It's rhododendron time

click photo to enlarge
It's the end of May and the rhododendrons at Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire are beginning to display at their best, their large, opulent, very un-English blooms drawing admiring glances from all who pass by. I admire them too. But, having lived in North West England, and having experienced the rhododendron-choked woods of the Forest of Bowland, I also admire the way that the rhododendrons in this Lincolnshire location are periodically controlled, cut back and cleared from areas.

I was reading recently that the horizontal growth and spread of a single rhododendron ponticum can cover 100 square metres. The Victorian landowners, who planted them as cover for their game-birds and as exotic and beautiful additions to their woods and country house grounds, didn't realise the environmental headache they were bequeathing to future generations. These rapidly growing plants quickly spread, denying native plants their space. They have few natural enemies - insects don't like them and rarely damage them, birds are scarce around them for lack of insects, and mammals don't eat their leathery, poisonous leaves. The few rogue sheep or cattle that do usually become sick and often die. In an area of lowland heath such as Woodhall Spa they are particularly problematic because silver birch, a short-lived tree, is common. Consequently when such a tree dies its space is quickly taken and new trees cannot grow up through the rhododendrons due to the lack of light at low levels. If the shrub didn't have such eye-catching flowers rhododendrons would surely have been cleared from woods years ago.

I searched long and hard for this specimen for my photograph. I was looking for a flower in the dark recess of a bush with strong contrast between the light, bright bloom and the darker leaves and shadows. I also wanted a flower with a fairly regular, radiating "ruff" (as I call the ring of leaves). A slight, dark vignette has been added to my shot to emphasise the natural contrast.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 96mm (192mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.9
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:500
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Rhododendrons, the beautiful invaders

click photo to enlarge
The rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum) was introduced to the British Isles some time around the year 1763. It was valued as an attractive, evergreen shrub that in May and June produced multiple, large and showy flowers. Its popularity grew and in the nineteenth century it became a staple of large gardens, parks and hunting estates (where it provided shelter for game species) on the wetter, western side of Britain where the soils were acidic. As well as this particular species being widely planted it was also used as a rootstock for hardy, cultivated varieties. With this high level of interest the rhododendron quickly became established and started to spread. By the twentieth century it became recognised for what it was; a rapidly invasive coloniser, filling woodland floors beneath the tree canopy, spreading into moorland and heathland, a plant that suppressed and replaced native species and made forestry much more difficult and expensive. Today the Forestry Commission has programmes of control designed to subdue the rhododendron and remove it from areas where it is not wanted.

One can understand the enthusiasm with which Victorian gardeners adopted the plant. It is like no other evergreen shrub when it is in flower. Not only are the individual blooms very big, they are numerous and quite beautiful. When seen en masse on a large group of bushes the sight is quite overpowering. As a child I enjoyed seeing the purple flowers on the millstone grit rock outcrops and in the woods near Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. In later life I sought out the varieties that Victorian landowners had planted around Bleasdale and Abbeystead in Lancashire's Forest of Bowland: various shades of purple, red, yellow, orange and white could be found. Today I make a point of visiting Woodhall Spa to see the annual show of multicoloured exuberance. Were I a forester, of course, any pleasure I got from the beauty of the flowers would be seriously tempered by the cost and work involved in controlling their spread.

Today's main photograph was taken in the Yorkshire Dales. The shot shows something of the glow that each flower exhibits when seen against the dark green, shiny leaves. The smaller photograph was taken the other day in the grounds of the Petwood Hotel in Woodhall Spa. These rhododendrons, a pink cultivar probably closely related to the ponticum variety, were planted in the early 1900s - about a century ago - and today, in places, form veritable "cliffs" of blooms 25 to 30 feet high.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 250mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Ring-necked parakeet invaders

click photo to enlarge

Walking along Rotherhithe Street in London the other day my ears and then my eyes were drawn to a ring-necked parakeet flying above me between the warehouse conversions and new flats that line the way. Its repeated raucous screech and its bright colours seemed out of place in that man-made canyon: a steamy jungle or baking sub-equatorial plain seemed more appropriate. And yet, a growing population of these birds can be found in London and in many other localities in western Europe.

The first recorded British breeding in the wild of this bird was in Norfolk in 1855, so escapees have long been known to survive in our colder climate. However, the next recorded occurence was not until 1969, in Kent. Thereafter colonies became established in south-east England, in the north-west (I saw them occasionally on the Fylde) and elsewhere. On the afternoon of the day I saw the Rotherhithe bird we went to Greenwich Park. Walking into the trees only a short way from the heavily peopled Royal Observatory and National Maritime Museum found us surrounded by ring-necked parakeets. In that location they were as common as the carrion crows and wood pigeons, and much noisier. The berry-laden trees were clearly the attraction, and I managed to photograph this bird in the act of eating. My shot is fairly heavily cropped - I don't possess a lens capable of close-ups of birds.

On my return home I did a bit of digging concerning the spread of this species in the UK. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) estimates a resident breeding population of c.5000 birds, mainly in Surrey, Kent and Sussex. Other authorities judge there to be double that number, and it has become one of the 20 most commonly seen birds in London. In 2009 Natural England relaxed the legislation on this species and monk parakeets allowing their control (i.e. killing) in some circumstances. Whether the ring-necked parakeet is allowed to spread and increase further in numbers will doubtless depend on the impact it has on indigenous species and fruit growing. Will it attain the status of the little owl and the pheasant, birds that we no longer think of as non-native species, or will it be subjected to the sort of culling that has reduced the number of ruddy ducks from around 5000 to about 120?

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Alien invaders and birds of prey

click photo to enlarge

I didn't realise, until the other day, that of all the alien wildlife invaders in the UK the worst of the worst was the so-called "killer shrimp" (Dikerogammerus villosus), a native of the Ponto-Caspian region of Europe, that is killing off our native shrimps and small fish. The BBC website carried a report by the UK's Environment Agency that listed (in the way that people do today) the "top ten" alien invaders. The list reads (starting with the worst) "killler shrimp", water primrose, floating pennywort, American signal crayfish, topmouth gudgeon, giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed, Himalayan balsam, and parrot's feather. What this list said to me is what a good medium water is when it comes to the spread of exotic plants and animals. The murky depths make it so much more difficult to detect the arrival and initial spread of an introduced species, to the point that when it does become apparent to scientists and lay people who spend time in and on water, it has reached a situation where containment or eradication is difficult, if  not impossible.

But, native wildlife has a remarkable propensity for holding on even under the strongest pressure as our red squirrels have shown in their fight against the onslaught of the introducd grey variety. Our birds of prey have been among the most oppressed species. Here it has been man that has caused their decline as landowners tried to rear ever larger numbers of gamebirds and farmers tried to kill off insects and plants that harmed their crops. But, with wider public pressure and awareness, legislation and scientific management, what appeared to be a hopeless situation has been turned around. Not for all species, of course - hen harriers are still being persecuted and numbers have fallen again after something of an increase - but for many. I read a while ago that the common buzzard has usurped the kestrel as the most numerous British bird of prey. They're certainly fairly frequent sightings in most parts of the country where formerly they were unusual.

One evening when I was photographing the strongly silhouetted shapes of these electricity pylons near a Fenland substation I became aware of a softer, "natural" shape among the sharp angles of the metalwork. Binoculars reveealed it to be a Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo) surveying the island of waste land below the steel "trees". Even in this instensively cultivated part of England the buzzard flourishes. Can you spot this one?

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 300mm
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On