Dear Readers, the hubbub in the garden has stilled, the suet feeders swing empty, the mornings are bereft of birdsong and the most excitement that we have at the moment are a couple of woodpigeons beating one another up on the seed feeder. The change is so sudden, so extraordinary, that it’s easy to forget that this happens every single year, and in a way it’s good news – it’s proof that birds aren’t completely dependent on us, and that they can still find their own food when they want to.

But why does it happen?

Firstly, for most birds, the breeding season is pretty much over, the youngsters have literally ‘left the nest’ and the parents no longer have to worry about provisioning them. Even my live mealworms are left wriggling on the bird table, and I suspect that a fair few escape to freedom which is only fair. I think it’s no coincidence that the only birds who stick around in my garden are the ones who breed all year, such as the collared doves and the aforementioned woodpigeons. These birds can feed their offspring on ‘milk’ that they generate themselves in their crop, so are not so reliant on seasonal food and so can reproduce whenever the fancy takes them (which is frequently judging by ‘my’ birds, who spend most of their time chasing one another around with a lustful glint in their eyes).

Woodpigeons beating one another up.

Secondly, there is a lot of ‘natural’ food around for the next few months. Many insects are out and about, the hedges are already full of brambles, and there will be a positive feast available for younger birds to learn about. Fledglings need to learn where the other food sources are locally (and sometimes not so locally – blackbirds, for example, often have a place where they breed and a place where they overwinter). Plus, many young birds will be off finding territories of their own, which will push them further afield. All in all, it’s holiday-season for many creatures, and unlike us, they don’t have to worry about the impact of Covid-19 on their planned destinations.

But finally, many birds will be in moult at this time of year. Feathers don’t last forever, and they are of such vital importance to everything from insulation to flight that they have to be looked after and eventually replaced. For many birds this is a slow process, as the bird needs to retain enough feathers at any one time to make sure it can keep warm and make an escape if necessary. The birds tend to stick to a well-protected area with plenty of food available, and something like a bramble hedge is perfect. No bird wants to risk fluttering to a feeder if there is insufficient cover to pop back into. Plus, creating new feathers takes a lot of energy, so birds tend to do this after breeding and before the need to migrate or to put on fat for the winter.

If you are lucky enough to see a baby starling at this time of the year, you might notice that it has some juvenile, dull-brown plumage, and some of the darker, more iridescent adult plumage.

Starling with full adult plumage

One type of bird that has a particularly tough time of it during the moult is the duck. Ducks, geese and swans lose all their feathers at the same time, which means that they can’t fly but have to stick to the safety of the water. To reduce the vulnerability of the more brightly-coloured drakes, they lose their brightest feathers first, which can lead to a variation on our main question: where have all the male ducks gone? The rather dowdier- looking drakes are said to be in their ‘eclipse plumage’ and this, my friends, is why identifying duck species at a wildfowl reserve is something of a challenge in the summer months. Female ducks, who may still have ducklings to care for, often lose their feathers later. One species, the shelduck, actually makes a ‘moult migration’, leaving their breeding grounds all over Europe to descend in vast numbers on the German Waddensea coast. Hundreds of thousands of shelduck arrive in July, and will leave to migrate to their wintering grounds once the process is complete. Although most European shelducks head to Germany, some spend the moulting period much closer to home, in Bridgewater Bay, Somerset.

Shelduck in January looking very pristine!

And so, although our gardens might be empty of birds, it’s a relief to know that they haven’t deserted us because they’re fed up with the quality of the food that we provide, or the way that we always seem to be at home these days. They are going through a perfectly natural process and, believe me, when the weather takes a turn for the worse they’ll be back, en masse, looking for mealworms. We just need to turn our attention to the other, smaller, less obvious critters in our gardens: keep an eye open now for queen bumblebees of many species, fattening themselves up prior to hibernation. And of course, the slow reddening of the berries, and the ripening of the blackberries. It looks as if it might be a bumper year!

Two siskins and a chaffinch in the garden in December 2017

Scene in May

Greater knapweed (Centaurea scabiosa)

Dear Readers, what very fine plants knapweeds are! Greater knapweed is the rarer of the two but it grows in abundance in my newly-discovered ‘meadow’ next to Muswell Hill Playing Fields. It looks almost too exotic to be a native plant, but here it is. A member of the Asteraceae or daisy family, it is closely related to the cornflower, as its flowers suggest, and it is most often seen on chalk grassland, where it is a favourite with bees and butterflies.

