Bugwoman on Location – The Escapees

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Dear Readers, I hope you will indulge me as I relate the tale of two intrepid capybaras, now behind chicken-wire at the High Park Zoo in Toronto. For those of you who have never made the acquaintance of the world’s largest rodent (the males are about the size of a retriever), these creatures normally live in South America, and are usually found in wetland areas, where they graze on water plants and provide a perch for all manner of birds.

By Charlesjsharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44204277

White-throated kingbird utilising capybara (Photo One – see credit below)

In May 2016, a pair of capybaras were delivered to High Park Zoo from Texas. The zoo already had one capybara, named Chewy,  but these rodents live in groups of up to twenty in the wild. However, Chewy didn’t have company for long, as both capybaras escaped within 24 hours, and disappeared into the 400 acres of surrounding parkland. And who can blame them? The park is studded with ponds and lakes and shrubbery. Given a choice between a lawn surrounded by goggling passersby and the peace of a secluded stream, I know which I’d go for.

https://twitter.com/JohnTory/status/735530295580086273/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theglobeandmail.com%2Fnews%2Ftoronto%2Fcapybara-escape%2Farticle30126980%2F

Chewy, the original capybara, with Toronto mayor John Tory (Photo Two – credit below)

There were frequent sightings of the two capybara, as they eluded all manner of techniques to recapture them, from food bait to recordings of capybara calls. The pair, instantly dubbed ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ were spotted all over the park, enjoying their freedom.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/capybara-live-toronto-video-1.3628334 (Mike Heenan/CBC)

Capybara on the loose (Photo Three – credit below)

Not since Rob Ford was Toronto mayor has the city had such international coverage – the story even made The Guardian, and memes popped up everywhere….

https://twitter.com/AmyfStuart/status/735108951138766849/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc

Via Amyfstuart on Twitter – full link below

But the capybaras’ freedom was not to last. One was recaptured after 19 days, by using a trap baited with corn and fruit. The other was to remain free for two months, but was eventually caught too.

However, there is a coda to this story.

Earlier this year, the female capybara gave birth to three pups. When I saw them, they were frolicking in the sunshine, chasing one another around the pen while Bonnie looked on. Clyde (or was it Chewie?) sat by the fence unperturbed, inasmuch as anyone can judge. But I couldn’t help feeling sad. It could have been an environmental disaster if the capybara had stayed on the loose and taken to the waterways of Canada, but more likely the animals would have been killed by cars, or dogs, or would not have survived the Canadian winter. Bonnie and Clyde were deliberately bred to be incarcerated, rather than being taken from the wild. And yet, how we love an escapee – the peacock that wakes up an entire village every morning, the eagle that breaks out of her cage, the tales of strange carnivores wandering on Exmoor. In our hearts, we know that what we do to animals is not what they would choose, if they were given an option. And yet our desire to be close to them, to see them, to pet them, is more important to us than what the animal wants most, which is get on with his or her life unmolested. We are not creatures who are prepared to rein in our desires, whatever the result for our animal neighbours. I wonder if it will eventually cost us the earth.

Photo Credits

Photo One (capybara with kingbird) – By Charlesjsharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44204277

Photo Two (Chewie with Toronto mayor John Tory) – https://twitter.com/JohnTory/status/735530295580086273/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2F www.theglobeandmail.com%2Fnews%2Ftoronto%2Fcapybara-escape%2Farticle30126980%2F

Photo Three (capybara on the loose) – http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/capybara-live-toronto-video-1.3628334  (Mike Heenan/CBC)

Photo Four (Capybara in car) – https://twitter.com/AmyfStuart/status/735108951138766849/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc

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Wednesday Weed – Ground Ivy

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Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Ground Ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

Dear Readers, one is not supposed to have favourites, either in offspring or pets or, indeed, in the plants that one writes about. Nonetheless, as you’ve probably gathered, I have a great fondness for members of the Borage family. However, in second place would be the dead-nettles, because this common plant repays close attention: the flowers of red dead-nettle and white dead-nettle are exquisite, as are those of the woundworts and claries and the lovely bugle, which I described a few weeks ago. So I hope you will forgive a further foray into the Lamiaceae, because here is ground ivy, a common plant with the most delightful little homunculus-like flowers.

Ground ivy used to be known as ‘the blue runner’ because of the way that it spreads by horizontal runners known as ‘stolons’. It is sometimes considered a veritable pest, and has been carried to many parts of the world because of its medicinal and edible uses (of which more later). But, like so many in the family, it is much favoured by wild bees, especially the smaller solitary bees that appear early in the year, such as the hairy-footed flower bee (pictured below feeding on ground ivy’s close relative, bugle).

By © pjt56 --- If you use the picture outside Wikipedia I would appreciate a short e-mail to pjt56@gmx.net / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10234181

Male hairy-footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes) Photo One – credit below

Ground ivy is not, as we know, an ivy – the name probably refers to the shape of the leaves. Some of its other names, such as alehoof and alegill (guiller is a French word meaning ‘to ferment  ale), hint at one reason for the plant’s wide distribution: it was used to clarify, flavour and extend the keeping qualities of beer. It was used in preference to hops until the 1600’s, and this might explain why it pops up in many cottage gardens in the UK and on the Continent. If anyone would like a recipe for the beer, I refer you to the Barefoot Foods website, although do take note that the author says that the second time he tried to make beer with ground ivy, the carboy exploded. Don’t let that put you off.

The plant has also been used as a substitute for rennet in cheese-making.

