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By Martyn Stenning
December 2015
Two striking facts were on the news this
evening. One was that we experienced the hottest July
day ever in 2015, and the other that we are likely to
experience the mildest November weather ever during this
month. I write my Nature Notes about a month before it
comes out, so you are likely to know if they were right by
the time you read this. The fact remains that carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest level since
records began. This is likely to have profound consequences
for nature. I was reading my earlier Nature Notes
yesterday so that I could avoid repeating myself too much,
and even in 2002 and 2004 I was writing about how
extraordinarily mild it was in November and December.
What seems to be happening is that the trapped heat from the
greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide and methane in
the atmosphere is warming the oceans and large land masses
causing more moisture in the atmosphere in some places
leading to heavy rain and flooding in some places and
drought and forest fires in others. Ice is melting in
the Arctic and mountain glaciers, and all this is leading to
changes in the ranges of plants and animals. For us
humans the consequences are often disastrous with flooded or
burnt homes, crop failures, hunger, thirst and heat stroke.
In short – it is rather depressing.
So, what can we do? First, we should try to refrain
from doing anything that will make things worse.
Second, we could watch nature and read the signs and report
them where we can. Then for ourselves, we should think
positively and live well with nature in the knowledge that
all things are interdependent. We depend on nature for
all our oxygen, water, food, warmth and shelter. Even
our transport systems derive originally from natural
things. Nature tells us one thing more than anything
else, that is - adapt and survive. This is not as
selfish as it sounds. It actually means that organisms
that fit in with the rest of nature fill a niche that keeps
them healthy by keeping others around them healthy.
Animals that eat other animals mostly take those that would
not survive in any case. Plants that produce fruit do so to
get animals to eat the fruit and the animals disperse the
seeds contained therein to places where the seeds can
grow. Honeybees collect nectar for their colony and
carry pollen between flowers that leads to good fruit and so
on. Only by caring for nature will it return the
favour.
November 2015
As science unfolds the secrets of nature,
we come to realise that we are totally dependent on the
functioning of most forms of life. This is called ecosystem
services. In short these are the
activities of wildlife that support the lives of humans and
other organisms. We are actually dependent on almost
all species in some way or another. Many of these
services we take for granted because they are silently
always there functioning normally and providing for our
needs. For example, about 70% of the oxygen that we
breathe emanates from photosynthetic plankton in the vast
oceans. It is released into the atmosphere and then
circulates around the globe. The remaining 30% will
come from the plants of the land and fresh-water
habitats.
Pollution has always been a problem. Before motor cars
were invented, people relied on horses. However, as
London grew larger, the number of horses was so large that
the streets were getting clogged with horse manure. It
became a crisis until motor vehicles provided a
solution. However, in the countryside, the dung
disappears very quickly. This is because there are
species of beetle called dung beetles. Some of these
roll it up into little balls, then roll the balls to an
appropriate place, lay their eggs in it and then bury it
underground. Soon the beetle larvae hatch out and
actually eat the dung and it then becomes part of the
enriched soil. There are also dung flies that are
completely harmless but also lay their eggs in the dung and
the fly larvae eat it and then turn into new dung flies and
so on. There is an amusing story about the first
European settlers in Australia who took large numbers of
cattle and sheep there. However, the Australian
insects could not cope with the amount of dung that these
strange animals produced, so the settlers had to collect
dung beetles from Europe and introduce them into Australia
in order to provide a service to the cattle ranchers.
It is interesting to note that almost all of the food
produced on the terrestrial parts of planet earth emanates
from the top 20 centimetres of soil. If it was not for
the insects, crustaceans, earthworms and microbes that live
in this soil, nothing would grow. We all need the
biodiversity that makes up the family of life on this
planet, and unless we strive to preserve it, we will end up
like an astronaut on the surface of the moon without a space
suit.
October 2015:
Between about 65 and 130 million years
ago, the ridge where Whitemans Green near Cuckfield now
exists was part of a huge river delta, as were large parts
of Sussex including where Uckfield and Framfield now sit on
the sandstone ridges of the High Weald. This delta was
very wet, sandy and silty with marshes, swamps and
bogs. The rivers brought huge amount of sandy silt
from other parts of the huge tectonic plate that makes up
what we know as Eurasia. Britain did not exist as an
island but was part of a great alluvial plain. Also at
that time, most of the animals that roamed this plain were
reptiles, great big ones like the Iguanodon, a
plant eating dinosaur about 10 metres long.
