Birding at Cefn Cadlan and Cwm Cadlan

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, nature, plants, wildflowers

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British flora, British wildflowers, Cefn Cadlan, Common butterwort, Cwm Cadlan, Dog violet, Greater stitchwort, Green-veined white butterfly, Marsh lousewort, marsh marigold, Micropterix calthella, Native bluebell, Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage, Redstart, Water avens, Wood sorrel

You may be surprised to learn that birding trips aren’t always dominated by birdwatching.

180517 near Cefn Cadlan

Last Sunday’s Glamorgan Bird Club trip saw 22 people striding firstly around the high moorland near Cefn Cadlan, north of Cardiff on the way to Brecon, and then exploring nearby Cwm Cadlan National Nature Reserve, an area renowned for the rare plants that thrive in its wet grasslands.

180517 lane to Cwm Cadlan

Of course, we were on the trip primarily to look for birds – and I saw my first Redstarts for the year (always on distant tree tops) and heard my first Cuckoo (exactly a year since my very first Cuckoo).

You’ll just have to believe me when I say that the dot in the centre of this photo is a Redstart

But, when the birds proved elusive, our team of talented amateur naturalists turned their attention to all the other wildlife and wildflowers that surrounded us. We saw frogs and a hare; speculated on what had left its footprints in the mud; enjoyed all the Green-veined white and Orange-tip butterflies that were nectaring on the abundant Cuckkoflowers …

180517 Green-veined white

and we turned our heads downwards to admire all the special wildflowers that surrounded us. It was a glorious sunny day, the scenery was stunning, and the flora and fauna superb.

Common butterwort, not yet in flower

Dog violet

Greater stitchwort

Lousewort

180517 Marsh marigold and Micropterix calthella

Marsh marigold, and the tiny moths are Micropterix calthella

Native bluebell

Opposite-leaved golden saxifrage

Water avens, a very beautiful plant and a new one for me

Wood sorrel

Some crane’s bills

11 Friday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, crane's bills, geranium, Geranium lucidum, Geranium Robertianum, Geranium rotundifolium, Herb Robert, Round-leaved crane's-bill, Shining crane's-bill, spring flowers, spring wildflowers

The word geranium comes from the Greek geranos, meaning crane, so named because of the likeness of the plant’s seed case to the bill of the bird. Thus, in the plant world, the crane’s-bills are the wild geraniums.

180511 round-leaved crane's-bill

’Tis the time the geraniums begin to bloom and I’m trying to learn which is which, so I thought I’d share a few I’ve found during recent perambulations. The first is the Round-leaved crane’s-bill (Geranium rotundifolium).

180511 herb robert

This next is the one most people can name. It seems to grow almost anywhere and makes even a rubbish heap look beautiful: Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum).

180511 shining crane's-bill

At a quick glance, this Shining crane’s-bill (Geranium lucidum) looks a lot like Herb Robert … and then you notice how different the leaves are.

More blooming wildflowers

04 Friday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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Bluebell, British wildflowers, Cowslip, Garlic mustard, Ground ivy, Ivy-leaved toadflax, Sow thistle, spring wildflowers, Wild garlic

The Spring sunshine has been a little sparse in recent weeks but the wildflowers are slowly continuing to appear. Here are some recent finds …

180504 1 bluebells

I couldn’t resist including more Bluebells (Hyacinthoides sp.) as they really encapsulate Spring for so many people.

180504 2 cowslip

First come the primroses, then these beauties take over: Cowslips (Primula veris).

180504 3 Garlic mustard

You may know it as ‘Jack-by-the-hedge’, so-named for its love of a shady spot by a hedge, this is Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata).

180504 4 ground ivy

Don’t forget to look down low for this burst of purple goodness. It’s Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea).

180504 6 ivy-leaved toadflax

Blooming now on a wall near you, Ivy-leaved toadflax (Cymbalaria muralis).

180504 9 Sow thistle

Part of the large and mightily confusing dandelion family, this is one of the Sow thistles (Sonchus sp.).

180504 10 wild garlic

If you go down to the woods today, make sure you take a peg for your nose … unless, like me, you love the smell of Wild garlic (Allium ursinum).

