Postcard 76: Not quite Moby Dick...

Heading back to Greenwich on The Thames Clipper
from the O2
(May 2010)

It was only yesterday that I was blogging about my early visits as a baby and toddler to the squirrels in Greenwich Park. I have been back to Greenwich many times, and feel a strong connection with the area. I love to take the Thames Clipper from the London Eye, and approach Greenwich by water. You get a good view of the Naval College, the Maritime Museum and the Park, with its Meridian. Sadly the Cutty Sark is not on show at present, but restoration work is underway. However, the current headline story relating to Greenwich concerns not a small grey mammal but a Leviathan-sized skeleton.

Drawing out of Greenwich
on the Thames Clipper

The Moby Dick-like tale relates to Bay Wharf in Greenwich and the recent finding by archaeologists, working for Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited, of a colossal North Atlantic Right Whale from north Atlantic waters, probably in the areas between Spitzbergen and Greenland. I am grateful to the History Blog for alerting me to the sad, sad story of this 200 year old headless corpse of a creature that died at some point between the age of 50 and 100. The remaining skeleton weighs in at 60 tons and is a mere 52 (Imperial) feet long. It seems to have fallen foul of whalers and their harpoons. Whales were prized in the 17th and 18th centuries for their oil, and the word 'right' in the name indicates that whales of this species provided quality oil for lamps, soap-making and industry. Whale bone was used for corsets.

Can a sad story like this have any kind of happy ending? Please note, I have NO wish to endorse the killing of whales. Those who follow my blogs will know the immense pleasure I get from watching creatures like Basking Sharks in their natural habitats. However, this sad mammal is already well and truly dead. DNA tests on its skeleton will help scientists in their quest for knowledge about the genetic diversity of this particular Right Whale. It will also help to fuel our understanding of the negative impact of whaling in terms of the future survival or otherwise of a particular species. Perhaps the discovery of 'Moby' will challenge us all to reconsider the part we can play in protecting creatures at risk.

The London Eye,
where we caught the Thames Clipper

'Like the creature in Herman Melville's novel,
it was a giant whale of great age.'

David Keys,
The Independent

• 'Moby' in Time Magazine
• and in The Independent

Postcard 63: Festival of the Trees - The Rufus Stone

Welcome to the UK and to my Festival of the Trees post!

Summer evening in the New Forest:
mare and foal

The three-sided Rufus Stone

"Here stood the oak tree,

on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag,
glanced and struck King William the Second,
surnamed Rufus on the breast,
of which he instantly died,
on the second day of August, ANNO 1100."

The Rufus Stone, stands in a shady glade in the New Forest in Hampshire, UK, set back from the A31 road, near the village of Minstead.

The stone memorial has three faces (and is a bit like a trig point). It was erected in honour of King William II, aka as William 'Rufus', son of William the Conqueror by John, Lord Delaware (who had seen the oak tree) in 1745. The Conqueror's son died in the immediate vicinity on 2 August 1100 as a result of an arrow fired by Sir Walter Tyrrell. The killing was said to be an accident rather than a murder. On hearing the news, Henry, the youngest brother of the departed monarch, was hurriedly proclaimed king by the barons, in a bid to beat his eldest brother, Robert of Normandy, to the throne of England.

The bones of William 'Rufus' lie in a mortuary chest (press link, then scroll down) in Winchester Cathedral, along with those of other members of the Royal Family, such as King Cnut and his wife, Emma. You may be wondering how the body turned up in Winchester for burial. A man known as 'one Purkis' laid the royal corpse in a cart and took it to the cathedral city. The original Rufus Stone became defaced and hard to read: a replacement memorial was erected in 1841.

The face of the New Forest

The New Forest today is a wildlife paradise. The following species of vertebrates and invertebrates can be found: ponies, deer, cattle, badgers, foxes, donkeys, bats, mice, water voles, adders, grass snakes, owls, warblers, curlews, spiders and butterflies. The ponies, donkeys and cattle belong to commoners, who receive grazing rights for a small fee. I imagine that there is a similar arrangement for pigs and sheep.

