Edge of the Hedge
Edge of the Hedge
Ep.4 - The light returning: Lichens on the hedgerow, Winter Aconites, and sheep in the fields
As we spring towards February, I have some wooly company by the edge of the hedge, and I find myself drawn to the luminescent lichen on the hawthorn hedge, before heading back into the village to see the yellow beacons of floral groundcover that are the winter aconite in the churchyard. And on the way, coming across the chattering local starlings who’ve recently lost their regular perching site.
Recorded at the end of January, we're approaching the midpoint between Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and the light is returning. Days are becoming longer, and nights, gradually shorter. We start, as usual, on the bench, at the edge of the hedge, along the Viking Way in Lincolnshire, with this time, two fields of hungry sheep for company, intrigued by what I'm doing near their patch. We take a closer look at the vibrant yellow lichens on the hawthorn hedge; the subtle gradients of colour along the hedgerow, from muddy ground to newly flail-cut hedge top. Then, on the way to see the sunny-soil-beacon display of Winter Aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) flowers in the village churchyard, situated under the gnarly Horse Chestnut tree, the local recently displaced starlings make a welcome chattering appearance. What a glorious sound!
Sources and further reading:
https://britishlichensociety.org.uk/learning/what-is-a-lichen
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/mutualism-examples-of-species-that-work-together.html
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/take-part/identify-nature/lichen-id-guide/index.dsml
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/pied-wagtail/
‘The Biology of Plants’. Peter Raven, Ray Evert, Susan Eichhorn.
‘Plant Names Simplified: Their Pronunciation, Derivation and Meaning.’ By A.T. Johnson and H.A. Smith.
‘Flora Britannica’. Richard Mabey.
‘The WIld Flower Key: How to identify wild flowers, trees and shrubs in Britain and Ireland.’ Francis Rose.
‘The WIld Flowers of Great Britain and Ireland’. Roger Phillips.
‘A Dictionary of Plant Lore’. Roy Vickery.
You can find augmented visual content relating to this episode, and other episodes, over at Edge of the Hedge's social media pages, on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you want to get in touch, to say hello or share your thoughts on aspects covered in this episode, please feel welcome to email me at edgeofthehedge@gmail.com
I always welcome Edge of the Hedge being tagged on social media, especially if you've been inspired to look closer at the landscape.
Edge of the Hedge podcast is entirely independent and self-funded, and if you've enjoyed it, and wish to 'buy me a coffee', I'm always grateful for your support. Thank you!
Edge of the Hedge is bourne out of a labour of love, of hoping to help people to find moments of peace, slow the walking pace, and look more deeply at the natural world that we share this planet with, with a hope that by looking more closer, and connecting more deeply with it, we'll take greater care of the planet, and share the stories we learn, to inspire others to connect more deeply.
If you want to read more about Hannah's wider work, as a Herbalist and Nature Educator, you can find her website here.
It's edging towards the end of January. It's quite a still day. It's about five degrees Celsius. There's a really gentle, cool breeze, but there's no movement of the branches of the trees and the hedges. As with all episodes, I'm starting here on the bench at the edge of the hedge, along the Viking way near where I live in Lincolnshire, in the east of England. Today however, what's in front of me as I sit on the bench is a little bit different. I've got company.
Welcome. To Edge of the Hedge, a monthly podcast guiding you in rekindling and nurturing your connection with nature.
I'm Hannah Sylvester. A herbalist and nature educator from Lincolnshire. And each episode you'll join me on a gentle walk, tracking the changing landscape as the season progresses and taking the time to explore the natural world through the census, an audio nature Almanac, helping you to cultivate curiosity and deeper connection with the natural world on your doorstep.
In this episode, as we spring towards February, I have some wooly company. By the edge of the hedge, and I find myself drawn to the luminescent lichen on the Hawthorn. Then I head back into the village to see the yellow beacons of floral ground cover that are the winter aconite in the churchyard and on the way come across the chattering local Starling population who've recently lost their regular perching site.
The bench sits at the Crosspoint between four fields and on the two fields that lie ahead of me, there are hundreds and hundreds of sheep.
I've been sat quite quietly for about the last half an hour, just watching them and what I've come to realize. Is it the sheep in the field on the left are a bit feisty and the sheep in the field on the right are a little bit more docile. How curious! I would not have noticed that if I hadn't have sat and watched them for as long as I have.
There's usually sheep grazing the fields this time. And they're munching on, to be honest, a feast! It looks like there has been the best overnight sheep party in Lincolnshire happening here. I'd say a good two thirds of the sheep in the field on the right are lying down, either asleep or looking pretty docile, and the other third of the sheep are sort of wandering around munching on whatever beet or root vegetable it is that they're munching on. But there is root vegetable carnage. There are hundreds and thousands of upturned beats that have been half munched. and it looks like there's been one serious midnight feast here!
Can you hear the sheep eating?
