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!