Above: a Lapwing
Below: a forest pig enjoys a wallow

There are also many species of tree, e.g. oak, beech, holly, sycamore, alder, ash, silver birch, sweet chestnut, horse chestnut, crab apple, blackthorn, hawthorn, viburnham, whitebeam, pine, redwood and yew. Some of the trees are very special: you can read here about the Knightwood Oak, the Adam and Eve Oaks and the Eagle Oak. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the White-Tailed ('Sea') Eagles returned, albeit with a bit of help? We so enjoyed watching these magnificent birds on the Scottish islands of Skye and Raasay last summer. There was great excitement in 2009 when a new kind of fungus, a yellow form of Phellodon melaeucus, was discovered in the New Forest. The fact that this area has been managed in traditional 'commoning' ways, without the intensive use of artificial fertilizers and chemicals may contribute to the amazing biodiversity and number of rare species.

• What exactly is the New Forest?
  
• What of its history? and here.
  
• Find out about the ornamental and historic trees in the forest.
• The Forestry Commission - and the Rufus Stone
• About 'The Children of the New Forest' by Captain Marryat
• BBC Autumnwatch: the New Forest featured in a number of stories e.g. like these from 2008.
  

Postcard 62: Philippa Scott of the Wetlands - a tribute

Swans in flight over WWT Llanelli, Penclacwydd
Photo: David Gill
(click on picture to see detail)

I hope you will join me on a winter ramble
through the WWT (Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust) site
at Penclacwydd near Llanelli.
Not surprisingly, there are many signs of winter,
but there is also an indication
that spring is not too far away.

But before we set off,
I want to draw your attention
to The Guardian obituary of Lady Philippa Scott,
widow of Sir Peter Scott, who set up the WWT
and did so much else besides in the field of conservation.

Lady Philippa Scott died on 6 January 2010, aged 91.

Lady Scott, also known as Phil, was a keen photographer, scuba diver and writer.
Her publications include two autobiographical accounts,
Lucky Me (1990) and So Many Sunlit Hours (2002) -
and a book on one of her multi-talented late husband's passions,
The Art of Peter Scott (1989).

The Scott family legacy will live on in the minds and hearts of many of us.

The sun is low at this time of year, so we had better hurry.
There was a Bittern in this vicinity a few days ago,
but sadly there is no characteristic boom from the marsh today.
The snow has all melted;
and to my surprise, there is a great bloom of algae
on the waterways around the scrapes
by Vole City.

Look!
A flash of brilliant red overhead.
A Bullfinch - no, a pair of these beautiful birds.
Watch as they dart in unison
along the winter hedgerow.

Listen!
There is no mistaking that steady flap-flap of large wings
as a Grey Heron soars majestically overhead.
The lichen sparkles in the fading sunlight,
and the reeds and rushes make a wonderful backdrop
to this water-world.
Can you smell the salt from the Loughor estuary?

The Mute Swan over there seems quite obsessed with her fine reflection.
That Cormorant, on the other hand, seem content to stand in a stark pose,
like those sad statues in Narnia.

I find it quite hard to believe
that this land of small creatures
was once the home of huge mammoth and bison.

Did you know that a Pleistocene hippo tusk
was found beneath nearby Loughor Bridge?

Wouldn't we have a shock if we encountered an Ice Age survivor
emerging from the shadows,
around the next corner?

It's almost 5pm.
We had better begin to make tracks,
and leave the Robin to his worm .

But what about those signs of spring?

Well, if you look up now,
you will see the silver sparkle of the sun's ebbing ray
on those bursting Pussy Willow buds.

It's time for tea!

Thank you for joining me.

• BBC report
• WWT Llanelli
• N.B. I have tried to follow Seabrooke Leckie's helpful practice of using the US and North American notation, giving upper case letters to the names of species. This way it should be easier e.g. to tell a green frog from a Green Frog!
  

