Change of Management
With an ever growing image library, this blog was meant to be a comparison of spring 2020, 2021 and 2022, based on Terroir’s photographs of our favourite urban landscape, The Moors, near Redhill in Surrey. Those new to Terroir can catch up on the back story in Blogs 1, 11, 16, 31, and 54.
We discovered - the hard way - that unless you can indulge in fixed point photography and keep excellent records of camera settings, view points etc, taking and comparing before and after images can be at best frustrating and at worst, useless. Take a look at the disastrous attempt below!
Above: ‘before’ on the left (2020), and ‘after’ on the right (2022). Well, maybe that islet has moved, but as the photographer’s location and camera settings are different, it is impossible to verify!
The changes which were most obvious, however, were not those necessarily linked to seasonal variation. It was the changes which had occurred to this post industrial landscape over the (nearly) three year time span of the pandemic.
Here is what we found.
A hugely expanded clump of dogs mercury: usually regarded as an indicator species for ancient woodland; so good to see it not just hanging on, but now thriving.
During the pandemic, there has been little active maintenance and management at the Moors. This isn’t necessarily bad - just different. At the moment the wild flowers which thrive on the edge of hedgerows are blooming, providing a range of colour and form. The summer grassland flowers, however, may not be so copious this year as the scrub is slowly extending over the grassy verges, alongside the paths and cycle way. But already a healthy growth of young willowherb, and some spikes of common agrimony, pressage a blaze of pink and mauve, with yellow highlights, later on in the year.
From left to right - top row: common sorrel, common forget-me-not, and a young teasel
Middle row: red campion, bugle and white dead nettle
Bottom row: garlic mustard (the tangy leaves are delicious at this time of year), meadow buttercup and cuckoo flower/ladies smock, a lover of ditch sides and damp rough grassland.
Thankfully, the encroaching scrub is not without interest either: flowers, fresh foliage and tinges of red on some newly opened leaves are all welcome accessories to a late spring walk.
From left to right - top row: holly in flower, a sycamore sapling and an alder - the latter another wetland lover.
Bottom row: a wild rose, buddleia (a naturalising garden escape) and the soft, glossy leaves of young brambles
The blackthorn is over but other shrubs and trees are adding to the spring time vibe. And, as is usual these days, the May (hawthorn) is fully out in April.
From left to right - top row: hawthorn hedge in flower, elderflower and gean or wild cherry: with its straight branches, awkwardly angled from the trunk, the gean flowers always make me think of handkerchiefs on a washing line or stars on a Christmas tree.
Bottom row: willows, and a rogue horse chestnut complete with candle
Sadly, the ash dieback is very obvious (below).
Despite the lack of rain, water levels are still high, the main footpath/cycle way is still partly flooded and the seasonal wetlands are inundated. This excess of water is possibly why the swan pair have moved their nest; still close to the path but further to the west of last year’s location. A beady-eyed heron stands very close. We’ve not heard of herons taking eggs but they certainly eat ducklings and cygnets.
The brook itself has also changed. Some of the mature trees have been felled or partly felled, presumably for safety reasons, and more light is reaching sections of the water course. The partly felled ‘totem’ trees look bizarre but the organisms which will inhabit the slowly rotting wood will be a welcome addition to the area’s biodiversity.
The ‘offline’ balancing pond has turned a rusty brown colour - an algal bloom? - and there are traces of it along the edge of the shadier, slower flowing, sections of the stream (image below left). Some green waterweed still remains, however (below right), but the areas of yellow flag (centre) have extended enormously and will be spectacular later in the month.
We have given up on fixed point photography, but we will report back later in the year on how the Moors post-pandemic (is that tempting fate?) summer of 2022, compares with its lock down predecessors.
Changes to Terroir
Terroir blog had a long gestation period but eventually went live in October 2020. It was the perfect lockdown project and a weekly post seemed ideal. Thankfully, our life styles have changed and now that we are ‘learning to live with Covid’ we will be travelling more often and more extensively than we were able to, in the previous two summers. For the next six months at least, therefore, the Terroir blog will be appearing on a fortnightly basis. Blog 81 will appear as normal on Thursday 12th May but blog 82 will not be posted until Thursday 26th May. Further postings will follow at two week intervals.
Water Works
Lockdown 3. Winter. Essentials: vaccine, open space, Wellington boots.
Terroir’s first ever blog focussed on the importance of open space. No matter how quirky, no matter the surroundings, no matter the back story, an accessible open space is the very best shot in the arm, barring the vaccine itself. In October I described the explosive summer benefits of our local lockdown open space -The Moors, in Surrey. There was colour, vibrancy, life, excitement, space, variety, views and well being, all based on a leg-stretching splinter of land wedged between a railway line, a landfill site and a housing estate. Here is that post’s parting shot:
“‘Seasonal wetlands’ means seasonal change. Different birds (snipe in winter), different berries, different colours, and always water – more water, less water and sometimes, when the footpath floods, just a little bit too much water.”
