(W)Racking my brains

Nolton Haven is a more-or-less U-shaped inlet on the west coast, facing roughly south-south-west. Looking out past the cliffs which form the mouth of the haven, you can see the jagged humps of Stack Rocks, near Brandy Bay and Mill Haven, between Little Haven and St Brides. Beyond them, the curve of land ending in what appear to be hills and valleys is the north coast of the Marloes peninsula. You'd need a telescope to see the details of the spectacular old red sandstone cliffs, but binoculars will help you see that the lumpy 'hills'  are islands. Left to right, the peninsula ends with the steep cliffs of Wooltack Point, then there is Midland Isle and Skomer. Skokholm lies behind the end of the peninsular and Midland Isle, indistinguishable from the other land in the haze. Ships waiting for their place at the oil terminals near Milford Haven often anchor off the coast, looming out of the mist.

I probably only go there once or twice a year, as it always takes longer than I think it will; I get lost in the narrow, winding lanes and drive slowly, as there is a lot of traffic, both cars and farm vehicles, and potentially horses from the large riding stables in Nolton village.

(You should be able to click on the photos below to see a larger version.)

This was taken 4 August 2015, when it was chilly enough to wear a coat!

Last Sunday, a friend and I decided to take some sandwiches and blow away some cobwebs with a little walk on the beach. The sun was playing hide-and-seek, and it was even blowier than expected, adding extra sand to the sandwiches. The tide was out, enticing us to walk down the beach. There's a stream which flows under the road and  onto the beach spreading out over the sand so that it stays wet. On either side, there are rocks covered with barnacles and seaweed, and rockpools.

Take a tip from me and stay in the sandy centre of the haven if you go for a swim. Several years ago, I swam to a little sandy patch near the cliffs and the waves pushed me against some of the rocks. It was only when I got out that I felt the sting and realised when I saw blood dripping onto my feet that one of my shins had several deep scratches from the barnacles.

The rockpools don't generally have much in them. There are the usual beadlet anemones, a few crabs, but I've rarely seen any shrimp or small fish. There is a lot of weed. Every year, I remind myself that I should learn something about seaweed so that I can name what I'm looking at.

I don't know what the astonishingly purple weed is, but it really was that colour!

The most common weed covering the rocks is the brown one with greener blobs on the end and occasional bubbles in it. I thought it was Bladder Wrack Fucus vesiculosus, but was I right?

Back home, I had a cup of tea while I leafed through a couple of my nature guide books. I have quite a collection, but the two I took from the shelf were The Readers Digest Field Guide to the Water Life of Britain, and the Hamlyn Guide Seashores and Shallow Seas of Britain and Europe (Campbell and Nicholls).* I'm not sure either of these are still in print, but you can pick good second-hand copies up very cheaply from Amazon. (* These are affiliate links)

It turned out my memory was correct, and while I had my guide-book in hand, I looked at the details for the other types of wrack commonly found around the UK coastline - Toothed or Serrated Wrack Fucus serratus, Spiral Wrack Fucus spiralis, Knotted or Egg Wrack Ascophyllum nodosum, Channelled Wrack Pelvetia canaliculata, and decided that would be enough for the time being. The green prickly puffs on the end are fruiting bodies.

I love the patterns and textures of the weed-draped rocks. Now I want to see what other weeds I can identify ... or is that just an excuse for another trip to the beach?

Spittle bugs - first survey

An initial drift around the garden, coaxing some of the nymphs out of their froth by wiping a bit of it away with a paper towel, was very easy. The nymphs weren't impressed, doing everything they could to hide or blow some more bubbles, so getting an in-focus photo was rather more challenging.

All the 'cuckoo spit' was on herbaceous or woody plants; Rosemary, Evening Primrose, Ribwort Plantain, Ragwort and Dock. The Pendulous Sedge had no cuckoo spit on it at all, and I couldn't see any on the Lilac or the Privet, or Grasses. Presumably we don't return records for plants where we haven't found something?

All the nymphs I found were green, so according to the BRIGIT Xylem-feeding insects website, (their ID section is great!) all are Philaenus spumarius, Meadow (Or Common) Froghopper. There were also some adults around, but they tended to ping off rather than sit for their photo. When I looked up the species to double-check identification, I was amazed at how variable the adults' colouration can be (so thank goodness the nymphs aren't!).

Philaenus spumarius Meadow Froghopper nymph on a paper towel rather than in foam

Philaenus spumarius Meadow Froghopper adult on Ragwort

Pretty cute! I hadn't realised, but the adults are covered in tiny hairs, so at certain angles, they appear to glisten.

