Scratch and Sniff Botany

The Weardale Way footpath that runs from St.John’s Chapel to Cowshill passes through some delightful riverside locations, including this bridge over the river Wear at West Blackdene (bottom photo), with an interesting riverbank flora along the way. Meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria is in full bloom now. I can never pass this plant without crushing a leaf between finger and thumb – the sap has the distinctive antiseptic aroma of a healing ointment called Germolene (can you still get it?), which was the standard treatment for grazed knees when I was a kid. I probably reeked of the stuff through my formative tree-climbing years. The scent is strongest in the young foliage of meadowsweet, particularly in spring. The other wonderful aroma that we encountered along this walk was the fragrance of fragrant orchid Gymnadenia conopsea. Most orchids lack a distinctive scent – they put all of their energies into elaborate flower structures instead – but this is a species that you could identify with your eyes shut after just one sniff. The scent seems to attract long-tongued bees and butterflies that extract nectar from those long nectar spurs behind the flower. These were particularly fine specimens – probably the tallest that I’ve ever encountered.

Making hay while the sun shines – but not just yet.

The Weardale Way runs through a series of lovely hay meadows between St. John’s Chapel and Cowshill, with excellent pubs at both ends of the walk. The yellow rattle seed pods are beginning to ripen and it will soon be time for the hay harvest, but for the moment the long grass and tall buttercups offer the perfect opportunity to relive one of the great pleasures of childhood – laying down in the long grass (in this photograph mostly bents Agrostis species) and watching the clouds drift by. Do this for long enough and you’ll find it hard to be sure whether it's the clouds moving above you or Earth moving underneath you - although, of course, it’s both. A giddy, elemental pleasure. While we were staring at the swaying grass heads we noticed these caterpillars feeding in Timothy grass Phleum pratense - anyone know what they are?

Nice bird, shame about its voice

We spent an enjoyable couple of hours earlier this week watching little egrets in Wells-next-the-Sea harbour in Norfolk. These little herons first nested in Britain in 1995 and have since become an increasingly common sight around our coastline, steadily extending their range further north. They have a fascinating, hyperactive way of feeding, quite different from herons that stand immobile and wait for prey to stray within reach. Little egrets pace restlessly through the shallows, stopping every now and then to stir up the mud with one of their large yellow feet. Using this technique, they seemed to mainly disturb partially buried shore crabs, so that they could grab them with a quick stab of the beak as they scuttled away. These are certainly elegant little herons, albeit slightly manic in their feeding habits compared with our native grey heron, but their call is decidedly ugly - you can listen to it here -

http://www.xeno-canto.org/europe/species.php?species_nr2=204.50