Nature Notes May 2012 by Pete Lambert

I had set myself a challenge to identify the differences between Reed mace, the familiar cigar-tipped wetland plant and its fellow water hugging species. To help I had cycled along the towpath to the new nature reserve adjacent to the lower Aston lock. A solid wooden bench beckoned, I gave up on the botanical test and merely listened in to the wildlife around. Honking Canadian geese, a peewit, the bang and clatter of a snipe from the ditch alongside the main canal, eager drumming by a Great spotted woodpecker [a slower, lower pitch than its rarer cousin the Lesser spotted woodpecker] and a chorus of crows and rooks, singular and in mobs. A pheasant raucous against the tuneful noodlings of the hedgerow bound blackbird. I enjoyed the sizzle and plosh of mallards landing for a lazy feed on the open water and finally a reedy rustle of the coots tending to their nest. My hearing may not be great but enough of an aid to enhance a quiet ponder on a warm bench in a delightful spot.

The network of roads, tracks and pathways that allow us to travel around appear to be a fixed web, unchanged for centuries, but nothing could be further from the truth. On a recent ramble around the Ceiriog valley we had crossed a lane called Hen Fford, the Old Road, a little higher up the valley side than the current modern road which follows the route in the main of the now lost tramway. Returning with our bikes a few weeks later we cycled up to Glyn Ceiriog and took the old road back. The verges were resplendent in primrose, violets, nodding bluebells, wood anemones and many other wildflowers, at that moment mere rosettes of leaves or pale green shoots.

Nature is irresistible and will return relentlessly when man’s presence slackens, but real quality takes time and ease. The lack of disturbance on the verge had allowed the soil to re-arrange its profile, rainwater percolating nutrients downward, a thin layer of organic matter building on the surface and the relationship between the sub surface geology intimate and familiar. Our native wildflowers are unused to highly fertilised and enriched soils, they have happily adjusted to thrive on low nutrient levels and on admittedly man made features such as a verge will, if allowed to, dominate and flourish.

Spring has returned, the first swallow being seen at Haughton on 27th March by a meticulous observer of the local bird scene. He has also noted that the cuckoos tagged last year in the Thetford Forest are now attempting to cross the Mediterranean, that is 14th April, fingers crossed they make it across the indiscriminate guns of the southern European shooter. Last year the hirudine pair that occupied our barn fledged a small brood, time for me to start looking out for the familiar white splashes on the laundry that hangs there during damper days!

In Knockin a few weeks ago I spotted a bobbly mass of frog spawn in a bramble shaded ditch. Each gelatinous bauble contained a black squiggle, motionless, though it would only be a matter of time before the transformation into tadpole would make a mockery of this quiet pensive scene. Less than a week later over 2000ft in a broad col of the Aran ridge, Snowdonia, a similar tapioca lump caught my eye, this time a much larger mass of spawn in the centre of a tiny flushed pool. Frogs when breeding gather in quite impossibly small bodies of water, the males and females mating in a seething orgy of frog-kind. The spawn though comprising hundreds of viable individuals now begins a terrible attrition as predator and environment takes its toll and finally a few lucky froglets enjoy the precarious joys of adult life and a year later a return to the breeding puddle for the frantic process to begin again. 

The hedges are now more green than brown and the verdant herbage at their bases is rapidly thickening. The spring seems to be full of close encounters, a startled fox down by the Perry or today driving down Grug Hill towards Ruyton, I noticed too late that the thick ryegrass and burgeoning cow parsley had concealed a buzzard and its recently seized prey, a juvenile rabbit. Standing on the brakes I tried hard to avoid the bird as it tried to lift clear of the sunken lane, despite the power of its downward wings the raptor choose to drop the meal rather than hit the car, the limp carcass narrowly avoiding bouncing off the bonnet. We came back the same way, the coney had gone, I just hope it was the buzzard that had claimed back its kill and not some casual feathery passer-by.

Enjoy your spring encounters, take care, Pete.