The young leaves of ground ivy have often been used as a pot-herb, or in salads, but for my more adventurous readers, I recommend the Eatweeds website, where you can find a recipe for ground ivy tempura   and indeed for lesser celandine and ground ivy stew. For this second recipe, however, you’ll have to get a move on, as the former plant has more or less finished flowering around here. Maybe tofu marinated in ground ivy instead?

Ground ivy has had a variety of medicinal uses. In the ever-wonderful Plant Lives website, Sue Eland describes how, in North America, painters used to drink ground ivy tea as a preventative and a cure for the lead poisoning that they contracted as a result of their trade. The Cherokee used it for colds, measles and rashes on babies. It has been considered a treatment for eye ailments as far back as the physician Galen (c 130 – 200 CE) and has been used for headaches, jaundice, lung infections and asthma. The plant is, however poisonous to animals if eaten in large amounts, and as usual, caution is advised unless you are sure what you are doing.

By Rasbak (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

A close-up of that exquisite flower (Photo Two – credit below)

 Although ground ivy may be poisonous to cattle, some folklore suggested that it was able to protect cows against sorcery, and in some parts of the world, the first milking was done through a ground ivy wreath, which must have been something of a challenge. It was apparently one of the plants that, if made into the shape of a cross, could be used to identify witches, though I have no idea how. As a middle-aged, somewhat eccentric woman with a cat, I am extremely glad that I live in an age when my strange activities don’t garner more suspicion than the odd tut-tut.

With all the many uses of ground ivy, it’s no wonder that it pops up in The Cries of London, which was one of the Poems on the Underground a few years back. I wonder if people bought the ground ivy for salad, or for making a medicine for sore eyes, or for a batch of beer that they were brewing? We shall never know.

The Cries of London

Here`s fine rosemary, sage and thyme.
Come buy my ground ivy.
Here`s fetherfew, gilliflowers and rue.
Come buy my knotted majorum, ho!
Come buy my mint, my fine greenmint.
Here`s fine lavender for your cloaths.
Here`s parsley and winter=savory,
And hearts-ease, which all do choose.
Here`s balm and hissop, and cinquefoil,
All fine herbs, it is well known.
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London-town!Here`s fine herrings, eight a groat.
Hot codlins, pies and tarts.
New mackerel! have to sell.
Come buy my Wellfleet oysters, ho!
Come buy my whitings fine and new.
Wives, shall I mend your husbands horns?
I`ll grind your knives to please your wives,
And very nicely cut your corns.
Maids, have you any hair to sell,
Either flaxen, black or brown?
Let none despise the merry, merry cries
Of famous London-town!

 

Photo Credits

Photo One (Hairy-footed flower bee) – By © pjt56 — If you use the picture outside Wikipedia I would appreciate a short e-mail to pjt56@gmx.net / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10234181

Photo Two (Close-up of flower) – By Rasbak (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Bugwoman on Location – A Walk in the Woods at the Royal Botanical Gardens

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Dear Readers, there is something about the woodland and wetland area at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, just outside Toronto, that reminds me of a Disney film. No sooner did my friend M and I reach the entrance on Wednesday when birds, chipmunks and squirrels appeared from all directions. It’s been a cold, wet week here, and today was the first day with any sunshine, and hence any people. No wonder we were mobbed by hungry critters.

Nuthatch

Chickadee

M had brought a bag of birdfood for chickadees and nuthatches with her, and the birds certainly recognised it. At one point, she was even visited by a female downy woodpecker. There’s something about the slight scratch of those tiny feet on my fingers that moves me: how trusting these creatures are, and how brave.

A female downy deciding whether to join the feast.

And of course the chipmunks don’t want to miss out: it’s astonishing how much food they can get into their cheekpouches. They remind me of Hammy, my pet hamster, who was capable of stuffing an entire small carrot into her mouth.

I hadn’t been to the woods in the spring before, and I loved the variety of woodland plants that are emerging. The coltsfoot is almost finished.

M showed me the mayapple, which I’d never seen before. The green ‘apples’ which you can see in the photo below are the flower buds, with the ‘apples’ being produced later in the year. The green pods are poisonous, but apparently they can be eaten in small quantities when they go yellow. Native Americans use the fruit as an emetic, and as a worming agent.

May Apple

I was fascinated by the range of woodland plants: the diversity seemed much greater than in a similar UK wood. The trout lilies were in full flower: they are named for their speckled leaves, not for their delicate yellow flowers. They don’t flower for their first 4-7 years of life, and spread very slowly: a single colony of trout lilies can be 300 years old. They rely upon ants to spread their seeds (normally they reproduce via their corms), and each seed has a special structure called a eliasome (a new word for my collection). The eliasome is a fleshy overlay full of fat and protein which the ants take home to feed their larvae. As trout lilies like their seeds to be buried very deeply, this works well: the ants eat the eliasome and discard the seed, which may eventually germinate.

Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum)

But the highlight for me was the trilliums.

Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

I don’t think that I have ever seen a flower so white. This is another very slow-growing plant, which might take ten years to become big enough to flower (there seems to be a strong relationship between the surface area of the leaves, and the flowering time). Like the trout lily, the trillium is normally spread by ants, but can also be distributed by white-tailed deer, as the seeds survive the deer’s digestive system and can  be deposited, in a handy pile of fertilizer, some distance from the original colony.

As the name suggests, trillium is a plant of threes: three petals, leaves in a set of three, three stigma, six stamen in two whorls of three. It is the Provincial Flower of Ontario, and so I was especially pleased to see a plant that is so specific to the area. I  loved the deep venation on the leaves and the petals, and the way the blooms glowed in the semi-darkness of the under storey. In a few weeks they will be gone for another year, but what a way to herald the spring.

