Local Shorelife

A fantastic day on the shoreline in Brightlingsea on Saturday.. a large crowd of nature lovers, comprising lively pre-schoolers, mums, dads, scouts, BNA members and other interested folk, descended on the Hard in anticipation of a marine and shoreline wildlife walk with enthusiastic and engaging local expert and BNA chairman Roger Tabor.

And what a walk it was! Beginning with a full scale, hands-on crabbing experience, the day continued with a squelch-tastic marine mud session examining sea-weed and worms while hearing about the astonishing private life of the slipper limpet. Continuing along the front, we paused at the beach to examine a jellyfish at close quarters, before taking a well-earned break for lunch at  Bateman's Tower where youngsters who had come a cropper in the mud rejoined the group sporting clean trousers.

Fortified with bacon butties and ice cream, a small core of die-hard beginner naturalists set off along the sea wall with Roger for the afternoon session. Walking along the footpath with sea to one side and ancient grazing marsh to the other, the sun smiled on us and we photographed small copper and gatekeeper butterflies amongst the wildflowers. Meanwhile, the children listened with wrapt attention as Roger explained to them how Wild Carrot attracts insects and showed them seeds of the dock plant through a hand lens.

And the grand finale? A semi-dignified scramble down onto the saltmarsh to look at plants including samphire, sea lavender, sea beet and sea blight and, perhaps most importantly, learn how to use sea purslane as a guide for where (not!) to put your feet. A satisfyingly fitting end to what was a most incredible and memorable day.

Wood Avens

Wood Avens (Geum urbanum), also known commonly as Herb Bennet, has been used medicinally since Roman times. It is named 'geum' from the Greek 'geno' meaning to yield an agreeable fragrance - the freshly dug roots having a clove-like scent and another of this plant's names is 'Clove Root'.

These aromatic roots were thought to protect against evil and poisons in medieval times, when the plant was worn as an amulet to ward off evil spirits and venomous beasts. It was known as 'Herb Benedict', a name given to antidote herbs owing to a story in the life of St Benedict. Its trefoil leaf symbolising the Holy Trinity and its five golden petals the five wounds of Christ, it appears as a decorative feature in medieval architecture, too.

The leaves used to be added to salads and soups, used for flavouring ale and to fragrance linen, preserving it from moths. The roots boiled in wine were used as a cordial against the plague and Culpeper considered it good for diseases of the chest or breath, or for the stitch.

The infusion may be helpful taken at the start of chills or catarrh and the herb is still used in modern herbal medicine: internally to treat diarrhoea, gastro-intestinal infections, bowel disease, uterine haemorrhage or intermittent fever and externally for haemorrhoids, vaginal discharge and inflammation of the mouth, gums and throat.



An astringent, antiseptic herb which reduces inflammation, checks bleeding and discharges, lowers fever and acts as a tonic for the digestive system.

Flowers May to October. Collect the flowering plant in July or August. Harvest by cutting plants as flowering begins (dry for infusions) or lift roots in the spring (use fresh or dry for decoctions). Roots lifted on the 25th March from dry soil are traditionally the most fragrant and they must be dried carefully then sliced and powdered to best retain their properties.

PLEASE NOTE: These notes on the history and use of herbs have been compiled for general interest and are not intended as medical advice, for which you should consult a professional herbalist.

BIBLIOGRAPY:
'A Modern Herbal' Mrs M. Grieve FRHS ed. Mrs C. F. Leyel (1973)
‘Herbs and Healing Plants of Britain and Europe’ Dieter Podlech (1987)
'RHS Encyclopedia of Herbs and Their Uses' Deni Brown (2002)

Dragonfly

At last, success! A photo of a dragonfly .. maybe not a great photo, but its a start. I think this must be a Common Darter, although the male should be red/orange and the female duller. This one was such a bright yellow.. but the closest match I can find is for an immature male Common Darter. I know you can barely see it, but be happy for me!



Much more exciting, however, were the ones that got away.. a glorious hot sunny afternoon at Arlesford and I was treated to a display of aerial combat and acrobatics! Several very large dragonflies soaring and hunting on the wing .. I was able to watch for a good while and was rewarded with with the occasional 'fly-past' when they came within inches of my head. Quite beautiful to watch.. and then, only a few feet away from me, a mid-air collision. Two large dragonflies flewstraight into one another creating a loud electrical-sounding buzz. Left me with lots of questions and a huge desire to find out more about them.



So many butterflies today that they just fluttered into you .. just a little shot of another type to add to our record this summer, Meadow Brown (I think!)

