Category: Nature Notes

 

Those venturing out on our local beaches in South Wales in mid October may have been in for a surprise. Spread along the shore – there were maybe 400-500 on Rhossili beach – were Portuguese Men of War jellyfish. They are usually to be found out on the open ocean but the lively weather and post-hurricane storms drove many of them ashore. Although small, they are quite distinctive with a 'pasty-shaped' bladder which keeps them afloat but they are at the mercy of winds, tides and currents unlike many jellyfish which can swim to a degree.

Strictly speaking they are not jellyfish but an aggregation of different individuals known as a siphonophore. Also unlike many jellyfish the stings from the venomous tentacles, which can be up to 10 metres long, can still be activated long after the creature is dead so resist the temptation to touch it and keep dogs well away. They have few predators although Loggerhead Turtles, Blue Sea Slugs and the Violet Snail will all happily munch away at them. The young Blanket Octopus will even carry broken bits of tentacle which can be used either in attack or defence

 

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A stroll along the new cycleway and footpath on Port Road between Wenvoe and the Alps roundabout revealed some interesting plants lurking at the base of the hedgerow. Most surprising because it has not been recorded yet in the parish is Dewberry. Similar to the Blackberry but with some clear distinguishing features. The berries have a bluish waxy bloom to them and there are far fewer segments per fruit, a bit like a raspberry in this respect. The leaves are closer together than is the case with brambles and they tend to creep along the ground rather than throw up long prickly stems. They are known on Gower as 'monkey grabbers' as their low creeping habit means they are easier to miss until they have snared you around the ankles. On Gower and other dune systems you will often see people gathering the berries which some adore but others find bland and insipid. In Wiltshire it is known as the Token Blackberry. The leaves can also be used to make a tea

 

 

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This fellow traveler took off sixty years ago and it was the first of its kind. The second one carried a dog and the photo shows one of several found down at Goldsland Farm. Confused? Well, the first artificial earth satellite was, of course, Sputnik, which is Russian for Satellite or Fellow Traveller and this was launched in 1957. Later that year Sputnik 2 went into space with the dog Laika on board. And the gall in the photo is the Sputnik or Spiked Pea Gall and it is usually found on Dog Rose which was the case down at Goldsland. It is caused by a small wasp which lays its eggs in the leaves – each gall houses one grub. The Sputniks were launched in Kazakhstan which is the home of the apple – over many hundreds, possibly thousands, of years they worked their way to the west along the silk roads and with the help of traders and the guts of animals. After years of putting up with the mouth-puckering crab-apple, finally the sweet apple arrived and for our ancestors it was a life-changing event.

 

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Sometimes nature can be a bit baffling. In the photo a Rush (the long straight stalk) has grown through the Alder leaf – both are undamaged. How can this happen? Does the Alder leaf sit quietly without moving until the Rush grows through it? Or did a gust of wind force the Alder leaf down on the Rush, leaving it impaled? There are shortcomings with both explanations.

Maybe you have a better idea?

Then there is the question of the Marble Gall. These round galls which are marble sized and shaped grow on Oak and are very common. They have been used for centuries for making the ink that was used to write important documents such as Magna Carta (1215). There are even traces of the ink on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Because the gall is very common now many people assume they were collected in the countryside but the Marble Gall only appeared here in the 18th century when the Turkey Oak was introduced to Britain – the insect that creates the gall needs the Turkey Oak to complete its life cycle. So were the galls imported? – the best were supposed to come from Aleppo which is in Syria – some distance away.

Further probing reveals that there was indeed a substantial trade in these galls with Britain importing around 2,500 tons in 1880. So even after the gall could be found in England and Wales the Aleppo gall was being brought in because they had a higher content of the tannins essential for producing the best ink. There are recipes online for making the ink so if you want to have a go at home or try it in the classroom you can still do so using the our local Marble Galls which grow all around the parish.

 

 

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A pretty little flower or menacing alien invader? This flower was in bloom during April and May and a number of people have commented on it. Commonly mistaken for a white Bluebell this is actually the Three Cornered Leek or Three Cornered Garlic. It grows all round the parish, often in private gardens but also alongside the A48 at the top of the Tumble and even on the Wenvoe Village Green. It may look innocuous but it is in fact a notifiable plant under the Countryside and Wildlife Act which means it is illegal to plant it or grow it in the wild. Soil containing seeds or bulbs (in other words any soil in which it has been growing) must be disposed of in a licensed landfill site. The reason is that it does spread rapidly and will soon smother our native wildflowers. It is already a major problem in Cornwall and Devon and one can expect the same to happen here.

