Summertime blues

There comes a time in late summer, when the flower colours seem to tip over into cool soft blues, and mauves, leaving the hot vibrant colours of summer behind. In the garden it is the hydrangeas’ and Michaelmas daisies, in the verges it is the delicate harebells.

Hope Valley, from Mam Torr

In one corner of our field is it’s the devil’s-bit scabious, it’s always a relief when I see it flower, I’d hate to lose it.

We’ve just one plant, its buds are shaped like plump blackberries (please forgive the less than pin sharp images, its been a windy day, with just my phone camera to hand).

The bees love the pincushion flowers.

Devil’s-bit scabious gets its Latin name – ‘Scabere’, meaning to scratch – from its traditional use as a treatment for skin conditions, such as scabies and the sores of bubonic plague. Its common name arises from the fact that its roots look truncated, as if bitten off, legend has it, by the Devil.

The one plant, sitting at the edge of the field, under a young oak, looks kind of vulnerable, I’m on a mission to try and increase the number of plants.

In ‘Flora of Derbyshire’, by William Richard Linton, published in 1903 it describes the devils-bit (field) scabious as being ‘Plentiful along the old road.’ That very road is just 50m away from this specimen,and I’ve never seen any others nearby in the 30+ years we lived here, I feel duty bound to make amends, its the least I can do seeing as I can’t reintroduce the corncrake to our field!

I love the gold embossed cover of the book.

Now to order some more seed.

A wagtail’s tale

We’ve had a lovely little family of pied wagtails nesting under the roof of the barn.

I’m not sure exactly home many chicks fledged, certainly at least one (and sadly one that didn’t make it). The parents certainly grafted, with the male endlessly on the move hunting for food.

The male was ringed, I’m not sure how common a thing that is, I got frustratingly close to working out the ring details, but not close enough.

I so enjoyed their industry and their chatter. I never managed to capture how the male would land on PV panels on the barn roof, give the dipping wag of its tail and slide elegantly down from the top to the bottom of the panel, it amused me for hours, I think he might have enjoyed it too.

When the chicks were hatched the female was hunting too. She got rich picking from the ants that were starting to fly, emerging from a hole in the wall under my office window.

This was just a couple of days before the true ‘flying ant day’ when a swarm emerged.

She just picked them off, there was no escape.

A flying feast.

The chick I did see, hung out in a willow tree, calling for yet more food, the parents both feeding and chasing off persistent predatory magpies.

Then it was quiet, the nest empty, and its residents off on the wing. I hope they will return next year, it’s the first time they nested with us. I like to think (hope) it is because of the changes we’ve made to how we mange both the field and the grass around the house and apple trees, we cut much less, and much later, and I think this is making a big improvement to the number of insect there are around.

Wherever the wind blows

These thistle seeds will be going too

Every seed is a wonder of design and engineering.

I love to see insects and birds feasting on the thistles, but when it get to this stage my inner gardener start to panic.

Not everyone wants or loves a thistle, and there can be too many, and in the wrong place, on pasture land and on land used for silage and hay; the law says so.

Who knew how many dilemmas there are in growing a more diverse garden that has a rich diversity of plants. We go for a gentle ‘curation’ so no one species is allowed to get too thuggish. This page looked to offer some sound advice.

Down but not out.

Pummelled by yesterday’s rain. But still rather lovely. I’m not sure if the insects want to be thigh deep in rainwater or not. Wherever you are in the world, I hope the weather is benevolent.

Rainy daisy

Nine newts a swimming, seven bats a flying

Why have I never taken a torch to look in the pond at night? So many newts, to photograph them may take a little more effort on my part, but I did manage, after a fashion  to capture my first sighting of bats for 2023 skimming over the pond.

There were some ripples, not sure if they were drinking on the wing, or catching insects.
20:30 hrs 8.7c April 7th

Other sightings
Goldcrest
Heron
Hares x 2

Life Force

Spring is rising, feel the force.

