Shouting from my shed

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Golf

 

[Here’s a link to other forays around my map.]



Today is always a landmark day in the year: the first bike ride without wearing gloves! I woke to a softer, earlier, warmer sunrise and cycled out to a grid square of heathland. Bracken, gorse, heather. Breeze in the tall thin trees swaying the lanky branches and the twigs at the top rattled against each other like squabbling fingers, occasionally snapping and cracking.

Trees usually mind out to keep a small but noticeable gap between each others crowns. Lie on your back in a wood (as I was doing), and look up: it is clear and beautiful to see. It is probably caused by the kind of reciprocal pruning that happens on windy days, like today. Many forest canopies maintain mysterious gaps, called crown shyness, that could help trees share resources and stay healthy. Wind, it seems, plays a crucial role in helping many trees maintain their distance. The boundaries carved by bouts between branches may improve the plants’ access to resources, such as light. Gaps in the treetops might even curb the spread of leaf-munching insects, parasitic vines, or infectious disease.

In some ways, crown shyness is the arboreal version of social distancing, says Meg Lowman, a forest canopy biologist and director of the TREE Foundation. “The minute you start keeping plants from physically touching each other, you can increase productivity,” she says. “That’s the beauty of isolation … The tree is really safeguarding its own health.” 

Other scientists have found clues that several paths to crown shyness likely exist, and some are perhaps less combative than these windy tussles. For instance, some trees may have learned to stop growing at their tips entirely, wising up to the fact that any new foliage will be stripped away.

The crowns of trees teem with life—and much of this biodiversity may still be undiscovered, especially in the tropics. Luckily, crown shyness “isn’t something you have to get on a plane to see. It’s happening all around—and what an enriching thing for people to look up and see.”

Apart from one row of 150-year old cottages on a lane up a narrow hill, I saw very few houses today. It was an area of beautiful homes tucked privately into individual padded envelopes of woodland and hidden between tall oak gates. A footpath ran behind the cottages’ back gardens. In one garden I glimpsed dozens of waist high statues: Buddhas, Chinese dragons, and carved lions. They had also opted for a back hedge of bamboo, unusual in England, but rampant across much of the world.

Certain species of bamboo can grow 910 mm within a 24-hour period, at a rate of almost 40 mm an hour. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. This rapid growth and tolerance for marginal land, make bamboo a good candidate for afforestation, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation.

Bamboos are of notable economic and cultural significance in South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, being used for building materials, as a food source, and as a versatile raw product.

Bamboos seldom and unpredictably flower and the frequency of flowering varies greatly from species to species. Once flowering takes place, a plant declines and often dies entirely. In fact, many species only flower at intervals as long as 65 or 120 years. The longest mass flowering interval known is 130 years, and it is for the species Phyllostachys bambusoides. In this species, all plants of the same stock flower at the same time, regardless of differences in geographic locations or climatic conditions, and then the bamboo dies. The lack of environmental impact on the time of flowering indicates the presence of some sort of “alarm clock” in each cell of the plant which signals the diversion of all energy to flower production and the cessation of vegetative growth.

Spring is an exuberant time of year, filled with “sounds with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.” A bunch of starlings chattered in the top of an ash tree. I know the beautiful ‘murmuration’ collective noun for starlings, but they are also referred to as a chatter or a chattering. But also: a scourge, a vulgarity, a filth, a clutter; a flight, a constellation, a cloud…

Starlings are our most talkative birds. The finest starling communicators have up to 35 separate songs, along with 14 clicking sounds. The species are also excellent mimics. … If a sound catches their ear, they learn it and then pass it on to their offspring, like an heirloom.

The starling, with its purple, blue and green iridescence, has a sheen to its winter plumage, including large white speckles (or stars) for a final flourish – the poor man’s peacock. Henry Mayhew thought of starlings as ‘the poor man’s parrot’ with their gift of mimicry and lustrous plumage. In by-gone Norfolk they were referred to as ’chimney snipes’ on account of their beauty.

The poet Coleridge observed a murmuration in London in the winter of 1799 and wrote in his journal, “Starlings in vast flights drove along like smoke, mist, or anything misty without volition… some moments glimmering and shivering, dim and shadowy, now thickening, deepening, blackening.”

