Category: Nature Notes

If you have replaced your lawn with artificial turf or keep it close cut through the summer you will probably not see any grasshoppers. However, let the grass grow, even in just a patch or two and you are likely to be rewarded with some. In the first year that the School let the grass in the wildlife patch grow tall the children found (and heard on hot days) several of them. There are a number of species of both grasshopper and cricket that pop up in sympathetically-managed gardens in Wenvoe and we have recorded Field, Meadow and Common Green Grasshoppers along with Speckled Bush Crickets, Dark Bush Crickets (see photo) and Short-winged Coneheads. Bush Crickets are different from ‘true’ Crickets which we are unlikely to see locally. Bush Crickets have long antennae whereas grasshoppers have relatively short ones.

Grasshoppers often appear in literature. One of Aesop’s fables was the Ant and The Grasshopper and Keats wrote a poem entitled On the Grasshopper and Cricket. Charles Dickens wrote The Cricket on the Hearth. And who can forget the dapper Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio. Against a backdrop of a decline in our flying insects by 60% over the last 20 years we cannot afford to ignore the plight of many species. A Government report states – ‘Invertebrates are integral to our natural environment, fundamental to the food chain and excellent indicators of the health of our natural habitats’.

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Many people are very excited by Swift – well, Taylor Swift, to be precise. But what about the other Swifts?

The poet Ted Hughes wrote:

A bolas of three or four wire screams

Jockeying across each other

On their switchback wheel of death.

They swat past, hard-fletched

We seemed to wait an age this year for our Swifts, House Martins and Swallows to return but they made it in the end. Our Swifts have flown from sub- Saharan Africa, a journey of some 3,500 miles each way. They eat, sleep and mate on the wing only pausing to nest – some can go for 10 months without landing anywhere. They are more closely related to Hummingbirds than Swallows and can fly at speeds over 100mph. They typically live for 10 to 20 years and have been known to make it to 30. If you want to help them consider putting up a Swift nest box. They can be purchased or you can make them with some simple carpentry. Alternatively you can now buy Swift bricks which can be incorporated into brick structures, which look very neat and require no maintenance.

 

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 I breathe through my skin and have 5 pairs of simple hearts

 I am eaten by the Makiritare people of Venezuela, the Maori of New Zealand, the aborigines of Australia and Papua New Guineans

 Our ancestors were on the planet around 209 million years ago

 I am a keystone species; that means that without us humans would struggle to survive

 Sophie Smith, aged 10, charmed 567 of us in half an hour – a World Record

 I can live for 10 years or more

 I have been an ingredient in medicines for centuries

 Charles Darwin wrote a book about us which sold as many copies as The Origin of Species

 Our babies can move a weight 500 times heavier than their bodies. This is equivalent to a human pushing a Humpback Whale to one side

 Mucus from our bodies is often added to anti-wrinkle and skin regeneration cream

 We are so sensitive to sunlight that just an hour of daylight can paralyse us

 We are neither male nor female but both

 We can be as short as 1cm or as long as 3 metres

 Seeds that we have eaten and passed through our bodies are more likely to germinate

 The collective noun for us is a ‘clew’ from an Old English word meaning a ball of string

And for more fascinating insights read ‘The Book of the Earthworm’ by Sally Coulthard.

The image from Gower is Worms Head

 

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Our next two Dragons in this Chinese Year of the Dragon are the Lizards. The most common in Wenvoe is the Slow Worm, neither a worm nor snake but a legless lizard. They are amazingly long-lived, amongst the longest-living lizards in the world, often reaching 30 years and known to exceed 50. They eat slugs, snails, worms and invertebrates and whilst they lay eggs these are held inside the body and hatch there so that the lizard gives birth to live young. If you have room in your garden for a small sheet of metal or old carpet tile you will often find all sorts of wildlife sheltering there including slow worms. Juveniles can look very different with gold, silver or copper-coloured sides and often have a dark stripe running along their back. They hibernate in old trees or underground. Then there is the Common or Viviparous Lizard which is fairly common throughout the UK although it has not been recorded in our Parish. It tends to be found in grasslands or heathlands and you are quite likely to see it if you venture out into higher land in South Wales and moors but also sand dunes. It can be up to 15 cms in length and, like the Slow Worm, gives birth to live young. One to look out for and, if you can get a photo, even better.