The Canada Geese has already got on with breeding, and there were several territorial scuffles in the tea-coloured water. These geese seem to be largely unloved, but I rather like them for their feisty nature and opportunistic intelligence. You would not want to get on the wrong side of one, but hey, we had enough grain for everyone, so we passed unhindered.

And then we saw a Carolina Wood Duck in a tree. Although many of us have seen the documentaries where ducklings leap from the hole in the tree trunk where the mother duck has made her nest, it’s still a bit of a shock to see one perching precariously on a branch.

Female Carolina Wood Duck sussing out a nest site

Everywhere we went, it seemed that birds were courting. There were the usual red-winged blackbirds.

There were some very fine brown-headed cowbirds, the first that I’ve seen: the females lay their eggs in the nests of other species of birds (much like the European  cuckoo), However, unlike the cuckoo, who mainly parasitises warblers, the brown-headed cowbird has been recorded laying its eggs in the nests of over 220 species, including hummingbirds and raptors. As the female can lay up to 36 eggs in a season I imagine that the failure to thrive of some nestlings is not the end of the world: the house finch, for example, feeds its young a vegetarian diet, which is not suitable for a cowbird, and I cannot imagine that a hummingbird would make an effective foster parent either. However, many of the cowbirds do survive, a testament to maternal instinct.

Incidentally the brown-headed cowbird is another icterid, like the red-winged blackbird and the grackle, as mentioned in my last piece about Collingwood.

Brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater)

And so, as my visit to Canada draws to a close, I wanted to leave you with one of the finest birds of the region, the cardinal. I love that blast of red among the fresh new leaves of spring.

Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

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Wednesday Weed – Greater Stitchwort

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Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea)

Dear Readers, what a sweet and delicate plant this is. I usually see it in the hedgerows of the West Country, when I go to visit my parents or my aunt Hilary, but it puts in an occasional appearance in the woodier areas of St Pancras and Islington cemetery as well. I love the way that the petals seem to be paired like bunny ears (very appropriate for just after Easter), and the flamboyant yellow stamen. Who would have thought that this plant is closely related to the much more modest chickweed? The Carophyllaceae family also contains red campion and a variety of other sea spurreys, mouse-ears and sandworts. Each flower is a miracle of construction, and the smaller blooms are well worth a look with a magnifying glass or hand lens.

For such a demure looking plant, greater stitchwort has a number of peculiarities. Its species name, holostea, means ‘entire bone’, and refers to its brittle stems, which have given it vernacular names such as snapcrackers and snapdragons. Even more impressively, it apparently fires off its seeds with an audible pop, leading to names such as ‘pop-gun’. The elegant blooms, perfect for popping into a lapel, gave it the name ‘poor man’s buttonhole’.

There are a variety of explanations for the  name stitchwort. One is that the plant was used as a herbal remedy for the kind of stitch that you get when you run rather too vigorously for the bus. The herbalist Gerard mentions that it was drunk with wine along with ‘powder of acorns’ for just this kind of ailment. However, in some parts of the country the flower has yet another name, ‘addersmeat’, and it has been pointed out that ‘stich’ is German for sting – the plant was thought to be efficacious against the bite of venomous reptiles.

Whatever you are gathering your stitchwort for, bear in mind that it is also a thunder flower, thought to bring on storms if picked. So you might want to consider how quickly you can run with your stitch.

By the way, the website gardenherbs.org  has a charm which can be chanted in the event of being afflicted:

‘In the days of the old Saxon leechdoms it was customary against a stitch to make the sign of the cross, and to sing three times over the part:

“Longinus miles lance?inxit dominum:
Restet sanguis, et recedat dolor!”

“The spear of Longinus, the soldier, pierced our Savior’s side:
May the blood, therefore, quicken: and the pain no longer abide!“‘

So now you know what to do next time you’re doubled-up.

Greater stitchwort is said to be edible, although I very much like the comment on one foraging website, after some intrepid soul had tried it in her salad;

‘Mate! It’s like eating grass!’

So there. Maybe it’s better floated in a gin and tonic, or even left as a nectar plant for one of its biggest fans, the wood white butterfly (Leptidea sinapsis), a rare and dainty insect. Spotting a bed of greater stitchwort with some of these creatures flitting above it would be a treat indeed.

By Charlesjsharp (Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Wood white butterfly (Leptidea sinapsis) (Photo One – see credit below)

And to round off, here’s an evocative poem by Michael Longley, one of my very favourite poets.

The Ice Cream Man

Rum and raisin, vanilla, butterscotch, walnut, peach:

You would rhyme off the flavours. That was before

They murdered the ice-cream man on the Lisburn Road

And you bought carnations to lay outside his shop.

I named for you all the wild flowers of the Burren

I had seen in one day: thyme, valerian, loosestrife,

Meadowsweet, tway blade, crowfoot, ling, angelica,

Herb robert, marjoram, cow parsley, sundew, vetch,

Mountain avens, wood sage, ragged robin, stitchwort,

Yarrow, lady’s bedstraw, bindweed, bog pimpernel.

You can hear Michael Longley read his poem here

Photo Credits

Photo One (Wood White butterfly) – By Charlesjsharp (Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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Bugwoman on Location: Collingwood, Ontario, Canada

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Grackle

Dear Readers, I have been to Canada enough times now to not feel completely at a loss. I don’t fluff up my feathers when Canadians stand on the right and the left of the escalator (unlike Londoners who are obligate ‘stand on the right, walk on the left’ -ers). I usually go to the correct side of the car when I’m a passenger. I have realised that most Canadians don’t add ‘eh’ to the end of every sentence. But, more profoundly, I am starting to recognise some of the birds and plants that I see, and it’s this, more than anything, that helps me to feel at home. However, a trip to Collingwood, a town on the shores of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, reminded me of how much I still have to learn.

