Tag: flowers

Weeds

The Weed Act of 1959 requires landowners and occupiers to control the spread of five species of injurious weeds: ragwort, creeping thistle, spear thistle, common dock and curled dock. The Weed Act’s purpose was to increase the productivity of arable land and to protect livestock at a time, post WWII, when self sufficiency seemed at lot more important than ecology.

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creeping thistle (DKG)
broad leaved dock (CC0)
ragwort close up ( Rob Farrow CC)
spear thistle (DKG)
curled dock

Read on:

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Creeping thistle

Like ragwort, creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense) is classed as an injurious weed by the Weed Act of 1959. Our hedges and edges are full of it: beautiful, pollen-rich, heavily scented flowers, buzzing with invertebrates, followed by seed heads elevated on stems sturdy enough to support seed-eating birds. Gorgeous.

Small Tortoiseshell and a honey bee by DKG
Small skipper
Goldfinch

 

Photographs by DKG

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Rag Week

The heatwave has brought the ragwort into flower early. There isn’t a lot of it, but it’s blooming beautifully; threatened by drought, it will seed rapidly and each plant can produce as many as 150,000 seeds. So….. it’s time for all those who complained about the spraying in the spring to turn out to pull ragwort.

Continue reading “Rag Week” →

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A common spotted orchid, photographed today by Julie Newble.

More orchids here

    Common spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)

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Sunday Morning in the Park

BY IAN B.

Pleasant saunter with Pat and all the hounds this morning round Southwick Country Park.  The long tailed tit’s nest is now finished with a cladding of lichen.

 

There IS a long-tailed tit’s nest in here.
This is what the nest looks like inside the bramble thicket.

 

Two reports: a little egret at the pond and a barn owl hunting on Lambrok Meadow but we didn’t see either. We looked for the daffs we planted last year and saw about fifty in flower and lots of blind bulbs all along the edge of Village Green from the decorated bridge around to the seat, and also down by the stream. Not a bad return considering they were supposed to be bedding in the first year.

 

Little egret
Primrose
pussy willow

 

The primroses are out all over the place and the first of the blackthorn and the pussy willow are beginning to show. Spring just round the corner. . . . .

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Pictures: Ian B. and SMH

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Lesser Celandine

The lesser celandine (Ficaria verna) is the floral equivalent of the swallow, it appears around the same time and marks the coming of spring. In fact the word celandine comes from the Greek name for swallow: chelidon. One of its local names is spring messenger; others are brighteye, butter and cheese, frog’s foot, golden guineas and, less romantically, pilewort because it was once used to treat haemorrhoids.

Continue reading “Lesser Celandine” →

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