Balsam and books

You know the saying about how in the heat horses sweat, gentlemen perspire but ladies merely glow? Well, on the latest foray beside Fox’s Beck to rebuke the Himalayan Balsam, I was treading a fine line between gentleman and horse, and the three ladies with me were glowing very successfully. Due to the accurately predicted heat and humidity we had started at 9.00 again: now that we’re some way past the solstice, that means we’re starting nearer to dawn each time – before long we’ll be there in the dark!

In addition to the four of us hardcore balsam bashers, three botanists braved the heat on the central area, conducting a plant survey.

Growth seems to be the most important thing currently, and growth of the biological kind has been cracking on to great effect on the Common. No doubt the hot weather and the soggy substrate make for ideal conditions. However, beware – there will be a cut coming soon!

This session’s target was the area near the car park on either side of the Beck. Team leader Margaret, Sheila and I forded the stream…

… while Team Leader Julie plunged into the reeds to get at the Balsam lurking there. As she says, “It was dense stuff to get through…

… and way above my head!!” (To be fair, that’s not a high bar Julie! – ed)

Meanwhile, my two companions and I were in a more open area on the other side of the stream. We found plenty of plants to uproot; some were ridiculously thick...

... and some ridiculously tall.

The normal tactic is to grasp the stem and pull gently, and the plant will usually come out whole. Sheila tried looking sternly in the hope they would wither…

… whilst Margaret took the less subtle approach.

Once we were satisfied that we had got everything we could reach, we re-crossed the stream, Sheila lubricating the inside of one boot in the process (it’s deeper than it looks, and there’s plenty of silt to sink into). While she emptied our sacks onto the rotting pile behind the information point, Margaret and I went off to try to find Julie.

Incidentally, last time there was some talk that my sack was less full than it might have been, which I put down to the other bashers grabbing all the plants before I could. With less opposition this time, I think I managed rather well. Here’s the impressive evidence m’lud.

We followed the trail Julie had left through the reeds. We found her eventually but then got distracted by more sightings of the elusive balsam.

Eventually, back at the information point the patiently waiting Sheila added the final haul, leaving the pile even bigger, despite being stamped down.

We know there will be plenty more plants showing up in the weeks ahead, so there’s scope for more of us to enjoy the thrill of the chase!

Here is Team Leader Margaret's message of thanks:

Thank you so much to the four volunteers who braved the heat and humidity. We crossed the beck and did a good clearance and revisited the reed bed by the bridge. We were able to remove quite a lot that were in flower but had not set seed.

I know this looks like a mad obsession but we have made so much progress. It is very much a long term project, I have been pulling Himalayan balsam on the common for over twenty years but if we hadn't been then all the Common would be is Himalayan Balsam, it is really that invasive. To that end I will be in area A on TUESDAY 22nd at 10.00 to revisit area A and possibly B as a quick walk through revealed plants that were missed. If you wish to join me you would be very welcome.

I really can't thank you all enough for your help as it is making a difference.

If you see a plant in flower or not please feel free to pull it up.

Margaret

Screaming swifts are very much in evidence now, presumably gearing up for their long migration back to the skies of Africa. Ted Hughes’ famous quote “They’ve made it again, Which means the globe’s still working…” from his poem Swifts is looking increasingly over-optimistic, but it’s still a joy to see and hear them, and a loss when you realise they’ve left us again.

After a worrying start to the Summer, butterfly numbers are now good, with the latest to join the party being one of my favourite species, the Gatekeeper: this year they suddenly seem to be everywhere. There’s a lot of Ragwort in flower now and although it’s dangerous to many creatures, the flowers attract huge numbers of pollinators, and the poisonous leaves are the staple food for Cinnabar moth caterpillars. I have been looking for them for days but finally found this splendid fellow beside a local footpath.

And the Bracket fungus on a tree at the school end of Jubilee Boardwalk is looking particularly good right now too.

There’s growing awareness at last about the urgent necessity to rescue our rivers (and indeed everywhere there’s water) from the terrible atrocities that we humans have inflicted on them. I mentioned Amy-Jane Beer’s wonderful book The Flow in a previous posting of this blog, and having recently finished reading Is a River Alive? By the renowned Robert Macfarlane it feels timely to mention that one too.

