Bathing blooms

Willow (Salix) blooms enjoying the spring showers.

 

Willow snow

The conditions have been perfect for wind dispersal, sunny and warm with a very gentle breeze, and for a few days now the seeds of the Common's numerous Willows (Salix) have filled the air. Willow's produce an inordinate amount of small fluffy seeds only a couple of millimetres long, they're so prodigious that the seeds can fill the air for days and once grounded they gather like drifts of fluffy snow on the sides of the Common's narrow paths. A lovely seasonal happening.

Catkin

Catkins like beautiful yellow fireworks are exploding all over the common, tis their season to shine, and shine they do. The willows are certainly putting on an impressive show. They appear so profuse this year too, or maybe it's simply I'm noticing them more, that their presence is a welcome sign of continuity in our turbulent world.

 

 

Nature / nurture

As I've mentioned previously, the landscape we see and enjoy in the New Forest, like the landscape of much of these isles, is far from the natural environment we imagine. The hand of humans agency has been at play for thousands of years since before the first farmers settled. Many of the landscape types we're used to, such as chalk grassland or here in the forest, both woodland and heathland, are the direct consequence of human intervention and subsequent continuous management. Looking around the Duck Hole landscape this morning it was clear to see that left to her own devices nature will quickly return to her natural form. Every year, for the last few years, more and more saplings have become established over the heathland, predominantly conifers there are also numerous birch and fruiting shrubs, and in the wetter hollows willow too. I wonder how long it'll be before the forestry will clear them, or whether they will actually clear them, or just let them be. It's interesting to think that a reduction in EU funding may impact on the forest appearance, people really didn't understand what the EU 'did for us'. Further on our walk, now crossing Ober Water near Rhinefield, evidence of the forests current management programs is clear. Along the bank of Ober Water the thicket of willow, hawthorn and blackthorn has been cleared, opening up the stream-side woodland...purely cosmetic, to keep the 'nature' of the New Forest picturesque scenes. It's as if we don't like nature in her natural forms.

Here kitty kitty.

Here kitty kitty.

Willow

The pussy willow catkins are just bursting out. Still fluffy and soft, it wont be long before the erupt in to a myriad of yellow flowers.

Eocene beach

I was walking in the Eocene this afternoon under the unseasonally warm sun, which reminded me that when these layers were laid down this area was a tropical lagoon. It's been a while since I'd walked these ancient horizons, and the landscape has changed noticeable. There are still land falls, slips and slides, and some are quite substantial, though for the most part the fluid landscape has been temporarily stabilized by colonizing plants and shrubs. Very successful colonizers are the Cat Tails, which now cover swathes of the wetter areas, Willow trees who I was surprised to see growing in quite some numbers, their canopies filled with bird song, and many of the areas which were exposed clays are now covered in a layer of tough grasses and horsetail. Still, there were enough exposed Eocene horizons to keep my eyes occupied. The entire surface of these exposed horizons is covered in shell fragments, as well as plenty of complete shells in various sizes and of various types, and the occasional sharks tooth. The 'Barton Beds' as they're called are well known in palaeontological circles, are an important research resource and some impressive specimens have been collected here. The best time for fossil hunting are over the coming months of bad weather, when land movement is common and virgin horizons exposed. Care needs to be taken as the area is dangerous and you can find yourself knee deep or even waist deep and in need of rescuing with one careless step; even today when the surface is still quite dry and stable, care was required. A great walk though, so much to see and think about.

Catkin

It was a quiet evening over the common. Gone were the billowing battleship like clouds which gathered just inland before heading east, all that remained were their wispy remnants, now painted in the peach hue of the setting sun. As the sun descended and disappeared, the last frantic calls of evening bird song disappeared too. I stood listening and watching, transfixed by the simple beauty of days end, so easily ignored or overlooked. It was about then that I noticed the unopened catkins amongst the opened ones, their colours, the intricate forms, which again for the most part go overlooked. It's all going on out there, if we just take the time to notice it. Nature's great.

Willow Catkins

Willow (Salix) Catkins.