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Do you have Dragons in your garden? It might surprise you to know that the answer is probably ‘yes’. Chinese New Year falls on February 10th and this time it is the Year of the Dragon. However, the dragons in your garden are not the traditional fire-breathing monsters of old but a group of animals called Herpetofauna which includes Amphibians and Reptiles. The Connecting the Dragons project across South Wales aims to restore and raise awareness of these threatened species, 50% of which are in danger.

So, what might you come across in Wenvoe? If you have a pond, you are likely to have Newts, certainly the Common Newt. But we suspect there are also populations of the Great Crested Newt but have yet to confirm a record. Frogs and Toads turn up regularly, but the Toad is now classified as a Priority Species because of declines in their numbers. The Grass Snake is the UK’s largest native snake but is not venomous and is quite harmless to humans. These have been recorded in the Elizabethan Orchard and the Goldsland Watercress Beds but are likely to be in many other locations in the Parish. Adders have not been recorded in the Parish although some people claim to have seen them. They have been recorded in Leckwith Woods and are likely to be here so definitely one to look out for. If you see one, treat it with respect as they have a venomous bite.

As far as Lizards are concerned, we are likely to have the Common Lizard as there are several records from Cardiff but, again, none in the Parish. And then there is the Slow Worm – neither slow nor a worm nor even a snake but a legless lizard. We come across these regularly in our wildlife sites and also in gardens, although you are less likely to see them if you have cats as they are predators.

So, in the year of the Dragon we are going to make more effort to record, protect and encourage these creatures. We hope you will do the same and in future issues of What’s On we will describe some of the ways in which you can help.

 

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There was a post recently on Facebook, not local, where someone mentioned they had been looking for Medlars for 6 years. They should have come to Wenvoe where we have 6 trees all covered with fruit in 4 of our Community Orchards! Once very popular in Britain, they are now unfamiliar to most but are staging a bit of a revival.

Medlars are related to apples and are very easy to grow. All of those planted by the Wildlife Group have taken and are growing well with fruit appearing after a couple of years. They are self-pollinating with large white flowers in late Spring. The fruit are small and hard and ideally should be left until the first frosts have ‘bletted’ or softened them. They can be used to make a fragrant amber jelly, as an accompaniment to cheese or cold meats or in a sweet dessert. Look online for different recipes.

Common names for the Medlar are a bit too vulgar to be quoted here but the French call it ‘cul de chien’. It appears often in literature with the suggestion it is ‘beautiful, bawdy and rotten’. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dekker all referred to it but one of the earliest mentions is by Theophrastus, a Greek naturalist and philosopher in 300BC.

As the RHS say – Steeped in history, easy to grow, and with stunning foliage, medlars are superb trees to grow, offering you a supply of vitamin-rich fruit to see you through the winter months.

 

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The recent national State of Nature report makes some depressing reading as the following stats indicate

• Across the UK species studied have declined on average by 19% since 1970
• Farmland bird species in the UK have, on average, seen their numbers fall by more than a half since 1970
• Invertebrate species are found in 13% fewer places now than in 1970. There have been strong declines in some insect groups with important roles, such as pollinators like bees and hoverflies
• More than half of the plants in Great Britain have been lost from areas where they used to thrive
• Only one in seven (14%) of the UK’s important habitats for wildlife were found to be in good condition

A quick look around Wenvoe will confirm that the same is happening to us. Several fields around the village have been turned over to housing and more are threatened with development. On an individual basis lawns are being replaced with artificial turf and front gardens are being slabbed or bricked over. Trees are being cut down and not replaced and ponds filled in.

But commentators suggest we can do something to help. We can put up nest boxes for birds, bee hotels and bat boxes. We can feed the birds and plant some wildflowers and pollinator-friendly shrubs and trees. Put in a pond – one we know of cost 70p and took up just 20 by 20 cms of garden space. Open compost heaps, log and stone piles, even piles of leaves can help everything from hedgehogs to slow worms. We may never hear the cuckoo again in the village – it was a regular visitor here just 30 years ago – but we might be able to help stop the decline of some of our valuable wildlife.