Sitting here for as long as I have, I've also noticed that it's not just the sheep in this field.
If you relax the eyes, you can see little tiny movements of black and white running and hopping around the field. There's some Pied Wagtails here joining in the feast.
The hedge next to the bench, in recent weeks, has been cut back by the flail on the farmer's tractor, preparing it for spring and cutting back the dead growth. But even though it's cut back, it's still particularly interesting to take note of. The branches at the end of this Hawthorn hedge are vibrant and full of life. And they're covered in this yellowy orange, slightly green lichen all over it. I've gotta admit, I didn't really take much notice of lichen until recent years, and it was in the winters that it really came to light on my walks.
What was left on the Hawthorn was this luminous display of life, clinging to each branch. Really quite odd looking and really showing that even though it's winter and nature's preparing itself for spring, there is still life. , if you just slow your pace and look a little bit closer. If you notice a yellowy, orangey, slightly green in places covering on some branches, have a closer look.
Take a picture with your phone and then blow it up. It's phenomenally intricate.
It was my first winter out here that I first noticed the lichens on Hawthorne, the bare thorny hedges seemingly glowing. Alongside the path, some roadsides, a stark bright contrast to the browning landscape surrounding it. Glow sticks, begging to be taken notice of and appreciated amidst the dance of life when all else around is cold, quiet, and sleeping. The lichens are seemingly the first ones at the party to celebrate the new year.
I'm a plant person and mainly medicinal plants at that. I never studied lichen as part of my training, and truthfully, I am a complete lichen novice, but that is one of the joys of the natural world. It is impossible to know everything.
There is always something new to see, something new to learn about and be utterly wowed by nature is never ever boring. According to the British Lichen Society, lichens are, and I quote, not a single organism, there are stable symbiotic association between a fungus and an. And or cyanobacteria. They need carbon as a food source like all fungi do, and they get this from their symbiotic association with algae and or the siano bacteria that a photo synthetic, meaning that they use sunlight to make nutrients from water and carbon dioxide.
It's thought that this liken symbiosis is what's called a mutualism , which is an ecological relationship where all species involved gain a positive benefit from their interaction. Lichens are very sensitive to air quality and can be used in finding out more about air quality. From what I've read, it seems that some lichens are nitrogen sensitive and some are nitrogen loving and others can be found in cleaner and/or more pollutant areas
The lichen I found on the Hawthorne, I am pretty sure is the most gloriously named Xanthoria parietina. A leafy Xanthoria, which attaches to the surface of the Hawthorn, and it's described as being lobes of yellow orange with some greenish yellow areas and a few orange, so-called fruiting bodies. , which look like little cups or craters.
This is one of the nitrogen loving ones and they look like worlds within Worlds. Absolutely fascinating to see close up
Where the flail has cut back the Hawthorn Hedge. It's brought a new color to the top. The Hawthorne at the bottom of the hutch is this grayish, greenish kind of aged appearance of bark, and then the smaller thornier branch branches are a, they're a kind of gray maroon. quite a deep interesting color with small orangeish red buds just starting to appear, maybe only a millimeter or two in size at the moment, and then at the top where the flails really cut the hedge back harsh. It's left it very broken, of course, but it shows that the insides of them are this orangeish straw color.
Looking along the line of the hedge, there's a really beautiful array of colors from the brown of the footpath.
To the browning green of the grass at the side to a lighter green where it's less trodden. And then bringing in the, the lighter browns and almost creams of the growth from last year that's died back. And then this boulder. Purple and gray easing into red of the Hawthorne hedge. Topped with the bear broken tops where it's being cut back by the flail.
An interlaced in places by the yellowing lichen.
For a stark winter landscape, so much color.
Next time you are out in a walk, just take a moment to perhaps slow your pace a little and relax your gaze and see what colors you.
There is some color and some life starting to pop up from the soil. I'm going to take a walk back on the path and head back into the village. I'm gonna introduce you to a small beacon of light that pops up arounds time of year every year, the yellow beacon of the winter aconite
There you are! I wondered where you were.
Hear that chattering?
That's some of our local starlings. I'm so glad they found new to sit and perch. That's about 30 of them sat on top of a tree about halfway along the field.
That sound to me used to be synonymous with starting this walk along the Viking way because they used to perch on some telegraph cables, almost perching like an arrangement of like musical notes on a stave, and they'd sit in the face one way or another, chattering away. I think it's a glorious noise. They're such beautiful unappreciated birds.
Birds that at one time, certainly when I was growing up, used to be seen as a scavenger and something not to be appreciated in the garden because they stole the food before the other birds could get to it. And it's only in my adult years that came to realize how really strikingly beautiful they are.
