Monthly Archives: October 2016

A poppy for Aberfan

21 Friday Oct 2016

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Today was the fiftieth anniversary of one of the saddest days in Welsh history. Wales is a country that has seen more than its fair share of mining disasters but they usually involved the men, the Welsh miners, explosions, and cave-ins. On this day, 21 October 1966, the tragedy was even worse, as the 144 people who died included 116 children, happily attending the village school when a colliery spoil tip collapsed, sending a huge landscape down the hillside, obliterating everything in its path. Today, in Wales, we remembered the children of Aberfan.

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Clubs at the cemetery

20 Thursday Oct 2016

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True story: It was last Sunday and I was at my local cemetery, almost prostrate on the grass getting these shots of Apricot Club fungi (Clavulinopsis luteoalba) when these two old women came up behind me.
“Are you okay, dear?” one asked.
“Oh, yes,” said I, “just getting photos of these fungi.”
“Oh, that’s good,” said the other old dear, looking rather dubious about the actual existence of any fungi, so small were they in the grass. “Neither of us knows CPR so we were wondering what we were going to do when we saw you lying there.”

As I read recently, ‘Fungi have a long history of zealous but misunderstood enthusiasts.…’

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‘Dedicated Naturalist’: Mary and the donkeys

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

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A snippet from my volunteer work on the ‘Dedicated Naturalist’ Project, helping to decipher and digitise, record and publicise the life’s work of naturalist extraordinaire, Dr Mary Gillham.

Thanks in part to the slide-perusing efforts of one of our most fervent supporters and advisory board member, Catherine Duigan of Natural Resources Wales, we have come to realise that Mary Gillham was a sucker for donkeys.

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Catherine is Irish and has been blogging, on her own blog and for the Mary Gillham Archive Project website, about Mary’s adventures in Ireland, where the donkey still played a vital part in industry and transportation, especially in the more rural areas and on the Irish islands Mary visited.

In her book This Island Life: Discovering Britain’s Offshore Gems (Halsgrove, 2007, p.20), Mary writes about the use of horse- and donkey-power on Cape Clear Island, County Cork:

Most ploughing, and certainly harrowing, and lighter jobs, were dependent on horse power. Horse, donkey and mule might be teamed together to pull the heavier implements and we also encountered the less usual hinny, the sire a horse stallion and the dam a mare donkey, jennet or jenny. This is the opposite cross to the one producing a mule.

You’ll find some delightful reproductions of Mary’s donkey slides in Catherine’s blogs (here and here) but I couldn’t resist hunting out a few more. They capture a wonderful slice of local Irish life which, I imagine, has now mostly disappeared so Mary’s archival records are helping to preserve these important and thoroughly charming aspects of Irish cultural and social history. 

Donkeys help Nance James peel an apple, Aran
Old man comes out to mount ass. Aran
Plane landing on ungrazed airstrip, Inisheer
Great sandy inlet being cut off from sea. Kilronan
Mutual preening. Big northeast bay-> lagoon. Lotus, Aran
Revegetated plot from pierhead. Jaunting cart 2006
Fence preserves Inisheer’s cemetary 1979

For the full story about the Mary Gillham Archive Project, check out our website, https://marygillhamarchiveproject.wordpress.com/  and follow our progress on Facebook and on Twitter.

A berry by any other name …

18 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by in autumn, nature, plants, trees

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I’ve been planning a ‘berry’ blog for a while and have been photographing all the lovely berries I’ve seen while out on my wanders but then, in the process of collecting together my various photos for this blog, I began to wonder what actually is a berry? Is a berry a fruit? Should I include hips and haws? Should I only include the fruits of those plants that have berry in their name? At that point, I gave up and decided a berry by any other name would look as pretty and I would include all the lovely reddish-coloured things I’ve seen growing on assorted trees, bushes and plants, whether they be berries, drupes, hips, haws, pomes, or just plain fruit. So here you go …

Dedicated to the Dock bug

17 Monday Oct 2016

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When the Dock bug found out that his cousin the Green shield bug had received a blog post all to himself, he was not amused. Was he not as lovely? Was he not as worthy of attention? Well, yes, angry little Dock bug, you most certainly are, so here is your moment in the spotlight!