By the time I'd wandered around getting some photos and generally getting distracted, the camera battery was dead, so I put it on charge and registered on iRecord, ready to edit a couple of photos and input the results the following day. Or sometime.

Ah, the joys of relational databases! This is where what I've noted collides with the way the records have been set up. In iRecord, it looks as though the records are numbers of insects at various stages (spit only, nymph, adult) for each host plant. Trouble is, there's a question about how long the survey took. I was out for about half an hour (probably more like 45 minutes, but I got a bit distracted by the blackbird chicks). Do I divide the survey time by the number of plant species? And an estimate of how many square metres. Well, the Rosemary is about one square metre, because it's huge, but I was drifting around in about 30 square metres of garden. Both time and area are mandatory questions. The Xylem-feeding insects website has a Survey Monkey driven survey (for those who don't want to tangle with iRecord), which doesn't contain the time and area questions and allows multiple plants to be listed, aggregating the total number of blobs of spit over all the plants. OK, surely I'm not expected to divide time and area surveyed per host plant, so same time of 30 minutes over 30 square metres it is. I can comment that they were all the same survey session if the database doesn't put the records together.

It took me a while to get used to what I was looking at. I found my way to instructions on the Xylem-feeding insects site on how to fill out the iRecord form and it looked simple enough, but it seems a bit glitchy.

The host plant is mandatory, and encourages users to look up the plant on the drop down list to enable the name to be spelled correctly for the database (data validation, very sensible!). Oh look, it doesn't recognise Rosemary, or Rosmarinus officinalis. Hmmm. Nor does it bring up a drop-down list for Evening Primrose, Oenothera. 'Other' it is then, to list the plants. Nope, a big red box appears saying 'unauthorised', and what I'd entered already was removed. Grrr! Oh well, if at first you don't succeed ... (go and hang out some washing, bring in the dry towels, coo at the blackbird chick in the Lilac, have a glass of water ...).

Having cleared the form, the drop down list for plants appeared. Strangely, it didn't recognise Other, (because it doesn't have Evening Primrose or Oenothera) and I had to scroll to the bottom of the list under O to find and select it, but otherwise it all went smoothly and the drag and drop for my few in-focus photos to be added against the record worked instantly.

It took me a while, but I was noticeably faster after my 8th record, finding that the less I typed into fields with drop-down boxes, the better.

Having entered my records, I decided to have a little explore and came across others complaining about how difficult the form was. I'm glad of my database knowledge and the time spent exploring the Xylem-feeding insects website, but I sympathise; not easy for someone new to iRecord and without knowledge of the spittle bug species.

Now I've got into this, I noticed some blobs on a patch of nettles, so I might go out to have a look at those.

There's a yellow warning for thunderstorms and heavy rain from Sunday (the day after tomorrow) to Tuesday. I wonder how resilient cuckoo-spit is to downpours?

A Creative Lull

I have been struggling a bit over the past few months; ill, stressed-out. Having got myself together a bit from mid-May, I did more work on the front garden, as the pressure to get that done was a source of stress which I could address. I could picture myself doing another create 365 post and adding the paths and beds of the front garden to my creations.

Just being out and working on it again felt good, even though I was low on energy. I soon found that I could only do so much weeding, wrangling the path edging into place and knocking in pegs before my hands started to ache. At first, I put it down to just being out of condition, unused to the work. Switching to the computer to do some typing and editing didn't help, something as simple as doing the washing up felt like hard work. Within the week, I found my finger joints were so painful I couldn't make a fist. Putting on hand cream felt wonderful, cool and smooth.

I had hoped that I'd be able to get the garden done, get crafting and generally catch up in all directions, but with burning, aching hands, it was hard to get anything done. I've always been good at opening jars, and now I'm struggling with them. I am so not impressed. [Expletives deleted - Ed.]

I fixed my washing line, where a line had worn against the hole in the arm and broken next to the fastener. It was easier than I thought it would be, as there was enough spare line in the fastener at the other end to rearrange it. Then I cleaned the line (although looking at it today, that's difficult to tell!) and it was ready for some of the dry weather we had in April. It's fixed, that counts!

I've just had a heavy cold and felt really under the weather for a fortnight, with sleep a welcome respite from the coughing and sinus headaches. At the beginning of the week, it felt like the lights were coming back on, and I've been madly trying to catch up ever since. I'm wary about getting frazzled out, but the sun is currently shining (which it hasn't done very much here so far this summer) and I do have lots to do. According to the weather forecast, we're due a few days of thunderstorms and heavy rain (yellow warning issued) from Sunday (the day after tomorrow), so I'm making the most of it and hopefully seeing a friend tomorrow for some downtime.