It is very easy to identify and distinguish from a Bluebell as it has triangular stems – the latter is round. It also has an onion smell whereas the English Bluebell flower is scented (although the Spanish Bluebell has no scent). It is from the Mediterranean region and was introduced in the mid 18th Century

It is popular with foragers as the leaves and flowers can be added to salads and the bulbs used as a substitute for garlic but don't confuse it with a daffodil bulb which is poisonous. It is in the Allium family which are reportedly good for the heart and high blood pressure. The juice is even claimed to be good as a moth repellent.

 

Three Corner Garlic

 

 

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The Welsh Orchard near Maes y Felin includes a selection of plants grown by the Physicians of Myddfai; 12th century (and onwards) herbalists who were known all over Europe. We know a lot of what they believed and prescribed because, unusually for the time, their teachings were well-documented. The plants they used, with a few exceptions, will be familiar to us – many regarded as 'weeds'.

There is a very common little weed growing all round Wenvoe at the moment with blue flowers known as Ground Ivy and this was first recorded for medical use by the Myddfai practitioners. A fresh herb tea of the plant with honey is naturally rich in Vitamin C and it was found useful in dealing with coughs. The leaves could be turned into snuff which helped with asthma and also headaches and hangovers. The Celts treated moderate burns with an ointment using the stems and it was thought to relieve snake bites. The Celts also used it for many other conditions including indigestion, eye problems and ringing in the ears.

It was an important herb in magic and folklore but a very practical use was for dyeing fabrics, the fruit producing a dye that is grey and sage green, the leaves a creamy yellow colour and boiling a dark navy stain. And if this has still not whetted your appetite a common name for the plant was Ale hoof because it was used for flavouring beer before hops became the standard. It is still used occasionally by micro-breweries and is described as giving the beer a taste of 'slightly nettle with a minty edge'.

Whilst it is never advisable to attempt medical treatments using herbs without consulting an expert, it is interesting to note the current curiosity about some of the old remedies. An old German proverb states 'The garden is the poor man's apothecary'.

 

If you visit the orchards in May you should still see plenty of blossom around, the majority of the trees being apples. But what is an apple and where does it come from? The first distinction is between the crab-apple and the sweet apple that we eat. The crab is our native apple and you can often find it growing in hedgerows around the parish. It usually has spines on the branches and the fruit is small, hard and very sour. But it has been used for thousands of years by our ancestors cooked and fermented. Crab-apple jelly is still popular to make at home or buy.

The sweet apple originally came from the Tien Shan Mountains in Kazakhstan thousands of miles away and it took many centuries to work its way along the silk routes to the Middle East and Europe. If you plant the pips from, say, a Cox’s Orange Pippin you will get a variety of different apple types, many of them of little use so to get another true Cox’s you have to graft them, a skill that was well known to the Romans. You may hear people referring to hybrids between a crab and a sweet apple but this does not happen and DNA analysis of the origins of the sweet apple has found that crabs were not involved in its evolution.

Because of this great variability you never quite know what might pop up and many new varieties were chance discoveries. Claygate Pearmain (which grows in our Community Orchard) was found in a hedgerow in Surrey but once discovered grafting ensured that that tasty variety is still available to us these days. In the heyday of apple development in Britain there were thousands of varieties. Farmers would spread the mush from cider production around the edges of their fields to see what new varieties might appear and if you look out of the window of the car or train you will see apple trees growing from the cores lobbed out of the windows by passengers – there are several on the link road past Pencoedtre. These are known as ‘wilding’ apples.

Commercial orchards have little value for wildlife as the trees are kept short, grubbed up after around 7 to 8 years and sprayed regularly through the season. In a traditional orchard the trees are allowed to grow to their full size and may live for 100 years or more. These are a haven for wildlife attracting many of the species that would have been common before our orchards were destroyed, including rare beetles such as the Golden Chafer and birds like the Wryneck. In 1900 there were about 15 orchards in Wenvoe but little evidence of these remain other than in the names of some houses and streets.