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Coreus marginatus is the Dock bug’s scientific name, and he’s a largish (13-15mm), broadish, reddish-brownish sap-sucker. Luckily, his sap-sucking is restricted to the leaves of docks and sorrels so he’s not the pest that some other members of the squashbug (bugs on squash plants) family can be.

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Mr and Mrs Dock bug seek each other out in the springtime to create the new generation, then, once hatched, their offspring, like most True bugs, go through five nymph stages before emerging as adults from about August. I’ve only ever seen the adults, in the shrubs, bushes and hedgerows alongside many of my walking trails, but there are plenty around – three sitting close together on one sunny leaf just last week. As well as inhabiting much of southern Britain, the Dock bug can also be found throughout Europe, in many Asian countries and in parts of North Africa.

The Witches’ Hats

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in autumn, fungi, nature

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I make no apology for the fact that you will be seeing increasing numbers of fungi on this blog in the coming months. For me, they provide the cheery colours and intriguing shapes in the landscape after the glory of the wildflowers has faded and, even if you don’t particularly like fungi, there will be pretty pictures to peruse.

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The Blackening waxcaps (scientific name Hygrocybe conica) have been some of the first to appear in my local waxcap hotspot, Cathays Cemetery. The fact that its 110-acre grounds have remained largely undisturbed since the cemetery closed to new burials about 35 years ago means its grassy spaces are ideal for waxcaps, as the hygrocybe species are sensitive both to pollution and to agricultural chemicals.

Blackening waxcaps start life in a variety of colours, from yellow and orange through to red – sometimes all those shades in just one little mushroom – then, as they age, they blacken, eventually turning jet black. As you might guess from the ‘conica’ in their scientific name, they have a conical shape, so I think you can see why they are often called the Witch’s Hat waxcap. Meetings of their covens are happening all over Europe right now!

Conversations with robins: 5

15 Saturday Oct 2016

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Me: ‘Robin, you’re back!’

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Robin: ‘Back? I haven’t been away.’
Me: ‘But I haven’t seen or heard from you in months.’

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Robin: ‘Well, no, lady, I’ve been too busy to just sit around and chat, y’know.’
Me: ‘What’ve you been up to, little robin?’

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Robin: ‘I had a mate to find and a territory to defend and a nest to build and kids to feed and rear. Summer’s a busy time for us robins!’
Me: ‘Phew, I feel tired just listening to you. And here was me thinking you were just hiding in the leafy trees or that you’d gone on your summer holidays.’

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Robin: ‘Holidays? Fat chance! It’s been hard work for the last few months.’
Me: ‘You do look as if you’ve lost weight.’

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Robin: ‘I have, and now winter’s coming so I need to fatten up to keep warm. So, lady, got any food for me today?’

Mellow yellow

14 Friday Oct 2016

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It’s a rather grey and gloomy Friday evening here in Cardiff so I think we need some brightening up. There aren’t a lot of flowers around now that autumn is well and truly here but the dandelions and their lookalikes continue to provide little bursts of sunshine on grassy swards, the rudbeckias (at least, I think that’s what they were) have just finished a magnificent show at my local park and, at the cemetery, the Fox and cubs blooms are adding wonderful spots of orange to the autumnal landscape. Happy weekend, everyone!

¡Hola, Hoatzin!

12 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in birds, nature, parks

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This is one of the world’s weirdest birds. In fact, it’s unique. In taxonomic terms, it has its own family, the Opisthocomidae, its own suborder, the Opisthocomi, and its own genus, Opisthocomus. This is Opisthocomus hoazin, common name Hoatzin, also known as the stinkbird. In 2015, examination of its DNA proved that the Hoatzin is the last surviving bird of a line that branched off from the avian family tree around the time of the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.

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My encounter with these incredible birds happened during the eighteen months I lived in Peru. In August 2011, I took advantage of an extra-long holiday weekend to take a trip to the Peruvian Amazon in the Manu National Park. As our guide Abraham poled us slowly around Machu Wasi Lake on a wooden raft, these primitive creatures made evil hissing noises when we approached their perches in the trees surrounding the lake. Abraham explained that the Hoatzin have prehistoric-looking claws on their wings to help them scramble amongst the branches, and they’re called stinkbirds because they have a digestive system unique among birds: they ruminate like cows and use the bad smell that this process creates to scare away their enemies. I’m glad we didn’t get too close but it was certainly an incredible encounter with one of Nature’s little miracles.