This batch of things: 1
Cumulative total: 22

Spittle-bugs and Cellar Slugs

There are a couple of 'citizen science' projects on my To Do list which are nagging at me.

The first is a study of xylem-feeding insects, that is, froghoppers and leafhoppers. Their nymphs (immature stages) are usually called spittle bugs, because they surround themselves with a froth of white foam, commonly called cuckoo spit, possibly because it starts to appear around the same time that cuckoos return in March or April.

Not that there are any cuckoos locally. Despite occasional sirens, traffic noise, screams and shouts from schoolchildren and the whine of power tools and bouts of banging from various neighbours, it's still quiet enough here that I would have heard the persistent cuc-koo call carried on the wind. They aren't unknown in Pembrokeshire, but they are on the UK Red List because of their declining numbers.

In recent years, the bacterial disease Xylella fastidiosa has been wreaking havoc in Europe, killing off olive and fruit trees amongst other plants. Many of our garden plants are imported from European growers, so Britain is on high alert, The plant pathogens are spread by sap-sucking (xylem-feeding) insects, yes, those spittle bugs!

As my garden is running wild, there's a lot of cuckoo spit about, plenty to study.

The second project is a study of Cellar Slugs. My view of slugs is that the ones helping break down my compost are fine, and the ones which are eating my plants should be banished, if not from the face of the earth, then to some other location where they cannot utterly destroy, for example, the pepper, aubergine and fennel plants to which I treated myself only a fortnight ago. Although, the plants could just as easily have been destroyed by snails, of which the garden also has a superfluity, despite the blackbirds' best efforts.

This study is going to involve some poking around with a torch, although my first port of call will be the compost bins.

It's stopped raining, so I'm off for a spot of spittle bug study.

The Unimaginable?

I read a lot of science fiction when I was in my teens and twenties, avidly immersing myself in the work of (in no particular order) Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, Frank Herbert, H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Brian Aldiss, Clifford D Simak, John Wyndham, Harry Harrison, Ursula LeGuin, J.G. Ballard, Douglas Adams, Anne McCaffrey, Larry Niven, Iain M Banks, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, Philip K Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, Frederick Pohl, ... the list goes on and on. I worked my way through library shelves. I had trouble getting to sleep unless I'd been reading.

There was a lot of dark, dystopian stuff. The novels also featured things which were unimaginable as a reality at the time (although presumably not by the author who imagined them). Satellites? Computers with AI which could react to verbal instructions? Communications equipment small enough to hold and without wires to tether it? Driverless cars? Humanoid robots? All here. Catastrophic climate change? Coming to a place near you soon, if not already here.

I've been listening to Forest 404, on the BBC. It's an immersive dystopian sci-fi eco thriller, with soundtracks including recordings of and mini-documentaries about the natural world, so it ticks a lot of boxes for me. The Rainforest Symphony reached deep into my memory of tropical places and jungle walks in Malaysia, nearly 50 years ago. I love the layers of calls; birds, tree-frogs, stridulating insects, rustling leaves, running water.

Take part in the Forest 404 experiment by clicking here to access the site. I didn't find the questions really matched what I thought - they seemed to be slightly angled towards a younger, urban demographic. Some of the sounds and questions produced a sort of bitter-sweet response in me, in that I loved them as part of the natural world, and awareness of their accelerating destruction makes me sad. I don't think my results will be accurately interpreted. [Apologies in advance in case the BBC links break.]

Whether inside or outdoors, I find I'm aware, however peripherally, of natural noises. The sound of water and waves, the rattle of poplar leaves. bird calls, wind in the branches, grasshoppers, I  listen.

What would it be like not to be able to hear them, because the natural world no longer existed?

Heartbreaking.

Unimaginable.

If one swallow does not make a summer ...

... what does an absence of swallows mean?

I always took the old saying to mean, don't get excited just because you've seen the first swallow arrive, because it's not summer yet. 'Ne'er cast a clout 'til May is out' is also reasonable advice, although I've never quite been sure whether it means don't take your vest/shawl/whatever off until the May blossom is out, or until the end of May.

Back on the farm, the swallows used arrive quite reliably in the first or second week of April, twittering with excitement while they picked off flies and gnats which had come out to enjoy the spring sunshine. The swallows would feed up a bit and quickly settle to making or repairing nests, with mud from around the farm yard and the edge of the farm pond.

Late spring weather would always be a bit uncertain, but there was generally a period of high pressure with sunny days and frosty nights. We would generally have a last frost around the end of May.

Now 25 miles away and closer to sea level, I've not been able to establish when, exactly, the swallows and the last frost might arrive, because in the four years since I've moved, the weather seems different each year.

