Most days I have to take Luna for a walk.
Today I had Betty for company too
They prefer the beach and I’d move to the seaside if it wasn’t for the marsh.
So to celebrate the equinox we went for a walk. Not a long walk but we were out for several hours, and we got up to quite a lot. Here’s why the marsh is so good to me.
Pussy Willow is in flower, and there are lots of bees. They love the abundant nectar and they spread pollen from one tree to the next. One of its many names is Sallow. I think this one is the Great Sallow.
Right in the middle of this photo is a special pussy willow, which many years ago my friend crashed into whilst cycling. She’s passed away now, but I always remember her when I see that tree. It’s another Sallow, but a female
They’re distinguished by the green flowers. They too are popular with bees as are these:
A Wild Plum I think, similar but different to a Blackthorn, and a challenging group of early flowering wild trees to learn. One day I’ll get there but I enjoy slowly learning a bit more about them.
They are all along the old railway track.
This is a little Sallow bush. There’s a lot of different and confusing Sallows, and this is one, it might be Common Sallow, but it’s a bit early. They normally flower in early summer. Maybe it’s been teased out of its winter slumber by the recent heatwave. Maybe it’s a hybrid. It’s growing deep in the marsh, and I suspect it’s grown from a wind blown seed.
The bees clearly love it, the whole bush was buzzing., so I took a handful of cuttings to the bench to be planted later.
I also took a limb off a crack willow. You can see branches have been removed before, and those scars may become holes that birds and bats might use when the tree gets older. It’s a crack willow and it would eventually fall, and it grew over the path, so my safety conscious heart made an excuse to cut it. But branches of willow of that size can root even into dry ground. So chucking it into one of the ditches will guarantee it growing into a fine tree.
Whilst there I was told there was a Black Poplar growing on the roadside. I thought I had looked there, and I have, but I’ve never noticed this. It’s not a magnificent tree yet but it’s flowers are :
In the middle of all this I sat chatting to folks for a while while watching great flocks of teal, smaller flocks of shoveler, several little egrets, some lapwings frolicking, a heron, a peregrine, reed buntings were singing. The chance of an unusual bird arriving on migration is increasing every day.
You really do have to pay attention, it’s a place of magic and learning which I’ve been engaging with for years.
I wouldn’t be able to do that if I moved to the seaside. I’d have to start all over again.
Rural Reading 