It’s amazing how no sooner than one week ends, the next one begins. There’s no let up, is there? A steady flow of emails and WhatsApp messages too! The spread-sheet is proving its worth, all the records neatly stacked and sorted. Without it I’d be in a complete pickle by now.
The warm weather, especially in the last couple of days, has really kept spring rattling along nicely. Not botany, I know, but yesterday several of you reported your first orange tips. (I saw my first this morning when walking out to Roughmoor.) Also yesterday we had our first small whites here, while two days ago there was a big arrival of willow warblers. We had one singing in a neighbour’s garden first thing in the morning; then along the river, between Obridge and Creech Castle, I counted at least twenty in full song where two days earlier there’d been none! Several of you have reported swallows, too, suggesting many summer migrants have been arriving in the last few days, no doubt helped on their way by the southerly breeze.
Despite the continuing ‘lock down’, 14 of you have submitted records during the week, which is a considerable achievement in the circumstances. It may be different in the countryside, of course, but in town the police are now a much more visible presence, with regular patrols of parks and open spaces to break up any gatherings and to check that no-one’s exercising further away from home than strictly necessary. For now, though, we have continued to be able to do our usual daily walks, which means being out of the house for about an hour-and-a-half. Having a dog seems to help, and it certainly feels easier botanising in town when Gilly’s trotting along beside me. It’s as if a dog provides an immediately obvious explanation for why one might be ‘out and about’, and so mucheasier to just say you’re walking the dog than having to admit that what you’re really doing is searching for flowers on some plant or other.
So, it’s been another good week for first flowerings. In all, we made more than 80 records in ‘Week 3’, and these included first sightings for more than two-thirds of the target species. But before we get to these, let’s have a quick look at some of the species you’ve found that weren’t targets. These include a few real rarities, like Spring Cinquefoil, Potentilla verna, which was recorded flowering at Black Rock (Cheddar) by Georgina Shuckburgh on 31st March – so actually at the end of ‘Week 2’ – and Alpine Penny-cress, Noccaea caerulescens, also found by Georgina, this time at Blackmoor, on the 2nd. And she attached a lovely photo to prove it, too. Such Mendip specialities seem a world away at the moment to those of us holed up in the ‘deep south’.
It’s also been a week of ‘strange umbels’, in that we’ve had some incredibly early sightings of three umbellifers (Apiaceae) that one wouldn’t expect to see in flower until late June, or even July! Ro FitzGerald saw Wild Parsnip, Pastinaca sativa, in flower at Lilstock on the 5th, while Georgina had Rough Chervil, Chaerophyllum temulum, at Ubley Drove on the 2nd (both records supported by super photos); and then today, to cap it all, Andrew Robinson reported Upright Hedge-parsley, Torilis japonica, flowering at Brent Knoll. Extraordinary! Will these prove to be ‘one-off’ anomalies, I wonder? Certainly, it would be worth folks keeping an eye out for these species in the coming weeks.
An unusual record of my own, on the 6th, was Subterranean Clover, Trifolium subterraneum, several patches of which were flowering nicely in a road verge near the roundabout by the Shell garage on Priory Bridge Road, Taunton. It was growing there with flowering Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill, Geranium molle, and Scarlet Pimpernel, Lysimachia (= Anagallis) arvensis. Another highlight of the week was Crosswort, Cruciata laevipes, seen by Pat Wolseley at Nettlecombe on the 5th, while she was also able to confirm this week an earlier sighting of Three-nerved Sandwort, Moehringia trinervia, on 31st March.
For some species I’ve been playing ‘catch-up’ this week, including Cuckooflower, Cardamine pratensis (Longrun Meadow) and Goldilocks Buttercup, Ranunculus auricomus (Cotlake Hill), both on the 5th, and at last,Shining Crane’s-bill, Geranium lucidum, on the 6th, in a flower bed on Eastbourne Road, Taunton.
Turning now to the 15 target species for ‘Week 3’, the following 11 (names emboldened) were seen by one or more of us, either during the week or, in one or two instances, towards the end of the previous week. Running through them in alphabetical order…
Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus, was recorded by David Hawkins on the 1st, at a location ‘up north’ to such an extent that it was actually just in VC34 apparently. We’ll let him have it though, shall we? On the 7th Anne Cole reported Sycamore flowering on Mendip, while I had two trees starting to flower in Taunton, also on the 7th. (Incidentally, Caroline Giddens, in Minehead, had her first Horse-chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, flowers on 29th March, and she says that her earliest blossom, like mine, always seems to be on the same tree each year.)
Barren Brome, Anisantha sterilis, was actually seen by Andrew flowering on Brent Knoll last week, on 30th March, while this week we’ve had three more records for Sweet Vernal-grass, Anthoxanthum odoratum – Helena Crouch, in Paulton, Pat, at Nettlecombe, and me, in Longrun Meadow, all of them today. Helena has also notched up the first record of flowering Winter-cress, Barbarea vulgaris, on a road verge in Paulton, while interestingly David and Andrew both report having seen American Winter-cress, Barbarea verna, during the week. B. verna is actually quite a scarce plant in Somerset, and an alien, whereas B. vulgaris is a widespread native, pretty common through most of the county apart from in the far west. I’ve seen the latter in bud this week, but not yet in flower…
Chris Billinghurst had Greater Pond-sedge, Carex riparia, flowering in the Molly Brook – a tributary of the river Chew – on the 1st, while I had it just starting to flower on the river Tone in Taunton on the 5th. (Pendulous Sedge, Carex pendula, by the way, is now flowering in many places in the Taunton area, although it has yet to be reported from other parts of the county.)
I saw a just-opening ‘capitulum’ of Beaked Hawk’s-beard, Crepis vesicaria, in Taunton today, along with flowering Lesser Swine-cress, Lepidium didymum. Both of these I’d happily swap, however, for the Early-purple Orchids, Orchis mascula, seen this week – by Chris Loudon on the 2nd at Langford Budville, by Pat at Nettlecombe on the 5th, and by Hilary Brownett on Hutton Hill (nr Weston-super-Mare) on the 7th. Linda Everton’s Early-purple Orchids were in bud in woodland below Wellington Monument on the 7th, so will surely be blooming there by the middle of ‘Week 4’. (She also saw Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella, on the 7th. Has anyone else seen this in flower yet?)
Red Clover, Trifolium pratense, is starting to make its presence felt, with records of it flowering on the 2nd and 5th in Taunton (me) and on the 7th in Wellington (Linda). Common Nettle, Urtica dioica, has also made its first appearance this week, being seen flowering in Taunton today (me).
And finally a couple of ‘V’s – Wood Speedwell, Veronica montana, which was seen by Anne at Hill Lane (Mendip) on the 2nd, and by Andrew on Brent Knoll today. And while Andrew was busy racking up first flowerers on Brent Knoll – lucky sod – I was scuffing about the not-so-salubrious verges of Taunton, with dog by my side, where as well as Beaked Hawk’s-beard, Lesser Swine-cress and Common Nettle I also spotted a single but very ‘showy’ flower of Common Vetch, Vicia sativa. The plant was growing on the grassy bank beside Tangier car-park, just a stone’s throw from Riverside Chambers, where Natural England used to have its local HQ, and where I spent many a long year filling in spread-sheets, writing reports and generally keeping my nose clean.
Those were the days….