That evening I arrived in the village of Eaton Bray, home of child prodigy Bradley Telfer; black belt in all things Minecraft-related and really rather good at making shurikens out of paper. It's also where Mark and Jo Telfer live and once again they were letting me stay for a couple of days. Mostly, I feel, so that Bradley could get his annual fix of beating me up, but also so that we grown-ups could spend a bit of time together and hit some local sites in search of plants. This would prove to be the first time I'd ever spent more than about ten minutes in the field with Mark and not be shown beetle lifer after beetle lifer. In fact, for the entire duration of my stay, we didn't poot, pot or collect a single invertebrate. And that's definitely a first!
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| Bee Orchid Ophrys apifera - one of several growing in Mark's back garden |
Things started well the following morning; Mark returned from a wander around the back garden with news that the Bee Orchids were sprouting in the lawn. A couple of minutes later and we'd counted six plants, basal leaves only at the moment. This was a very welcome jam for me, Bee Orchid is decidedly uncommon throughout most of Scotland, seeing them in Mark's garden had saved me a lengthy jaunt down to the border area. Jo works for the National Trust and has an intimate knowledge of her local reserves. Mark suggested we ought to see about locating Great Pignut, a plant that was completely off my radar, and Jo soon came up with a list of sites we could try. I consulted the BSBI database and before long we were at nearby Totternhoe Nature Reserve where I discovered that I'm very rusty with chalk-loving plants. Happily for me, Mark was almost as rusty. Between us we managed a nice slew of species including Field Scabious, Greater Knapweed, Wild Basil, Burnet-saxifrage, Cowslip, Yellow-wort and Carline Thistle, all new to the year and all tricky/impossible in Scotland.
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| Burnet-saxifrage Pimpinella saxifraga - absent from Skye, but widespread in eastern/southern Scotland |
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| Bizarre pic of Greater Knapweed Centaurea scabiosa. Perhaps I was trying to be 'arty'? |
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| Carline Thistle Carlina vulgaris - common here but a scarce and strictly coastal plant in Scotland |
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| Yellow-wort Blackstonia perfoliata - this is a crippling rarity in Scotland |
And what of our target plant, Great Pignut? Well, I spotted what I took to be bog-standard Pignut growing along the entrance track onto the reserve, then a bit more a few hundred metres further on. We had a specific search area in mind, one where it had been recorded several times in recent years. Arriving at the appointed spot we soon found....Pignut. Umm...shouldn't it be Great Pignut? I picked a frond and ran it through the Veg Key, inconclusive. Meh, I needed a stem rather than basal leaflets. In the end I popped a couple of sprigs into my notebook and we headed off to look at some dead orchid spikes. I took precisely two images of the entrance track pignut, both are shockingly poor, and none at all from the appointed patch of hillside
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| Terrible |
Jo knew a slope with at least six species of orchid growing on it. We found metal tags with the words Musk Orchid etched into them, and a couple of wire cages laying at the bottom of the slope. The cages presumably sit over the rarest plants to stop them from being grazed/trodden on. But at this time of year our only clues were literally hundreds of dead spikes from last year and a handful of newly emerged basal leaves, certainly not enough for us to attempt an ID. I bet this place looks amazing in the summer.
We spied the leaves of a milkwort and alarm bells started ringing in my head; I recalled that there's a rare one that occurs on chalk and fumbled for the book. Jo made mention of Chalk Milkwort being present on site and quickly pointed out dozens of last year's dead flowerheads all around us. Happily the key made it Chalk Milkwort too - sweet, there's absolutely no chance of me bumping into this plant anywhere north of The Midlands. As is now customary, I took yet more rubbish pics
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| Chalk Milkwort Polygala calcarea - note the leaves are bunched up at the top of the stem |
We left the main part of the reserve and wandered the edge of a huge field in search of arable weeds. Mark presented me with a couple of tiny clovers to key through. The ground was a bit mucky, so I used my copy of Stace 4 as a seat and set to, oblivious to the approaching danger.....
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| Bradley (in blue) was playing miles away. I (in black) was temporarily safe from being beaten up |
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| O-ho! The sneaky so-and-so had me fooled, I wasn't safe at all! |
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| Me, still oblivious, as Bradley assumes his attacking pounce stance |
What happened next was too quick for the camera to catch, but essentially I sensed Bradley's silent approach and combat rolled to the side as he threw himself at me. Bradley found himself sprawled on the ground instead of on top of me as I rolled back, pinned his arms to his side and tickled him in the ribs until he finally screamed 'No More!' and tapped out. Then I tickled him some more, just for good measure, before letting him up. He may have speed and youth on his side, but I have cunning and weight on my side.
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| "Seth, am I your best friend ever?" |
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| "Yes Bradley, I think you probably are" "Good. Shall we play Minecraft later?" |
After Bradley's attack had ended, we returned to Eaton Bray for food before heading back out that afternoon. Our destination this time was a great big hill with lots of steps in it. I later asked, "what was the name of that hill with all the steps?" to which Mark replied, "are you being serious? It's called Steps Hill." Oh right, I thought that was just what Bradley had named it. I Googled it, it really is called Steps Hill...
Anyway, there were several plants that we could have seen on Steps Hill had we been visiting in the summer months, notably Pasqueflower. But we weren't, so we didn't. We did find some Common Rock-rose Helianthemum nummuarium, which I would never have IDed by myself but Mark recognised the leaves straight away. I can't even remember the last time I saw a Common Rock-rose. It's very widespread in eastern Scotland, hopefully I'll find some in flower later this year. We also found a few very small plants of Dwarf Thistle Cirsium acaule, which is a plant that doesn't occur anywhere near Scotland, hence I was pleased to see it whilst down south. Mark and Bradley know this plant as the Picnic Thistle, a very good name for it too!
The one plant that we (well Mark) was hopeful of finding was Spiny Restharrow. I've never encountered this plant before, Mark was pretty sure we'd find it at the base of Steps Hill. I was looking for a low, sprawling plant, what I didn't expect to see was a whole row of scraggy bushes running alongside the footpath we were walking
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| Large clump of Spiny Restharrow Ononis spinosa looking, at first sight, to be dead |
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| Fresh leaves just sprouting from the woody stem |
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| Massively cropped pic showing green shoots on the woody stem |
Spiny Restharrow was a lifer for me and I was very glad that Mark had put in the effort to place us in the right habitat for this plant. It's very scarce in Scotland, I'd envisioned a lengthy drive down to the Solway coast in the summertime to see this plant. Once again, Mark had saved me a lot of mileage. Mind you, I'd still like to see it in full leaf and in flower, ungrateful wretch that I am!
It was fast approaching dusk, so we headed back to the car. At one point we needed to cross a field full of sheep. For some reason, two of them started trotting after Bradley as he scampered and capered ahead of us. Two became six, then ten, and pretty soon every sheep in the field was looking up to see what was happening. I'm not sure if anybody has ever been trampled to death by sheep, but Bradley quickly stopped capering about and thankfully they soon lost interest.
Tomorrow we were heading into Hertfordshire to do a bit of slum botany in a large town. No danger of sheep attacks in a town but, for myself at least, there would be a very real risk of continuing Bradley attacks. I vowed to keep my wits about me on the mean streets of Berkhamsted.
Talking of attacks, I couldn't narrow the choice to just one track - so have three. Hope you enjoy!
Cracking write-up Seth, and well done for rigidly sticking to the true facts.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've heard tale that some rogue bloggers elaborate on the facts, or possibly even make things up! Thank goodness I'm just not that kind of a guy. What you read is precisely how it happened, every single time. Yup.
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