We stayed with Rosemary and Linda, my husband’s aunts, and their bird feeder attracts all kinds of interesting creatures. Take the magnificent grackle, for example. What a splendid bird, and nobody’s fool, I’m sure. We have no grackles in Europe, and so they are always a treat, especially in the spring when the males are at their most iridescent.

Two grackles….

The bird feeder attracts American goldfinches as well: the black and white patterns on the wings are reminiscent of the European goldfinch, but the citrus-yellow plumage and black crest of the male are very different.

Male American Goldfinch…

…and female American goldfinch

And we have no equivalent of a cardinal in the UK. I am always surprised at how large they are: I am expecting a finch-sized bird, but they are larger, and showier, and altogether more splendid. The male and the female always arrived together, and I loved their soft, whistling calls to one another.

Female cardinal….

…and male cardinal

And then a mourning dove popped in to see if there was anything on offer. What tiny doves these are, much smaller than the collared doves at home.

Mourning Dove

I was surprised to see large flocks of blue jays as well: I’d assumed that these were more solitary birds, but during a walk along the lake shore later in the day we spotted a flock of at least thirty birds.

Blue jay

In the UK, we have only two sparrow species, but North America is much more richly endowed with these ‘little brown jobs’, and very pretty they are too.

Song sparrow ( I hope)

And some creatures are rather more familiar. There are European house sparrows…

and the grey squirrels take great pleasure in shaking their tails at Linda and Rosemary’s dog Charlie. Charlie can contain himself for a while, but his patience is not never-ending and eventually he has to bark at them. Not that they seem to care much. They can tuck away a good inch of the sunflower seeds in the feeder at one sitting.

A squirrel telling Charlie who’s boss…

A squirrel tucking into sunflower seeds. He seems to be easing out of his thick winter coat.

Charlie facing off with the squirrel (on the rock)

But the wildlife in Collingwood isn’t just about the bird feeder. We took Charlie for several walks along the shore. Georgian Bay is a magnet for wildlife – there is the lake itself, the reed beds, the woods and the shoreline to provide food and shelter for all manner of creatures. We spotted a muskrat and a passing osprey (and on neither occasion was I fast enough with the camera) but here are some of the things that we did spot.

Male Red-winged blackbird

You cannot move for red-winged blackbirds, calling and displaying and clowning around. They are not closely related to European blackbirds, which are thrushes: they are Icterids (the name means ‘jaundiced ones’), and the group includes the new world orioles, the grackles and the bobolink. I saw a female red-winged blackbird, and didn’t even recognise what she was, so different is she from the male.

Female red-winged blackbird

The lake shore is full of dogwood and rushes, which makes it an ideal spot for displaying males.

And the male grackles look splendid in the sunshine too, more like birds of paradise than ‘jaundiced ones’…

The woods at the lake edge are full of sweet violets, and the smell reminds me of those chalky parma violet sweets that you used to be able to buy. The scent is both delicious and cloying, with an undertone of decay – Linda said that it reminded her a little of manure, and she’s right. A little of the smell goes a long way.

Banks of sweet violet

We had hoped to see a turtle of some description: there are snapping turtles and spotted turtles, and possibly painted turtles, but not a turtle did we see apart from this one.

The area where this chap has been ‘planted’ apparently used to be a popular spot for the living turtles to lay their eggs, but I guess they won’t be doing that here anymore. The irony does not escape me, nor many of the Collingwood residents.

However, we did see this magnificent chap or chappess, so all is not lost for the herpetological residents of the lake. I do believe that s/he might be a Northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens) but feel free to correct me.

And then, on our last afternoon before heading to the skyscrapers of Toronto, we visited John and Jo’s house. They have a stream running through their back garden, and it is the most serene spot, perfect before a return to the hubbub.

Coltsfoot

The grass is studded with coltsfoot (which I had never thought of as being a woodland plant, but which is thriving here).

A fallen log is crumbling away and is ‘mother’ to all manner of plants and mosses, some planted deliberately, some just welcome visitors.

There are toad lilies and bloodroot (which reminded me of our wood anemones) and the trillium is just about to bloom.

Toad lilies

Bloodroot

Trillium

And while we were eating some very fine scones on the deck at the back of the house, a hairy woodpecker flew onto the tree opposite and started working away on the bark. I’ve mentioned before that the black and white barring and red cap of the European greater spotted woodpecker reminds me of a painting by Mondrian, and this is just as true of this Ontario native. There is something special about a woodpecker, and seeing it in good company, on a warm, sunny day, makes it even better.

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Wednesday Weed – Bugle

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Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Bugle (Ajuga reptens)

Dear Readers, I have been most remiss in my visits to St Pancras and Islington Cemetery this year. Apart from one trip just after Christmas, I have barely been past the place. Partly it’s work, partly it’s visiting the family, partly it’s a kind of post-Christmas doldrums. Plus, I have gotten my self into a state of mind where, if I’m not visiting every day, I feel embarrassed to visit at all. The phrase ‘don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good’ could have been invented for me. But today, Easter Monday, I went for a walk with my husband, and I was so glad that I did, because the flowers this year are extraordinary. There are stands of bugle all along the damper, shadier paths. They always look rather upright and martial to me, and there is a faint metallic sheen  to their leaves, but their common name is, according to Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica, nothing to do with the musical instrument. but more to do with cylindrical glass beads called ‘bugles’ – maybe they were often made in a blue colour reminiscent of the flowers. Another theory is that it is a corruption of the Latin name ‘ajuga’, which means ‘without yoke’, and could refer to the missing ‘uppper lip’ of the flowers.