Tortoiseshell

Me and the little'un had to super-sneak out into the garden in our pyjamas to photograph this one this morning!

BioBlitz

Well we had a go in the garden at the weekend.. I'm still looking up and trying to identify many of the things we found, which is great because I'm learning all the time. The little one loved it, and his determined bug-hunting meant that we were able to identify three different types of woodlouse in our patch, including this rosy-coloured one.. I have to admit that before the BioBlitz a woodlouse was a woodlouse, as far as I was concerned!



A really noticeable thing was that we didn't find a single ladybird. Our garden is usually full of them. I've looked again this week, and have only found one or two tiny creamy-coloured harlequins, no red ones at all.

However, we were blessed with a large red damselfly, basking on a rose leaf in the mid-day sunshine:



And as well as white and blue butterflies, we found this tiny daytime flying moth:



I think it must be pyrasta aurata.. during the week I have noticed masses of them: numbers of them fly up as I walk amongst the plants in my herb garden, and now I know why! They feed on mints, marjoram and lemon balm, so I have provided them with pretty much a perfect place to set up shop.

May

A May bank holiday trip to Arlesford today and this amazing view of bluebells and stitchwort..





Heavily laden boughs of may were incredibly fragrant in the sunshine and the grass was colourful with buttercups and drifts of sheep sorrel.





I had a wonderful wander in the ruined old church and its graveyard beyond, where the grass and wildflowers are left to grow, hoping for butterflies.





I was treated to these beautiful white star-like flowers peeping out amongst the grass, which I've been trying to identify... Star of Bethlehem?





We did get to see some butterflies later on, walking in the grass (and nettles!) down near the little streams. We think this peacock must have hibernated over winter, as they're not supposed to be about yet - in the second photo you can see how tattered it is.





This was a beautiful butterfly I've not seen before, a Speckled Wood, which we found in dappled semi-woodland very near to a large stretch of water.



And as a fitting end to a fantastic afternoon, we were lucky enough to see both a blue-tailed damselfly and several large red damselflies, one of which obligingly sat on a leaf in the sunshine for us.

Holly Blue

This year we're going to try to photograph / identify and record the butterflies we see locally.. which will probably generally mean those that visit our garden while I'm pegging the washing out or fetching it in!



I hadn't been overly optimistic about any butterflies sitting still long enough for me to get a halfway decent photograph, but while I was out gardening recently this Holly Blue came and sat very obliging in a puddle for around 10 minutes.. so here is our first record of the season.



I was really thrilled to get close enough for long enough to see the banded antennae and legs and the body was a really fluffy powder-blue .. beautiful!

It kept fluttering around and then coming back for another long sit on the wet paving where I'd been watering in some plants. I wondered whether it was attracted by the wet or by the bit of blue plastic nearby which was exactly the same colour ... see second photo?

Fungi at Fingeringhoe

Went exploring at Fingeringhoe Wick nature reserve last weekend, run by the Essex Wildlife Trust. Amazing views across the flats ..

Further inland we explored a wonderful wooded walk area, full of fallen leaves and secret paths and .. fungi! I didn't get to go on a guided fungi walk this autumn as I'd hoped, so I just snapped anything I could find to look up in books later.

Identifying Trees

I spent a fantastic morning in early September with members of the British Naturalists Association (Central and North Essex Branch)in the woods at Little Baddow, learning to identify trees.

This is something I'd wanted to be better at for some long while, but its not always so easy to be ferreting about in a book looking things up while you're out and about, especially with active little boys around .. better to be playing and having fun! So to have the opportunity of someone more experienced taking the time to actually show me how to recognise a range of the more common trees was a great treat.

I'm sure I won't remember a lot of what I saw, but even if a few trees stick each time then I will be getting there .. and I'll definitely go again next year, as it was such a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours with lovely people in beautiful peaceful surroundings. The things I was most pleased to have seen were the Wild Service Tree, which is apparently quite rare, and the seed pods of Hornbeam which are beautiful .. I would have had no idea what they were beforehand. I can now also distinguish between a Sycamore and a Field Maple! It was also interesting to see healthy young elm trees growing .. I had not realised that they are not affected by Dutch Elm disease until they reach the height of about 10 feet.

I find writing things out helps me to remember (partly why I blog!) but also I am finding that its important when I have been shown things to go straight out again within a few days to look for the trees or plants again, while the new knowledge is fresh. And, later that week, I was lucky enough to stumble across a beautiful area of trees at Wivenhoe Park on the University of Essex campus. This gave me the chance to test my knowledge and take some pictures to reinforce what I had learnt.

