River Water Crowfoot (Ranunculus fluitans)

Dear Readers, most of the ‘weeds’ that I’ve been writing about during this past year have either been common, widespread ‘weeds’ or garden plants, but this week I want to tell you about a plant that is both unusual and very local. River water crowfoot (Ranunculus fluitans) is a member of the buttercup family that needs a clean, fast-flowing stream with a stony bed, where the water is both alkaline and relatively nutrient-rich, without being polluted by nitrates from run-off. I was delighted to find a fine crop of the plant in the tiny river that flows through Milborne St Andrew in Dorset. I wrote a bit about it in Saturday’s post, but thought that it needed a bit more attention. After all, it’s not every day that you encounter a relative rarity.

River water crowfoot can have stems that are up to 20 feet long, with each stem bearing several of the pure white flowers. The leaves are all thread-like and submerged, and undulate in the water in a very pleasing way. In the film below, I am holding the camera still and the water is moving. It’s maybe best avoided if you have a tendency to motion sickness.

MIlborne St Andrew has long been a ‘watery’ kind of place – a few years ago the village was cut off by flooding from this very same stream (which is a tributory of the delightfully named River Piddle). The area outside the shop was under about a metre of water, and this required a thirty-mile detour for anyone eager to get to or from the nearest railway station at Moreton. Some folk would disregard the warning that the area was too deep to ford, even in a Land Rover, and much entertainment was to be had by watching as the inevitable happened, and local tractors had to be summoned to get the culprits out of their self-inflicted immersion. Fortunately, a lot of work has been done and, fingers crossed, the stream is now relatively well-behaved, and whatever changes have been made seem to not to have affected the water crowfoot.

Incidentally, the name ‘Milborne’ gives you a clue – any place name with ‘borne’ in the name refers to a small river in Anglo Saxon. ‘Winterbourne/borne’, as in ‘Winterbourne Whitechurch’, means a stream that only runs in winter. In these days of flooding, it would be well to do a spot of research before moving to one of these delightful Dorset villages – those Anglo Saxons knew a lot about geography.

The presence of water crowfoot is thought by some ecologists to indicate the site of a collapsed bridge or old ford, though why I have not yet worked out.

Why ‘crowfoot’ though? The leaves of other species of crowfoot do have something of a bird’s foot look about them, but not here. Is it because it was thought that the seeds were spread by crows (not that unlikely, as many other plants arrive in ponds and rivers when birds stop to drink)? Or is it because crows were seen feeding in meadows (they love the insects that used to inhabit cow pats before the animals were regularly dosed with antibiotics)? The name goes back to the Middle English ‘crou-fot’, so it has been around as long as those Anglo-Saxon place names.

River water crowfoot is endemic to Western Europe, and the UK has over twenty percent of the total population of the plant. While it is classified as ‘Least Concern’ here, it is considered Vulnerable in Sweden and Near Threatened in Switzerland. As with all water plants, factors such as pollution and changes in river management can eradicate a population overnight. It was good to see the plants in Milborne in such abundance and obvious good health.

It is difficult to look at the streaming green tresses of the river water crowfoot and not think of Ophelia, and indeed Gertrude mentions ‘crow-flowers’ when describing the ‘fantastic garlands’ that Ophelia made before her suicide. Millais’s painting of Ophelia shows some river water crowfoot at the bottom of the picture, although when I look at this painting I can’t help but remember the terrible cold that the model, Elizabeth Liddal, caught while floating in a bath over a period of four months.

Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais,(1851-2) (Photo One)

River water crowfoot is an important part of the ecosystem of a stream, partly because it provides cover and refuge for all manner of fish fry, insect larvae and other small invertebrates. Less obviously, dense stands of crowfoot can actually alter the dynamics of a stream, causing it to drop sediment in places where the plant forces the flow of the water to slow down. This sediment then enables other plants to root, and increases biodiversity. In particular, caddis and mayfly larvae are able to thrive, and these in turn feed the juvenile trout and salmon that may live in the river. It’s not for nothing that mayflies are the models for many of the lures used by fly fishermen and women. This fascinating article goes into greater detail on how the humble crowfoot can change the whole dynamic of a chalk stream.

Brown Trout (Salma trutta) – one of the fish that benefits from water crowfoot cover (Photo Two)

So, as I write this on a sunny, humid day, I turn to Edward Thomas, a poet who captured the English countryside in a way that is redolent of sunshine through trees and the song of birds, mixed with a deep melancholy. For those of you who might wonder what a sedge warbler sounds like (as I did), you can see and hear them at the link here.