A host of local names

27 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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British wildflowers, Cardamine pratensis, Cuckooflower, Lady's smock, Meadow bittercress, spring flowers

‘Any flower that comes with a host of local names is likely to be of human use, either as food or as medicine’, writes John Lewis-Stempel, in his truly wonderful book Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field (Doubleday, London, 2014; highly recommended, if you haven’t already read it). And he goes on to mention just a few of the local names that have been given to Cardamine pratensis, namely Cuckooflower (because the pale pink flowers tend to appear around the same time the Cuckoo returns to Britain from its winter sojourn in warmer climes); and Lady’s smock, Lady’s gloves, and Lady’s mantle (due to the flower’s resemblance to those articles of clothing) (though I don’t really see the gloves).

Lewis-Stempel also notes the vernacular Meadow bittercress, so named because ‘the needle-thin leaves … make a peppery edible that used to be sold on medieval market stalls’, which I never knew before. I also didn’t realise that Cuckooflower is the food plant of the caterpillar of the Orange-tip butterfly – reason enough for me not to eat those peppery leaves as I’d love to see more Orange-tips fluttering around.

‘Ups a daisy’

22 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, wildflowers

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Bellis perennis, Daisy, daisy expressions, daisy idioms, nature in English language, nature sayings

180422 daisy (1)

Nature is so interwoven in our lives that we sometimes don’t stop to think where the everyday expressions we use have come from.

‘to be as fresh as a daisy’ – to be keen, enthusiastic and ready to go, after relaxation or a good refreshing sleep. This saying apparently comes from the Old English version of daisy, which was ‘day’s eye’, a reference to the way its petals close at night and reopen afresh the next morning.

‘Whoops a daisy’ or perhaps ‘oops a daisy’ or ‘ups a daisy’ – it seems there are many spelling variations for this phrase, which was originally used to encourage children to get up off the ground after a fall and is now more generally used as an exclamation following a mistake or accident.

‘to be pushing up daisies’ – a euphemism for being dead and buried, and thus helping to the fertilise the daisies that grow above the ground in which we lie.

Grandmother’s nightcap

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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Anemone nemorosa, British wildflowers, Grandmother's nightcap, Moggie nightgown, Smell foxes, spring flowers, Windflower, Wood anemone

180420 wood anemone (4)

I’m not sure my grandmother ever wore a nightcap quite like this but Grandmother’s nightcap is just one of the vernacular names for the luminous Wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa). Others include Windflower, and, in parts of Deryshire, where a moggie is a mouse not a cat, Moggie nightgown, as well as Smell foxes, due to the musky smell a large colony of Wood anemones will sometimes emit.

180420 wood anemone (1) 180420 wood anemone (2) 180420 wood anemone (3)

On the verge

15 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, plants, spring, wildflowers

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#Ontheverge, #WildflowerHour, British wildflowers, spring flowers, wildflowers

Are you up for a challenge? Do you like wildflowers? Well, then get following Wildflowerhour on Twitter and / or Facebook, and join in the weekly wildflower challenge fun. Not only will your newsfeed be filled with glorious colour every Sunday night from 8 to 9pm (and throughout the week, as well) but I guarantee you will also learn something new each week.

The verge

This week’s challenge was titled ‘On the verge’, and we were challenged to see what wildflowers we could discover on roadside verges. Rather than a busy highway, I chose a quiet local side road at Penarth Marina – I already get lots of odd looks for taking a close look at flowers and insects, so tried to avoid too much attention. The Marina area is a relatively new environment, my verge an area that had previously been a dock, where ocean-going ships brought goods from near and far to Cardiff, but this particular dock was filled with household rubbish and turned into a park back in the 1980s. So, I didn’t find anything particularly exciting on my verge but it was interesting to see what plants had become established.

Common cornsalad (Valerianella locusta)

Creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens)

The ever reliable Daisy (Bellis perennis)

180415 Dandelion Taraxacum sp and slug friend

Partly devoured Dandelion (Taraxacum sp.) and slug friend

Field Wood-rush (Luzula campestris)

Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris)

180415 Ribwort plantain Plantago lanceolata

Not quite open yet, but close – Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata)

Wavy Bitter-cress (Cardamine flexuosa)

My week in wildflowers

13 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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Barren strawberry, Bluebell, British flora, British wildflowers, Common Stork's-bill, Cornsalad, Danish scurvygrass, gorse, Grape hyacinth, Petty spurge, Ragwort, Red dead-nettle, Three-cornered leek

Though the weather has been pretty miserable most of this week, I have been seeing more and more wildflowers when I’m out on my wanders.