Postcard 27: Spurn Point Surprise

Views of Spurn Head
Do click the second picture for a closer view (not for the squeamish!)

Those who have read previous postcards will know that I enjoy visiting places linked with literature. This postcard is a bit different, because it links a peninsula with a composer.

I had long wanted to visit Spurn Head, with its wild beauty. It is in many ways a liminal place on the edge of nowhere, and yet it is so close to Hull and the busy shipping area of the Humber.

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed 'Spurn Point', his Andante sostenuto, in 1926 as one of Six Studies in English Folk Song for Cello.

We drove through low-lying land and eventually spotted the black-and-white striped lighthouse. As we headed out along the spit of land, with saltmarsh estuary on our right and the open sea on our left, I spotted web after web on the furze bushes that lined the road. When we had parked the car, I went to examine them, thinking that perhaps they were going to be nests for an unusual species of bird. It became all too apparent that my assumption was way out, for they were utterly heaving with young caterpillars. I asked a man sporting a deerstalker and a pair of binoculars, who told me that I should have read my Yorkshire Wildlife Trust ticket, since it contained a warning about the toxic nature of the barbed hairs of the caterpillars of the native Brown-Tail Moth (Euproctis Chrysorrhoea).

Our ticket informed us that the creatures emerge in spring from their white webs to feed on sea buckthorn. Apparently they shed their skins, releasing the hairs before 'pupating and flighting' as adult moths.

As if the moths weren't interesting enough, we learned that an apparently unringed white stork had been spotted that afternoon.

• Spurn Point on www.absoluteastronomy.com
• The Spurn Head Lightship
• Spurn Head, a cyclical landform
• Some great shots from the air (scroll down to Spurn Point)
  
• The Observatory (for birds)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (Hyperion records site)
  

Postcard 26: No wombles of Wombleton

We have just returned from Yorkshire, where we found ourselves in the village of Wombleton, not far from Nunnington Hall. It made me think about the wombles of Wimbledon Common. As we drove along, all the Mike Batt Womble songs came flooding into my head ... 'you're invited to a ping-pong ball', 'It was early one morning; the fish were jumping high', 'Cousin Yellowstone is returning' ... and I began to wonder whether there was, in fact, any womble link with this Yorkshire village.

I have now done a little web research, and realize that the name 'womble' came from the lips of Beresford's young daughter, Kate, as she ran about on Wimbledon Common.

In the course of my investigations, I came across a fascinating feature from The Times (11 August 2007) on Elisabeth Beresford, creator of the Wombles. Did you know, for example, that Walter de la Mare was her godfather and that Eleanor Farjeon was her godmother? Here's to the Wombles for leading the way in recycling and 'green thinking' for the younger generation!

• Remember you're a Womble
• How many Wombles can you name? Check here. Which is your favourite? Orinoco has to be mine!
  

Postcard 18: Monarch of the Isle

You are invited to view the February Seal Card Sale on my Coastcard site.

Speaking of seals, I photographed this magnificent and comfortably curious creature on the Isle of Skye. There are wonderful seal colonies and it is a joy to travel by boat in search of them. Many make their home on the skerries or reefs of little rocky islands that abound around the coast and sea lochs in this area. The word 'skerry' comes from the Norwegian language. A 'sker' in Norse is a rock in the sea. The Gaelic form is 'sgeir', and in Norway, the uneven rocky edge of an island fringe is known as 'skjærgård'. The Scottish coastline around the Western Isles, with its indentations and offshore skerries, is the outcome of a relatively recent submergence. The Scots term for fjord is 'firth'.

I grew up in East Anglia, where there are seal colonies along the North Norfolk coast. Occasionally a seal runs into danger, and it is always heart-warming to read of cases like this story form the Eastern Daily Press in which a sea creature has been successfully rescued, restored to health and returned to the ocean.