Every time I was out in April and then May, I listened and scanned the sky, eager for my first sighting of swallows. I caught blog and Facebook posts from people saying they'd seen swallows elsewhere in the county, but still there were none here.

Their absence worried me. What had happened? Where were they?

In the end, I saw my first swallows in Pembroke Dock on 10 May, but it was over a week before I saw and heard some here, while I was out in the garden. I heard and then saw swifts the same day. My heart lifted with joy.

The RSPB listings show the swallows' conservation status as green, although swifts and house martins are listed as amber. Migration can be hazardous; storms can take a great toll, and there were worrying reports of mist nets used to catch birds for food in Egypt. Anything which adversely affects numbers of flying invertebrates, on which swallows, swifts and martins feed, will also cause problems for them. Then they need places to nest; swifts like dark cavities, high up in a building. Martins also like to be high, building their mud cups under eaves. I used to see a lot of tattered plastic hanging from the eaves of buildings to dissuade house martins from building nests 'because of the mess they make', which is so sad. I'd love some house martins, although the local sparrows could be a problem. Swallows prefer to make their mud cups on ledges and beams in sheds and outhouses, sometimes only a couple of meters above ground level, requiring only a clear flight path in and out. I'd like some swallows too; perhaps something could be done when I come to sorting out the shed.

What if, one year, they simply don't arrive? A summer without swallows is unthinkable.

Stress response

I'm fine!
I am!
Actually, not so much.

I've been sleeping well, eating well, perhaps not exercising and certainly not dancing as much as I could or should. I've taken time to relax, be in nature (or at least, the garden, same thing!) and do some mindful meditation. I actively manage my whirling mind.

But my body tried to tell me that I am under stress. My joints are still in achy, winter mode, my hands particularly troublesome. I'm low on energy and tire quickly - both mental and physical stamina are poor. I've been having headaches and indigestion, both very unusual for me. My neck is tight and when I roll my shoulders, it sounds like a symphony of pops and crackles.

Around the end of March, I had a flare of dermatitis on my hands and feet. It's a type called pompholyx, or dishydrotic eczema, where patches of small, itchy, stinging water-blisters develop and coalesce, drying out over a fortnight or so to leave cracked and peeling skin.

Then at the end of April, I came down on a Monday morning, freshly showered and ready for breakfast and to start the day, and I was violently ill. Without being too graphic, it felt like my insides were leaving in both directions. I hate throwing up, and have to remind myself that it's a normal physical reaction, because it makes me feel really sick. I was left with abdominal cramps and after another shower, returned to bed. By Friday, I still felt like the bottom was dropping out of my world and went to see the doctor (anyone who knows me, knows this is another unusual event!) It took nearly another week for the medication to do its bit. The first half of May spent feeling below par! How can I begin to catch up?

Now I have a fresh crop of blisters appearing on my fingers.

Okay Mind, listen to your Body! You thought you were okay, but you're not. Stress can be an insidious thing. Time for me to have a think about what's going on.

• Brexit was due 29th March. It hasn't happened, yet, and it still makes me feel hopeless. It turns out Brexit stress is now a thing and adversely affecting the health of the nation!
• Preparing for the Khaled Mahmoud workshops, all the planning of what to take, how to pack, what to dance, how to travel, where to stay, and would the cats be okay for being left overnight?
• Then the anxiety of finding that Xena, left overnight, had managed to damage her tail (luckily not badly. I checked that she still had feeling and movement at the tip and that there were no obvious kinks or breaks, swelling or pain. She could carry the half closest to her body upright, and let the rest hang in a curve. I was very gentle with her and protective, arranging her tail so it was well-aligned and protected when she was asleep and full function was restored within the week, but still, anxiety, guilt ...).
• Feeling helpless in the face of climate change, (eco-anxiety is now a thing, too!).
• ... and the sheer, bloody idiocy, hypocrisy and corruption of some politicians and sections of the population, worldwide.
• Trying and failing to keep on top of the chaotic house and getting to grips with the garden. A perfect vicious circle, as feeling ill saps energy needed to do it, so it gets worse, so anxiety increases, so feeling more stressed and ill and without energy etc. etc. etc.)
• Fretting about friends with difficult mental and physical health issues. It's my choice to be there for them, even if only on Messenger, and I know I can't fix things (because my magic wand still hasn't been delivered, can you believe it? Come on Universe, I've had the order out for one for years now!).
• The publication of proposed changes to the local plan, showing all the fields behind the house under consideration for development, which alone would grow the village by around a quarter of its current size and obliterate views of fields, hills, the next village ...
• No swallows! Still!

So, having identified at least some of the stressors, perhaps I can stop worrying about what I can't change and try to think of positive things to do. Like, slather my hands in moisturiser.
Any other suggestions?