The mixture of heavy rain and warm sunny days we’ve had this week seem to have done wonders for the plants. They’re growing at such a rate they need trimming almost daily to keep the trail clear for visitors. Although this trimming might seem a little destructive, it actually prevents any one species becoming too dominant, meaning there’s room and light for different communities of plants like skullcap, hedge and marsh woundwort, and in the wetter areas pennywort. The sunshine has also brought out fresh comma butterflies. Their raggedy wings and bright orange and brown colouring are unmistakable, whilst the underside is a wonderful mimic for a mouldering leaf, the mottled browns only broken by a pale mark the shape of which gives this species its name.
The comma is an interesting butterfly because of the huge, and mostly unexplained, variations in population and distribution over the last 200 years. The species declined almost to extinction in the latter part of the 19th Century, but since then has seen a spectacular recovery where it has recolonized its entire former range and beyond. As a species that overwinters in its adult form, one suggestion is that the spell of cold winters in the late-Victorian period that inspired Christmas cards and pepper Dickens’s stories caused the decline, but subsequent milder years have allowed recovery, with the march of climate change adding its influence as well.
The other, less welcome, emergent this week is the horseflies. Whilst I’ve encountered one or two over the last few weeks, it’s this week that they’ve appeared in greater numbers, and have pursued me with more dogged persistence. That said, it’s nothing compared to a walk my brother, Dad and I took in the Dordogne last year. It was a delightful sunny day, and we followed an old medieval track down into a valley through thick, verdant, mossy woods, which would have been perfect if we’d had a chance to enjoy it. As it was, we were literally swarmed by horseflies and couldn’t stop for even a few seconds of enjoyment without being covered. We ended up walking in single file, swatting and wafting the person in front’s back (sometimes relishing the former a little too much), and taking turns to be at the rear of the column with no-one behind to protect you. Sometimes it feels like nature really is out to get you!
In fact that never seemed truer than when I was performing my other activity this week, Himalayan Balsam pulling. We were in what basically constitutes a swamp: marshy underfoot, surrounded by 8ft tall nettles, strangling hops and flaying brambles, sitting ducks for the mosquitos and horseflies we disturbed as we went about our business, uprooting the translucent stems of Himalayan balsam. Despite the difficult working conditions it’s a task which is surprisingly fun and rewarding. You really do feel connected to nature as you weave through the trees, alder stave in hand, blazing your own trail in a place no other human will ever visit, and left at the end of the day with that satisfied feeling that only hard physical labour will bring. The plant we were after, Himalayan balsam, was identified on the Bure Marshes NNR a few years ago, but concerted efforts by colleagues and volunteers at Natural England seem to be having an effect. The plant is a garden escapee, which looks beautiful in full flower, but causes all kinds of problems to our natural ecosystems. In the Broads it is a particular problem as it outcompetes native perennials whose roots bind the river bank together. The balsam is an annual, so dies back in the winter leaving the banks bare and exposed and contributing to erosion. Nothing eats it, and it spreads with remarkable rapidity due to its explosive seedpods and waterproof seeds. We also get a lot of its North American cousin, orange balsam, on the trail, but this seems to grow less vigorously and doesn’t cause the same problems, although it is still unwelcome. Whilst balsam pulling we stumbled across another plant which was clearly alien, in every sense of the word. The leaves were huge and could easily be used as an umbrella. They formed a rosette emerging from the ground, in the centre of which were three flower heads – peculiar club-like things with long thick stalks and heavy heads. This was skunk cabbage, a plant I know almost nothing about, so we took the flower heads to stop it seeding, but left the rest for another day. Underneath the leaves were two smaller plants, so I wonder if it spreads vegetatively as well.
After yesterday’s exertions, today has been lovely, sunny and peaceful allowing full recovery in both mind and body. Nature might not always be friendly, but in the sunlight, with a backdrop of pale blue sky, when the alder and sallow that line the riverbank look more silver than green, and when the meadowsweet and honeysuckle pump their perfume into the air, the river takes on an almost dreamlike quality, where senses are stretched and filled, and this little stretch of river can really be appreciated.