Peacock (Aglais io)

Common knapweed (Centaurea nigra) is a much more frequent sight, and there were banks of it growing on Hampstead Heath last week. It has smaller, more thistle-like flowers, and a wide variety of popular names: Roy Vickery’s folk flora mentions chimney sweep in Somerset, drumsticks in Somerset and Nottinghamshire, hurt-sickle in Worcestershire and black soap in Devon and Gloucestershire, among a host of others. Some of the names refer to the strange, medieval-mace shaped buds – I can just imagine a mouse in armour walloping someone with a seed head too. I’m sure there must be a children’s book in there somewhere.

Common knapweed (Centaurea nigra)

Common knapweed is also known as ‘bachelor’s buttons’, as, it seems, are about fifty percent of our native flowers. However, this plant was actually used for a kind of love-divination. Young women would pull out the existing petals, and then put the flower into their bodice. When the as-yet unopened florets began to appear, this would mean that the lover was near. John Clare had a poem about the practice:

They pull the little blossom threads

From out the knapweeds button heads

And put the husk wi many a smile

In their white bosoms for awhile

Who if they guess aright the swain

That loves sweet fancys trys to gain

Tis said that ere its lain an hour

Twill blossom wi a second flower

And from her white breasts handkerchief

Bloom as they had ne’er lost a leaf.

In Guernsey, common knapweed is known as herbe de flon. Vickery points out that flon has two different meanings: it can mean a boil on a human, or a disease of cows that affects the udder after calving. A handful of knapweed is boiled for half an hour, and then used to bathe the affected part. However, knapweed seems to have been used for a variety of human ailments, from sore throats and bruises to ruptures and wounds. In Wales, a combination of knapweed, field scabious and birthwort was used as a cure for the bite of the UK”s only poisonous snake, the adder. Like all the plants in the Centaurea genus (including cornflower), it was named for the half-man half-horse centaur Chiron, who is said to have healed a wound on his hoof with knapweed. The flowers were also eaten with pepper to stimulate appetite.

Knapweed doesn’t lose its value for wildlife once the flowers are gone – the seeds, like those of most thistles, are eaten by finches. Furthermore, the plant is the favoured food of the lime speck pug moth (Eupithecia centaureata), a splendid creature.

Lime speck pug moth (Photo One)

The caterpillars are rather intriguing as well.

Lime speck pug moth caterpillar (Photo Two)

I can find little information about the eating of knapweed by humans (except as the aforementioned appetite stimulant) but several people mention using the flowers to brighten up a salad, and I was wondering how else you could use the flowers to prettify the dining table.  I seem to remember making an ice bowl when I was younger as a vessel for some ice cream – you put water in a bowl, put a slightly smaller bowl inside, poke some flowers into the gap, and stick the whole lot in the freezer. The result is very pretty, if messy and ephemeral. Sigh. I sometimes wonder what used to possess me. I once made a five-flavoured jelly with diagonal stripes by setting each layer in a huge glass dish propped up at an angle.

The 1980s have got a lot to answer for.

An ice bowl. You’re welcome (Photo Three)

Both common and greater knapweed have caused problems when they’ve been taken elsewhere – they are closely related to thistles, with all the free-seeding, deep-rooted habits of their pricklier kin. I note that in the US it’s considered a Noxious Weed in several states, with spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) being the June 2017 Weed of the Month for King County in Washington State. This plant is not either of ‘our’ knapweeds, but it is certainly a vigorous little chap, as the photos on the website show. I rather like the idea of a ‘weed of the month’, though the website does rather concentrate on digging up, blitzing with herbicides and if all else fails, taking a flamethrower to the ‘enemy’, rather than the somewhat gentler appreciation of the Wednesday Weed. Still, it takes all sorts. I just think of all the creatures enjoying the knapweed, and wonder where they will go if we keep destroying things.

And finally, a poem ( a second poem if you count the John Clare earlier). This begs to be read out loud, I think. There is such poetry in the names of plants (and I’m sure a whole epic could be made from the names of moths). If you’d like to hear this read, there is a link here.

Love’s Nosegay – A Poem by Michael Shepherd

Celandine, saxifrage,
buttercup, needle whin,
tormentil, vetchling,
agrimony, cinquefoil,
nipplewort, hawkbit,
ragwort, groundsel,
biting stonecrop, yellow bedstraw,
crosswort, comfrey,
bog asphodel,
tansy, sneezewort,
crowfoot, scurvy grass,
mouse-eared chickweed,
stitchwort, goutweed,
water dropwort, cuckoopint,
bryony, goosegrass,
ramsons, mayweed,
pennywort, wintergreen,
grass of parnassus, burdock,
figwort, lady’s mantle,
heartsease, cinquefoil,
scabious, loosestrife,
plume thistle, knapweed,
bugle, fumitory,
ragged robin, saintfoil,
dove’s- foot crane’s-bill,
lousewort, rattle,
corn cockle, willow herb,
cross-leaved pink heath,
blue bottle, vetch,
milkwort, harebell,
wild succory, speedwell,
viper’s bugloss, alkanet…

there’s poetry in wildflowers
and rightly so.