So enjoy your apples whether you plant a tree or two in your garden or visit one of our traditional orchards in the parish. There is increasing evidence that the older varieties may be better for you and being locally sourced you avoid the air miles involved in shipping your fruit from other continents to your supermarket. And wildlife will benefit.

 

The End Game?

No thrush sings in the garden now,

No blackbird looks to bully the thrush

And no swifts shrill above the town,

No kestrels hover over the motorways;

No cheeky sparrows fly up when a car goes by

And no skylarks sing above the barren meadows.

The martins abandoned their nest under the eaves years ago

Early predictions have come true:

'Silent Spring' is here;

There is 'No Room for Wildlife'

What do we have instead?

The roar and unhealthy smell of the motorways,

Green fields, quiet lanes and woods turned into 

Fly-tips, housing estates, business parks and recreation grounds.

Trees and plants stressed or dying in summer heat and drought.

Collectors begging us to 'Save the Children'

For what? A world destroyed by their elders?

Soon, we too will be gone, 'Gone with the Wind' –

Unless …?

 

This poem by Derek Gould was printed in the BBC Wildlife Magazine

 

 

 

 

 

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They are all around you as soon as you step out of the house – on your roof, on the pavement, on the trees, the walls and the fences. Yet most of us do not notice them. They grow where little else can, slowly but steadily. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes – flat and round, scaly and shrubby. They are, of course, lichens. Lichens are fungi that behave like plants because they have little green algal cells inside them. Together they form the lichen body. The algal cells make sugar and give it to the fungus. In return the fungus shelters them from excess sunlight and water loss.

 

The easiest to find are those on the pavements. All those white or yellow blobs or stains are lichens. Some look so like chewing gum that they are called the Chewing Gum lichen. Or take a close look at the trees behind the library which sport a great variety of them. And what use are they? You might have heard that reindeer eat lichens but did you know that they are also eaten by humans, used in medicine, cosmetics and dyeing and making litmus paper? They can help prospectors looking for precious metals and will be contained in your sprinkling of Garam Masala. So next time you slap on your Brut or Eternity, or anoint yourself with Estee Lauder or Yves St Laurent, thank the humble lichen.

The Wildlife Group are preparing a Lichen Trail round the village which will be downloadable from the website so if you see members lying on the pavement or examining the gravestones with hand lenses that will be the reason – you do need to get up very close to them to appreciate their colours, the tiny fruits that many of them will be growing; even the spores that help to identify the different species. If you are interested in getting to know more about them, do contact the Wildlife Group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snails and slugs

Snails and slugs may not quite get the pulse racing like Cheetas and Gazelles but they are a lot more practically useful in and around the Parish. Without them and the other small denizens that munch their way through fallen leaves and other vegetation we would soon be disappearing under a mountain of debris. Those who have visited Molluscopolis on the Upper Orchid Field may have learned a bit about the variety of different snails you can find here but a relatively new one is the Girdled Snail. SEWBREC, who record all wildlife sightings for South East Wales, this month asked people to look out for the Girdled Snail as they had very few records for the whole of Wales. This is a Mediterranean species, first noted in Britain (Devon) in 1950 but spreading steadily up the country. It is usually found in gardens and waste ground and is very easy to identify as it has a distinctive pale -coloured girdle or keel around its middle. Within a couple of hours we found the one shown in the photo which was perched on a plastic composter, just waiting to be recorded. The chances are there will be several hundred in Wenvoe so, gardeners in particular, look out for them and, if you find them let the Wildlife Group know.

The Service Tree

The Upper Orchid Field has been host to a very rare tree, Sorbus domestica, commonly known as The Service Tree. It grows in a few locations in South Wales and ours fell off the cliffs near Fontygary and was spotted on the shoreline. It was replanted in our field but has never been very happy as the site is both damper and shadier that it would ideally want so it is heading back to a safe location near Fontygary where hopefully it can prosper and reproduce. We still hope that in the future we will be able to provide a home for a a couple of these in a suitable location so that we can help consolidate and expand the population. We have already planted in the Upper Orchid Field, the Wild Orchard and the Community Orchard a close relative Sorbus torminalis, The Chequers Tree, the fruit of which was once used in brewing and which many pubs are names after.

 

 

 

 

 

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