He is a sublimely gifted writer, and all of those gifts are on show in this latest work of his. It describes expeditions he made to see rivers under threat or already dead in Ecuador (mining for rare metals the main issue there); Chennai in India (pollution so appalling it’s off the scale); and Canada (proposals for hydro-electric dams). Despite the dire situation in all three places, he still manages to find hope; mainly because he meets with exceptional people committed to protecting their rivers (our politicians would call them blockers and nimbies). There is much in common here with what Beer writes about, including gripping descriptions of white-water kayaking. The title of this book refers to a growing ‘Rights of Nature’ movement to get rivers (and forests and other ecosystems) declared living entities in their own right – with rights which should be legally enforceable – as has been achieved in Ecuador and a few other places, including gratifyingly Lewes in Sussex. At first glance this appears wacky, but we all know what a dead river looks like, so by extension we implicitly understand that until it’s dead it must be alive. Sometimes it is a challenging read, but if nothing else it added to my vocabulary!

I went to NWT Cley Marshes last weekend, where seven spoonbills, including one juvenile, were the highlight. (Can we claim Cley as our sister reserve, since we share a warden?) Whilst in the always busy Visitor Centre I bought a copy of Language of the Land, a newly published compilation of writings by the attendees of the Creative Writing Outside workshops that have run there since the post-Covid lockdown summer of 2021. One of those writers is our own Cornell, who contributed three splendid pieces; hearty congratulations to him!

If the nettles don’t get you, the thistles will

We convened at 09.00; a remarkably early start in the hopes of avoiding the worst of the threatened heat. This being so close to the dawn, I was disappointed not to be greeted by druids having another crack at solstice greeting. The 11 familiar volunteers were however a delight to reconnect with, of course, although such an unearthly hour does not suit my metabolism well. Once the sleep was rubbed from my eyes, I was as ready as the rest of them to plunge into the undergrowth of Area A (on the Warren Road side of Fox’s Beck), in search of the beastly Balsam.

Still being in the midst of a heatwave, with yesterday being the year’s hottest so far (why do the weather people on the telly report on extreme records with such glee?), we were bound to suffer, dressed as we were for protection against the rampant vegetation – not to mention the sun. The suffering is of course lessened in the knowledge that you are all in it together, and the usual jolly banter was to be heard from within the reedy depths.

The usual game of hide and seek ensued, with the doughty crew doing a lot of seeking, and the balsam doing a lot of hiding.

Never one to follow the crowd, your correspondent was spotted looking the other way. No wonder his haul excited some derisory comments!

Here I am, desperately searching for a big one to fill my bag and gain some credibility.

In addition to the usual stinging nettles and nasty spikey thistles, the prevalence of goose grass/cleavers was striking. We found several dense mats of the stuff: Noel assured me that it can be made into a tasty soup.

There were some seed heads of the Great Reedmace poking up above the rest.

Wildlife was not much in evidence, but no sooner had Noel said he hadn’t seen any ladybirds this year than this one demanded to have its picture taken.

And Team Leader Julie saw several of these hanging on for dear life as we trampled through their home!

After a hot and it has to be said sweaty hour, we reconvened on the boardwalk and trudged back to the car park, laden with sacks, some of which were brimming with plucked up plants. That desperate search for my credibility mentioned above resulted in me mugging Sheila for her over-filled bag: the photographic record shows the strain I put myself under (ahem).

For the avoidance of doubt, should any be present, my actual bag is the less well filled one in my left hand; but every single little plant removed counts, doesn’t it?

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

A very hot and heartfelt thank you to the 11 volunteers who came this morning to pull the blighters. I hope that you were so hot in bed this morning that the early hour was a pleasure not a chore. 

Not one of the plants we have pulled up this year has been in flower so there is absolutely no chance of them having reproduced so thank you for the supreme effort you are putting in. The proof of how effective we are will be seen next year. I would love to say that that was it for the year, but I fear there are still plants to be pulled. As you have all worked so hard we have decided to do the next pull in three weeks’ time. Location to be advised once we have walked the plot again. So far we have spent a total of 33 hours on this task alone. I think Duncan can tell us in the blog how many we totalled last year and the year before.

Thank you all. Enjoy a lovely afternoon.

Margaret for the team leaders.

[There were 34 hours spent on pulling up Himalayan Balsam in 2024, and 69.5 in 2023.]