Photo Credits

Photo One By ©entomartIn case of publication or commercial use, Entomart wishes then to be warned (http://www.entomart.be/contact.html), but this without obligation. Thank you., Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=290556

Photo By by user jacques boon at waarneming.nl, a source of nature observations in the Netherlands. – This image is uploaded as image number 3923249 at waarneming.nl, a source of nature observations in the Netherlands.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing for more information., CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21350936

Photo Three from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/314618723938721729/

Thick-legged flower beetle on common ragwort (Senecio jacobaea)

Dear Readers, I have a feeling that I might have pitched this quiz just about right – what do you think? The winners this week were Fran and Bobby Freelove, with a perfect score of 15/15, closely followed by Anne with 13/15, Mike with 11/15 and Andrea with 9/15. Many thanks to everybody who had a go, and do let me know how you got on if you didn’t comment. Now, I need to get my thinking cap on for next week 🙂

Daisies

1)c) Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)

2).g) Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)

3).o) Canadian fleabane (Conyza canadensis)

4).m) Daisy (Bellis perennis)

5).h) Lesser burdock (Arctium minus)

6).l) Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

7).i) Creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense)

8)k) Common knapweed (Centaurea nigra)

9)e) Fox-and-cubs (Pilosella aurantiaca)

10)j) Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare)

11)f) Pineappleweed (Matricaria discoidea)

12).n) Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus)

13).b) Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

14).a) Michaelmas daisy (Aster x salignus)

15).d) Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Dear Readers, Sunday is the hardest day of the week for me. For years, it was the day when I would give Mum and Dad a call to see how they were doing and to get all the gossip. After Mum had died, it was the day when I would ring the nursing home, to see how Dad was getting on and to have a little chat if he was up for it. He often was: one of the staff nurses told me that Dad was her Personal Assistant, and would often answer the phone if they couldn’t get to it quickly enough.

‘She’s not here!’ he’d say, and put the phone down. Just as well they had a way of retrieving phone numbers so that they could return the call.

But now, of course, Sundays are all my own. No one to check up on, no one to call. Admittedly I don’t have the worry, but I think the emptiness is much worse. And so, I turn to nature as usual, to see what’s going on outside.

The hemp agrimony around the pond is just coming into bloom. The bumblebees could care less, but the honeybees love it, and so do the hoverflies.

Honeybee on hemp agrimony, with hoverfly waiting to land above it.

The hemp agrimony is a deeply scruffy plant. While in tight, pink bud it looks almost respectable, but once the flowers open it looks distinctly blousey and uncoordinated. Still, for a few weeks every year it attracts every hopeful little pollinator, and that’s good enough for me.

Rather neater looking is the meadowsweet, with its creamy-white, sweet-smelling flowers. The hoverflies love this, too.

But my mood still hasn’t shifted enough, and off we go to the cemetery for a walk. St Pancras and Islington Cemetery is only open to the public from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the weekend, though mourners and those tending a grave can also visit during the week. It isn’t until I see these lovely fox-and-cubs orange daisies alongside the yellow nipplewort that I start to cheer up.

Then, a comma butterfly positively poses, and kindly waits for me to take a photo.

I munch on the first ripe blackberry that I’ve seen this year – it’s sour as anything, and obviously needs a bit more time baking in the sun, but it does the job.

The spear thistle flowers are starting to erupt into fluffy seedheads.

Down by the stream, there are some beautiful but unwanted guests – a clump of Himalayan Balsam, a most invasive plant which can clog entire waterways. I think I shall have to mention it to the cemetery authorities, but then they haven’t been too bothered about the Japanese Knotweed which they also have. It is so pretty, and so beloved by pollinators, that it seems something of a shame.

There is a lot of goat’s rue around this year, in both white and lilac. It’s funny how ‘weeds’ go from being unusual to everywhere in the space of a few years. I was delighted when I first saw this plant on Muswell Hill Playing Fields in 2015, and now I’m tripping over the stuff.

Goats rue and spear thistle

There are fine stands of teasel and rosebay willowherb too.

