February Photo Challenge

 day 12 - silhouette

Two photographs this time because I couldn't decided which one to post. Bare branches of trees silhouetted against a winter sky.

day 13 - green

Its been a very wet but not particularly cold winter and I don't think the lawn has stopped. A lovely fresh green colour on a rare sunny day.
Something to be grateful for as so much countryside is under water and the submerged plants including crops and grassland are dying.

I am joining with Tash from Vintage Pretty in the February Photo Challenge.

more rain, more flooding

More photographs of a flooded River Thames, this time at Pangbourne in Berkshire. The river has overflowed on both sides

and the trees on the banks are standing in several feet of water.

The river is flowing fast,

so much extra water being carried downstream causing chaos on its way.

Corn Marigolds

It has been said that "a weed is a plant growing in the wrong place", so these attractive corn marigolds would be considered a weed competing with the crop in this field.

Corn marigolds can be very invasive. Years ago when they were commonplace in cereal crops, the marigold seeds mixed with the harvested grains reducing the value of the crop. The problem was so great that in the 13th century, a law in Scotland stated " if a farmer allows so much as a single plant to produce seed in amongst his crops then he will be fined a sheep.". The poor farmers must have had to work hard to rid their land of this weed.

Today corn marigolds are recognised as being a very beneficial flower for wild-life, in particular for bees and hoverflies.  Far from being fined for growing these brightly coloured daisies we are now able to buy corn marigold seeds to plant in our gardens to encourage wild-life.

Definitely a case of being a weed in one place and valued plant in another.

one field, four years

2012

A footpath runs right through this field and for the past few years I have walked here to look at the cornflowers blooming amongst the crops.  This year though, there were none and hardly any wild flowers (or weeds) to be seen.

Here are some photographs from previous years.

In 2009 the field was planted with wheat and the cornflowers were growing.

2009

2009

2009

In 2010, wheat again and the cornflowers spread right across the field. When I posted some photographs back then I mentioned the sound of insects visiting the flowers.

2010

2010

2010

Last year the field was planted with linseed. By July when the cornflowers were flowering the flax flowers had faded and the seeds had formed. There were so many different flowers and the field looked beautiful as well as being full of insect life.

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

2011

This year the field was back to wheat but there there were no flowers and no hum of insects. I don't know whether the field has been sprayed to kill the weeds but they certainly haven't grown this year and there wasn't a single cornflower. It seems a shame but perhaps it is necessary to get a good crop.

2012

The farmers have plenty to worry about this year with the poor weather, an adjacent field had been flooded recently and a fair proportion of the crop lost so they have to do what they can to maximise the crops.

2012

Shame about the cornflowers though.

2010

Fields of Linseed

A few of the fields around the village are looking very pretty at the moment.  This is linseed and the flowers are a very pale blue. They don't seem to photograph very well and taking pictures in the sun makes them appear white.

The flowers open fully only when the sun is out, at the end of the day the fields turn green again.  The flowers face the sun and follow it through the day.

They look pretty from underneath as the sun shines through the petals

but the blue colour and veining on the petals is seen when they are viewed face on.

Linseed is also known as flax but the varieties grown here are grown for the oil in the seeds and so are more commonly called linseed. Older varieties which were taller (1 - 1.2 metres) and known as flax were grown for their fibre which was processed to produce linen. Flax is no longer grown for fibre in the UK on a commercial scale.

I found a little history of flax growing here and a timeline of flax through history here.

The amount of flax grown for fibre in the UK increased during both World Wars when Britain needed to be more self sufficient, I wonder if as the price of oil rises and transport costs increase, flax will be grown again in Britain for fibre as well as growing linseed for oil.

Puffin cam

I love these little birds with their stripy beaks, they look so sweet. Last year when we were in Shetland we were lucky to be able to get close enough to take photos and to watch them coming and going from the cliff side.

Puffins rear their young in burrows and this year at Sumburgh Head in Shetland the RSPB have put a camera inside one of these burrows. Over the last few days I have checked in to see how the puffin is getting on so I thought I'd share the link to the webcam in case anyone else is interested. 

The link takes you to the index page for all the Shetland webcams. Look for the puffin thumbnail, there are two cameras, camera 1 is inside the burrow and camera 2 shows the entrance. Over the last few days there has been a bird sitting in the burrow most of the time - usually looking very sleepy. Of course nothing can be seen if it is dark so non UK viewers would need to allow for the time difference.

Puffins lay a single egg and there is already one in this burrow. Both parents take turns to incubate the egg for 36 to 45 days and after that they both feed the young bird for a further 34 - 60 days. There should be something to see on the camera for a few weeks yet.

Puffins are on the "amber list" of UK Birds of Conservation Concern because the breeding populations are concentrated in a few sites and so are vulnerable to changes in the environment.

A few years ago the numbers of successfully fledged young puffins was worryingly low. It was thought that this might be due to global warming, a small rise in sea temperature causing the sand eels which are the young puffins main food source to move further north to cooler waters away from the puffin breeding sites. Last year however the breeding figures increased again with just under half of all occupied burrows producing a chick. 