Then about 20 million years ago another tectonic plate that
we now call Africa moved closer and crashed and folded into
the land where Spain and Portugal make up the Iberian
Peninsular, thus the Mediterranean basin was created, but
also the Pyrenees, Alps, Dolomites and – the High Weald of
Sussex and Kent which with the Chiltern Hills, make up the
outer rim of this vast crumple zone. The alluvium that
was the river delta was heaved up and became a mountain of
soft rock – sandstone, clay and chalk. If it reached
its full potential height it would have been as high as Ben
Nevis in Scotland, namely 1,000 metres. In this soft
rock remained the bones of many dead dinosaurs, but as the
rock was being pushed up, the rain wind and frost was
eroding it and washing it away again into the sea. The
mountain was reduced to the sandstone ridges, clay plains
and chalk downs of the south-east of England.
Following on from a previous Nature Notes, we pick up the
life of a young doctor and amateur naturalist who lived in
Lewes called Gideon Mantell, who in 1822 was walking in the
Quarry at Whitemans Green with his wife Mary (nee Mary Ann
Woodhouse) when she found what looked like a huge fossilised
tooth which she passed to her husband. It turned out
to be the tooth of a terrible lizard (Dinosaur) later called
Iguanodon – this was the first evidence in the
world that any of these creatures had ever existed.
All the knowledge that we now have about dinosaurs was begun
by that humble country doctor from Lewes whose son went to
school in Uckfield and was a friend of the Streatfeild
family who owned The Rocks estate which included Lake Wood
and what we now call West Park Local Nature Reserve.
September 2015:
Nature never rests. There is always
movement and change. Some of these movements are very
slow such as the growing of a leaf. The roots of trees
keep growing underground even in the winter. Other movements
are incredibly fast like the flying of a swift. The
swifts have already left our shores and returned to Africa
as I write on 10th August. Swifts only eat
insects. Many other birds have started the autumn
migration having raised their babies, moulted and teamed up
with others of their species. Almost all these
migrants predominantly feed on insects. Insects almost
completely disappear in winter.
The insects are constantly moving, buzzing and crawling in
their millions. They were here before we were, and
will probably be around after humans have become
extinct. They may annoy us at times, but we could not
live without them as they provide ecosystem services upon
which we rely. For example, if it was not for dung
beetles, the fields would be carpeted with animal
dung. If it was not for bees our fruit and vegetables
would not be pollinated and reproduce. If it was not
for the insects in the rivers and ponds there would be no
trout or salmon for us to eat. The role of insects is
taken over by crustaceans such as shrimps in the sea.
The shrimps eat the plankton and many fish eat the
shrimps. We then may enjoy eating cod, plaice and
haddock etc.
Insects can be both friend and enemy as gardeners who try to
grow cabbages will confirm. The pretty white
butterflies that we delight in are not so welcome to the
cabbage growers as these insects produce prodigious numbers
of caterpillars that love to eat cabbages. However,
the beautiful tortoiseshell and peacock butterflies also
produce similar numbers of caterpillars that love to eat
stinging nettles.
People often say what use are wasps, but wasps are classed
as detritivores or eaters of detritus. Normally, wasps
eat dead plants and animals, especially dead insects, and
make their nests out of paper that they make from dead
wood. Indeed, wasps were making paper for millions of
years before humans came on the scene. Of course, once
we did arrive and started killing things to eat, the wasps
saw our activities as a great opportunity to acquire easy
food. In the process they made an enemy of the human
race.
August 2015:
The first person to discover the existence
of dinosaurs was Dr Gideon Mantell who lived in Lewes, and
befriended the Streatfeild family who owned The Rocks estate
to the west of Uckfield, and whose family plaques are
displayed in Holy Cross Church. The following is a
description by Dr Mantell of what we now call Lake Wood.