Photo Credits

Photo One from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01506

Photo Two by Aaron Gustafson at https://www.flickr.com/photos/aarongustafson/4226641945

Dear Readers,  the most beautiful tree in Milborne St Andrew stands next to a cottage that looks as if it’s peeping over the fence. I look for the tree whenever I arrive. It is variegated in cream and green and when the leaves first open it looks like a great pistachio-tinged cloud. It’s strange how Milborne has become a second home to me, a devout London woman who always thought that the country was overrated. What’s brought me to this realisation has been my gradual exploration of the village in all weathers, over years: I know where the scarlet pimpernel blooms, where the rookeries are, where you can spot a yellowhammer if you’re lucky and patient. I have grown to love this place, and the people who live there. It has humbled me with its goodness and patience, its friendliness and its unexpected wildness.

I visit  Milborne St Andrew to visit my eighty-something parents every month, and  I am usually on  a mission. Sometimes it’s to sort out a problem with the computer, to organise some home repairs or to accompany Mum or Dad on a visit to the hospital. But this time, it was to begin to sort out a cruise. All things being equal, we are hoping to travel next summer. It has been  a conundrum to plan: the ship needs to be ‘big but not too big’, the location needs to be both ‘hot’ and ‘not too hot’ and the timing needs to fit in with not only Mum and Dad but also me and my friend J, who is coming with us.

But first, Mum and Dad need to renew their passports. They’ve been too unwell to travel during the past few years, so their passports have expired and they need new photographs. Fortunately, you can renew your passport online these days if you’ve already had one, and I can recommend it as an experience. I take several photos of Dad standing against a white door (for the requisite Plain Background) and my main problem is that he can’t stop himself from smiling.

‘Look serious!’ I bellow, with little effect.

Finally, we get a shot where his eyes are twinkling but his mouth is pretty much horizontal. I just hope that cheery eyes are allowed. At least it got past the Computerised Pedant  in the online application form, who gives me a big green tick.

Let’s hope there’s not too much twinkle 🙂

Then it’s Mum’s turn.

Mum is very unsteady on her feet, and has severe scoliosis, which means that she can’t hold her head up. Plus, she seems to have developed a head tilt. I take photos, pop them into the online application, and the Computer Says No.

‘ You Do Not Appear To Be Looking At The Camera’ it says, probably because Mum’s head is just a little out of the vertical.

I position her in front of the door, gently move her chin to the vertical, crouch down and fire off some more shots. I feel like David Bailey photographing a supermodel (for those of you old enough to remember who the hell David Bailey was). Dad helps by shouting advice from his reclining chair.

‘ Keep still, Syb!’ he says. ‘You’re moving about all over the place!’

‘ I can’t help it Tom’, she says, wobbling.

And somehow I manage to grab a shot between wobbles that satisfies the Computerised Pedant, and the longed-for green tick appears.

This morning I despatched the old passports, for the processing can’t start without them. And then we will see.

It is bittersweet, all this planning for the future. Today, Dad goes to Dorchester Hospital for a CT scan. The doctor is worried by Dad’s persistent cough, and his unexpected two-stone weight loss. Dad is worried by the logistics – he can’t breathe properly if he lays flat on his back because of his COPD. He has packed his dressing gown and his slippers, but he keeps getting up and down. Dad is not normally worried by these things, but today he is very on edge. And of course he won’t find out the results straight away. We are all concerned about what it might be, and we are all putting a brave face on it. Hopefully it will be nothing.

I look out of the window, and the rhubarb is in full flower. I have never seen such a thing. If I don’t cut down this magnificent florescence the rhubarb will die, and so, after taking a photo I hack it down, much to the disgust of a nest of ants who come tumbling out of the ground like lava.

Flowering rhubarb

And then I take myself out for a walk, as usual. Opposite the village hall there is a bubbling stream which comes from under a culvert, runs along merrily past a wall emblazoned with red valerian and ivy-leaved toadflax, turns a sharp left, then a sharp right, and finally disappears into a field. Along the whole way, the water crowfoot is in flower. Near a wall, where the current is slack, there is a raft of white petals entangled in stems and leaves.

Where the current is faster there are flowers in bloom, their heads lifted above the water on stiff stems, presumably so that their pollinators don’t drown. And the long stems and leaves undulate in the water like grass snakes.  They are like the blossom-encrusted manes of water horses, galloping just below the surface. I watch, entranced, for a while, as the invisible currents and eddies of the water are made manifest by the movement of the plants. And I ask myself how life would be if I could be so emotionally supple, so able to submit to the subtle undertows and whirlpools and obstacles of life. Instead, I seem to believe that I can stare down the illness and death that stalks my parents with sheer force of will. I know that this is illogical, but part of me thinks that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse themselves would blench when confronted by the love that a child has for their parents.

And then I leave the stream and head home. On the way I pass a patch of ramping fumitory, growing at the bottom of a wall. This is the only place I know where this plant grows, with its lipstick-pink and indigo flowers on their thread-like stems. Every year it dies back to nothing, and every spring it comes back, along with the heavy-headed poppies and the martial hedge mustard.

