A Himalayan Pest
Himalayan balsam in flower
An invasive and bullish plant, Himalayan balsam was introduced to gardens in 1839 and has since overrun many of our river banks, killing off or, at best, subduing our native flora. You will even see it on the edge of woods and into meadows as it continues in its very successful invasion. We have all probably been guilty of enjoying the way the seed are sprayed at the slightest touch when the seed head is ripe, however we advise people to deal with plant before it gets to this stage. In order that we control this plant we often have work parties pulling it just as it comes into flower (end of June into October). Should this plant be a problem on your land we advise you pull the it out from the root and hang it in a tree. It is easy to identify and its sweet smell will confirm its identity. Be warned leaving the pulled plant on the floor will result it in recovering (the author speaks from bitter experience!)
Facts about this plant:
Each plant produces up to 800 seed
Seed can germinate easily in our gentle climate
Seed can remain viable in the soil for 2-3 years
It’s a relative of the busy Lizzie
It can grow to be between 6-10 foot high
There must be few among us who can remember a drier first half of the year than this one. My six-month rainfall figure was 313 mm, almost exactly 12½ in. Double that and it would be just slightly less than my usual annual rainfall.
Despite West Wales’ reputation for wet weather, that 313 mm is much less, even, than the national figure given me by the Met Office of 356 mm – which again compares with the average, they said, of 511 mm. The all-time driest was in 1929 when the first six months saw just 275 mm – so my 313 wasn’t very much more. The dry, sunny weather has been good for butterflies though: Marsh Fritillaries have done unusually well.
Was it that dryness, however, which meant that on a baked-hard meadow at Llanedi, visited on 26th June, an SSSI which has always had the commoner Orchids by the thousand, was showing hardly any of these beautiful flowers at all? Other sites, I’m told, haven’t been affected in the same way – another mystery of nature perhaps. What will the future hold?
The field meeting at Allt Hebog, Cwrt-y-Cadno, in the middle of the month, was also memorable. A beautifully clear, sunny day, with marvellous views in every direction, the mixed woodland, much of which of very early planting, is gradually being restored to well-managed deciduous woodland with the advice of Coed Cymru Officer, Mat Ridley, our Group Chairman who led the walk. With acorns germinating so readily in the damp moss, oak seedlings had sprung up everywhere. These were being dug up and re-planted with great success. The problems of bracken control were also clearly illustrated.
Just as memorable in a different way was the visit to Kidwelly. The wildlife of the streets and allotments of the town was the subject intended, but the Council had got in first with their spraying. Instead, we visited the Glan yr Afon local nature reserve which adjoins the Bridge Street car park, just minutes away from the centre of the town.
Led by Dr Nigel Stringer, the Kidwelly botanist, this rather rough grassland with wide paths cut for visitors’ convenience was of enormous botanical interest with many plants in flower that are rarely seen in other situations. The townsfolk are certainly privileged to have such a pleasant and interesting place so handy – with the margins absolutely full of blackberries into the bargain. The group was shattered though to be told at the end of the walk, that, on medical advice, it was the final walk Dr Stringer would be leading – his knowledge and leadership having always been so appreciated over the years.
Sunday, 25th July will be the insect hunt at Gelli Aur at 2.00 pm, to be led by Phil Ward, always an inspiration to the youngest present and 28th August will be a visit to Cors Goch NNR, Carmarthen.
The group will be having a stand, as usual, at the Llandeilo Show on 21st August. Volunteers to man the stand are always welcome. If you’re coming to the show and can spare an hour or so, a phone call to me on 01558 822152 will be much appreciated.
Denys Smith
A New Bumblebee in Your Garden?
Wood Carder Bee
Up until last year only twenty four species
of bumblebee had been recorded in Wales for many years. Visually bumblebees comes in two types the majority being black ones with yellow stripes and brown, white or orange tails or just black with red tails and buff brown ones. It is the buff brown ones with or without black bits also called carder bees the bumblebees which nest on the ground surface who have a new comer who is easily recognised.