We wander up the hill so that I can have a look at the Egyptian cat, one of the most distinctive grave markers in the cemetery.

And then we pass the statue of this fine Scotsman, with a bunch of fresh flowers in his hand.

And a speckled wood butterfly is waiting as we head back out into the sunshine.

But as I get home, the things that I’m trying to run away from are still there. I go upstairs to start writing this blog, and as I gaze out of the window trying to think how to begin, my eye is caught by the sheer volume of activity outside on the buddleia.

Some of those little specks of life are bees, but a lot of them are flying ants, taking advantage of this still, warm day to leave their nests and found new colonies. The females with their swollen abdomens and the smaller males have wings, and fly off together.

Male

Queen with wings

Once the queen has been mated, she bites off her own wings and tries to find a space underground to start laying her eggs. If she is successful, she will never see the light again, but will have thousands of children. However, many birds, including sparrows, love eating the ants, and only a tiny proportion of those who emerge will found new colonies.

Queen without wings

And the sight of all these insects reminds me, again, of my childhood. When we lived in our house in Stratford, East London, the flying ants would take on the quality of a Biblical plague, invading the houses in their hundreds. I remember becoming almost hysterical on one occasion, but Mum smartly calmed me down.

‘They’re only ants’, she said. ‘They’ll be gone tomorrow’.

And so they were, and all that was left were their wings, like tiny shards of broken glass.

Thick-legged flower beetle on ????

Dear Readers, the Asteraceae or daisy family is surprisingly diverse, and is one of the most important flower families for all those little unsung pollinator heroes, such as hoverflies and beetles. So, for this week’s quiz I wanted to see how easy they were to identify when we gathered a bunch of them together. I have avoided some of the most difficult flowers – when I was doing my biology degree at Birkbeck, we didn’t have to identify ‘yellow compositae’ (all those hawksbeards and hawkbits and hawkweeds) because they were too confusing, and because they often hybridised. Maybe when I retire I’ll make them a priority.

Personally, I have always been fond of daisies of all kinds – there is a daisy in flower pretty much every day of the year, and the early dandelions are a vital source of pollen for many insects that are emerging in the spring. Plus, I have a lovely friend called Daisy, and the song ‘Daisy, Daisy’ was a family favourite – Mum always sung it to me when I was sick as a child with a ‘bilious attack’. Who has ‘bilious attacks’ these days? Like ‘nerves’ and ‘hardening of the arteries’ such diseases seem to have been re-badged.

Oops, this was going to be a cheerful post, but I seem to have gotten waylaid. The song ‘Daisy, Daisy’ was about riding on a tandem bicycle, something that Mum and Dad did when they were young. They explored all over Essex on their ‘bicycle made for two’. I wonder whether the tandem will make a comeback?

So, here are fifteen ‘daisies’ for you to identify. Normal rules apply, i.e. please get your answers in by 5 p.m. UK time on Monday if you want to be marked, and if you don’t want to be influenced by speedy responders, write your answers down before you pop them in the comments. Have fun!

Daisies

Which members of the daisy family are these? Choose from the list below. So, if you think plant 1 is Michaelmas daisy, your answer is 1)a)

a) Michaelmas daisy (Aster x salignus)

b) Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)

c) Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)

d) Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

e) Fox-and-cubs (Pilosella aurantiaca)

f) Pineappleweed (Matricaria discoidea)

g) Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)

h) Lesser burdock (Arctium minus)

i) Creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense)

j) Spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare)

k) Common knapweed (Centaurea nigra)

l) Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

m) Daisy (Bellis perennis)

n) Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus)

o) Canadian fleabane (Conyza canadensis)

1)

2).

3).

4).

5).

6).

7).

8)

9)

10)

11)

12).

13).

14).

15).

Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum)

Dear Readers, today I made a return visit to the amazing array of wildflowers growing alongside Muswell Hill Playing Field. As the year moves on, the cast of insect characters changes, and this summer I’ve really noticed the way that new players appear on the scene as others head back to the dressing room. Common carder bees now outnumber the other bumbles : these little ginger bees make their nests out of moss and dry grass, which they ‘comb’ together using special structures on their back legs. They are very adept at ‘buzz-pollinating’, and you can hear them vibrating away on the last remaining bittersweet flowers in my impromptu hedge. The one in the photo was a fairly large individual so she could well be a new queen – common carders have tiny nests of just 60-150 workers, and may have two generations per year.

