A Plant for all Seasons

Just when everything else is coming into flower, ivy is producing fruits. This is a plant that’s completely out of step with the rest of our flora, flowering in late autumn when almost all other blooms have withered. I can’t think of a better multipurpose plant, from the perspective of all the animal life that depends on it. In spring pheasants, wood pigeons and a wide variety of migrant birds are partial to its berries. In summer its dense foliage offers a well-hidden nest site for birds like wrens. In early autumn its flower buds are the food source for holly blue butterfly caterpillars. In autumn, there's a long-lasting, plentiful supply of nectar and pollen for a last-minute energy top up for hibernating insects, and in winter its evergreen foliage offers a waterproof hibernation site for insects. Add to that the fact that it’s more or less ubiquitous, growing on sand dunes and sea cliffs, in towns, on railway embankments, in woodlands and hedgerows. Is there a more versatile or more useful plant in our flora? I doubt it – but it’s so common that most of the time we don’t give it a second thought.

Looper caterpillar

I found this little green caterpillar, not much more than a centimetre long, dangling from a silken thread under a twig of an alder tree. I gather that a lot of small caterpillars that are hunted by tits and warblers use this as a ‘last resort’ escape mechanism. When I put it back on a leaf it showed two other anti-predator behaviours, first aligning itself with the edge of the leaf and then ‘freezing’, like a tiny green twig. Must be a hazardous life for these bite-sized caterpillars at the moment, when tits have so many mouths to feed.

South Tynedale Railway

I can’t let the weekend slip past without extolling the virtues of the wonderful South Tynedale Railway, which we visited yesterday morning. This narrow gauge line, with follows the course of the South Tyne from Alston, perfectly preserves the charm of the rural branch lines that were axed by Beeching. A well surfaced footpath follows the tracks out through inspiring countryside. If you take the train out from Alston to Kirkhaugh you can walk back the two miles to the station, taking in the wildlife along the way, with the promise of tea and home-made cakes in the station cafe. Highly recommended. For a few photos of some of the wildlife that we saw, take a look at the post that preceeds this one. You can find out more about the railway at http://www.strps.org.uk/index.htm

and more about Alston at http://www.visitcumbria.com/pen/alston.htm