A poet of today, Mary Oliver, in her poem ‘Starlings in Winter’, must have the last word on the magic of the bird with stars in its feathers:

How they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Another sure sign of spring is the emergence of daffodils across the country. And speaking of Coleridge and daffodils, it’s surely time for a little Wordsworth. In 1795 he struck up a friendship with poet Samuel Taylor Coledridge, and in 1798, they co-published Lyrical Ballads, which is now recognized as the volume of poetry that launched the Romantic Age of English literature. Lyrical Ballads started out with a modest reception, but its reputation grew in time, and by the 1820s it was a widely known and respected work, and Wordsworth was able to publish for pay regularly for the rest of his life.

“I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” made no immediate impact upon publication, but over the decades it has become Wordsworth’s most famous poem. The rhythm and language so elegantly capture the sense of peace and solitude one gets in nature. The poem has an expansive, enormous canvas, first with Wordsworth giving sense of imagery as viewed from above (as if from the viewpoint of a cloud), and then with him cleverly using the galaxy as a metaphor for the scope of a wild flower field.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Personally I’ve always hated the poem, ever since I had to memorise it at school and, on another occasion, copy it out laboriously for a handwriting competition (something I have never been likely to win)! But I do like the cheerful optimism of the flowers.

Narcissus species are found in a variety of habitats in Europe and North Africa, ranging from sea level to subalpine meadows, woodlands and rocky places. Spain hosts the greatest variety of species, but they can also be found in Morocco, Portugal, western France, Italy, and other countries.

Daffodils were introduced into gardens in about 300BC. The Greek botanist and philosopher Theophrastus listed and described many of the earliest known kinds of narcissus in his nine-volume ‘Enquiry into Plants‘. Daffodils were brought to Britain by the Romans who thought that the sap from daffodils had healing powers. Actually the sap contains crystals that can irritate the skin. Dabbling with winter, daring to come before the warm days truly settle in. Shakespeare mentions “daffodils, that come before the swallow dares” in A Winter’s Tale.

I left the woodland, busy (sadly) with chainsaws, diggers, and the strong smell of woodsmoke. I crossed a busy road and followed a footpath into a field of winter wheat seedlings, busy with fieldfares. I got a buzz as a buzzard launched from a hedge. They are such big birds that I could track it as it flew far away into the distance. (Later in the morning, on the heath margins of a golf course, another took flight from the ground, swerving its big mass and wingspan through the trees as best it could.)

Soaring buzzards are a common sight above our woodlands once more. These impressive birds of prey have quadrupled in number since 1970. A buzzard’s beak is sharp and hooked and it has large feet with sharp talons. It has a wingspan of around 120cm and weighs up to 1kg. Buzzards normally mate for life and a pair will fiercely defend their territory from any intruders. In early spring, male buzzards put on acrobatic aerial displays to impress females. Known as the ‘rollercoaster’, this sees the male fly upwards before plummeting down, twisting and turning as it descends. 

Buzzards are the UK’s most common bird of prey, but this was not always the case. Persecution by gamekeepers and the use of pesticide meant the species had disappeared from most of the country by the mid-20th century. Legal protection and a reduction in pesticides has allowed buzzards to recover. Numbers have more than quadrupled since 1970 and there may now be over 70,000 breeding pairs across the country.

Re-crossing the road the cats-eyes caught my eye, as they’re supposed to do, I guess. Percy Shaw was a Yorkshireman, self-employed laying tarmac drives and paths. After a long day asphalting he enjoyed nothing better than having a pint of the local brew in the Old Dolphin public house situated in Queensbury village.  Although Queensbury was only a few miles away from his home it is positioned in the clouds 1000 feet above sea level.  Percy, like all other motorists at that time relied at night upon the reflections of their headlights from the tramlines to see them safely home.  The demise of the tram led to the eventual removal of the tramlines thus depriving the motorist of the night-time aid they had so relied upon.

Shaw realised this night-time guide to traffic must somehow be re-instated.  His encounter with a cat one densely foggy night proved his inspiration and catalyst. As he made his way home through the village of Queensbury to his home in Boothtown he had to descend down a twisting road.  A sharp reflection in his headlights stirred his curiosity and caused him to bring his car to a standstill.  On alighting from his vehicle he discovered that this reflection was the eyes of a cat but more importantly that he was traveling down the wrong side of the road, had he continued in a straight path he would have plummeted over the edge of this twisting road.

He applied his spare time to resolving this issue of a night-time guide and after many trials and failures he eventually took out patents on his invention and on 15th March 1935 the company of Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd was incorporated with Percy Shaw as Managing Director.