The ‘yoke-less’ flowers of bugle (Public Domain)

In Germany, there is a belief that bugle can cause fires if brought into the house, so maybe the gunmetal notes of their foliage reminded people of how easy it is to cause a spark.

I love getting a different perspective on plants, and, if you look down on a bugle plant, it has a much softer, fluffier appearance. The blue and white flowers look like little men in  nightshirts, and the opening buds are surrounded by a red-mauve ‘fur’. It’s not surprising that many ‘domesticated’ varieties of this plant are now available, many of them taking the metallic-tinged leaves and turning them to full-on bronze with the power of genetics. As usual, I still find myself preferring the original version.

By Frank Vincentz (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Ajuga reptans atropurpurea (Photo One – see credit below)

Bugle is a member of the Lamaiaceae, or dead-nettle family, and is a great source of nectar for bees and butterflies. The hairy-footed flower bees were enjoying it in the cemetery this morning, and it’s known to be a primary nectar source for the pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne). Bugle is so important to the adults of this rare species (which also requires a mosaic of bracken and grasses for its caterpillars to be successful) that land management for the species recommends using cattle rather than sheep, as the latter are not averse to eating bugle.

By Iain Lawrie - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33507212

Pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne) (Photo Two – Credit below)

Bugle has had a variety of medicinal uses: it is known as ‘Carpenter’s herb’ because it is said to be able to stem bleeding, Culpeper was very impressed by the herb, recommending that it be made into a drink for internal use and an ointment for wounds and bruises. In fact,

‘it is so efficacious for all sorts of hurts in the body that none should be without it’.

I note that a tea made from bugle is said to be very useful for those suffering from ‘an excess of drink’. I shall just leave this here for future reference.

The young shoots of bugle are apparently edible, but as this is such a small plant, and so valuable to wildlife, I would be tempted to leave it alone. Various websites also describe it as poisonous, but if so it must be very mild – none of the other dead nettles are toxic. Some have mentioned that the plant has a narcotic effect, which is not so strange when you consider that catmint (Nepeta) is a member of the same family, and look what it does to cats.

By T (too much cat mint Uploaded by snowmanradio) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Cat sleeping in catmint (Photo Three, see credit below)

All in all, bugle is a most elegant and attractive plant. Even so, I was impressed by the flower display that I found online, which features bugle along with Asian elderberry and perennial geranium. I love how this wildflower holds its own against the big hitters that surround it.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomronworldwide/16891727343

Ikebana by Ron Frazler (Photo Four – see credit below)

Now, you might not be surprised to hear that Cicely Mary Barker, the creator of the Flower Fairies, has a Bugle Fairy, and a Bugle Fairy poem.

Cicely Mary Barker’s Bugle Fairy

The Bugle Fairy
At the edge of the woodland
Where good fairies dwell,
Stands, on the look-out,
A brave sentinel.

At the call of his bugle
Out the elves run
Ready for anything,
Danger or fun,
Hunting or warfare,
By moonshine or sun.

With bluebells and campions
The woodlands are gay,
Where bronzy-leaved Bugle
Keeps watch night and day

And whatever you think of the Flower Fairies, I do think that Cicely Mary Barker was a keen observer of the plants, and had a good eye for their ‘characters’. As I walked in the cemetery, which was indeed laced with bluebells and spotted with campions, it wasn’t too hard to think of the bugle as ‘keeping watch’.

Bugle and bluebells

Photo Credits

Photo One (Bronze-leafed bugle) By Frank Vincentz (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Two (Pearl-bordered fritillary) – By Iain Lawrie – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33507212

Photo Three (Cat in catmint) – By T (too much cat mint  Uploaded by snowmanradio) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Four (Ikebana) – https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomronworldwide/16891727343

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Right Place, Right Time

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Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus)

Dear Readers, I am off to Canada at stupid o’clock on Saturday morning, so I am posting this on Friday evening in order to gain a few precious moments of sleeping time. Normal service will be resumed on my arrival on the other side of the Atlantic.

Dear Readers, sometimes luck is on our side. As I walked home along the County Roads on Sunday, something made me look up at some birds perched on a TV aerial. They were whistling to one another in a way that wasn’t right for a starling, the usual occupants of these elevated vantage points.

Waxwing calls

And then, I realised that one of the birds was gobbling down berries from the tree on the corner, and had to run down the road to my house and grab a camera before the visitors disappeared. Because, gentle readers, these were waxwings, and I’ve only seen them once before, during the harsh winter of 2010, when they visited this self-same tree.

Waxwings are Scandinavian visitors, who ‘irrupt’ into the eastern UK when the berries fail in the northern taiga. I was surprised to see them so late in the year, but relieved that there was still some food for them: by now, passing redwings have often stripped the street trees. A single waxwing can eat 1000 berries in a single day, so they tend to frequent places like supermarket carparks where the hedging is often of plants like cotoneaster or pyracantha. In Birds Britannica, Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey point out that the birds have been recorded defecating every four minutes as well, which I imagine would produce a very colourful abstract painting beneath any trees that they were feeding from. They can  metabolise the alcohol in fermenting fruit, but may become intoxicated, flying into walls and crashing into snowbanks. Couple this with their punkish quiffs and ‘fur-coat’ plumage, and their Goth-style eye-makeup, and you have a bird which is as eccentric and exotic as any late-night reveller in Soho.

The birds get their name from what looks like a blob of red sealing wax on their secondary feathers, which you can just about see in the photo below.