Small tortoiseshell (Aglais urtica)

The creeping thistle is very popular with butterflies, such as this small tortoiseshell. I was struck by how pale the vertical bands on the forewing were – usually the one closest to the wingtip is white, but the other two are sunshine yellow. There is a website called British Butterfly Aberrations, so I’ve sent off some photos. Let’s see what they say.

And how about this beauty? Adult peacock butterflies emerge in July, and can live for a whole year, hibernating over the winter. This one looks new-minted. I love the way that the ‘eyes’ look as if they have been blended with pastels, with the white dots even  making them look moist. There are eye-spots on the lower wings too, but this butterfly was far too busy feeding on nectar from the greater knapweed to show them off. Apparently peacocks can also produce a hissing noise by rubbing their wings together if they are particularly irate.

Peacock (Aglais io)

And back to the bees. This magnificent red-tailed bee was feasting on the common mallow – the queens are completely black and red (like the first photo), but the males have a bit of yellow ‘fur’ on the face and thorax, as in the second photo. These are very fine bees, with colonies that live underground and can contain up to 600 individuals. Alas, by August the colonies are in decline, though the big queens (described in my bee book as ‘rectangular’) can be on the wing until October, before retiring to hibernate.

Red-tailed bee (Bombus lapidarius)

What is always interesting to me is the number of small, unobtrusive insects that the yellow ‘daisies’ (in this case I am hazarding a guess at smooth hawksbeard(Crepis capillaris)) always seem to attract. There is a fine mixture of beetles, tiny flies, small wasps and all kinds of miniature invertebrates rolling about in the pollen and squirming between the petals.

Some marmalade hoverflies

This is such a singular spot for wild plants and their insect attendants that I find myself drawn back every week. I suspect that when the thistle heads mature, it will be a good spot for finches as well. And the surprises weren’t over yet.

Small skipper (female) (Thymelicus sylvestris)

Small skippers (Thymelicus sylvestris) are little golden-brown harbingers of summer – adults emerge from June until August, mate, and lay their eggs on grasses such as Yorkshire fog or creeping soft-grass. This is a creature of rough grassland, and you will be very lucky to see it in your garden unless you have untrimmed road verges or uncut fields nearby. Incidentally, the male small skipper has a black line on each forewing, which is apparently known as the ‘sex brand’. I loved the fluffy white edges to this butterfly’s wings, and the way that it buzzed about: at one point it met up with another small skipper and the pair circled one another in a busy spiral until ‘our’ butterfly went back to feeding.

Small skipper on ragweed

This time of year is also a reminder that, for many insects, the summer is already over. This male meadow brown (Maniola jurtina) already looks faded and bleached out, like an old Kodak photo left in the sun. Still, he was enjoying the yarrow, and hopefully he has already passed on his genes to a female who has dropped her eggs in the long grass and gone on her way rejoicing. Maybe there are some hairy green caterpillars who emerge at night to feed on the long grass.

Whatever the story, I wish him sunny days.

And as if on cue, here is a female meadow brown, getting stuck into the spear thistle.

What an extraordinary resource this little bit of rough ground is! It just makes me wonder what it could be like if the whole of the edge of the cemetery was this varied and insect-friendly. Nowhere close to home feels as much like an Austrian Alpine meadow, and if it hadn’t been for the lockdown I probably wouldn’t have found it. There is so much to be said for exploring your home territory, however ‘familiar’ it initially seems. I have found, during this few months, that there is always something extraordinary to see.

Earthwork in Highgate Wood

Dear Readers, it’s easy to forget that the ancient woodlands are just that – ancient. In Austria, it’s possible to see the remains of fenced enclosures where pastoralists kept their sheep as far back as 4500 BC, and in Coldfall Wood and Highgate Wood there are the remains of earthworks, such as the ones in the photo above. While these ditches and mounds undoubtedly existed in the Medieval period, and were used to prevent the domestic animals belonging to Commoners from straying into the wood, they may also have been built on top of prehistoric boundary markers. Humans are very keen on taking what already exists, and repurposing it; we have been recycling for millenia. It’s only in the last hundred years that we’ve started to be so lackadaisical about the things that we own; throwaway culture is a very recent phenomenon, and even now it isn’t universal. When I was in Cameroon I was impressed by the way that cars that we would have given up as write-offs were repaired and regenerated, though I doubt that many of them would have passed their MOT.