Winter landscapes don’t always get a good press unless covered in snow. But a wet winter landscape has jewels aplenty. You just have to look a little bit differently. There are no leaves to get in the way - the landscape is revealed in its wet and skeletal glory.
So let’s take a look. Wearing a hood, sou’wester, beanie hat (they were known as tea cosies when I was a kid), snood or balaclava can give you tunnel vision. So, if you want colour, shape and pattern, look out through that tunnel at the details.
Fruits: the Moors can do a veritable visual feast of winter fruits (better botanists - please correct any detailed mis-identifications).
Fruit just a bit too obvious for you? Then please try our menu of assorted vegetables. Strictly visual treats only. Mosses and fungi are too specilaised for Terroir’s identification skills, so any nomenclature suggestions gratefully received.
Abstract arts: the lack of distracting fresh leaves and flowers reveals many other treats. Push back the hood. Discard the balaclava. Look up and out. Enjoy the patterns, the colours, the reflections and the scuptural skeletons which summer hides from us.
But, for the Moors, the Unique Selling Point is water. On cessation of sand extraction and processing, and in parallel with construction of the housing estate, the existing damp areas were re-engineered as seasonal wetlands, a new lake established on the edge of the housing, and the whole caboodle designated as part of a larger wetland Nature Reserve (https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves/nutfield-marshes-moors-spynes-mere). Depending on your age and interests one of the small pleasures, or great excitements, of walking the Moors is to see how high, or low, the water is. There are various indicators which allow intimate interaction with the wetland landscape, weather and climate, and ecological process. How much of the old fence posts are visible above the water in the upper lake? Is the revealing, muddy, high water mark visible along the fence at the bottom of the railway embankment in the lower lake? Can you cross the path between the two lakes dryshod? Has the surface of that path been removed by an energetic overflow (that’s a new one for this year)? Is the foot of the fence adjacent to that path above or below water level? Is the Brook flooding into the lower lake or is the lower lake flooding into the Brook? Does the ‘heritage’ green footpath sign indicate the walking, wading or sailing options along the alternative track to the Pooh Sticks bridge? As an aside, this track is seldom walkable unless you have waders or a machete - in winter the Brook takes over at one end and in summer the waist high nettles and burdock, loving the nutrient rich, damp soils, take over everywhere else.
But the ultimate marker, the great question upon everyone’s lips, the burden of the bush telegraph is: has the cycle path flooded? Upon this information depends the length and comfort of everybody’s walk, run or cycle. It is Surrey nature at its most untamed! Can we get through? The path floods sufficiently often for pedestrains to have created an alternative path on slightly higher ground, hard against the landfill fence. Surrey is not short of tenacious and inventive walkers - it is a response to an oudoor challenge, a little bit of wilderness in our manmade county. If you can tolerate a rough and muddy passage, then this is for you. The ill-shod, those with pushchairs, or those not fancying off piste travel will usually turn back. For cyclists, the decision is more technical. Depth of water, length of leg, size of wheel and frame, and confidence, have all to be considered. The taller and stronger cyclist, who doesn’t object to wet feet, will pedal though with an impressive bow wave. The smaller but daring cyclist will probably make it, with only a telling off from Mum ar Dad for getting wet trousers. Bur for the smallest or more timorous cyclist disaster awaits. We have watched Dad cycle though with a certain confidence and panache, eldest son take it at a run and make it to the other end, wet but triumphant, while small son panics in the deepest part, puts down a foot and topples over in spectacular slow motion. Dad, panache now resembling soggy papier mache, comes to the rescue, as only a good Dad can.
Too much water? Many attempts have been made to stop the cycle way from flooding. In my view, the present solution (let it flood) is without doubt the best. This is a nature reserve which is based on seasonal wetlands. Water rises, water falls. Nature thrives. Some find it frustrating that walkers and cyclists are kept to the edges - but what stunning edges they are. Many, many visitors come - the place was both flooded and thronged last Sunday. The crucial benefit is that all users actively interact with their changing environment. Can we get through? How deep is the water? Oh look! That’s how deep it was last week. What’s that bush? Can you see the swan/ducks/gold crests/long-tailed tits? All that rain last week has really made a difference.
And, no matter what the weather - there is always some delighted individual who makes it through! To misquote Dylan Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’, one year I saw the Snipe when I wasn’t looking for them, but I’ve never seen them since, even though I’ve been looking all the time.