The red ‘waxy’ feather tips on a bird about to be ringed and released (Public Domain)

Although this is still a scarce species for the UK, sightings are becoming more common. The largest flock ever recorded was 367 birds at Lakeside Shopping Centre in 2011 (where I suspect there must be a multitude of berry-bearing bushes), and in 2005 160 birds were spotted in the trees around Warren Street Station in central London. It goes to show that you can see the most extraordinary birds even in the busiest and most congested parts of the city. It’s a good reason for always making sure that you look up (but please don’t fall down an open manhole-cover in the process).

Previously, the birds would make landfall in Scotland and work their way south, munching up berries en route. Sometimes, if there is a plentiful supply, they will stay in the area for a few days, but these beauties are always on the move. In ‘The Birds of London’, Andrew Self points out that recently, the waxwings have been coming straight to southern England, which may account for the more frequent sightings in the capital these days. Wherever they came from, my tiny flock stayed for a brief sojourn of about ten minutes, before flying off in a chorus of whistles towards North Finchley (though they did put in an appearance every day until Friday).

The Latin name for waxwings, Bombycilla, means ‘silk-tail’, and refers to that soft, silky plumage which seems more like a pelage than a coat of feathers. The bird is sometimes called the Bohemian waxwing, and this is more of a reference to its exotic appearance than any claim on the Bohemian region. When I was growing up, all you had to do to be considered Bohemian was wear a shawl, smoke French cigarettes or use eye-liner. I think you’d have to try a bit harder these days. The species name garrulus does not, as you might think, come from any inclination for chattering, but because the bird was thought to resemble a jay. I can see that the soft beige-pink colour is similar, but otherwise I think spectacles are in order.

You might think that this beautiful visitor would be a pleasure for anyone, but in the past, their arrival in winter coincided with outbreaks of cholera and plague, and the birds were thought to bring the illnesses, which led to the Dutch and Flemish name for the species, ‘Pestvogel’. They also ate the juniper berries which were thought to prevent these diseases, which would not have made them popular.

My North American readers might be more familiar with the cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum),  a slightly smaller, more yellow bird. The Bohemian waxwing is generally found a little further north in Canada than the cedar waxwing, but there is some overlap, so any lucky Canadian readers might get to see both species as they travel back and forth from their wintering grounds to their breeding areas (the birds, not the Canadians).

By Jason Quinn - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20683290

Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) (Photo one – see credit below)

Waxwings are not considered an endangered species, in spite of flying drunk and endangering themselves by eating snow contaminated with salt and antifreeze. They breed in the taiga forests and the high northern plains, where they eat berries and midges (and heaven be praised for the latter). But they are still relatively unusual in the UK, and whenever I see them, I am forced, like the Ancient Mariner, to grab passersby with my bony hand and force them to have a few moments impromptu birdwatching. They’ll thank me for it later, I’m sure they will.

Photo Credits

Photo One (Cedar Waxwing) – By Jason Quinn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20683290

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Wednesday Weed – Windflower

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Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Windflower (Anemone nemorosa)

Dear Readers, it has been my great pleasure to spot this exquisite plant twice in one week. On Wednesday, I saw it in a tiny fragment of woodland in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset, when I was visiting my parents, and on Thursday I found a tiny patch in Coldfall Wood, part of my East Finchley ‘territory’. This plant spreads by less than six feet every hundred years, and so is a reliable indicator of ancient woodland – the plant’s seed is rarely fertile, and so it relies on root growth in order to propagate.

Windflowers and English bluebells in a tiny fragment of ancient wood in Milborne St Andrew

Windflowers are also known as wood anemones, grandmother’s nightcap, and, for more than one small child, ‘wooden enemies’.  It is said to have a sharp, musky scent on a warm day, which has led to another obsolete local name of ‘smell foxes’. The plant belongs to the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), and is native to the UK.

Although it’s a woodland plant, windflower comes into flower early while the tree canopy is still not extensive, like so many other plants in the family (winter aconite and lesser celandine come to mind). Windflower does not like deep shade, and the flowers will only open fully in sunshine, which is when their chief pollinators, hoverflies, are about. It is an ephemeral beauty, in flower for a short season and then disappearing until the next year. What a good reason for a brisk April walk in the woods! In the language of flowers, wood anemone stands for brevity, expectation and forlornness, so is probably not something that you want to pop into a bouquet for your beloved. Not unless you want a clip round the ear’ole, as my Dad used to say.

The troubled nineteenth century poet John Clare was ever a close observer of the plants and animals around him, and described the windflower thus:

‘What pretty, drooping weeping flowers they are!

The clipt-frilled leaves, the slender stalk they bear

On which the drooping flower hangs weeping dew!

How beautiful through April time and May

The woods look, filled with wild anemones!

And every little spinney now looks gay

With flowers mid brushwood and the huge oak trees.

John Clare, Wood Anemone

I wondered why the plant was called ‘windflower’ (and anemone means ‘wind’ in Greek). Greek legends believed that the flowers were the harbingers of the windy season of early spring, and Pliny stated that the plant only opened on windy days. The plant was also believed to have sprung from the tears of Aphrodite as she wept for the death of Adonis.

Like so many plants, the windflower has been considered a symbol of both good and bad luck. It was a symbol of sickness for the ancient Egyptians, and the Chinese consider it a flower of death. On the other hand, the Romans believed that if it was picked while saying ‘I gather this against all diseases’ and then tied around an invalid’s neck, it would provide a certain cure.

The plant contains a variety of toxins, and is poisonous to humans and livestock – Linnaeus mentions how cattle kept indoors over the winter would sometimes harm themselves by bolting down anemone leaves as soon as they got out of the barn. However, I can find no recent authenticated cases of anyone or any creature being harmed by a surfeit of windflowers, so I suspect that you would need to munch a lot of them.