Whenever I walk through ancient woodland like Highgate or Coldfall wood, I always half expect to see a deer silently lift its head, or hear the rustle of wild boar. Sadly, both woods are far too urban and well-used for anything more exciting than a squirrel to put in an appearance, though occasionally I glimpse a German Shepherd trotting past and remember that there would once have been wolves here. The whole area was once part of the Bishop of London’s estate, and would have been used for hunting. It is largely made up of hornbeam with oak ‘standards’ – the hornbeams would have been cut back for firewood, while the oaks would have been allowed to grow. This makes for some strangely contorted hornbeams, who were maybe cut a few times in their early lives before the practice was discontinued, and they were allowed to grow to maturity. In Medieval times the wood have been much more open, and much more diverse, with a varied understorey of different plants. Today, such woods always remind me of an underwater world. I feel like a little fish swimming through stands of kelp.

If I was on my usual holiday, today would have been the day for a quick walk, and then some packing up. We often walked down to Sölden through a very different wood, made up of Arolla pine trees, but there was something of the same sense of an enclosed world. The flora was very different, but there was something very comforting about being so contained, by the forest and the steep sides of the canyon on one side, and the river rushing down hill on the other.

Small Yellow Foxglove (Digitalis lutea)

Houseleek

And so, whilst on a normal year I would be preparing to come home, this year I am already home. So much of being on holiday seems to be about a state of mind, a willingness to let go of day to day worries and to be curious and open. I have found a lot of pleasure in exploring my local habitat with a holiday state-of-mind. Many of the things that I love about Obergurgl, from Hugo Cocktails to the pleasure of taking a break and reading a book are still available here in East Finchley. Do I miss the mountains? Of course. Do I hope to go to Austria next year? Yes please! Am I sorry that I took two weeks off, even though I had to stay put? Not a bit of it.  It’s been a lovely few weeks, and I’ve enjoyed having the time to let the emotions of this tumultuous year catch up with me a bit. I hope to jump back into work refreshed on Monday, and to have taken myself just a little bit further along the path of bereavement. But just to finish, here are a few of my favourite photos from the last few years in Obergurgl. I hope you enjoy them!

The Smugglers’ statue on the Timmelsjoch Road

Melancholy thistle with fritillaries and rose chafer beetle

Swallowtail butterfly on white clover

Alpine ‘blue’ cow

The view towards Hangerer

The Rotmoos and Gaisberg valleys

Alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum)

Obergurgl

View of London from Kenwood on Hampstead Heath

Dear Readers, there has been something noticeable missing from my attempt to replicate my annual holiday in Austria here in London under lockdown.

‘Why, Bugwoman’, I hear you ask, ‘Has there not been more walking uphill?’

And in order to correct this, today I headed off to Hampstead Heath to see if I could conjure up some vistas. The one above shows the City of London in all its splendour. You can see the Gherkin, the Walkie-Talkie, and a small forest of cranes. Admittedly it’s not quite the same as the snow-capped peaks of the Dolomites as seen from the top of the Hochgurgl lift, but Dear Readers, it’s home. This is probably the longest period of time in my adult life that I have not ventured into central London, and I miss it sorely, but am still reluctant to risk public transport while the number of new infections is still so high. Hey ho. Hopefully things will improve at some point.

Hampstead is a hot spot for dog watching – there was a Bernese Mountain Dog and a bear-sized chocolate Newfoundland – but what I loved was the smell of linden blossom from a nearby lime tree. It always takes me back to the magnificent tree in Mum and Dad’s village, and the brief moments I would spend underneath it, inhaling the scent, as I took a few moments between errands. I think it might turn out to be my ‘signature scent’.

Linden blossom

And then, to balance out the mountain, we headed off to the ‘Lake’ – the model boating lake to be exact. I wasn’t expecting to see this, though!

This fine model ferry was chugging along, and we got talking to its creator, John. The ship is a scale model of the Vecta, which was a Red Funnel ferry sailing from Southampton to Cowes in the Isle of Wight during the 1950’s. John grew up in Southampton, and used to take the ferry as a child, so he got the plans from Thorneycroft (the boat builders) and created this wonderful ship, complete with passengers.

What a lovely man! He only lives around the corner from the Heath, and so I imagine he pops the Vesta under his arm and brings her down to the lake for an airing every so often. I do so love an enthusiast.

As we watched, swifts were circling around and diving down to the surface of the water to snatch a drink. There was a great crested grebe or two on the other side of the lake too.

Great crested grebe

There has been a lot of work on the lakes at Hampstead recently to reduce the risk of flooding, but one fortunate side-effect has been extensive planting at the edges of this formally rather bare place. I am in love with wild carrot, and there was plenty of it coming into flower. I love the way that the early blooms look like little nests.

Carrot flower just opening

And then, when they unfurl, they often have a single red flower in the centre – it’s believed that this mimics the appearance of a pollinator, encouraging other hoverflies and bees to pop down for something to eat.

