THE NATURE
REPORT
July 2002
Home page
THE NATURE
REPORT
July 2002
Home page
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With the summer being quite wet, plants have grown very well especially weeds including, nettles, thistles and ragwort.
This view of the middle meadow gives you some idea of the problem. The yellow is ragwort, while the purple / brown is due to thistles and nettles.
A common and prolific grower, the stinging nettle can grow to over 5 feet (over 1.5 meters) in height. Both the stem and the roots are covered in fine 'hairs', as the picture on the right shows. On contact, these 'hairs' break releasing a very irritating acid. If the source of contact is bare skin, "Ouch" then the individual concerned very quickly knows about it. If you should be stung by nettles, then help is probably not far away. Look around and you will normally find nature's 'cure' for the problem in the guise of the Broad-leaved dock. Its leaves, when rubbed on the affected area, neutralise the acid of the nettle sting.
Another prolific grower and curse to farmers are the thistles. As you can see from the photograph on the left they can, like the nettle, grow to a considerable height. The immature plants alongside Sarah and Becky in the photograph are just under 5 feet (150cm) tall.
Here at Greenheyes we have several species of thistles growing, amongst them are the Creeping Thistle, Musk Thistle and the Spear Thistle who's flower (left) is known throughout the world as the emblem of Scotland.
The Spear Thistle takes its name from the spear-like appearance of the tips of its leaves as can be seen in the photograph on the right. Finally we come to the Ragwort. This plant may look nice when seen from afar, its leaves however, are mildly poisonous and the cattle avoid them allowing the plant to grow practically unchecked.
Simon our countryside ranger
friend called one day and being a keen bird watcher he pointed out we
had some young flycatchers on the electric wires around the farm buildings.
However this month he, no
not Paul, the Robin, came in the house and was photographed before release.
Paul has bought a new lens
for his 35mm camera and hopes to have pictures soon (cue comment from
Webby) Yeah, I got them first... :-) Last month's baby shrew
was not alone as we have seen 2 more since I think they are coming in
out of the rain. If the weather goes
warm after this the insect population will explode, as the wet conditions
will aid their larvae.
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There
is one creature however that does have a taste for the plant and can
be found in large numbers happily feeding upon it, this is the caterpillar
of the Cinnabar moth.
This
black and yellow/orange banded caterpillar eats the leaves and incorporates
the poison into its body, this makes the caterpillar particularly distasteful
to any predator. The adult moth (right) is one of the most poisonous
in the U.K. and most insect eating predators avoid them.
As
demonstrated by Nathan and James, the Ragwort plants are quite large
and while we normally like to manually remove the weeds, I feel I will
have to resort to chemical control as topping and pulling are failing
and at present the weeds are winning.
We
have 3 types of finch that regularly visit our garden Chaffinch, Greenfinch
and Goldfinch (pic left), all have had chicks.
For
the last 2 years Paul has tried to get a close up picture of our garden's
Robin without success 
The
buzzards have reared 3 chicks and these are now fledged and spend the
day calling to the adults. 