The sightings board reveals the range of plants and animals that are being spotted on the Common. Recently these include

Black Horehound

Honeysuckle

Yellow rattle

Muntjac Common Lizard Marsh Helleborine Song thrush Buzzards overhead Reed warbler

And at last some butterflies have appeared: Speckled wood, meadow brown and ringlet are now in evidence here. Here’s a pristine speckled wood I found on School Common a few days ago.

And this Comma popped up in my garden recently

The ‘Peasant Poet’ John Clare delightfully called chiffchaffs ‘Pettichaps’, and ours are still singing, as well as a wren shouting loud enough in my garden to almost drown out the circling warplanes. The reed warbler near the Lower Street car park is still singing, as is the occasional blackcap. Yellowhammers are audible in the surrounding area, and we can still enjoy the reassuring screams of hurtling overhead swifts.

Not seen on the Common, but in my fairly small Southrepps garden I was pleased to see this striking Large Rose Sawfly

And finally for now, this Longhorn beetle

 

X marks the spot

X of course does not refer to the new name given to Twitter by its strange owner, but it is the evocative name given to the area of The Common just beyond Area B on the Warren Road side of Fox’s Beck. In truth, it would be better named “XXX**!XX” as a fair approximation of the language employed by our plucky Balsam Bashers as they encountered head-high nettles, goose grass and dried reed stems intent on blinding them.

Yesterday we had rain on and off all day, with the highlight being a thunderstorm in which lumps of hail hurled themselves down with un-called-for force. That would not have been welcome today, but thankfully that nasty stuff had moved off in order to top-up the North Sea, and we were rewarded for our volunteering zeal with dry and breezy conditions. Indeed, that breeze had been effective in drying out the vegetation, so we didn’t even suffer from that.

A select group of eight convened for a spot of Himalayan Balsam bashing at the appointed time, with your correspondent making a ninth a bit later. I missed being part of the main party heading over across Area B: very carefully to Area X as the ground has some deep ‘ankle breaker’ holes.

Noel is displaying an impressive halo! (He didn’t entertain us with much singing this time, the one offering being a heartfelt rendition of Katie Melua’s “This is the closest to crazy”.)

The beastly balsam is generally still quite small at this stage of its development, so the only thing to do is cast your eyes down and look in the undergrowth.

It’s a great place for playing hide and seek: where’s Kevin?

After an hour it was time to extract ourselves from the XXX**!XX area: Team Leader Margaret had counted us all out, and she counted us all back, complete with laden sacks. From the rear of the group it was entertaining to see the trailblazers sticking their free arms out to balance as the encountered the many holes in the ground: sadly this photo does not quite capture the moment.

Here’s the usual photo of the growing heap of rotting balsam. Already, Margaret estimates many thousand plants have been uprooted – but there will be plenty more popping up later!

I mentioned in the last posting that the Cotton Grass in the central area of the Common was doing very well, and I see that it has now even spread up to almost the bit of boardwalk heading towards the bridge over the untroubled water flowing down Fox’s Beck.

Team Leader Julie also caught a few of our special plants on camera today…

Meadow thistle on Area B

Marsh Orchid (we think??) with Ragged Robin on the central area.

Here is her message of thanks:

Hello all,

This is to thank the nine who turned out today to brave the unpredictable Area X to remove more Himalayan Balsam. It was not as wet as we thought even after the rain and hail yesterday which was a pleasant surprise!

We are attempting to prevent the invasive Himalayan  Balsam from moving into the Fen area adjacent, and we pulled a very impressive number of small plants today. Definitely counted in thousands, Margaret estimated 50,000, and every one plant pulled up helps us to halt its march across the Common.

Good job today team!

Thanks

Julie and the TLs

 

Summer now being officially underway, as you can tell by the drop in temperature and the reappearance of rain, there’s a fair bit of Nature about on the Commons and nearby. I have mentioned before that variant of Sod’s Law that says that only if you don’t have a camera with you will you come across something crying out to be photographed, and this time it was because I found a reed warbler singing its head off. Not in full view of course - they rarely are – but visible enough to make for a reasonable photo to share with you dear reader. By way of compensation, here’s one I did succeed in taking earlier: much earlier in fact – June 2011 to be exact.