Back in 2001 bumblebee scientists from Southampton University first spotted the Wood Carder Bee (Bombus hypnorum) on the edge of the New Forest. This is an obvious buff brown carder bee but with a white tail. In the succeeding years further sightings were reported in the south and east of England as more immigrants arrived from across the Channel and southern North Sea. It spread north and east of Hampshire fairly rapidly but its spread west was much slower and less dramatic.
Until May 2009 when an individual was seen on cotoneaster flowers in May in Llandaff, Cardiff, the first in Wales, and a there was second subsequent sighting in Barry. On Saturday 10th April 2010, David Carrington photographed this queen on flowering currant in his garden in Porthcawl.
We would be extremely grateful of any records of sightings of any buff brown carder bees with white tails you may see so that we can record its progress in this natural colonisation of our country. Your name, the date of the sighting, and a place name, and/or grid reference, or post code would be ideal. Then we can pass your records on the relevant local biological records centre, the Bumblebee Trust, and the Bees wasps and Ants Recording Society.
After more than 40 years of enjoying looking at bumblebees in the field I have yet to meet this exciting new comer.
April ought not to be a month for bluebells in flower but recent warmer years have meant that some do start to blossom on warm sheltered south facing banks towards the end of the month. Our native bluebell is an icon of any British spring. Delicate leaved and stemmed, deep violet-blue but occasionally pale blue flowers, (rarely white and very rarely pink), with a strong sweet scent on a warm day , and all the blue bell flowers hanging from one side of a limp stem that bends over . That is our native Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scriptus) as the Latin name translates a “hyacinth without description” particularly in their tens of thousands on an ancient woodland floor or a humid Welsh hillside or coastland.
Unfortunately being interested in a diversity of colour and flowering seasons in our gardens our forebears introduced the Spanish Bluebell (Hyacinthoides hispanica) a far more robust plant with the pale blue bell flowers fixed rigidly around a stout vertical stem and with no scent at all. The Spanish Bluebell has had a selective advantage over our native species in recent years in that it starts to flower in mid April attracting insects to pollinate it and goes on flowering as our native one comes into its glory.
So what is the problem? Well we cannot control pollinating insects out for a quick meal in normal fickle spring weather so they have been visited both species and the result is a hybrid bluebell (Hyacinthoides x massartiana) which has a mixture of characteristics of both parents, flowers half way to that violet-blue native colour we love, held around a vertical stem, and weakly scented. The hybrid is apparently fully fertile and produces abundant seed.
This is a plea to be aware that the Spanish Bluebell may be a threat to our native, the hybrids being well distributed across our populated areas of Glamorgan and east Carmarthenshire with one or two records in Pembrokeshire and along the whole coast of Ceredigion. We have between 25% - 50% of the world population of our native bluebell and without serious botanical ethnic cleansing nearly all of them may be hybrids in the next generation or two.
If you are removing Spanish Bluebells from your garden please compost them on site rather than dump them in the countryside as the picture shows a good clump of Spanish Bluebells flowering on an ancient hedge bank near Dinas Powys in the Vale of Glamorgan. If your garden is mixed to ancient woodland and you have Spanish Bluebells have a look to see whether you have hybrids already.
February Wildlife Diary from Carmarthenshire
It must have raised a wry smile with many who heard the headline news in the first week of February that scientists reported that spring was getting earlier. This has been quite obvious to many for some years past, but it’s been far from the case this year.
Snowdrops, the “Fair Maids of February”, have been pretty well going over by the time February has come in so often in recent years – in comparatively mild Carmarthenshire anyway. Although increasing white was showing on the flower heads by the middle of January, they’re hardly in full bloom four weeks later. A Chaffinch was singing on 14th January and quite a few people at our group meeting on the 20th reported having heard a Great Tit calling and a Greater Spotted Woodpecker drumming. Blackbirds and Song Thrushes have been singing since.
When we were still covered in snow and ice and birds were coming to garden feeders in abundance, people living right beside the Tywi in Llangathen parish had a rather small Dove, pale grey in colour, but with blue markings towards the tail. The BTO suggested it could have been a Mourning Dove from America, though the spokesman qualified that when I rang up by saying that some of these birds are kept in captivity and one may have escaped. Will we ever know? I’ve asked in my newspaper column if anyone else had seen it, but it’s too early as yet for any response.