Lock-down musings

I hope wherever you are it isn’t feeling too claustrophobic.

Today I’ve been considering if snails can reverse? I know slugs can hop

 

Will there be lupins?

That is the question I asked Tom when we’d booked the flights to New Zealand,  all  the websites and brochures I’d looked at showed photogenic images of luscious lupins, framing ice blue water and snow topped mountains. ‘ Yes, they are every where Mum’ he replied. Which is a bit of an issue, but we’ll come to that later, first, lupins. Enjoy.

These images were taken at Lake Tekapo,  on South Island, the water  really is that blue, no filters here. In the distance Mount Cook and Mount Cook National Park. They were taken in November, so early summer for New Zealand

You can imagine how excited I was by this vista, Tom and Mr Uphilldowndale couldn’t stop sneezing though, but they tolerated the pollen long enough for me to play amongst the lupins and bag my very own lupin shots.

So how did they get here? The plant is native to  North America.

The story goes that,

As a schoolboy in 1949, Scott helped his mother, Connie Scott, of Godley Peaks Station, near Tekapo, scatter lupin seeds along the roadside. She bought about £100 worth from the local stock and station agent, hiding the bill from her husband for many months, hoping simply to make the world more beautiful.

1949, £100 of seed? That would have been an awful lot of money!

Maybe there is some artistic licence in that story?

Some see them as an invasive species.

The Russell lupin, Lupinus polyphyllus, hailing from North America, and used in a hybridisation program that subsequently gave it increased vigour, is such a mild-mannered and quintessential cottage garden plant here in the UK and a complete thug in New Zealand. Colonising streambanks, just like in the picture, they are taking over a habitat so important for New Zealand’s unique wildlife. Riverbed birds such as wrybill, black stilt and banded dotterel are being pushed out of their natural home by a garden plant introduced to New Zealand.

and others see them as a valuable fodder for sheep

The New Zealand Merino Company (NZMCo) is drafting a new protocol to promote lupins as a high-country fodder crop, and seeking the support of Environment Canterbury, as well as conservation groups and farmers. It’s a bid to stay on the right side of environmentalists and ecologists who see lupins as an environmental time bomb.

 

I’ve tried growing them at home, I’ve never managed to get them established, they seem to be a slug magnet. The trip has inspired me to try again though, I’m confident they won’t be colonising the Todbrook reservoir though.

 

 

Picking up the thread

It’s been a while since I posted,  not since our little town was freed from the threat of  the failure of Toddbrook dam,  and whilst I’ve not quiet finished writing about the dam, I feel the need to share a  bright, light post to kick start me into blogging again.

We’ve been having some fun filled colourful days, Joe has been home for a month and we’ve catching up with friends near and far.

Here is a day out with my friend Mrs Ogg,  we went Chatsworth House, whilst our men folk went cycling.  What ever was happening in the big top, we didn’t get invited.

Dahlias

and insects were the stars of the show

It was that perfect, late Summer meandering in to Autumn weather, which must be savoured, before it is blown away.

Spiky red dahlias, my fathers favourite flower, although my mother never appreciated the tubers being kept in the airing cupboard over winter!

Colours too hot to handle,

and gentle buttermilk yellows,

Cut flowers, prepped for the big house perhaps? They made my ex-florist fingers twitch.

Dahlias are somewhat ephemeral  as cut flowers, they don’t like to travel, get them straight from the garden, a generous neighbour or a market gardener if you can find one,  they are an endangered species, and enjoy.

Autumn is on its way

 

Downy nest down

Spud the dog and I found a nest today, a crushed cornucopia, a squashed tricorn hat, with an extravagant plume of horse hair. Mosses, lichens, feathers and webs, felted into a snug bivi bag of a home.

The fact we found iton the ground suggest its not a story with a happy ending.

We found it under the apple tree, near the conifer. I think its the nest of long tailed tits, one of my favourite birds. I’m guessing a magpie had something to do with its demise