 

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It is that time of year when we start to see more spidery creatures around, both in the house and garden. The insect in the photo is the Harvestman – commonly called a Daddy Long Legs but not to be confused with a winged insect also called a Daddy Long Legs! It is not a spider but is closely related. They cannot spin webs or are venomous but usually catch their prey with hooks at the end of their legs. They are quite common and may gather in groups, the largest of which numbered 300,000. But don’t panic as they are harmless to humans. They are called Harvestmen because they tend to be around in the late summer when the traditional harvest was gathered in. The Latin name for them is Opiliones – Opilio meaning shepherd after the early European shepherds who walked around on stilts so that they had a better view of their flock.

 

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I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree

So wrote the American poet, Joyce Kilmer. In Wenvoe we are lucky to have a wonderful collection of trees which, if you removed the houses, would make a respectable arboretum in its own right. Dominated by the massive Horse Chestnuts and Pines around Grange Park, many of our gardens also have an amazing variety and range of, often smaller, trees. You do not need a huge garden to plant a tree in – there are species to suit every size and taste. And each one will, in its own way, help the environment, capture carbon, cool its surroundings and provide shelter and, often, food for wildlife.

Take Walston Close, for example. In the front gardens of this small cul-de-sac of 9 houses you can see Black Lace Elder, Eucryphia Nymanensis, several Acers, a couple of Cabbage Palms, Liquidamber, Weeping Purple Beech, Variegated Sycamore, Magnolia, two Apple trees, a Wedding Cake Tree (see below) and even a small Handkerchief Tree. One garden alone has 14 Acers and another 17 trees including Crabapple, Hop Tree, 4 Italian Cypress, Amelanchier, a Claygate Pearmain Apple, Silver Birch, two Blue Sausage Trees and a Judas Tree. Other trees known about in the Close include Gingko, Purple Beech and Indian Bean Tree. There are no doubt several others in back gardens which are known only to the householders. And not to mention all the conifers which are often not so easy to identify.

The Tree Trail covers many of the other interesting trees in the village such as Persian Ironwood, Laburnum, Walnut, Loquat, Clerodendron, Mulberry, Corkscrew Hazel and Bird Cherry. There is an ancient Yew in the churchyard considered already very old in 1700 and a Beech by the war memorial supposedly planted to celebrate the end of the Boer War. However, the trail does need updating as a number of trees have been removed for whatever reason and not replaced. These include Walnut, Tulip Tree and Balm of Gilead Poplar. Port Road is lined with a variety of mature trees including many Hornbeam which are not that common in the wild around here. The fields either side of the road to the Golf Club have some magnificent old oaks probably dating back to the Constable era.

How many new trees are being planted? Precious few, alas, although we were delighted to see those recently planted on the village green by a local family. The school has ambitious plans with 5 apples already in the ground and a hedgerow waiting for Autumn to enter the ground. Three new oaks went in on the fields on the way to the Golf Course. The Wildlife Group have planted around 200 fruit and other trees over the last decade. Looking out at the woodland around Wenvoe one could be forgiven for thinking that our level of tree cover is good but with England at 10% when the European average is 38%, we are near the bottom of the pile. TV presenter Iolo Williams has said more trees are needed to prevent a “collapse in wildlife”.

With Global Warming threatening, temperatures increasing and the countryside disappearing planting a tree (or two!) is one of the easiest ways in which you can make a difference. And please write to What’s On and let us know how you get on.

 

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NATURE NOTES

 

We are often asked about the effects of artificial
lawns on wildlife. The benefits in terms of
maintenance etc. are understood and promoted in
advertising by plastic grass suppliers. However
recently the Royal Horticultural Society published
an article summarising the less welcome effects
these can have on our flowers, birds and bees. Fake
lawns can contaminate the soil and surrounding
watercourses with micro-plastics. Real grass stores
carbon but with artificial grass the soil is dug up and
replaced with chippings or other crushed material.
Grass and soil will help to keep a garden cooler
through evaporation but plastic grass can get much
hotter and cause problems for the sensitive paws of
household pets. Plastic grass provides no habitat for
wildlife and the lack of worms and insects leaves
nothing for our wild birds to feed on. False grass
needs replacing after some years and the old
material ends up
as landfill. And
you cannot make
a daisy chain
with plastic
lawns! So, if you
have or are
considering
replacing your
grass with
plastic, make
sure you take
account of the
adverse effects
this can have on
your garden
wildlife.