(Excerpt) Autumn brings with it many sensory delights; sounds, tastes and sights unique to the season, yet it does not arrive with a single scent but instead with a layered, shifting perfume that settles into the hedgerows, woodlands, and wet country lanes.
Tag Archives: #Ecology
The Common Darter
In the serotinal days of late summer, when the countryside’s tones shift from emerald to gold, our insect life slowly fades from the scene and the buzz and hum of bees and flies dials back to the silence of winter.
Yet life still lingers, and some flying insects remain to stir the cooling autumnal air, including the striking and swift-flying Sympetrum striolatum, the Common Darter dragonfly.
Ovinophobia, the Rise of the Anti-Sheep Movement
(Excerpt) In the early 2010s, a series of sharp critiques of British upland sheep farming emerged from environmental circles and gradually hardened into a sustained campaign. What began as polemical writing about ecological damage evolved into calls for the removal of sheep from the hills. This was framed as essential for nature recovery, flood prevention and rewilding, among other things.
Laccaria amethystina, Deceptive Jewel of the Autumn Woods
(Excerpt) Laccaria amethystina is ectomycorrhizal, forming symbiotic relationships with the roots of trees. It is most often found with beech, oak and birch, though it also occurs under conifers, and grows in leaf litter and moss in both deciduous and mixed woodland, frequently in scattered groups or small troops.
The Northern Oak Eggar Moth
(Excerpt) The Oak Eggar moth (Lasiocampa quercus) is one of Britain’s most distinctive and widespread large moths. Despite its name, it has no connection with oak trees, the ‘eggar’ refers to the tough, oval, acorn-like cocoon in which the pupa develops, this is referred to in the epithet of its scientific name: quercus, which is the latin name for Oak.
Small-leaved Lime, Relict of the Ancient Wildwood
(Excerpt) The northern limit of native T. cordata in Britain lies in the English Lake District at approximately 54°30′N, with the majority of sites within about 25km of the Morecambe Bay coast. Populations are concentrated on the wooded hills from Warton to Ulverston and extend inland up the valleys of the Lune, Kent, and Duddon, with the most northerly localities in Borrowdale and beside Ullswater.
Common Bracken
(Excerpt) Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is a perennial fern in the family Dennstaedtiaceae. It is one of the most widespread vascular plants on Earth, being known as ‘cosmopolitan’ as it can be found almost everywhere from temperate zones to the tropics and from sea level to high altitudes, indeed it occurs on every continent except Antarctica,.
Espying Sneezewort on Hapton Moor
(Excerpt) Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) is a perennial member of the Asteraceae (daisy) family and typically grows between 30 and 60cm tall, occasionally a little higher, with stiff, upright stems that may be slightly hairy in the upper parts. The leaves are narrow, lance-shaped and finely toothed along the margins, quite different from the feathery, much-divided foliage of its cousin Yarrow, which is also found on Hapton moor.