I was back at the same spot (the thin bit of reedbed near the car park) a couple of days ago, this time armed with my camera (which spent most of the time inside my waterproof jacket, giving me a very portly appearance). I did actually see the bird, whizzing out of the reeds across the boardwalk into the willows opposite, but there was no way it was going to pose for me. I had been pleased a few minutes before to discover a singing reed bunting at the edge of the large reedbed we cut last winter. I was particularly pleased about this, as I had not heard one for the last couple of months and was afraid that this year they had given us a miss. It was too far off for me to get a good enough picture of it, so here’s another from way back in 2015.

I bumped into our friends Tim and Jane on a sunny visit to Warren Woods a few days before this. It appeared that Tim was engrossed in photographing the ground, but it turned out that he had found a group of Green Tiger Beetles, and he was very excited about it. His enthusiasm is infectious, so I was soon equally engrossed; dogs Basil and Nellie less so. Here’s one of Tim’s resulting pictures: it took some taking, as they are very active.

Not on the Common, but still in the village, I came across a couple of robins having a rare old punch-up. We’ve seen it often enough on the telly, but here it was in front of my eyes at the junction of Clipped Hedge Lane and Sandy Lane. They were rolling around in the dust, completely oblivious to me, and it really looked as though one would kill the other (see https://www.birdspot.co.uk/bird-brain/do-robins-fight-to-the-death) . They eventually broke apart when I said “ahem” but I don’t know if either was injured. I did see a robin at the same place the next day, but whether his rival is still about is anyone’s guess.

Bank Holiday Balsam Bash

After what seems like months of drought here in our neck of the woods, we’ve finally had some rain – right on target for our first Himalayan Balsam elimination working party of the year. A sharp shower left us all a little on the damp side, and judging by the occasional cries of despair, the swelling watercourses were deep enough to fill the unwary welly-wearer’s wellies. A magnificent 13 of us turned up for this session, and there was much excited speculation that this could be a record for a Balsam Bash. Sadly, the records reveal that 13 were also present on 16^th July 2023, so it’s only a joint record – until the next session perhaps? In a July 2022 HB working party 15 hours were recorded, with 14 people attending, but at least one of those was engaged in trimming the sides of the boardwalk: so close- but no cigar.

Nevertheless, at this stage un-troubled by thoughts of statistical glory, after Team Leader Margaret’s briefing on the hazards to avoid, we plunged in. This is what we were looking for:

And this was where we were looking!

Here we see people hard at work:

Some brave souls then forded the beck to get to the other side.

Some lovely (non-invasive!) wildflowers were nestling in the undergrowth

Large bittercress is very prolific at the moment: it’s an ugly name for a pretty plant.

There are also some rotting tree stumps, of great value to many invertebrates and fungi.

Noel being present, there was naturally a tendency to burst into song. The first faltering rendition was Working on a Chain Gang, but we couldn’t remember who sang it. (Sam Cooke, as it turns out.) Pathetic attempts were made by Noel’s accompanists to recreate the canon of Joe Jackson, but to no avail. (Possibly the song on your correspondent’s lips was Is She Really Going Out with Him? but a miserable failure must be recorded.)

The scheduled hour completed, we re-convened at the Information Point in order to dump the spoils. This is the resulting heap – there were a lot of small victims, so probably 1000s of plants have been removed. Note the damp Team Leader.

Sue’s bag didn’t look as full as some, but her excuse was the slight wear and tear evident on the bag. It’s possible that several plants might have fallen out…

Here is Team Leader Margaret’s message of thanks:

Here we go again!

An enormous thank you to the thirteen who braved the very heavy shower (yes we all got thoroughly soaked after such a long dry spell). We did a tremendous clearance pulling several thousand plants. Getting them so early ensured that there was no chance of them setting seed. We will of course need to return later to get the ones we missed.

In two weeks’ time we will be on area  B or as described by Kevin, cross the beck and turn right. We really are making a difference to the amount of Balsam present so thank you for your dedication.

Margaret (for the team leaders).

Since the last blog posting, the Cotton Grass in the central area of the Common has put on a fine show, declared to be the best for many years. Also showing themselves are RaggedRobin, Pignut and MarshValerian. Pendulous sedge is also visible, as are some Southern Marsh Orchids.

A cuckoo was heard calling for a couple of mornings, but it’s likely that it has moved on elsewhere. The first common lizards of the year have been noted on the sightings whiteboard. There are lots of invertebrates active now, but how’s this for a surprising one? Two Sabre Wasps joined Team Leader Margaret in her garden room recently. They look fearsome, but only grubs hiding in rotting wood should be alarmed.