Historically, the plant has had a variety of medicinal uses, such as treating headaches, ‘tertian agues’ and gout, along with leprosy, eye infections and ‘malignant and corroding ulcers’. Most of the treatments involved either ointments or chewing the roots: the latter would, I suspect, be most unpleasant, as the toxins in the roots are powerful irritants. Maybe it was a kind of ‘ordeal by plant’, at the end of which the sufferer would feel better because at least his mouth wasn’t on fire anymore. Anyhow, gentle readers, I advise you against any such activity, if only because the root you’d be chewing could have taken many, many years to grow.

I love the delicacy of these flowers. If you look at the petals closely, you can see a tracery of faintest lilac, and the butter-yellow stamen are a contrast to the green carpel in the middle of the bloom. They are snowy-white against the gathering gloom, racing to complete their life cycle before the leaves on the hornbeams and oaks above them shut out the light until autumn. They would be just the thing in my garden, as I usually say at the end of a Wednesday Weed. What a pity my garden isn’t ten times larger, so that I could accommodate all my new favourites!

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Bugwoman on Location – Spring in Milborne St Andrew

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Dear Readers, I like to have A Project when I go to visit Mum and Dad in Milborne St Andrew, Dorset, and for my April visit there was much ado about their 60th Wedding Anniversary party in September. We have found a wonderful venue which is actually available on the correct day, so now I’m in full-on Party Organiser mode. There are so many decisions to be made between Menus A, B and C, not to mention the design of the invitations and the colour of the flowers on the table. Then there’s the problem of finding the same harpist that Mum and Dad had at their fiftieth wedding anniversary party. And, of course, as you know my parents are not in the first flush of youth (they’ll be 82 this year), and neither of them are in the best of health either. So my urge to get as much sorted out in the shortest possible time runs counter to their desire for a gentler pace.

Mum says that if I just relax a bit, it will all fall into place. My question is, what place exactly will it fall into? Getting the balance right between being a pain-in-the-butt organisational shaper, and a laissez-faire slacker is proving tricky. I am full of anxiety. What if the people that they want at the party find out about it too late, and so can’t come? What if the harpist has retired? Should the invitation be a card or just a single sheet? I feel myself turning into the wedding anniversary equivalent of Bridezilla, and that will never do. After all, the important thing is that Mum and Dad enjoy themselves, and my being a bully is the last thing that’s required. And so I decide to take a familiar walk through the village and up to the farmland above to see what I can see, and to give myself a bit of perspective.

What I see first are lots of delightful weeds. Many of them are new to me, although I recognise them from my plant books. There is masses of corn salad with its small lilac flowers, which look almost pale blue against the foliage. There is some lipstick pink ramping fumitory. There is some ground elder, which is a surprisingly attractive plant until it takes over your garden. And there is a white plant with the tiniest of flowers arranged in a spike like a tiny orchid. And all this is before I even get out of the village proper and start climbing the hill.

Corn Salad

Ramping fumitory

Presently unidentified tiny white plant (now identified as thyme-leaved speedwell.)

I notice that the woodpigeons are displaying. A bird launches itself into the air with a sharp clap of the wings, ascends and then slides downwards as if on an invisible rollercoaster. The jackdaws are chuckling, and the wrens are belting out their strident songs from every bush.

As I turn away from Milborne, the first field that I see is full of oilseed rape. A member of the cabbage family, this plant has completely changed the face of English agriculture in the past fifty years, and it continues to increase in popularity ;the oil is having a renaissance as a healthy cooking oil with a high smoking point, and it is also used for biofuels. Oilseed rape is so yellow that it seems to sear the eyeballs, but each individual plant is rather elegant, at least at this time of year.

Oilseed rape

The hedgerow is full of chirping sparrows, and I pause for a long time to try to catch sight of a robin that is singing from within a berberis bush. I look up and down, peering through the branches and twigs, but as far as I can see it’s the plant that’s animate, with a voice of its own.

The hedges on either side of the road here are completely different. The one on the left is full of blackthorn and hawthorn, the one on the right is more decorative, with forsythia just going over and berberis, mahonia and quince. The birds don’t seem to care which one they sing from, but there is lots of feeding activity in the left hand hedge, where the ivy berries are proving very popular.

Ivy berries in the left-hand hedgerow….

Berberis in the right-hand hedgerow

I pass an old, corrugated-roofed farm building which has become an ecosystem in its own right, with the ivy covering the upper levels and moss growing like a pelt over the damper lower slope. A blackbird erupts from the foliage in a frenzy of complaint, tilts its tail and disappears back into a hedge.

A roofy ecosystem….

The ground opens out here, and I realise that I can pick out a sound that I’d not heard before; a skylark is singing in a tumble of notes  and whirrs and scales. I strain to find it and there, against a white sky, is a tiny black dot. I try to find it again but all I can see are the floaters in my eyes, like so many protoplasmic blobs.

I walk on, past the muddy puddle where I saw yellowhammers drinking last year. This year, there are heavy, hieroglyphic footprints in the drying soil.

On the other side of the path is a field full of stubble, and it occurs to me how different the geology is here. In London, it’s all about the clay, but here there are flint geodes on the soil, like misshapen eggs. The knapped flints are part of the vernacular architecture of Dorset, embedded into walls of all kinds, and I can imagine how someone would have picked up the stones, measuring them in the hand, before placing them in the mortar. The first few inches of soil influences everything about an ecosystem, from the microorganisms to the birds and mammals, and so it seems a shame that soil is so often worked until it is no more than dust. Our ancestors would have known better, I’m sure, leaving the land to recover rather than working it until it had no more to give. We think of history as being a tale of relentless improvement but history tells us no such thing.