Learning about different types of Oak trees.. on the Pendunculate Oak, acorns have stems but leaves don't, as seen here. With Sessile Oaks it is the other way around (am on the hunt but haven't found one yet).

And here is Alder, my favourite tree from the whole experience. Completely new to me, I remembered we were told it liked/could happily tolerate the wet, and here at Wivenhoe were alder trees growing right at the edge of a lake. Its got a nice distinctively-shaped leaf for the novice spotter and, best of all, its cones stay on the tree right the year round giving you another means to identify it.

As we went round I collected a leaf from each tree and wrote its name in biro on the back as a reference (sacrilege, I know, but for the greater good!). Then when I got home I was able to press and keep the leaves in an album. I had scribbled little notes of what were told onto the back of the handout, and I copied these out alongside.

Wild Autumn

Hope everyone is loving autumn .. I'm enjoying watching the colour changes and feeling the way the air is different now, too.

The garden is now completely wild, seedheads and overgrown creepers, vines and roses all competing in the wind and wet weather overnight but then still smiling brightly in the daytime sunshine.

Still picking yellow Ildi tomatoes from the hanging baskets and using handfuls of some unexpectedly lush sorrel from the veg patch. Blackbirds darting in and out of the all the overgrowth, feasting. The spiders who have been spinning their glorious webs amongst it all now looking fat and rather fine.

Me and the little'un had a jolly jaunt round our local nature reserve, the Lozenge, today to see what was happening there .. golden leaves, abundant berries, teasel heads ...

plumptious rosehips

colourful guelder rose















.. and also a magical sprouting of fungi!

Wild Herbs

Amazing, amazing experience at the weekend... a 'Wild Herbs for Food and Medicine' walk with no less than Roger Tabor, chairman of British Naturalists Association and former chairman of the Herb Society, who just happens to live in Brightlingsea! Couldn't believe my luck when I saw a poster up in a shop window in the High Street.. the walk was across the countryside and down to the saltmarsh at the tip of Flag Creek out the back of where I live. Down at the very tip of the creek we tasted Marsh Samphire and Sea Purslane and also saw Sea Beet, Sea Aster and Sea Lavender.

Apart from scribbling down a few notes on cooking Sea Purslane, I failed spectacularly to take any notes or photographs during the walk. I just wanted to be in the moment and give it all my fullest attention.. such opportunities do not come along every day of the week!

But the very next morning I went out on my own for a little countryside ramble near home while it was all fresh in my mind to see if I could find any of the new plants I'd been introduced to..

Mugwort

Can't believe this great Anglo-Saxon favourite is just growing everywhere around and I never knew it!

Wild Carrot

Can you see the purple-ish dot in the middle of the flower-head? This is in imitation of an insect feeding, which encourages other insects to land.

It folds up into this distinctive 'birds nest' shape when it forms its seeds.

Woody Nightshade















None of these pictures would win any prizes, but you get the idea! Very inspiring and feel greatly encouraged about going out and about and learning more plants.

Beautiful Stranger

One of the joys of allowing the herb garden to 'get away from me a bit' (to put it mildly!) is the delight of stumbling across surprises and nature's free gifts.

A week or two back, I pulled up short during my early morning visit to the garden .. at the back of the stand of Evening Primrose something was coming into flower, it was beautiful and it was pinky purple. I had a good look at it - the leaves and habit were so like the Evening Primrose all around it that I hadn't spotted the interloper in its midst - so fair play to it, I say! I just love it when a new plant comes to find me .. a great opportunity to get the old books down, dust them off and learn something new and amazing. So who is this beautiful stranger?

Well, I think, Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum) - please lend me a hand here, if you are familiar with this plant? I got the preliminary id from my field guide, Collins' Complete Guide to British Wildlife, the photo looked spot-on and the description 'pinkish-purple flowers.. pale centres... appear July-August' is also spot on. The joy of the internet is that once you get a lead like this, you just type it in and before you will appear hundreds of images .. so you can get to see the plant from every angle and in lots of different situations.

The stems and leaves are supposedly hairy (hence 'hirsutum', presumably!) and this didn't strike me immediately. However there is a certain fluffiness about the leaves in the photo, so I'll be out having a little look for that later this evening.

Mrs Grieve tells us that Evening Primrose is related to the willowherbs, so I don't feel so daft for not spotting it now (!) and also that the willowherbs are rich in tannin.. used in fact as a tea substitute in some times and places .. and so the leaves have often been used as astringents. However, and PLEASE NOTE, there are 'reports of violent poisoning with epileptic-like convulsions' associated with the use of Great Hairy Willow Herb itself, so this is one plant I will just be happy to enjoy seeing in the garden, methinks!

