Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Serenade greets spring, fluttering into view
NATURE NOTES
Snowdrops and crocuses may herald the spring but for me the first signs of nature opening its arms to milder weather are the calls of song thrushes marking their territories and the sight of brimstone butterflies fluttering across the garden.
There have been worries that song thrushes are in decline but this year they have appeared in good numbers, using paving stones as anvils to break open snails and marking their territory with a series of short musical phrases, each repeated several times. Soon they will start nesting and may have three successive broods.
Brimstone butterflies often hibernate through winter in ivy, hence their early appearance. It is believed that their bright colour may well have given rise to the name butterfly. In Kent the old name was a flinder. Male brimstones have a much richer colour than the pale females, but both have orange or brown spots on the wings. They are among the chief pollinators of primroses.
I was saddened to hear of a second theft of wild cabbage and rock samphire from the Folkestone Warren Site of Special Scientific Interest. Wild plants are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981.
There is a thriving market in edible wild plants but it is a criminal offence to take them from an SSSI. The men who dug up those plants and loaded them into a white van, presumably for sale to London restaurants, could be fined up to £5,000 or face six months in jail. The van’s number was recorded. Four years ago an albino lady orchid was dug up at the Yockletts Bank SSSI near Petham, presumably in the hope that it could be transplanted, but orchids rarely thrive after being moved. There are, of course, many common plants whose leaves and fruit are often foraged without complaint – wild strawberries, blackberries, chestnuts, wild garlic, etc.
The first day of spring according to the Met Office is March 1, a date which may be relevant in the mild West Country but not here in the south-east, more subject to cold north-easterly winds. I prefer the old date of March 21 when I have a chance of seeing wild daffodils, wood anemones, primroses, violets, celandines and green hellebores in flower. That is also when the chiffchaffs are returning from the Mediterranean or West African sun and high-flying buzzards seek nesting sites.
To the best of my knowledge, wild daffodils in east Kent are restricted to one wood near Canterbury and another near Dover. The small site near Canterbury, first recorded in the 1880s, appeared to have been forgotten until I stumbled on it in the late 1950s.
The site near Dover is more prolific but has in the past been damaged by fly-tipping, which has included cultivated daffodil bulbs which will cross with our small native narcissus unless eradicated. Much the same fate could await our native bluebells unless all Spanish varieties near their sites are removed.
Primroses are a never ending source of pleasure. Some are pin-eyed with the pollen low down the stigma and others are thrum-eyed with the pollen at the surface – cross-pollination maintains healthy plants.
Although primroses in Britain are usually pale yellow a natural pink variety does occasionally occur, well away from gardens where they may cross with red polyanthus.
Early and late dog violets are beautiful, with the late variety often having surprisingly large flowers.
Sweet violets occur in shades of violet, white and, in one site near Sturry, reddish-purple. To see primroses, violets and celandines in flower together is one of the loveliest sights of spring.
The hard winter frosts experienced this year have delayed frog spawning.
Common and great-crested newts have also been slow to return to their ponds to join the palmate newts, who rarely leave the water. By the end of February the nearest frog spawn I knew of was in midSussex. Readers may by now be able to add to that.