Cilsan Bridge still keeps in the news – the meadows beside it anyway. On 17th January, thirteen Pink-footed Geese were reported among the many swans. Although these geese always come to some parts of Britain for the winter, few ever turn up in Carmarthenshire.
More excitement arose on 7th February when nine Smews were seen on the northern Talley Lake. There were a few around in the south of the county in 1991 and one was also spotted in 1993 I believe. Although these birds flock in large numbers from Scandinavia probably – to East Anglia and to the London reservoirs, except for those who also find suitable stretches of water in Somerset – it’s rare for them to get west of London. As they’re one of the three species of saw-toothed ducks, it’s obvious they must have water with fish in it if they’re going to survive the winter.
We’ve not had our early spring walk yet, so whether we see more than two or three plants in flower – and whether they’ll include the pretty rare White Butterbur – will have to wait for next month’s report. Likewise, whether our speaker three days later who is studying freshwater mussels turns up with his pockets full of pearls will also have to wait.
But, of course, nothing in the whole of the natural world can survive without those millions of tiny organisms in good and healthy soil – and that includes us as well. It is said that thousands of species of micro-protozoa, nematodes, bacteria and the like are working for us in every small handful of soil – besides the countless species of mycorrhizal fungi – without whom, few plants can survive. That’s to say nothing of all the small creatures we can actually see and, most importantly perhaps, the Earthworm, a subject of Darwin’s close study.
So many of our opencast coal mines have been covered over so thinly with such poor soil that, although it may be good for wild flowers, it is useless for feeding our expanding population. It’s most likely, as well, that more opencast workings will open as new, cleaner methods of burning coal will be developed.
It will be the subject of Michael Sharratt’s visit to our group meeting in the Maes Elfryn Hall, Llandeilo at 7.30 pm on Wednesday, 17th March. Surely, it must be the most important subject we can put our minds to.
Denys Smith
East Carmarthenshire Group – February 2010
Picture of frozen Marlais, near Llansadwrn
Carmarthenshire, with its south westerly location, rarely experiences long periods of sub-zero conditions or really heavy falls of snow – especially in the valleys – though the present winter of 2009/10 certainly provides an exception. Will it continue into February – or even into March as in 1963?
Without doubt though, temperatures in winter time have gradually risen slightly over Europe in the last 40 years. At one time wintering geese – Greylags and White-fronts – were in their thousands on the Tywi floodplain below Dryslwyn Castle – and not very welcome to the farmers whose struggling meadow-grass was stripped down to the ground. Even 25 years ago they were there in the hundreds. These days very few appear, though resident Canada geese have risen in numbers steadily.
A little further upstream though, by Cilsan bridge, the adjoining meadows are always alive with the resident Mute Swans from much of the valley, possibly congregating in large numbers just for company. Most years they’re joined by a few visiting Berwick’s and Whoopers from the far north-east of Europe – even Siberia perhaps. This winter though has seen a new record of Whooper Swans – 29 so far.
The Tywi is also home to freshwater mussels – though few will have seen them except as empty shells left on the banks after floods have receded. Said to live up to 200 years, they’ll have obviously experienced many a cold winter. Gethin Rhys Thomas, an Ammanford student reading for a Ph. D. at Swansea University, is currently studying them. He will be telling of his findings in the Maes Elfryn Hall, Llandeilo to a local group meeting on Wednesday 20th January at 7.30pm. All will be most welcome.
Equally welcome will be all who meet in the Dryslwyn Castle car park on St. Valentine’s Day – Sunday 14th February – at 2.00pm. The valley usually shows the earliest signs of spring so should provide as good an area as any to spot these signs. Walking the lanes around has been really exciting in the past and we can reasonably hope that it will be the same this year. Will the lovely and comparatively rare White Butterbur have remained undisturbed on the roadside just above the river? If it has, it will probably be in full flower – a rare opportunity to enjoy it – and take a photograph perhaps.
Further details of events on 01558 822152
Denys Smith
The Big Freeze takes its toll on our wildlife
A dead snipe discovered on one of our reserves.