Learning in Nature

I just wanted to share something I've been getting involved with this last week, having stumbled upon it via a blog, via a blog (as you do!).. its a very new organisation called the Save Childhood Movement and its in its very early embryonic stages and in the throes of working out who it is, what it stands for and what it wants to do.

I was drawn to it after some very surprising and worrying experiences finding out about nursery/pre-school provision and requirements for the little'un, and experiencing a massive amount of pressure from all quarters with regard to these issues. This isn't the place to go into more detail (though you can see my comments on the discussion board if you join up to it!).

However, listed in one of the Eight Core Principles is

"Children need a deep connection with nature, and they should be able to learn from nature and not merely about it."

.. and that comes within the remit of this blog. I know that many of you spend much time and energy outdoors in nature with grandkids and felt that you would be interested, like me, in this campaign.

I think this image from the Aims and Objectives page encapsulates how I feel beautifully.

Parenting styles and choices are deeply emotive and personal, and need to be respected. For this reason, I hesitated to mention these issues here, as Earth and Tree is a gentle blog about pooling resources, experiences and inspiration in honour of Mother Earth. I would always want to remain apolitical, only posting about campaigns directly related to environmental issues like saving woodland, recycling, carbon footprint and sustainable living which I feel the likeminded souls here might appreciate. But, you know, this IS about the Earth and nothing could be more central than ensuring that the littlies have access to, learn from and can be inspired by nature.

Our little'un is currently doing a fantastic Forest Fun course for ages 3 to 5 run by our excellent local SureStart service. He gets to jump in puddles, build dens, go on bug hunts and do all manner of fantastic things .. but its all up to him, he decides and can go exploring about and finding out freely. With a bit of luck, this new outfit will bring together lots of campaigns and organisations working to the same aims under one umbrella and will help support and inform parents who want to access this kind of experience for their children as well as lobbying government and organising folks on the ground to campaign on their local issues.

St John's Wort

I couldn't let midsummer pass by without any mention of Saint John's Wort, one of my favourite herbs. Favourite because it has so many useful applications as a medicinal herb, it is beautiful in the herb garden and I love how it marks the high point of the year.

Well, this year the two St John's Wort plants I planted carefully in my herb bed are much reduced from last year.. completely because other earlier larger pushier herbs have really taken off all around. I thought I had lost one or both completely, but no, they are still poking their heads up .. only they are late flowering. You will remember from a previous post how I have always been impressed that this plant always flowers within a day to two either side of St John's Day on June 25th (one day after old midsummer on 24th). Not this year, sadly.

This is the stronger of the two plants on June 30th

By the by, if you click and enlarge this photo you can really see the little perforations on the leaves, which give it one of its names.

I was a bit glum because it is my favourite infused oil to make - I love the way the bright yellow flowers create a bright red oil and I was looking forward to making it with the little'un so he could watch it turn to pink and then scarlet and tell me when it was ready. But I also smiled because nature has gifted me two little baby plants, one self-seeded between paving slabs and another in the veg bed. So fingers crosseed I will have four plants to bring on for next summer.

... and that's where this post would have ended, except for **STOP PRESS**! One of those wonderful happenings that renews your faith in life, the universe and everything!

We went to a very special place in Arlesford, close to where we live, on Sunday for a summer morning's ramble and explore.. I'll tell you more about it and show you some pictures soon. The ruined medieval church of St Peter there is in a quiet, peaceful location away from everywhere and nature has been allowed to take over within the roofless walls. And, for the first time, I found St John's Wort growing wild .. and it was everywhere. Actually growing along the walls inside the church, but also as part of an area of long grass and wildflowers left uncut in the graveyard beyond.

A young plant on a west facing wall, in bud but about the same stage as mine (on a west facing fence) at home.

Amongst grass in the meadow immediately north of the church.

But look at this in full sun on the south-facing inner wall of the nave! There was a whole bed of it, in flower.

Its hard to put into words how special it was to step into this deserted peaceful space, all alone and to see it alive with herbs .. there were tansy, plantain and mullein growing out of the tops of the walls! I wasn't greedy .. I took enough flowering tops for a very small jar, but mainly just drank it all in. You can't predict or plan an experience like that.




Update (4th July):

Just goes to show how observant I am (!).... my main Saint John's Wort is still there, tangled amongst the feverfew, ladies mantle and escapee valerian, but I didn't spot it till today when the glorious yellow flowers finally opened. Ta Da!