'Near "the Rocks," the seat of ---- Streatfeild, Esquire,
about half a mile west of Uckfield, a group of sandstone
rocks occurs, under circumstances of considerable beauty and
picturesque effect. The path that leads to this
interesting spot lies to the right of the road, and by
circuitous route, conducts the spectator to the centre of a
wood, where a beautiful lake, nearly surrounded by rocks,
suddenly opens to the view. The cliffs, overhanging
the water, are from twenty to thirty feet high, and are
surmounted by forest trees and underwood. In some
places the rocks are nearly perpendicular; in others, they
descend with a gentle slope to the waters edge, the
declivity being covered by a luxuriant vegetation. On
the northern margin, a projecting point of high rock is
perforated by a natural archway, that has been enlarged by
art, and this leads to a recess in the sandstone on a level
with the bosom of the lake. From this point the
picturesque beauty of the scene is exhibited to particular
advantage. On the opposite shore, the base of a rock
that juts into the water is in like manner excavated into an
arch, beneath which a shallop was moored at the time of my
visit. In one of the vertical cliffs, some fine young
birch trees had taken root between the thin layers that
separate the strata, and in almost every fissure of the rock
numerous plants had insinuated themselves, and by the beauty
and variety of their foliage, relieved the monotonous and
sombre appearance of the smooth grey sandstone. On the
less elevated masses, lichens, mosses, and heaths were
growing in great profusion and luxuriance. The strata
are nearly horizontal, and partake of the characters of
those already described.'
A description of Lake Wood “The Rocks” from: The
Geology of the South-East of England (Mantell
1833 p.203).
For a little joy, why not visit this place sometime, and
check out the above, it is now owned by the Woodland Trust
who welcome visitors.
July 2015:
The apple blossom has now long gone and
the small green round fruit is beginning to form. I
wonder if you have ever wondered how apples became so sweet
and delicious? Anyone who has ever bitten into a Crab
Apple will know how sharp their taste can be. However
a Russet or Cox’s Orange Pippin or a Golden Delicious or
Granny Smith apples are lovely and sweet and easy to
eat.
Well, apparently we have vegetarian bears in and around
Kazakhstan to thank for this. Apparently, this is the region
of the world where the first apples appeared, vast forests
of apple trees. In these forests lived many locally
adapted Brown Bears Ursus arctos whose food
consisted of mainly a vegetarian diet. Their favourite
food was apples, and when these were in season, the bears
knew exactly which trees bore the sweetest fruit.
Over thousands of years, the bears selected only the sweetest fruit and ate the whole apple, including the pips which passed through them intact and passed them out of their bodies bathed in nutrient rich compost. These bears would migrate from region to region and in the process spread these seeds into new areas, which just happened to be on the old silk trails between China and Europe. Travellers would find these apple trees and discovered how sweet their fruit was. The traders collected the apples and brought them to Europe to sell in markets. Consequently, seeds were germinated and the apple was introduced into Europe, including, eventually, the British Isles.
Apple farming became popular, especially in Kent, where, incidentally, most of the traders arrived after crossing the Straits of Dover, the narrowest crossing point from the Continent. These farmers went on to develop vegetative propagation techniques, such as budding and grafting, to produce varieties that were good from generation to generation. The more bitter varieties were used in cider making.
In order for apple seeds to be
viable, the blossom has to be pollinated. Insects such as
bumblebees and honeybees are the normal pollinators, but
it has recently been discovered that blue tits are also
fond of nectar and are just as effective at pollinating
apples as the insects. They may be the only British
bird that is doing this.
Martyn Stenning
May 2015:
“OH to be in England now that April’s
there, and whoever wakes in England sees, some morning,
unaware that the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf round
the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, while the chaffinch
sings on the orchard bough in England – now!
And after April, when May follows, and the whitethroat
builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossom’d
pear-tree in the hedge leans to the field and scatters on
the clover blossoms and dewdrops – at the bent spray’s edge
– that’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
lest you should think he never could recapture the first
fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, all will be
gay when noontide wakes anew the buttercups, the little
children’s dower – far brighter than this gaudy melon
flower.”
Robert Browning’s Home Thoughts, from Abroad captures the
essence of spring and early summer in England for which he
pines while in Italy in 1845. I presume to say that
such words are as true now as they were then, before tarmac
and the internal combustion engine were invented. The
only flyers were birds, bats and insects then. It is
true that humans have changed the world almost beyond
recognition since Robert Browning wrote those words 170
years ago. One wonders what the next 170 years will
bring? Dutch elm disease reduced England’s population of
mature elms, but most elms still exist as the disease only
kills the above ground mature stems, the roots remain alive
and new shoots soon appear to produce elms that rarely grow
taller than about 5 metres before they too submit to the
disease. However it has recently been deduced that the
English elm is probably not native to England at all, but
may have been brought here by (ironically) the Romans from
Italy about 2000 years ago! The chaffinch, whitethroat
swallow and song thrush mentioned by Browning are also
native to Italy. The pear tree too, though probably
originating in China, spread through Asia and Europe over
many millennia and was certainly a favourite fruit in Italy
especially in Roman times. The buttercup also is
widespread throughout Europe. We can only suppose that
Robert Browning was really yearning for something other than
England’s flora and fauna.