I pick one of the flowers, and take it back  for Mum and Dad.

‘What do you think this is?’ I ask Dad. He takes it in his cold, numb fingers, almost drops it, picks it up again, twirls it.

‘Not sure’, he says, ‘some kind of clover?’

‘It’s ramping fumitory’, I say, ‘not sure what family it’s in, but I can see why you’d say clover’.

I show it to Mum.

‘Pretty’, she says.

And I realise that what I’m trying to do is to bring the outside world into the house for them, to say ‘this is what delights me, I hope it delights you too’. Doesn’t life call to life, after all? I want to turn their faces to the sun, to the world beyond the four walls that surround them. I want them to have both hope for the future and joy in the present moment. There is such a delicate dance between what I want for Mum and Dad, and what they want for themselves, and there is a fine line between ‘enabler’ and ‘bossyboots’. But I so want them to be able to eke each last drop of nectar out of their day, to go to bed having experienced something new and interesting, to feel that progress is still possible.

And now, I have to go. I’ve a cruise to arrange.

Serviceberry outside the Royal Botanic Garden visitor centre, Burlington, Ontario

Dear Readers, every year when I go to Toronto I make the journey to the Royal Botanic Gardens outside Burlington, about an hour’s train ride from the city. There, I meet my friend M who drives up from Youngstown in New York State. For a few hours we wander the trails and my friend shares her knowledge of North American nature with me. Sometimes we think about meeting somewhere else, but this is such a magical trail and there is always something new to see. This year, for example, we saw a great blue heron (Ardea herodias), a much larger version of the grey heron that’s common in Europe – this magnificent bird can be 54 inches tall (‘Almost as tall as me!’ as my friend said). It has a wingspan of up to six and a half feet, and when it takes off it seems prehistoric, as if it’s been rising from marshland from before the advent of humans and will probably continue to do so long after we’re gone.

The orange hue on the beak and the legs, the plumes on the animal’s back and the black crest show that this bird is coming into full breeding fettle. It is always moving to see such a large, impressive creature at such close quarters, but this was not the last surprise that the walk was reveal.

There were all the usual delights too, of course. The trout lilies and trilliums were just starting to reveal themselves. I love the delicacy of woodland flowers and the way that they disappear as soon as the canopy of leaves shades them out.

Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum)

Trillium and windflowers (Trillium grandiflorum and Anemone canadensis)

What I hadn’t noticed in previous years were the banks of lesser celandine, a European native. It looks very pretty in the dappled sunlight, and was being visited by a variety of small bees, but is being treated with herbicide by the Botanic Garden staff as it’s seen as being invasive, and shading out the native plants. It will be interesting to see how different things are when we visit next year – apparently they have attempted pulling the plant up, but it spreads by means of tiny bulbils and is so very difficult to get rid of.

Lesser celandine (Ficaria verna)

Some birds had started breeding early – several pairs of Canada geese had goslings already. They are fiercely protective of their youngsters, especially as they are not only vulnerable to other birds, but also to large fish (of which there are many in the lake).

Canada geese with goslings

We leaned on a rail by the boardwalk to watch some geese feeding, and noticed a most unusual creature hoovering up the sunflower seeds.

Muskrat

I had never seen a muskrat out of the water before. The fur was so dense that the undercoat was perfectly dry. No wonder the Hudson’s Bay Company valued their pelts so much (along with those of beaver, fox, ermine, sable…..). S/he kept a healthy distance from the geese, who are much inclined to peck at this time of year. I explained to one young woman that this was a muskrat, not a ‘rat – rat’ and that, as we know from David Attenborough, they sometimes share lodges with beavers. It was originally thought that the muskrats were just freeloaders, but the Attenborough film showed the muskrats helping to repair the lodge, so it seems that they do their bit to help with the chores.  I am also rather taken with the muskrat’s tawny eyes, which look rather lion-like to me.

On the way into the trail, we met an elderly man who was feeding the birds, but stamping his feet at the  squirrels.

‘What good’s a squirrel?’ he asked. The response ‘And what good are you, human’ never quite made it past my lips, but it does occur to me that this anthropocentric view of the world is responsible for a good proportion of the mess that we’re currently in. It’s not all about us.

Anyhow, further along the trail we were accosted by a very fine American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), rather smaller and shyer than the usual grey ones (and not the same as the European red squirrel). I love the hopeful, watchful  expression as s/he tried to work out if I’m a friend or a stamper.

We were also very lucky with birds this time. There were of course the usual red-winged blackbirds, calling from every tree – confusingly these are not thrushes like  the European blackbird, but Icterids, a New World group.