I think puffin cam is such a good idea. It has certainly made me think about the vulnerability of these little birds plus they are so cute to see in the burrow. I hope this burrow is one of the successful ones and that there will be a healthy chick although that will be a few weeks away yet. 

No airplanes

The ash escaping from the Icelandic volcano is still affecting flights in the UK. This afternoon I took this photo of a clear blue sky with no airplanes or contrails. We live just over thirty miles from Heathrow so you wouldn't think that we would really notice the lack of flights over the past couple of days but we have.

A large number of planes fly over this area, my husband has flown over the village several times when returning from America, but they are not very low at this stage and so I don't give them much thought although depending on weather conditions we do see a lot of contrails. This is a photo I took one morning.

Today, when I was in the garden I thought it was quieter than usual but wondered if I was imagining it. Then my son came out and commented on how quiet it was. I think we must somehow filter out the background noise and it is only now it is not there that we notice the difference. We also see military helicopters on exercises, these fly low and are very noisy but they have been absent too.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, flights were suspended for three days and scientists recorded an increase in temperature due to the absence of airplane contrails in the atmosphere. The water vapour in the trails reflects some sunlight back out into space so that less reaches the earths surface so when there are no trails, more sunlight gets through and the temperature increases. I wonder if the same effect will be seen due to the current flight cancellations or will the volcanic ash in the atmosphere have the opposite effect reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the earth. I find it interesting to see how one event, the eruption of the volcano in Iceland, has such far reaching effects.

For the sake of the many thousands who have had their plans disrupted I hope this cloud of ash disperses and that they are soon able to travel safely. There will be no flights from London airports tomorrow so it will be another day of waiting around for passengers but for those of us on the ground, another quiet day with clear skies.

Green

Green, 

fresh after the browns and greys of winter,

restorative, 

the colour associated with healing,

calming,

yet energising,

 

full of energy,

 

stored sunlight.

Leaves, green with chlorophyll, trapping and storing the sun's energy and giving us a living planet.

We must protect and cherish our wonderful green world.

Bushcraft

On Saturday evening we went to see Ray Mears. He is touring the UK at the moment with his show called "In front of and behind the lens". He talked about the places he has visited and the television programmes he has made during the last 15 years. It was fascinating. He talked for over two and a half hours and the time passed so quickly.

He has made programmes throughout the world and gathered a lot of knowledge about the hunter gatherer way of life and the skills used. In almost every community he visited, the traditional way of life was dying out and it was only by talking to the older people that he was able to build up a picture of the way they had lived for generations and generations.

What struck me most as he talked about all the different tribes and groups he had met was how in each case they were all very "in tune" with their surroundings. Whether it was tracking animals in Africa or knowing where to find fish in a frozen lake they all seemed to know their surroundings in a way that most of us will never be able to do. There was also a great respect for their environment, for the animals that they hunted and plants that they gathered. These seem to be societies where there is very little waste, when an animal is killed for food every part is used, just enough of a plant is harvested for building, for medicines or for making fire. Traditionally the communities were almost totally self sufficient, as they often lived in remote areas all their needs had to be supplied from the local area.

While we in "developed" countries are trying to eat local foods, reduce dependence on fossil fuels and consume less of the world's resources perhaps we can gain inspiration from these traditional hunter gatherer communities.

Saving Planet Earth

Its been one of those weeks this week and I just don't know where the time has gone. I am working an extra day a week at the moment and that together with all that needs doing in the garden and going away last weekend means that I seem to have been trying to catch up all week.

Friday was a big rush after school/work as we had tickets to the BBC Saving Planet Earth event at Kew Gardens. No photos though because in all the hurry I forgot the camera. My eldest son did get about a three second appearance on television when he managed to stand near Graham Norton as he did a piece to camera. We had set the video so we have a record of this and nobody will be allowed to record over it!

I see from the Saving Planet Earth website that the event raised over £1,000,000 to help endangered species. I do wonder though if when people make a donation to a fund such as this, they then feel that they have done their bit to help and carry on as usual.

The wildlife film they showed on Friday evening was about the disappearance of Orang-utans in Borneo due to the destruction of their habitat.
Huge areas of rainforest are being cleared to plant plantations of the palm which provides palm oil. Palm oil is used in many commercially produced bakery products. The pictures of the cleared areas were so sad, the area is just massive. Each Orang-utan needs an area of rainforest equivalent to ten football pitches to survive and every minute the equivalent of three football pitches is being destroyed. I find it so difficult to get my head around these facts, when we know how biodiverse the rainforest is, such a high rate of destruction is unbelievable.

Some of the money raised will provide a sanctuary for displaced orang-utans and fund the purchase of food for them. This is obviously very badly needed in order to keep these animals alive but I wonder if this is just helping to cure the symptoms (hungry orang-utans) of the destruction we have caused and maybe taking the attention away from the root cause.

The best way we could save the orang-utans would be to leave the rainforest intact. To do this we would have to stop planting palm oil plantations and to do that we would have to stop using palm oil. I rarely buy bakery products and don't think I am buying anything containing palm oil but I will check ingredients carefully if I do buy baked goods.

I just hope that as well as giving money to save endangered species we are also prepared to make other changes in our lives which will minimise the destruction of the environment.