As Wales gradually begins to thaw out, our wildlife will continue to feel the impacts of the extreme weather, with its record-breaking low temperatures, for some time to come.
The prolonged cold, frozen ground and lack of water all play a part in making things particularly hard for wildlife.
Birds find it particularly hard to cope, with the frozen soil and surface water preventing many species from feeding. In such prolonged cold temperatures lack of available food not only massively increases mortality (such as the snipe above, found on frozen ground on a WTSWW nature reserve in Carmarthenshire) but can also impact on their ability to breed when spring arrives. Such is the pressure on birds to find food that species like geese and lapwing have been recorded using gardens and other urbanised areas to feed instead of their normal wetland areas, also making them more vulnerable to disturbance and injury. Even birds like red kites are grounded by the lack of available food and water.
The massive amount of salt that has been spread on the country’s roads, whilst making life easier for human travellers, also has negative impacts on roadside flora and washes rapidly into our streams and rivers, where it affects many freshwater species from amphibians to fish.
We can’t do much about the weather- but we can all make sure we do our part to make life that bit easier for the wildlife on our doorstep:
1. Clear an area of snow and ice on your lawn or flowerbeds to expose the ground surface
2. Remember to put out plenty of high-energy bird food of different types, and in different places to suit different species. Even left over food like pastry and cheese will be gratefully received, and fruit for thrushes (but never cooked meat)
3. Make sure you provide water for birds and mammals in your garden, and replace it if it freezes
4. Clear an area of ice on your pond if it freezes over- but never break the ice by force or pour boiling water straight onto the ice- get a pot of hot water and just sit it on the ice till it melts a hole through to the water below.
5. Put up nest boxes if you don’t have them- in the cold weather birds will use them for weather-proof roosts
6. Plan for next summer- consider planting species in your garden that will provide berries and other winter food sources in future
The House Martin (Delichon urbica) - ‘guest of summer’
I grew up in a town; careworn and untidy but a welcoming place. Here my wildlife fellowship began, awakened and shaped in avian form. Birds to be precise - common birds like the House Martin. They nested at the bottom of our street under the eaves of the bigger houses. The less enlightened, fearful of mess, would attempt to knock down the beautifully crafted mud-cup nests lined with feathers and I had words. Nesting House Martins are rumoured to bring luck to the household; it’s also illegal to damage nests during the breeding season.
An attractive visitor usually arriving in April, the glossy blue-black upperparts, white under parts, distinctive white rump and forked tail stand out. Less noticeable are the feathered white feet. Not to be confused with Swallows which display long tail streamers or Sand Martin which are browner and both lack the white rump.
The House Martin is beautifully adapted to an aerial life and spends much of its time catching flying insects. The hard ‘priit’ contact calls are distinctive together with the song - a long twitter of melodious cheeps. Shakespeare referred to the House Martin as ‘this guest of summer’. I eagerly waited their arrival in the spring and mourned their autumn departure. Where did they go? The answer, like many of our summer migrants is Africa but they are seldom spotted in their wintering quarters, most likely spent high over the vast savannahs and equatorial forests of sub-Saharan Africa.
The House Martin is doing well in Wales, slightly less so in the UK where small declines in the breeding population place it on the Amber list of birds of conservation concern. Originally nesting on cliffs, it has adapted to human settlement being very much at home in our towns and villages, nesting under the eaves of houses and buildings. A well-positioned seed tray or climbing plant can catch the droppings. If you have room in your garden, creating a shallow muddy puddle about 1 metre wide can help with nest material and pollen-rich plants attract insects which are food for many birds including House Martins.
Nests may be re-used from a previous year saving around ten days of work gathering mud. On the Glamorgan Heritage Coast and the cliffs near Castlemartin in Pembrokeshire, cliffs are still used as nest sites. Highly gregarious, colonial nesting is preferred and 4 or 5 eggs are laid hatching in about 14 days with generally two broods each year. The chicks will stay in the nest for about 25 days and are cared for by both parents.
And then as adults, in great numbers they gather in the autumn skies before departing these shores, where no doubt an African poet heralds their return.