Flint geodes…

I walk down past a tiny secluded wood, fenced in on all sides and impossible to enter. However, through a few gaps in the foliage I can see the whiteness of windflowers against the indigo-blue of English bluebells and the butter yellow of Lesser Celandine. This tiny fragment probably once extended for miles, but at least this is still here. It is a pleasure to peep through the hawthorn and barbed wire to see the woodland flowers growing undisturbed.

Wood anemones and English bluebells in a tiny fragment of ancient wood

And so, as the sun comes out at last, I must head back down to the village. I pass a quartet of eager walkers heading up the hill, all men of a certain age with strong legs and clear eyes and maps of the area in transparent plastic map cases. We wish one another good morning, and I tell the leading chap about the little wood with the flowers, and the skylark. I suspect that they are men on a mission, however, rather than idle dreamers like me, though bluebells have been known to stop many people in their tracks.

And so I return home, calmer and more optimistic and definitely less beset with fonts and floral displays. And when I download the photos from my camera, I find this.

Yellowhammer!

You might remember that last year, I spent almost an hour trying to get  a photo of a yellowhammer for you all, and failing. Today, I just took a quick snap of a couple of birds on a telephone wire, and here is a yellowhammer for all to see. Trying too hard is often counterproductive. Maybe Mum is right, and there’s a lot to be said for letting things fall into place after all.

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Wednesday Weed – Elephant’s Ears

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Every Wednesday, I hope to find a new ‘weed’ to investigate. My only criterion will be that I will not have deliberately planted the subject of our inquiry. Who knows what we will find…..

Elephant’s ear (Bergenia crassifolia)

Dear Readers, I hope you will indulge me this week as I write about a plant that is a favourite here in East Finchley, especially in the municipal flower beds outside Budgens and Amy’s Hardware Store. It has all the characteristic survival attributes required for this harsh environment: a resistance to pollution, to insect pests, to drought, to wind, and to being peppered with upended cardboard coffee cups and cigarette butts. Through all this, it flowers majestically, and in a variety of colours too.

There are only ten species of Bergenia in all the world, and they live in a great swathe of land that takes in Afghanistan, the Himalayas and China. I have noticed before that many ‘weeds’ come from the scree slopes and high altitudes of this region (such as buddleia, for example). Drought enhances the leaf colour of Bergenia, and you can often see delightful hues of scarlet and crimson in those big, fleshy, moisture-retaining leaves (which give the plant its vernacular name). It is also known as pigsqueak, because of the noise produced when the leaves rub together, and heart’s leaf bergenia because some romantics think the leaves are heart-y rather than elephant-y. Incidentally, the leaves are also said to be disliked by slugs and snails, which makes them a shoo-in for my garden when I get my act together.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhgardens/5084544465

Bergenia cordifolia ‘Winterglut’. Look at those gorgeous leaves! (Photo One – credit below)

Elephant’s ear is part of the Saxifrage family, a huge conglomeration that includes plants as diverse as astilbes, heuchera, rodgersia (a great waterside plant) and (not surprisingly) saxifrages. Although the stems resemble those of rhubarb, bergenia is not closely related to the variety that we eat, which is a member of the buckwheat family. The leaves have been used as a tea substitute owing to a high proportion of tannin.

Members of the Bergenia genus are known as Kodiya or Pashanbeda in Ayurvedic medicine, and are used particularly for the treatment of kidney diseases. They contain a chemical called Bergenin, and there is some evidence that this can inhibit crystal formation, which may assist with the breaking-up of kidney stones.  Bergenin is also said to be useful for bolstering the immune system.

Bergenia was named for the German botanist and doctor Karl August van Bergen back in 1794. He published an enormous book about German flora,  but his chief claim to fame seems to have been an essay about the rhinoceros. The title of the work is ‘Oratio de rhinocerote, quam habuit cum tertium deponeret rectoratum‘. I have run this through Google translate, and the closest that it can up with is Rhinocerote address from which it had deposited with a third rectoratum. I am so nervous about what this might possibly mean that I think I will leave it here, though if any classical scholars could assist with what this means I would be most grateful.

Herr Bergen’s Rhino Essay (Public Domain)

Something that I had not thought about was how tactile the leaves of Bergenia are, but my research this week took me to a book called ‘Garden for the Blind‘ by Kelly Fordon, which is a collection of short stories, and gets splendid reviews. In it, the author writes about how one of the characters has been left in the Touch Plants area, which contains:

‘…silky lamb’s ears, sharp agave, cinnamon fern, curly mint, heartleaf bergenia, horehound and tunic flower’.

What a delicious ensemble of plants, varying from the wooliness of the lamb’s ears to the delicious smoothness of the bergenia, and the scent on the fingers of mint and cinnamon fern. There are so many ways to appreciate a species that do not involve the eyes, from the rattling of bamboo canes to the scent of honeysuckle and the taste of lemon balm, but touch is the one that I most often forget.

I remember that when my Nan had pneumonia and was at death’s door, my mother brought her some tulips. My Nan roused enough to reach out and brought the tulips to her lips, for their smoothness and delicious coolness. Children and the very old know that they have a body and (at least) five senses, and often experience the world in a vivid way, unfiltered by the busyness and preconceptions of the rest of us. How good it would be to stop and caress a bergenia leaf, or to really smell the lilac once in a while.

The smooth leaves of bergenia

Photo Credits

Photo One (bergenia leaf colour) – from Rosehill Gardens https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhgardens/5084544465

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