I have started to look again at the mosses on the windowbox as winter is a good time for this, free of the more heady distractions of the warmer months (not that mosses aren't heady in their way).
It was reported today that Britain had its second warmest year in 2007 since records began (the warmest was 2006).
Today, however, was decidedly cold, though the snow did not lie until much after lunchtime.
As the other photo shows, I have been doing some cutting and coppicing. The rush, like a spiny green and white sea urchin, is soft-rush, Juncus effusus, and seems a very strong plant, so I am sure it will survive. Elsewhere in the picture you can see sallow stumps where I have started a small coppice.
One of the newest arrivals in the windowbox is a plant of what is almost certainly smooth tare, a mini-vetch. It appeared in the autumn and has been growing steadily since.
For the last few days the weather has been very cold and frosty and the soil in the windowbox will, by now, be frozen right through. This makes it a much harsher microclimate than the garden round about where the roots of many plants will be below the level that frost can penetrate.
We will see what survives (the previous two winters have not been as cold as this).
Today I found this female cranefly, Tipula paludosa, resting quietly in a cage of rushes. The Juncus in the windobox has grown large enough to serve this sort of purpose.
The insect dangled unmoving within the shelter of the plant and it reminded me, as craneflies always do of Yeats's poem:
That civilisation may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.
Like a long-legged fly upon the stream
His mind moves upon silence.
Since it was installed in the window box nearly two years ago the small sandstone rock in the top right corner has been developing a good skin of vegetation.
There are several mosses, as the picture shows, and the greenish white lichen with purple 'jam tarts' (Lecanora campestris) in the centre of the frame continues to expand. There is also a black encrustation on the rock - I will find out what that is one day. Maybe someone knows?
The window box has returned from its travels. It was taken by the BBC in mid-May, first to Bristol, then to Islay off the west coast of Scotland for use in the Springwatch TV programme, then back to Bristol before returning home. If you saw the Windowbox on BBC TV Springwatch tonight, first in Sussex, then in Islay off the western coast of Scotland, welcome.
There is plenty of detail about the project if you follow the links to the right and I hope it shows that even people who don't have a garden can create tiny wildlife reserves that deliver fascinating results.
Something of this type does, of course, have to be managed to optimise biodiversity, but every plant and animal has arrived under its own steam, some being with the project only for a short time, while others are more persistant.
Every day when I walk down our garden I look at the space where the windowbox was and remember, with a real sense of separation, that it is in Islay. I am sure the BBC will take good care of it though and I look forward to its return so that reunited we can continue our dialogue.
With all these minireserve endeavours I get the strong feeling after a while that I am not just an outside observer, but part of the project itself. We are somehow enfolded into one another.
After earlier rain and a spell of wonderfully warm weather, plants in Wbx are growing very quickly. The herb robert up against the sallow log will soon be in flower and I have had to finger pick the burgeoning white clover back to manageable proportions.
The solitary grass plant, despite much mildew, also grows quickly and threatens to swamp the southern end of Wbx. However, as soon as it has flowered and I have worked out what it is I shall cut it back thereby creating, no doubt, the world's only single plant hay meadow.
I found a beetle floating in the pond this afternoon, a Sitona clover weevil I think.
The first dandelion has come into flower with the warm spring sunshine and it reminds of how often people say that if this was a rare plant it would be much sought after. In Wbx the two plants are certainly an asset, well behaved and small enough not to seem out of scale. They are, I suspect, Taraxacum undulatiflorum, but I will have to do some work with the BSBI dandelion book to be sure.
In the centre right of the picture is the small Japanese maple its leaves, as I predicted, damaged by a late frost. I think it will survive this year, but it will be struggling in colder winters than this.
On the far right there is one of the two tutsan plants (Hypericum androsaemum). This is supposed to be a woodland plant, but is not uncommon in our garden.
Last night there was an air frost in the garden and a thin skin of ice in the morning on the Wbx pond. The Japanese maple leaves are expanding fast and I fear this sudden knee-jerk cold may well kill such tender shoots. They look okay at present, but this can be deceptive.
So, I have photographed them while they still look in good condition. An interesting feature is that these second year leaves are a different shape than those of the first year (see smaller picture) and much more like traditional Japanese maple leaves.
Among the many species of moss, mostly unidentified, colonising Wbx, I noticed the one above today. It is pointed spear-moss (Calliergonella cuspidata), a species I have only just started noticing in the garden here.
Usually a moss of rather wet habitats, Wbx is maybe the equivalent of a dune slack in some respects and, in winter, quite water retentive.
I was looking at the expanding bud on the Japanese maple again today and noticed a flower bug, (Anthocoris nemorum) on the outside. Having taken a photo and enlarged it I discovered it was dining on a juicy aphid, thus ridding the maple of a destructive pest.
Southwood and Leston in their Land and Water Bugsof the British Isles say of this species that when they come out of hibernation they "feed on aphids, psyllids and other small animals and occasionally on leaves." Let's hope this bug doesn't become a vegetarian.
If you look carefully at a larger size of the photo you will see that the bug has its proboscis well thrust into the belly of the hapless aphid.
The ornamental maple with the long-tailed leaves has survived both the summer and the winter and is stirring again with a slow expansion of its claw-like bud. (See 29 April 2006)
Once again, I would be grateful if anyone could suggest a name or knows of any other plants like it.
Wbx's only grass plant (Poa annua I think) has much powdery mildew on the leaves.
There is only one mildew like this that found on grasses and this example must therefore be Blumeria graminis (formerly Erisyphe graminis). It prefers relatively cool and humid conditions and the recent weather must have been much to its liking. While I am sure that this is quite a common species in Sussex, there appear to be no earlier records for the county on the Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre's database. However, I am sure this is simply because people either have not looked for it, or have overlooked it.
Hopefully the grass will flower later in the spring and I will be able to name it with greater certainty.
There is a bud in the heart of one of the two dandelion plants in Wbx but, overall, the plant does not look too healthy with several leaves afflicted by rusts and mildews. I thought how much these buds resemble a rolled pill millipede (Glomeris marginata) - see top picture.
The greater plantain looks good though as the new leaves appear. Some plantains retain their leaves overwinter and are therefore perhaps more susceptible to fungal and other infections.
By the sallow log there are male flowers of capillary thread-moss, Bryum cappilare and one of the sallows is starting to sprout.
This tiny, 2 mm, toadstool has appeared in a cushion of moss growing by the north west side of the sallow log. This is the first stalked fungus to have appeared since the project started.
It looks like Mycena pseudocorticola, but there are so many similar species that I would not go firm on this without a second opinion. Tiny though it is, it seems quite frost resistant and was unaffected by last night's subzero temperatures.
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