April 2015:
March has brought longer days, sunshine
and some welcome flowers such as crocuses and
daffodils. There are also some subtler ones like
speedwell (Veronica spp.), little blue flowers in
the grasslands. The reason these flowers are out is so
that they can get pollinated by the first insects which are
usually bumble bees and hover flies, and maybe a few
butterflies such as peacock and tortoiseshell. You
will probably be reading this in April; I must bear that in
mind. By mid-April the first migrants will have
arrived and many more insects will be available for them to
eat as all our inland summer migrants are
insectivorous. As soon as the temperature is often
more than 10 degrees Celsius there will be an explosion of
insects. There has already been an explosion of frog
spawn in my pond, and I will be watching it develop with
interest.
The spring equinox is about 21st
March, when day-length will equal night-length. The
chain of events that this triggers starts with flowers,
insects and birds already mentioned, but there is a huge
amount of other consequences, such as the flood of fish
and sea-birds heading east and north for the cold water of
the arctic as the long days up there trigger the
planktonic blooms that the fish depend upon, who in turn
feed the birds, seals, whales and polar bears (who mainly
eat seals). I went to the arctic last summer and
experienced 24 hours daylight and temperatures as high as
30 degrees Celsius. There were also large numbers of
insects, most of them bite, and seemed to find me rather
tasty.
If you are interested in watching
migrating seabirds such as skuas, terns, petrels and
scoters flying up the channel, the best place is the
eastern end of the beach at Seaford at about 06:00 hrs. in
the morning armed with a spotting telescope and
binoculars, especially during May with a wind from the
west. You will also see the large colony of
kittiwakes which nest on the chalk cliffs nearby,
unmistakable as the only gulls with black feet and
legs. You are also likely to see gannets out to sea
at almost any time of year from that location.
April is when frenetic nest-building will be happening by
blue, great, coal, long-tailed, marsh and willow
tits. These and all the other insectivorous birds
will be anticipating the caterpillar bonanza mostly during
in May. Look out for your first swallow and note the date!
March 2015:
It is early February as I write
this. The first signs of spring are just beginning to
show. The evenings are getting significantly lighter;
at least I leave work in the light now, even if it is dark
on arrival at home. Snowdrops are showing well, and I
saw crocuses in bud this evening while walking to my
car. I have heard the following birds singing on
territory: blue tit, dunnock, song thrush, blackbird, great
tit, nuthatch, great-spotted woodpecker, robin, coal
tit. I was working in Lake Wood on Saturday, and I was
amazed to see and hear a raven fly through the wood kronk
kronking as it went. On Sunday I did a bat hibernation
survey in Lake Wood and found three Natterer’s bats
hibernating in the rocks. In April we will start
checking the dormice nest boxes. The dormice are also
in hibernation at present, asleep in the leaf litter on the
ground in a nice little tennis ball sized nest made of
tightly bound honeysuckle bark. Honeysuckle is also
called woodbine.
The one thing about February is that you would be hard
pressed to find any sort of insect at this time of the
year. Considering the vast numbers we see during the
summer, this is an amazing contrast, but we seem to hardly
notice it. When did you last see an insect? No
bees, butterflies, moths, gnats, earwigs or beetles. All are
either dead, hibernating or overwintering as eggs, larvae or
pupae. Blue tits often glean the trees looking for
insect eggs in the winter.
Next time you are near a tree, take a look at the
buds. If you find an elder tree, the chances are you
will see the first leaves near the bottom of the trunk
breaking bud, and even showing some green. It will
probably be March before you read this, by then elder will
be well in leaf. The cow parsley is growing steadily
under the trees, and the hazel has elongated male catkins
shedding their pollen and showing their tiny little red
female flowers on the buds that will produce the hazel nuts
once the pollen has fertilized them. The buds of other
trees will be swelling and showing their bud-scale colour,
often red or yellow on willow, black on ash, brown and
sticky on horse chestnut, pale brown on oak and chestnut
brown, pointy and long on hornbeam and even longer on
beech. It will be many weeks before these break bud,
but look out for the hawthorn leaves, they like elder are
among the first!
