the next few days.

As a townie I know little of good agricultural practice and no doubt those readers with a more rural bent and knowledge will tell me this is the way it is always done. Furthermore that agriculture is a business and this makes it most profitable. However that does not stop my blood from boiling when I see this going on.

Canon’s Farm has been put on the blogging map by Steve Gale and David Campbell as an area that provides excellent birding. However over the past twenty years I have walked the area and seen the demise of most common farmland birds as breeding species in the area, surely at least in part the result of intensive farming causing a lack of a consistent supply of food, seed and insect.

Even without the usual applications of insecticide, fungicide, fertilizer and selective weed killer that cereals get, the use of two applications of total weed killer just five months apart virtually guarantees a reduction in floral diversity that is frightening. Of course this is inevitably followed by a collateral reduction in invertebrates, birds, etc., etc.

I would be less disturbed if the use of chemicals was carried out in a careful manner calculated to minimize the impact, e.g. by the use of buffer zones around the edges of fields etc. Certainly in Banstead this doesn’t happen. The picture on the right shows how much care was taken during the recent attack to ensure spray does not reach the adjacent hedgerow!

I accept that farmers must use the most efficient means possible because they are in business but agriculture as an industry is the only one for which there is little or no policing of pollution from the processes used. A massive amount of chemicals ranging from fertilizers to insecticides are applied to our countryside, the only control being financial. Not only do they casue damage at the point of application but many if not most drain into water courses etc. This is should surely be unacceptable!

Just to add insult to injury and show how much they care, what do they do with the empty containers? Throw them into Banstead woods of course (a SSSI)! The picture on the left shows one they did last year!

* Apologies to Keats

Banstead Countryside Day 2011!!!

This year has passed me by! Few posts on the blog, few trips out and not even the chance to follow many blogs or forums! Hopefully however that is about to change and I shall have more time to catch up and indulge.

First job however is to prepare our (BCC) presentation for the Banstead Countryside Day to be held this coming Sunday 11th September and starting at 11.00. This event is organised by the inexhaustible staff and volunteers of the DCMP (Downland and Countryside Management Project) and it truly celebrates the countryside with special focus on the local area.

The Conservators have had a stall since it started, it has got better and better each year and I can guarantee a great day out for everyone. Over the years it has grown but not been commercialised and it remains a local event. It truly celebrates Banstead Countryside.

It costs nothing for entry although I think programmes are for sale (which of course you should buy), for a whole days entertainment that has to be great value.

See you there. Even better come up and have a chat at the Conservators stall!

Butterfly (Lesser) bonanza

A day out with friends in the New Forest yesterday turned into an unexpected orchidfest. The supposed reason for the visit was to see if, in this early season Wild Gladiolus was out, it wasn't! However at the same time we managed to get some pictures of the white variant of the purple form of Early Marsh Orchid, Dactylorhiza pulchella, although I must admit because of the the problem of photographing white flowers in bright sunshine they were not exactly brilliant. It seemed then that the job was done and socialising was called for!

However on the way to the pub we decided to drop in at a site for Lesser Butterfly Orchid, Platanthera bifolia, just in case there were a few in flower.

There weren't, there were thousands! Scattered over a large area heath growing amongst Ling and Bracken, they were a spectacular sight especially where in places they were also with Heath Spotted Orchid, Dactylorhiza maculata. Lesser Butterfly is not a species I see very often and so for this year when our local orchids have taken such a hammering it was especially satisfying to see.

Powder-blue alien!

Work and holidays means I have not had much time to get out and about locally recently and so not had anything to write about.

However that changed yesterday whilst gardening when I happened to spot this little aphid on a leaf! I think it is the craziest thing I have seen in years.

At first I thought it was dead and had been infected with a fungal parasite but once I had got the camera, it naturally started walking away and it took me a while to get a picture. Apparently one of the wings is damaged and I still suspect it has some disease. A quick Google for woolly aphids did not come up with any of this colour and believe me the colour is right.

So: is there anyone out there who knows what it is? If not I will have to post it on the Natural History site, perhaps I'll do that anyway.

I did and it is Phyllaphis fagii (Beech Aphid). Apparently quite common, I shall have to look more closely at the aphids!