A wildlife diary
Mary Smith 33 Gaynes Park Road, Upminster, Essex RM14 2HJ
In the middle of August we walked along by the Ingrebourne towards Hornchurch Country
Park. In low-lying water meadows, which have been very wet this year, we noticed
many examples of proliferous grasses, mainly Timothy. Now I do know that some
grasses do this very readily, and other plants too like Red Clover. And I do know it
happens in wet summers, and in wet parts of Britain, but I have never seen such big ones
as those I saw today. The lower seeds have germinated while still on the plant to give
plantlets that were 2cm long. Unlike cuttings, which are clones, these plantlets are, of
course, as genetically different as the seeds are.
Over the past few months we have noticed in our garden squawks of birds that have
turned out to be Ring-necked Parakeets. They have been in and around our garden and
have started tucking in to unripe Bramley apples on our tree. They tend to hide among
leaves, so they are quite hard to spot until one flies to another tree. These birds are
mostly bright green with red bills and long blue-green tails and they reach a total length
of about 40cm (about 17in), nearly as big as a Magpie! The population in London and
the South-east is probably at least 20,000, and growing. They chatter and squawk in
small flocks as they fly about hunting for food in people's gardens, mostly at bird feeders
put out for native birds, but also taking fruit, as in our garden. The bad news is not only
that they eat crops of sweet-corn (maize) just before it is ready to be harvested (see
Newsletter 56, May OS, which itself refers to Newsletter 54, Sept 07, so you can see
parakeets are a running saga!), but also that the population is increasing fast. In urban
areas they compete very successfully against many other garden birds for food and
nesting sites as they are quite aggressive and small birds are easily intimidated by their
large size and raucous calls. They came originally from India, around the foothills of
the Himalaya, so they are quite used to cold winters. There has been a colony in London
for nearly 40 years, so they are clearly very well adapted to life here. For a picture, look
them up on Google, if you have not already seen them.
Near the end of the month we noticed one plant of Common Mallow Malva sylvestris
with blue-violet flowers instead of the more usual pinky-purple (see Plates 4 & 5). It
was growing in Hornchurch Country Park. We set off on our bikes a few days later to
photograph it. The blue one was clearly still the same species, as habit, leaves etc matched
the normal one exactly, but something had gone wrong with the mechanism of floral
pigment production. I asked Ken Adams about this, and he said this is a frequent variant,
a minor mutation, in Essex along roadsides north-east of Chelmsford, and in the rest of
Britain. The two colours act as an indicator for acid/alkali like litmus: the pinky purple
flowers go blue in ammonia, and the blue ones go pink in vinegar. Thank you, Ken, for
this information. I know that a number of purple and blue plant materials behave this
way, such as red cabbage, delphinium flowers, beetroot, blackberries, etc, but they only
show one colour in the wild.
4 Essex Field Club Newsletter No. 58, January 2009