I was really sad a few months back when I walked along this route and realized that they'd taken the telegraph poles down and the wires and that familiar sight and almost locked into behavior of me looking up and seeing what birds were perching there. It was often Stallings. Other birds used it too. There was plenty of sparrows, crows, rooks, even sometimes the occasional bird of prey of some kind. And there's not a lot of places here for large groups of birds to gather, and I was really sad when those poles were taken away and for me it's left a really gaping gap in the skyline, but also a really gaping hole In the soundscape of that part of the path. They've just found another place to perch. Let's just hope that tree is safe from the housing development taking place around it.
I love those Starlings. Intelligent birds, they are.
I am in the church yard now.
It's just starting to get a little bit darker now, heading towards Sunset, and I'm about 10 meters away from the Holly Tree that featured in the last episode. You might remember, If you listened to that one, me giving a brief mention to a very gnarly old horse chestnut tree that stands in the churchyard, and right now I'm right underneath it.
This time though, I've come to introduce you to a small, bright flower that usually appears in the middle of January and hangs around. Early March. It's the Winter Aconite, and it's Latin name is Eranthis hyemalis. Eranthis stems from the Greek, er, spelled e r meaning spring. An anthos meaning a flower, particularly in early flowering. The winter aconite is particularly visible because it is bright yellow, as bright as the buttercup, and actually part of the same family. The Ranuncunaceae family.
Underneath this horse chestnue, there's a little sea of these winter aconites. Small, low growing yellow flowers. Sticking up about two or three centimeters from the soil. It's the bright yellow of this flower that immediately gives it away. Curiously, these yellow parts of the flower whilst looking like petals, they're actually not, they're what are called sepals, which is the part of a flowering plant that protects the flower.
And when you look underneath flowers, like a butter cup, for example. There's those little green protective bits just underneath the petals, and those are the sepals on this winter aconite, these seas are fractionally lighter than buttercup, yellow, not quite as shiny, but they're textures kind of similar. Then just below there's this little circular ruff of leaves underneath each flower.
And there's three of them, three leaves with three deep cuts in each making it look like there's around nine leaves around the base of the flower. The stem is hollow, perfectly round, and very smooth. This flower that I'm looking at here has six distinct yellow sepals, of which curiously three, arranged evenly around the stem are larger and more bulbous than the other three that sit between them, which are slightly smaller, but still rounded.
And these biggersepals are, well, no bigger than my little fingernail, really quite small. Over the coming weeks, these protective sepals will gradually open up a little to display the bright yellow inside of the flower. But at the moment, most of the ones underneath this tree are still fairly tightly closed.
Just a small opening at the top, allowing you to peek inside episodes slightly. Like most of the Buttercup family, the winter aconite doesn't actually have a role to play in human health. It is actually quite poisonous to eat. And even though I'm a herbalist, um, one of my main interests is in medicinal while plant life and trees. it is important to remember that not everything that grows in the world is safe to ingest. Bit like this winter aconite.
The winter aconite was once native to woodland areas in Italy and other areas of surrounding Europe, but you can now find it all over Europe, including care in the UK in Suffolk. You might also find it being called choir boys because of the rough of leaves just underneath the flower. . So you could say that there's a choir of yellow flowers growing here in this churchyard.
Thinking about its native origins in the woodland areas of Italy, legend has it that they only grow in England where Roman soldiers had once fallen. Curiously, these ones in this churchyard are only really a stone's throw from the old Ermine Street , one of the very straight Roman roads that runs through Lincolnshire. Who knows? Maybe Roman soldiers did fall here and maybe there's a story to be written there.
When I walked into the Churchyard, there was a little boy running along the path, parents shortly behind, and he was giggling and laughing with glee, with something yellow sticking out the top of his hand, the closer he got, I realized that he picked a winter aconite flower and was obviously taking it home. I hope he enjoyed it.
I love that aschildren, it's really easy to get lost and engrossed in the natural world, but when we start to grow in years, sometimes that interest can wane a little bit. But I think that in each of us. There is still a giggling small child somewhere, itching to experience the wonder of nature with innocence and joy, and finding huge amounts of fun, being astonished at what you can find.
When you are next out walking, try and tap into that and see what brings you joy. And if you feel like sharing, I'd love to hear what you.
I found the starlings. Oh, I miss them
Over the coming weeks. I'll be sharing some pictures taken during the recording of this episode on social media, and it will be great to hear about what's popping up in your landscape wherever. So do feel free to tag and share pictures or thoughts with me at Edge of the Hedge on social media. You can find out how to contact me in the show notes where I've also popped a few more details about this episode, including links that you might find interesting.
I hope you'll join me again soon for the next episode of Edge of the Hedge, where we'll continue delving into the changing natural world as the season. Becoming more deeply connected with nature, with every step we take. If you enjoy this podcast, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a rating or review on whatever platform you are listening to this on.
And do feel free to share it with anyone who you feel might enjoy it or who might just need a little bit of encouragement to slow. And find some peace and wonder through the natural world.
Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and the nature that we share this planet with.
Edge of the Hedge is written and produced by Hannah Sylvester, with original music by Mark Holmes, and inspired by the natural world that surrounds where I live.