Red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)

But how about this little beauty? I wasn’t sure what species I was looking at, but it turns out that it’s the perfectly named yellow warbler. They can be found throughout North and South America, and there are no less than 33 subspecies. Their Latin name means ‘moth-eater’, and they are voracious predators of all kinds of flying insects. As they buzzed through the leaves they were like small streaks of lemon feathers.

Yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia)

But what about this bird? I do believe that I might have had a brief spotting of a Baltimore oriole, though my friend and I both thought that the bird looked a little small for that. If it was an oriole, it was my first ever sighting. Let me know what you think, North American friends!

There were many other delights on the walk: a raccoon sleeping in the crook of a tree, some Carolina wood ducks pottering about, a downy woodpecker popping in for a very close visit.

Carolina wood ducks (Aix sponsa)

Downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens)

But my biggest surprise came at Aldershot station. I was sitting in the station waiting room when I looked up idly at the transmission tower opposite as a huge bird came in to land.

Good grief.

Yes, a pair of ospreys have made a nest overlooking the railway station. My friend M and I saw an osprey fly over last year, but I had no idea that such large birds of prey would happily make their homes so close to human habitation.

This bird used to live in the UK in some numbers, but was persecuted until it became extinct in the country in 1916. It recolonised in 1954, and there are now between 250 and 300 breeding pairs, mostly in Scotland. Worldwide, there are 460,00 ospreys, a third of them living in Canada during the summer and over-wintering in South America. This bird is found on every continent except Antarctica, and their presence is said to be a mark of the water quality – ospreys, being at the top of the food chain, are very susceptible to the impact of pollutants such as DDT and PCB’s.

I have never seen ospreys in the UK, a country which seems to delight in shooting anything that looks like a bird of prey, but what a joy it was to see them so unexpectedly in Canada, and what a wonderful end to a day full of friendship and nature. Roll on next year!

Red bud (Cercis canadensis) tree at the RBG

Dear Readers, when we arrived in Canada on Saturday 28th April it was something of a shock – the temperature was just above freezing and it was trying to snow. The next morning when we took Charlie the wheaten schnoodle for a walk, the boardwalk was half-covered in ice and I needed every layer of clothing that I’d brought with me, plus a borrowed hat. But by Monday the sun was out, the ice was gone, and there was a sudden, almost instantaneous burst of spring. Coltsfoot had sprung up almost instantaneously, raising their hopeful yellow heads.

The red-winged blackbirds were calling from every tree.

And all this was somewhat expected. But this was not.

There were three large-ish bats flittering around in search of gnats at two o’clock in the afternoon. I was worried at first that they were victims of a fungal disease called white-nosed syndrome, which has destroyed the bat population in some areas such  as New Brunswick. In some areas it has had a fatality rate of almost 99%. These bats looked healthy as far as I could see, and I sincerely hope that they were just roused to such unusual activity due to the late cold spell, and a need to get out and feed regardless of the time of the day. However, I have a call in to the local Batwatch team, so I will keep you posted.

I think that the bats are Hoary Bats (Lasiurus cinereus) – they have a kind of frosty tinge to their fur, and a white mark on their ‘wrist’ area which I think I can see in the photo below. It was such a pleasure to watch them, and I wasn’t the only one who was amazed – a young couple nearly fell off their bicycles when they stopped suddenly to see what I was looking at, and a dog walker came back to tell me that there were some more bats further along the path. People in Collingwood are very happy to stop and spend the time of day, and in that they remind me of the people in Mum and Dad’s Dorset village. It was a great start to my Canadian holiday to spend a bit of time in nature. It’s a bit harder to spot critters in downtown Toronto.

On the lake itself I was delighted to see several pairs of red-breasted mergansers. I had never had a good look at their beaks before, and was astonished to see how long they were.

Male red-breasted merganser (Mergus serrator)

Mergansers are members of the sawbill family of diving ducks (the Latin species name ‘serrator’ means ‘sawyer’) and they use that elegant long  beak to catch fish, frogs and newts. They are also the fastest duck ever recorded, with one red-breasted merganser being timed at 100 m.p.h when ‘pursued by an airplane’. The mind boggles. What was an airplane doing chasing a duck? I also had no idea that planes could fly as slowly as 100 m.ph without stalling. If anyone out there is a pilot or the kind of person who studies duck speeds, do let me know.

Red-breasted merganser drake and duck

What moves me most about the change of seasons in Collingwood is how quickly things move on. The violet leaves are springing back into life after being submerged in snow, and I suspect that the woods will soon be smelling sweetly of their perfume. The swan is incubating her eggs, and soon the cygnets will be peeping from the nest. I capture a moment and then things move on, and I’m not there to see what happens next. But how good it feels to know that this place exists, and that it is a haven to birds and turtles and invertebrates and frogs. Canada is a big country, but all over the world wetlands are under threat, which only makes this spot, with its reedbeds and shallows, all the more precious.