We wandered around the back of some of the smaller ponds – there’s a lot in flower at the moment, and the lesser knapweed is looking particularly splendid.

Lesser knapweed

Plus I love the drifts of purple loosestrife and lesser knapweed and various hawkbits. As you know from previous posts, I do love a good drift.

And it is going to be a sensational year for acorns. If I was a jay I would be getting very excited.

More than anything, today felt like the smallest of steps back towards some kind of normality – the cafe was open, the toilets were open, and people seemed a tiny bit more relaxed in themselves, though the vast majority of folk were still being scrupulous about social distancing. Of course, it’s a weekday, and I have no doubt that on a sunny Sunday the place will be heaving. But today, it was nice to just sit on a bench and watch an emperor dragonfly hawking for insects. We were briefly accosted by a small, fluffy magpie, who gave us a hopeful look though sadly we were all out of sandwich.

And then, as the clouds were gathering, we headed home, trying to keep a few steps ahead of the rain, just as we do in Obergurgl. We don’t always manage it, but usually we stay dry. And if you think there’s a metaphor in there, you’re probably right.

Alpenrose (Rhododendron ferrugineum)

Dear Readers, I know that you are not supposed to have favourites, but I must admit that there are five Alpine flowers that always lift my spirits when I see them on my annual ‘pilgrimage’ to Obergurgl. They are plants that I don’t see at home, and so, in an age when there is so much homogenisation, they remind me that some flora are so superbly adapted to their surroundings, so in harmony with the soil and the climate, that they cannot be moved anywhere else. I would no more think of trying to grow these plants at home than an Austrian would think of importing fish and chips.

One of these plants is the alpenrose, which is not a rose at all but a rhododendron, albeit a well-behaved miniature one. It grows in acid soils just above the tree line, and I can always tell what kind of winter Obergurgl has had by the condition of the plant. Some years, after a mild-ish winter, the flowering is almost finished when I arrive in early July. In other years, the alpenrose is still in bud. It has a close relative, the hairy alpenrose (Rhododendron hirsutum) that grows higher up and thrives on limestone.

Now, I know that the alpenrose has a special place in the hearts of the people of the Tyrol, but what I didn’t know was that the song ‘Alpenrose’, by Swiss singer Polo Hofer, was voted the ‘most popular Swiss song of all time’ in 2006. You can watch it at the link below, and I recommend you hang on until at least 38 seconds in when Mr Hofer does his modern dance interpretation of the song. See what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHPkyiOUE9c

Arnica (Arnica montana)

The Austrians have a fine, long tradition of herbalism, particularly in mountain regions where getting to a doctor would be expensive and difficult. Much as in the UK Comfrey was used as a poultice for all manner of bruises and sprains, in the Austrian Alps this plant was extensively used for the same complaints in both animals and humans. Arnica likes very poor, acid soils, and it is not common anywhere – I know of one or two spots around Obergurgl where it can be found, but it is grown commercially in France and Romania to make the ointments that you can buy in the chemist. The plant is also (like the alpenrose) moderately toxic.

One of the places that I’ve found arnica is also a reliable spot for marmots. You can often see these hare-sized rodents sunning themselves outside their burrows.

Marmot

You can often also hear them telling the local Haflinger horses off. Not that the horses pay a lot of attention.

Now, my next plant is definitely not the prettiest thing that you can find in the Alps, though from a distance it does look like a small pool of concentrated sunlight. Close up, unfortunately, it is generally covered in flies. It is a plant of the bleakest, stoniest slopes. And the fact that it’s Latin name means ‘the most spiny’ just about sums it up. Whenever I see spiniest thistle, I know that I’m in the mountains. I notice it most when I start heading towards the scree slopes of the side valleys at Obergurgl. I reckon that once I’ve seen a spiniest thistle, I’m at least 45 minutes walk from a Almdudler and an apfel strudel.

Spiniest Thistle (Cirsium spinosissimum)

The Rotmoos valley, home of many spiniest thistles

And of course, it wouldn’t be the mountains if I didn’t mention a gentian. There is nothing in nature that I’ve ever seen that is a truer blue. There are various species of gentian, but this one, the spring gentian, makes me stop in my tracks every year. It puts me in mind of the tenacity that is needed to survive harsh conditions, and how these plants have evolved to not just live through the snow and wind, but to thrive, turning their faces to the sun the instant that it appears. If there is one single reason why I love the Alps, the gentians are it.

