May 2016

I vaguely remember mentioning at about this time last year that the wildflowers down Rosemary Lane were fantastic, though I can’t find any record of doing it.  However, they are fantastic again this year and if it’s not too late by the time you read this, I would heartily recommend walking down the lane and having a look.  There were plenty of daffodils around when I went down there which sort of spoils the effect because they stick up so far above the natural carpet of wildflowers.  And what a carpet it is – there are stitchwort, primroses, bluebells (proper English ones too, none of your Spanish invaders!), wood anemones, lesser celandines, and probably many more though these formed the most striking part of the display.

Primrose - Primula vulgaris

Two less conspicuous plants also caught my eye – the arum lily, and dog’s mercury.

The arum lily has the botanical name of Arum maculatum which refers to the black spots that often occur on its leaves.  The plant has an understated beauty with its pale green hood and dark spadix.  It is the spadix (the correct name for the bit that sticks up in the middle) that gives rise to its many other common names – cuckoo pint, lords and ladies, cuckoo flower, Jack in the pulpit, devils and angels, red-hot poker, willy lily, snake’s meat, and cows and bulls.  It may not be immediately obvious how some of these names relate to the spadix, though the name willy lily leaves little doubt.  But once you know that cuckoo pint is pronounced to rhyme with mint, and that pint is short for pintle – a slang term for the male member, then all becomes clear.  A subtle change to the punctuation of lords and ladies – i.e. lord’s and lady’s should make that clear as well.  I thought I did quite well there to explain all that without using the word penis – oops!  I’ve never seen it myself, but I believe that soon after dusk the spadix has a faint glow which leads to the less ribald names of fairy lamps, or shiners.

Bluebells - Hyacinthoides non-scripta

Dog’s mercury (Mercurialis perennis) has no such bawdy associations, and has only one other common name – the boggard posy.  The boggard or boggart is an old term for a malevolent or mischievous domestic spirit who was supposed to live in the same sort of damp dark places where the plant is found to grow.  The fact that the plant is highly poisonous probably lent some weight to this belief.  It is called dog’s mercury to distinguish it from true mercury – the word dog in this context meaning bad or false.  True mercury refers to the plant ‘good king henry’ which has the botanical name Chenopodium bonus-henricus (now more correctly Blitum bonus-henricus) and the alternative common name of English mercury.  (I find it curious that the ‘false’ mercury has the botanical name Mercurialis whereas the true mercury has no such association.  But taxonomy – the science of naming species - is full of such contradictions, the scientific name Puffinus puffinus isn’t the puffin, it’s actually the manx shearwater.  The puffin has the name Fratercula arctica should you ever need to address one formally.)  But to get back to Rosemary Lane, dog’s mercury is an inconspicuous plant with short spikes of very small green flowers, and it is just possible that they could be confused with the small pale green flowers of good king henry, but one look at the leaves would easily distinguish between the two.  The difference between the leaves of the two plants is not just in appearance – the leaves of good king henry are edible, even palatable if a little bland, whereas eating the leaves of dog’s mercury would result in a visit to the Conquest.  Such poisonings are rare because the plants are so different, but one case in the 1600’s resulted in a family with 5 children becoming very ill and the death of one of the children.  Another case in the late 1800’s was caused by a couple mistaking dog’s mercury for brooklime (Veronica beccabunga), though both survived after a couple of days of medical attention.

So it’s probably best to appreciate the flowers in Rosemary Lane with your eyes and maybe your nose, but to save your taste buds for plants you are sure about, like cabbage or spinach.

A small part of a big display

Wood Anemone - Anemone nemorosa

Primroses, bluebells and Lesser Celandine (the yellow ones)

April 2016

A couple of times recently I have seen pairs of herring gulls (Larus argentatus) paddling.  By paddling I don’t mean that they were cooling their toes in the surf, but rather stamping on the ground in the middle of a field.  Perhaps a better word would have been charming.  I can hear the howls of protest now from people who consider herring gulls a confounded nuisance, especially those who have to put up with gulls nesting nearby, their raucous calls, smelly droppings, and their habit of ripping rubbish bags and strewing the contents all over the place.  In using the word charming, I wasn’t describing their character, but what they were doing – worm charming.  At this time of year when winter food sources have run out and the spring bounty has yet to kick in, herring gulls fall back on earthworms as a large part of their diet.  So the word charming was used in the same context as snake charming.  They are trying to convince worms that it is raining in order to lure them to the surface, or so the theory goes anyway.  I guess that you’d need to ask an earthworm whether or not that’s what actually happens.

Although large groups of herring gulls can be seen charming worms, I have only seen them in pairs over the last week or so.  I suspect that as well as finding a meal, this activity may have something to do with pair bonding.   As well as building or reinforcing bonds, this has the practical purpose of assessing how good the potential mate is at finding food during hard times.  As yet I haven’t seen any ritual bin-bag ripping, but you never know…

Although herring gull numbers are declining, they are not declining as fast as other seabirds are.  The reasons for the decline are the usual ones – over-fishing, destruction of seabed habitat, and to some extent persecution (In 2010, Natural England removed the herring gull from the list of species landowners and occupiers could be licenced to kill without further authorization.  Since 2009 it has been on the RSPB’s Red List of threatened species.)  But the herring gull has a couple of advantages over other seabirds in the survival stakes – firstly it is adaptable and able to eat a variety of food.  It is able to catch slow moving prey such as crabs or starfish, but it is also a very able scavenger, hence the flocks that haunt rubbish tips and the bin-bag ripping.  They will also be found amongst other gulls following the plough to pick up worms and other invertebrates.

The second advantage is their intelligence.  They are well able to cope with most measures designed to stop them roosting or nesting on rooftops.  Model birds of prey are largely ignored once the gulls notice their lack of movement.  Also spikes and netting are coped with due to their large leathery feet. 

Their third weapon is fear, or rather, lack of it (otherwise this would be a Monty Python sketch!).  They will fiercely defend their nest sites from anybody they consider a threat by dive-bombing and pecking, often accompanied by fishy vomit or faeces. 

All three of the attributes mentioned above – their varied diet, their intelligence and their lack of fear can be easily demonstrated by anyone walking down Hastings seafront with a tray of burger and chips.

Sadly, I have been unable to find any photos of herring gulls.  I will rectify that as soon as I can, but meanwhile here are a couple of handsome specimens from Tasmania.

Silver Gull

Pacific Gull