February 2015:
Now that the days are slowly stretching,
nature is responding by pushing up the bulb shoots,
extending the hazel catkins and swelling the leaf buds on
some of the understory trees and shrubs. It will not
be long before we see frog spawn in the ponds, snowdrops in
flower and after that the first celandines. Already the cow
parsley is growing to catch the early-year low sunshine
which can penetrate the stands of naked deciduous
trees. It pays for understory plants to leaf early
before the large deciduous trees steal from them the strong
rays of summer sun with their dense canopy of broad
leaves. Sometimes, these leaves can be totally
defoliated by thousands of caterpillars, and for a time the
sun can get through. However, the caterpillars are not
there for long, and soon pupate before becoming moths or
butterflies. Then the trees have a second flush of
leaves, often known as Lammas growth in July and August as
it coincides with the Christian Celtic harvest festival of
Lammas or loaf mass (August 1st).
Anyway, back to February. It is cold, and wet, often
windy, occasionally snowy, and the wildlife is having a hard
time. Wood pigeons are harvesting the rich crop of ivy
berries, often hanging upside down to get at them. The
thrushes and blackbirds are still seeking out the remaining
holly, rowan and hawthorn berries to keep themselves
sustained in the harsh weather. It is usually no good
searching for earthworms, because the top few centimetres of
soil are often frozen, and the worms have gone down
deep. However, some gulls have learned that when it is
not freezing, they can bring up a rich harvest of earthworms
by paddling on the soil with their webbed feet which causes
the worms to come to the surface where they can be grabbed
for a ready meal. Some say that the paddling action of
the gulls feet make the worms think it is raining, because
worms like to rain-bathe, that is to stretch out on the
surface of the soil during a rain storm and let the water
wash over them. Earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris)
are just one of around 10,000 species of oligochaete
(meaning many bristles) worms as earthworms have rows of
tiny bristles along their length which help them to move
through the soil. Many oligochaetes are aquatic.
Indeed if you disturb a rain bathing earthworm at night with
a torch you may be surprised how quickly it can retreat back
into its burrow!
January 2015:
About 99% of the deciduous leaves have
fallen from the trees, leaving just the evergreens adorning
our countryside. The only native broadleaved evergreen
true tree that we have in Britain is holly (Ilex
aquifolium). There is also box (Buxus
sempervirens) but this is considered to be a
shrub. Also known as the holy tree, we deck the halls
with holly at Christmas. We only have three native
conifers and they are all evergreen. These are Yew (Taxus
baccata), Juniper (Juniperus communis) and
Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). There are
other evergreens in the countryside, but they are either not
trees, such as the lovely climbing ivy (Hedera helix),
winter roost for birds. Or else they are alien invaders such
as Rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum) and cherry
laurel (Prunus laurocerasus). Alien invaders
will invade natural habitats and eventually wipe out native
species.
Other evergreens will also be alien, but not necessarily
invasive, such as the occasional Wellingtonia tree also
called giant redwood (Sequoiadendron gigantium)
from California, thought to be the largest living thing by
volume in the world. This is often planted in large
country estates, and we have several around Uckfield.
There is also the closely related coast redwood (Sequoia
sempervirens), thought to be the tallest single
living tree in the world. Other evergreens such as the
Norway spruce (Picea abies) is the tree most of us
have as Christmas trees, grown commercially, but not native,
and ought not to be planted in natural woodland. There
are many other conifers that have been planted, especially
by the Forestry Commission in the past because they grow
quickly yielding a quick return on timber sales.
However, most of our birds and other animals are poorly
adapted to these alien trees, and will not use them for food
or nesting. Therefore it is advisable when planting
trees in gardens to plant native species as these will
attract more wildlife such as birds, butterflies and
moths. Good examples of native small garden trees
include rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) which has
beautiful dark orange berries and delicate light green
leaves in the summer, but will never grow very large, but is
favoured by many birds. Another pretty tree is the
field maple (Acer campestre) whose leaves turn a
beautiful yellow in autumn. Yew is slow growing, but
trim-able, and, if you get a female, has lovely red berries
favoured by thrushes.