I was thinking about seals in literature. It is easy to name poems and prose pieces about a number of our sea creatures (notably The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll), but how many seals can you recall from literary sources?

For a veritable marine menagerie I would recommend the poetry book, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone (scroll down the linked page) by Susan Richardson, published by Cinnamon Press. The poet follows in the footsteps of Gudrid, an eleventh century 'Viking heroine'. Within the pages of the volume you will encounter not only seals but also whales, the hermit crab and a colony of penguins.

Sea Creatures on the web

• Creatures of the Intertidal Zone (poem) by Susan Richardson on the Sea Stories site
• Be sure to visit Susan Richardson's amazing new website
  

• Irish Seal Sanctuary page: Releasing Seals by Gary Jermyn
• How the whale became by Ted Hughes
• A selection of sea creature poems from the can-teach site
• My Helford River poem, Sea Horse Song
  

Postcard 15: Otters!

Top: Meeting 'otters' at the Moors Centre, Yorkshire
Middle: Plaque to Gavin Maxwell's Teko (Kyleakin, Skye), beneath a sculpture by Laurence Broderick
Bottom: Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge), lighthouse keeper's cottage & home of Gavin Maxwell

'Looking up the river, they could see Otter start up, tense and rigid,
from out of the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience,
and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to the path.'

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame (chapter 7)

There is a buzz of excitement in South Wales at present as otters have been seen on Gower (AONB). An otter has also been caught on camera at Aberglasney in Carmarthenshire. I am hoping to see one before long! When I was on Skye last summer, I looked and looked. I think I saw a couple, but it was like looking for Nessie: it was hard to be sure. David definitely saw one on the beach.

Dr Gareth Parry from Swansea University was giving a talk about local otters (of Gower and Pembrokeshire) at the Science Café in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea this evening. Unlike the otters in Scotland which can be seen during the day, the 'Welsh' otters tend to move around under cover of darkness. It seems that they may be adopting a 'marine lifestyle'. The Aberglasney otter must prefer the fresh-water oxbow lakes on the River Towy.

Professor P. Brain has posted a blog entry about Dr Dan Forman and the Gower otters. Back in 2005, naturalist, Iolo Williams was asking people to record their otter sightings in the Principality. I am delighted that their numbers seem to be on th increase.

• Gavin Maxwell and Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge)
• The Maxwell Society: Gavin Maxwell
  
• The Tarka Project (North Devon)
• The Henry Williamson Society
• Tarka the Otter's Devon
  
• BBC: The animals of The Wind in the Willows
• BBC: Otter spotting
  
• Otters at Ogmore
  
• Eels at Aberglasney

My thanks to the Weaver of Grass for her comment below, and for reminding me about the Kathleen Raine link.

Postcard 4: Kilmuir, Skye

Above: Plaque in Kilmuir
Below: Gate to the cemetery at Kilmuir

Jen Hadfield has just been named as the TS Eliot prize winner. She lives on Shetland, so it seemed appropriate to focus on something Scottish for today's postcard.

The cemetery at Kilmuir on Skye's Trotternish peninsula boasts an outstanding position, looking out over the Minch towards the Outer Hebrides. The cemetery is famous on account of the grave of Flora MacDonald, but she merits a later entry in her own right, and is by no means the only person worthy of note.

Seton Gordon's memorial lies just outside the confines of the graveyard. His favourite bird was the golden eagle, and he spent part of his life at Duntulm on Skye. He was given his first camera when he was seventeen in 1907, and was also a talented piper. In 1935 he bought out a book called Sea-gulls in London (link to WorldCat).

When we visited the Kilmuir graveyard, the light was amazing. We looked out over the Skye Museum of Island Life to the sea beyond.

• Seton Gordon on the site for Highland Naturalists
• Seton Gordon's Scotland - an Anthology reviewed by Roddy Lumsden
• Seton Gordon on www.thepeerage.com
• Seton Gordon on the Undiscovered Scotland site
• Photographic portraits in the National Portrait Gallery