Spring gentian (Gentiana verna)

But when I come to think about it, there is one plant that I love even more. It is found for just a few weeks when the snow starts to melt. Some years, when the spring is late, I find it in abundance in the valleys that are still blocked with snow drift. Where the edges of the snow are starting to melt, they reveal the sodden, yellow grass underneath, but these flowers are just opening. These are Alpine snowbells (Soldanella alpina), and with their fringed cups they remind me of the hats that elves are often pictured wearing, though their Latin name actually means ‘little coin’. If the winter has been mild, and the snow is already gone, I won’t see these flowers  – they will have already bloomed and died back. But on a late year, they will be found in some of the side valleys, their heads nodding in the freezing breeze, waiting for pollination by some intrepid passing bee. They make the climb worth the effort, and they relieve the anxiety that crossing a snowfield always causes me. There are tiny, low-growing rewards everywhere in the Alps, scattered across the scree like a handful of precious stones.

Alpine snowbells (Soldanella alpina)

Do you have a favourite flower? Now I’ve started thinking about it, I could list at least a dozen UK plants that I love, and I’m sure it would always be changing. Plants can be so charged with memories of places and people. Some people love the flowers of their childhood, some love the plants of their homeland, and some see something in a plant that seems to capture a value that they hold, or a quality that they admire. Let me know! I love the connections that we make with the natural world, and with one another, through plants.

Dear Readers, this was obviously a busy week for everyone – no one had the time to attempt the whole quiz, but hats off to Anne, who managed to get all ten of the Alpine birds correct! Next week I shall go for something a little more user friendly. Do have a listen to the song of the wallcreeper though, it’s extraordinary….

Dear Readers, here are the answers to Sunday’s quiz.

Part One – Name the Bird

1)f) Alpine swift (Apus melba)

2)i) Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)

3)g) Lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni)

4)j) Eurasian nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes)

5)b) Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica)

6)c) Wallcreeper (Tichodroma muraria)

7)e) Alpine accentor (Prunella collaris)

8)h) White-winged snow finch (Montifringilla nivalis)

9)a) Snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis)

10)d) Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus)

Part Two – Bird calls

I think I’d have recognised the cuckoo, the lesser kestrel and the barn swallow out of this lot, but the rest would have been really tricky. I think the snow ‘finch’ sounds pretty sparrow-y, and the Alpine swift sounds a bit swift-y, but I’d have been stumped by the wallcreeper’s haunting call if I hadn’t been lucky enough to hear it in real life. And don’t eagles always sound a bit feeble considering their size? I always expect them to roar.

i) Photo 2 – Golden eagle

ii) Photo 9 – Snow bunting

iii) Photo 10 – Common cuckoo

iv) Photo 1 – Alpine swift

v) Photo 6 – Wallcreeper

vi) Photo 5 – Barn swallow

vii) Photo 7 – Alpine accentor

viii) Photo 3 – Lesser kestrel

ix) Photo 8 – White-winged snow ‘finch’

x) Photo 10 – Eurasian nutcracker.

Credits

Photo One by By Lefteris Stavrakas – Βουνοσταχτάρα Alpine Swift Tachymarptis melba, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66012392

Photo Two by By Jarkko Järvinen – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44848627

Photo Three by By Shah Jahan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66045424

Photo Four by By Original author and uploader was MurrayBHenson at en.wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3708573

Photo Five by By I, Malene, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20612

Photo Six by By Kookaburra 81 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59192174

Photo Seven by By Paco Gómez from Castellón, Spain – Acentor alpino (Prunella collaris)-2, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10653904

Photo Eight By Andreas Trepte – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8256392

Photo Nine by Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=276361

Photo Ten by By Cuculus_canorus_vogelartinfo_chris_romeiks_CHR0791.jpg: Vogelartinfoderivative work: Bogbumper (talk) – Cuculus_canorus_vogelartinfo_chris_romeiks_CHR0791.jpg, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16077960

Sound File i) by Stelian Bodnari, XC504827. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/504827.

Sound File ii) by Timo Janhonen, XC514050. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/514050.

Sound file iii) from Bodo Sonnenburg, XC572326. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/572326.

Sound file iv) by Jordi Calvet, XC544109. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/544109.

Sound file v) by Stanislas Wroza, XC569274. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/569274.

Sound file vi) by Alain Verneau, XC560258. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/560258.

Sound file vii) by Jarek Matusiak, XC531036. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/531036.

Sound file viii) by José Carlos Sires, XC388647. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/388647.

Sound file ix) by Stanislas Wroza, XC569246. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/569246.

Sound File x) by Vincent Palomares, XC545508. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/545508.