The development of the company and the “Catseye” reflecting Roadstud was to occupy the rest of Percy Shaw’s life.
Initially it was extremely difficult to persuade the authorities to invest in his invention and it wasn’t until the black-out during the Second World War almost ten years later that his invention was widely adopted and used on UK roads.

When I was about 18 I gouged a catseye from a road and set about trying to make it into a necklace. Fashion has never been my forté. Nor has DIY – I failed even to take the thing apart! But I do remember being impressed with its clever design. A key feature of the cat’s eye is the flexible rubber dome which is occasionally deformed by the passage of traffic. A fixed rubber wiper cleans the surface of the reflectors as they sink below the surface of the road (the base tends to hold water after a shower of rain, making this process even more efficient). The rubber dome is protected from impact damage by metal ‘kerbs’ – which also give tactile and audible feedback for wandering drivers. In 2006, Catseye was voted one of Britain’s top 10 design icons in the Great British Design Quest organised by the BBC and the Design Museum, a list which included Concorde, Mini, Supermarine Spitfire, K2 telephone box, World Wide Web and the AEC Routemaster bus. To complete Percy Shaw’s fame, he’s also had a Wetherspoon’s pub named after him…

Most of the day’s grid square was covered by a golf course. Pleasant enough, if somewhat artificial and dull. The landscape I mean, not the game… I’ve found it really interesting to notice the different uses of land across my map. Closed due to lockdown, I had the golf course to myself as I strolled the length of a fairway (on a public footpath). I glanced with only passing interest at an oak tree, speckled with lichen like many trees are. I took a quick photo, then took out my phone to use the Seek app to identify what I was looking at. Soon I was totally drawn in, noticing more and more, different colours and textures, falling down the rabbit hole of fascination. There was so much to see on the trunk of this tree!

The symbiotic merging of algae and fungi to form lichens enabled the rootless ancestors of all our plants to emerge from water. A “door-opener” book is one with a specialist subject in which it finds pathways leading everywhere. This is a genre devoted to connectedness in all directions, and is one well suited to our times. ‘Entangled Life’ by Merlin Sheldrake is a very fine example. It was reading that book that prompted me to pay attention to this lichen.

Lichens are miniature ecosystems made of fungus and an algae and/or cyanobacteria. These different life forms work (very) closely together, with the algae or cyanobacteria sitting inside the fungus. The algae or cyanobacteria provide the fungus with sugars made from sunlight, and the fungus provides the home for both of them.

To grow, lichens get their nutrients from the air. Because lichens have no roots or protective surface, they cannot filter what they absorb, so whatever is in the air is taken straight inside. If there are pollutants, it can accumulate in the lichen and can become toxic very quickly.

Museum lichenologist Gothamie Weerakoon says that lichens make great air pollution indicators. She says, ‘they are very sensitive, respond to pollution in short time frames and we have access to very good databases that allow us to understand different lichen species.’

They are beautiful too. (Briefly detouring into the moss that neighboured the lichen on the tree, the artist Olafur Eliasson constructed a beautiful moss wall exhibition. Reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina), a lichen native to countries in the northern latitudes including Iceland, was woven into a wire mesh and mounted on the wall of a gallery. As the lichen dries, it shrinks and fades; when the installation is watered, the moss expands, changes colour again, and fills the space with its fragrance.

Reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina), a lichen native to countries in the northern latitudes including Iceland, is woven into a wire mesh and mounted on the wall of a gallery. As the lichen dries, it shrinks and fades; when the installation is watered, the moss expands, changes colour again, and fills the space with its fragrance.)

“Some lichen look like stains, others like small shrubs, others like antlers. Some leather and droop like bat wings, others, as the poet Brenda Hillman writes, are ‘hung in hashtags.’”  The wizardry of my phone app identified a Rough Speckled Shield Lichen, a Bushy Cartilage Lichen, Monk’s Hood Lichen, and the bright yellow Shore Lichen. And there was I thinking this golf course was a bit boring and empty.

If I had to choose a map to live on this one would be so far down my list. There is no forest without litter, no hills to raise the heartbeat, no river to swim in, no ocean with crashing waves, no town bustling with people who like the same things as me. Living on this map, I am often lonely. But yet the mornings when I set out to explore my map –to cycle, hike, photograph, sit, think, and pay attention– are the highlight of my week. Out here I do not notice what I am missing, but rather treasure all that I find.

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Shouting from my shed

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