Barren strawberry

There will be no big fat juicy red berries from this little strawberry as this is a Barren strawberry (Potentilla sterilis) (it has fruit but they don’t become ‘fleshy and red’). I can tell which species it is from the top of the leaf that’s showing – the ‘terminal tooth’ is shorter than those on either side of it.

Bluebell

Last Sunday I saw my first Bluebells (Hyacinthoides sp.) of the year, almost certainly Spanish or hybrids rather than native Bluebells, but still beautiful to my eye.

Common stork's-bill

I think this is Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium), a nice surprise growing amongst the grass at Cardiff Bay Wetland Reserve.

Cornsalad

Cornsalad is such a dainty little plant, with very delicate, pale blue flowers. I almost missed these growing by the path at Grangemoor Park and have since seen them in a couple of places. This is probably Common cornsalad (Valerianella locusta), but the only way to be sure it’s not one of the other four varieties is to check the fruit, which won’t be possible till later in the season.

Danish scurvygrass

This is Danish scurvygrass (Cochlearia danica), originally a seaside plant that has now become widespread by following the road-salting trucks along the roads of Britain.

Gorse

Gorse (Ulex sp.) never seems to stop flowering, though the truth is that there are two Gorse species and, when one stops flowering, the other takes over.

Grape hyacinth

These Grape hyacinth (Muscari sp.) have become naturalised in my local cemetery, probably spreading from one or two deliberate grave-top plantings, or from nearby home gardens. I love their blue.

Petty spurge

Petty spurge (Euphorbia peplus) is a very common little wildflower that’s often overlooked.

Common ragwort

Spotting this flowering Ragwort by the roadside near Cardiff Bay was a bright surprise. It’s probably Common ragwort (Senecio jacobaea).

Red dead-nettle

Red dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum). I’m a big fan of all the dead-nettles – the ‘dead’ in their name refers to the fact that they aren’t covered in stinging hairs!

Three-cornered leek

Allium triquetrum, the Three-cornered leek, is a pretty, if somewhat smelly flower but considered an alien invasive plant species here in Britain.

Variable and promiscuous

06 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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British flora, British wildflowers, purple violets, Sweet violet, Viola odorata, violets, white violets

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In Flora Botannica Richard Mabey’s opening statement on the violet family reads: ‘The violets are a variable and promiscuous family, apt to throw up all kinds of sports and hybrids.’ This once meant that botanists split the family into as many as 40 different species, depending on their colour variations. Fortunately, common sense and modern scientific analysis has now prevailed and that number has been almost halved. Still, violets are not always easy to identify.

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Although the violets in my photos are both purple and white, they are, I believe, all Sweet violets (Viola odorata), as they all had the distinctive scent of this variety – Common dog violets (Viola riviniana) are so called because they do not smell. In olden times, Sweet violets were one of the herbs that were strewn on floors to improve the smell of your home, and they have also been used by herbalists to treat insomnia, depression and headache. All that, and pretty too!

180406 sweet violets (7)

Wildflower challenge: The Borage family

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, wildflowers

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#WildflowerHour, Borage family, British flora, Forget-me-nots, spring flowers, wildflower challenge, wildflowers

Forget-me-not

This week’s challenge for #WildflowerHour was to try to find flowering members of the Borage family – and, in case you don’t know which plants they are (as I didn’t), they include such beauties as the Comfreys, the Gromwells, the Buglosses, Green alkanet, the Lungworts and the Forget-me-nots, as well as Borage itself, of course. Having found Lungwort last week, I didn’t feel I could count that for this week’s challenge, and I knew from a recent visit to Bute Park that the Green alkanet and Comfrey I usually find there were scarcely out of the ground yet – certainly, not flowering.

Forget-me-not

So, I set off on a six-and-a-half-mile walk around Cardiff Bay yesterday, hoping I might find something along the way. Nothing! There were wildflowers, of course, just none of the Borages. I was almost home again, when I thought I’d check a little lane alongside one of my local train stations, and bingo! Forget-me-nots, growing amongst the nettles and clinging to the stone wall. I don’t know which variety they are and they may originally have been garden escapees, but I was just happy to find them.