January Spring

The beginning of the new year of 2016, and January continued the trend of what may well prove to be one of the mildest winters in memory. There were frosts, however, plus a day when the sun – and the air – felt so warm that a dog-walker on Wanstead Flats suggested to me that it felt like summer.

There is a big trend nowadays – especially perhaps amongst the bird-watching enthusiasts – of seeing as many species as possible in a given place (or “patch”) or in a time – whether a day a month or a year. There seems to be a competitive element in this, too, but also has given rise to the phenomenon of the “bio-blitz”.

In our local area, there is a year-long scheme called the Wanstead 1000, which aim is to record a thousand species in the Wanstead area in 2016. That shouldn't prove too difficult, given the database and knowledge of the whereabouts of many species that has been built up over the years.

Cherry wp 160119 06756artThe Wren Wildlife and Conservation Group made a start on this on the fourth day of the year by organising a flower-finding walk. A few hardy souls chose to look for plants actually in flower, and chose a few of the more likely habitats to explore. One of these was around Jubilee Pond on Wanstead Flats and another the Green Man underpass system, by the roundabout of the same name.

The Jubilee Pond area was a good choice, as it provides a variety of habitats and has also recently been disturbed, so a collection of plants have taken advantage. Nearby is Dames Road, and roadsides are often good places to look for plants, and the Green Man roundabout is an exceptionally productive area, as it was seeded with all manner of nice flowers during its construction. The results weren't disappointing: about 40 species were found to be in flower. That's certainly a good number to find during an English winter, although when I looked at the list there wasn't much that I hadn't seen flowering during winters before. The ones that I hadn't were Chicory, Field Scabious and Musk Mallow by the Green Man roundabout, and Alexanders, by Dames Road. Here is the list, kindly provided by Tim Harris:

Alexanders, Common Ragwort, Yarrow, Gorse, Smooth Sow-thistle, Dandelion, Common Field Speedwell, Guernsey Fleabane, Canadian Fleabane, Chickweed, Annual Mercury, Wild Cabbage, Green Alkanet, White Dead-nettle, Red Dead-nettle, Hedge Mustard, Hoary Mustard, Scentless Mayweed, Broom, Holly, Bramble, Wood Avens, Sun Spurge, Nipplewort, Common Vetch, Small-flowered Cranesbill, Hedgerow Cranesbill, Chicory, Groundsel, Musk Mallow, Common Mallow, Cow Parsley, Daisy, Hornbeam, Periwinkle sp.

A couple of weeks later, on 19th, Rose Stephens and I walked along the wayleave track between the gardens of the houses in Woodland Avenue in Aldersbrook, and Reservoir Wood in Wanstead Park. This has always been a favourite of mine in early spring, to see some of the first flowers plus associated insects such as hoverflies and bees. There weren't too many insects – some flies, one or two hoverflies, no bees, but there were flowers. Approaching from Park Road, we were greeted by the flowers of a Wild Cherry. Further down the wayleave, Greater Periwinkle, Spring Snowflake and Honesty – all garden outcasts, these. Then White Dead-nettle, its flowers frosted with ice, for it was in the shade and the night had been cold. Snowberry was in evidence, but from its white berries rather than flowers, and tucked into the woodland edge numerous Herb Robert plants with flowers – and just about Herb Bennett, too. Then there was a couple of plants clustered together that were mostly leaves. I was just about to remark that I wasn't sure if they were Pendulous Sedge or perhaps... when I saw the berries and they were...Stinking Iris. Not in flower – just berries again – but these were only the third Stinking Iris I know of in the Park. Now, are these garden outcasts? I have seen an increase in this species near Whipps Cross Hospital, where I believe they have spread from ornamental plantings in the hospital grounds to the woodland edges along James Lane.

Lesser Celandine wf 160125 06797fpMore or less lastly for the flowers that day, I deliberately looked for a particular Hawthorn that grows a fair way in from Woodlands Avenue Road-side. Sure enough, it was easily found because it already had fresh leaves on, and also had flowers. Why this one plant should always flower significantly before other local hawthorns I do not know. It looks to be the Common Hawthorn, Crataegus monogyna. I said more or less the last flowers for the day, for walking home along Wanstead Park Avenue were some of my favourite Ivy-leaved Toadflax, on a garden wall, as well as a non-flowering plant – a liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. These do not have flowers and hence seeds, but in this specimen the leaves were supporting the gemma cups that contain the spores. On 25th January, a cursory look at mosses in the City of London Cemetery showed Grey Cushion Moss and Capillary Thread-moss to be well-endowed with their fruiting capsules.

Some Daffodils are already in flower, in gardens and on Wanstead Flats roadside edge for example - but these are not wild ones. Non of the flowers mentioned here, to my mind, are really spring flowers, just plants that have happened to flower very early. However a flowering Lesser Celandine on Wanstead Flats on 24th January is truely a spring flower, and next day's glorious display of the native Early Crocus in the City of London Cemetery - introduced or not, but certainly naturalised - was another. Spring is just a flower away – or already here, come snow or what may.

Does any of this, perhaps, put a climate-change perspective on something I wrote back in 1978, or is it just weather?

 

January Spring

January.

Dreary early morning rise.

Lifeless pre-dawn trudge through rain-soaked suburban streets.

Saturated concrete slabs reflect mock-moon street lights;

And occasional pollarded plane-trees – still dripping –

Imitate the night’s incessant drizzle.

Somewhere behind the cloud-curtain the sun rises;

Unseen until noon, hanging low over the house-tops.

A soft south-west wind succeeds the rain-clouds;

And a clear sky cleverly depicts a still-distant spring.

Between the last and the next cloud-belt,

A single, leafless flowering cherry displays a few flowers,

And a pigeon coos and fan-tails to its mate.

For a few moments - fooled with mirages of summer –

Life returns.

And the streets are trod with a lighter tread.

Paul Ferris. 25th January 2016