Sunday 24 September 2017

Local patch 17





Westhay Moor NNR, on the northern edge of the Avalon Marshes, is one of those gentle places. We go to stretch our eyes and rest our minds.Pencil straight tracks cut through wet woodland and raised bogs. The precious and rare lowland acid mire is home to our carnivorous sundews as well as bog myrtle, marsh pennywort, sphagnum moss, reeds and sedges. Sometimes there are groups of students there, surveying the scarce habitat. Armed with quadrants, they count the species: reeds are round and sedges have edges.



The old peat workings have been replanted and remade into acres of reedbed and quiet, mirrored pools. There is the sound of waterfowl fussing from deep among the stems, dipping and dabbling and dousing. The wind is a long in-drawn hiss of breath in the reeds - always. Their plumy heads are bruise purple now, fading to cream as the year draws to a close.

The air is gentle with the promise of rain on the breeze and pillows of cloud soften the sky. Autumn is lurking in the woodland, beginning to gild the leaves and fattening the fruit. I can smell it approaching. Large metallic dragonflies with sugar spun wings glitter and and hunt over the water and there are still some late swallows in the sky. We watch a couple of sparrowhawks spiral upwards above the tree line. A kingfisher sits up on a stump and we are captured, breathless and immobile until it buzzes away.

This week we are hunting for the bearded tit or reedling. We have looked for them often but they are elusive. They are always present at Westhay, but in the spring and summer they stay hidden, hunting for insects and spiders to feed their young in nests built low in the reeds.They are easiest to see in the autumn when they band together in big groups and swing from the reed heads picking at the seeds. They need to eat grit at this time of year to help grind up their seedy diet and so we scan the paths and tracks in hope. Reserves put grit trays near the paths to encourage them.

A flurry in the reeds ahead makes us crunch to a halt, swiveling our binoculars. We can hear the radar-ping of the beardies as they flutter through. A flash of bright chestnut is all I get; there is no time to focus on the pale grey head, striking black moustache and yellow beak. But what a splendid bird!



Monday 18 September 2017

Local patch 16




I quietened bouncing Bilbo and pulled him to me as the horse approached. From her lofty position, the rider hailed me, "I'm scrumping!", she hooted. "I have been riding these lanes for 20 years and I have tried the apples from all the gardens. The apples here are the best - by a country mile." From her vantage point she was ideally placed to check out the harvest in each garden. She picked one from the top of the tree and took a bite. "Actually", she continued, "I insist that you try this". She threw it down to me and I obediently munched and we agreed that it was good. In the county of apples and cider, it was very, very good.

Apples and orchards are a vital part of the landscape and culture of the Somerset Levels. Cider making is big business and corporate, but also traditional and small scale. You can take your plastic bottle to the cider farm and have it refilled with scrumpy for a few pounds. The cider is rough and cloudy, it tastes of pith and pip; it tastes of the land.






The wild winter hedgerows shine with red and gold apples. I used to think that they were old, wild varieties but an orchard-man told me that they were there because apple cores had been thrown from cars. Nevertheless, they hang in the autumn fog like Christmas baubles between the tinsel of Old man's beard (Clematis vitalba) and our native honeysuckle or woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum). The hedgerows are stuffed full this month. Closely related to apples, hips and haws have been part of our landscape and medicine boxes for hundreds of years. Now, they provide a winter feast for blackbirds and flocks of visiting thrushes. 






Once, I made rosehip syrup for my new baby. It is packed full of vitamin C and I was enchanted by the idea of natural food, no preservatives and zero food miles. But I read about the irritant fibres in the rosehips and, despite my careful muslin straining, I was too timid to give it too him! On safer ground, I reach for sloes and brambles and wild plums. We stack our kitchens with chutneys, syrups, jams and jellies which glow from the larder shelves in jewel colours.

Ancient hedges are rich and diverse. They provide food and shelter for wildlife: green corridors, rotting logs, pollen, berries. The Barbie-pink spindle (Euonymus europaeus) berries are bright this month. Deadly, beautiful and fascinating the small trees grow very hard wood - once used for making wool spindles. The more familiar sloes (Prunus spinosa) are fattening nicely. The foliage is a valuable food source for many moths and the savage thorns make the wood useful for spiny, inpenetrable fences. Now, we wait for the first frosts to bloom the skins and sweeten the flesh, before we pierce them and marinate them in gin.

A recent ramble also brought me to this beauty: chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphurous) or sulphur shelf fungus. This gorgeous bracket fungus was nearly a metre in height and shone amber and gold in the late summer sunshine. This one looked young and fresh; the fanlike layers were plump and flexible. Some say that it tastes like chicken but I left it intact. Maybe next time?