New month, new vibe. Briefly.

March came roaring in, first with big wet snowflake flurries, and then, in the afternoon, a fabulous rainbow, right outside the front door. It waxed and waned in intensity, and I’d taken several photos, twice putting the camera down, before I looked again and the colours had intensified still more. So although it wasn’t a complete arc, it felt like a sign that we’d turned a corner. Even if it was colder than much of February, and still wet, at least there was more light.

It was only when looking at the images on screen that I could make out not just the usual 7 colours as blending, but distinct bands, but also a fainter, clear light band beyond violet. What was this? I’ve written about rainbows before and was once more struck by just how beautiful they are, whilst being a constant, yet variable phenomenon. This one was only part of a curve rather than a landscape-spanning arc.

Never mind the physics, first clearly confirmed by Isaac Newton, that ‘white’ light actually consists of a spectrum of overlapping colours, which can be split by a prism, or in the case of rainbows by light passing through rain droplets. There’s even some debate that Newton only discerned 5 colours initially, but added orange and indigo to red, yellow, green, blue and violet to make it harmonise with the number of notes in the musical scale. From red, the longest wavelength of around 780 nm the colours merge down to violet at 380nm. Or at least this is the fairly narrow range of electromagnetic radiation which are own retinal photoreceptors are capable of responding to. On either side of these limits are the infrared, ultra-violet radio, gamma and microwaves which our eyes can’t detect.

Newton’s groundbreaking book “Opticks, or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections and colours of light” London, 1704″, heralded centuries of further work in optics, physics, chemistry, perception, and the study of colour in nature.

A century after Newton’s book was published, German poet and writer Goethe challenged Newton’s scientific analysis of light and colour, correctly arguing in his 1804 book (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Zur Farbenlehre: [Theory of Colours]) that colours are a subjective experience which will vary from individual to individual. Viewed on your modern device, large or small, and captured with a modest lens and a photoreceptor chip, just how will viewers assess this rainbow’s beauty?

Whatever, it was a delight for me and a natural link to one of my favourite songs from Chris Rea’s tenth and most successful “Road to Hell”  studio album from 1989 – “Looking for a Rainbow”. 

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As if this wasn’t a good enough beginning to March, it was followed by the delight of having a song thrush, Turdus philomelos, serenading me as I stepped out early on the morning of March 4th to photograph a spectacular red sky morning.

Which lived up to its warning – the afternoon turned into another dreary wet, and increasingly windy day which buffeted though didn’t break the short, resilient flower stems of around 200 Narcissus pseudonarcissus lobularis hybrid flower stems that had popped up around the shepherd’s hut this year. Given the maybe 5 or 6 years it’s taken them to reach flowering size from scattering saved seed, it gives an inkling of what the display might look like in another few years. Every year, I’ve repeated the seed collection and strewing, allowing the sheep to tread the shiny black seeds into the turf once they’re put back into this field for aftermath grazing. Certainly easier, cheaper, less laborious and just as satisfying as whacking bulbs in. Plus, of course, they’re all unique hybrids made mainly using my paintbrush concentrating on the bicoloured forms which flower early in the garden and reliably set seed – ‘Topolino’, ‘Brunswick’ and N. pseudonarcissus lobularis – our native Lenten lily.

The thrush, which I still haven’t managed to actually see, is obviously setting up a territory in the garden, since it’s been back in the mornings since, singing for what seems like hours. What a thrill. And a change from our more usual Mistle thrush which is always easier to see, as it sits atop the tallest trees – usually a Larch in the copse garden, and sings a slightly less varied song, with less frequently repeated notes.

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Down at the pond, the frog tadpoles hatched really early in the middle of February and we’ve since found a couple of dead, skinned frogs on the bank, so suspect that an otter may have passed by. Whilst I was down filming the frogspawn and moving caddis case which I mentioned in my last post, I noticed some tiny creatures bouncing about on the water surface. I took a few video clips and stills and eventually worked out that these are springtails. (No excuses for making more use of our Welsh frog chorus in this video. I just love it!)

Although these are a hugely successful, diverse and widespread form of life in all environments, I’d never actually noticed springtails before. It seems I’m not alone, and there are some wonderful informative videos which have only recently been produced by Dr. Adrian Smith from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, on his Antlab channel. These demonstrate some aspects of their anatomy and behaviour which allow them to leap as they do.

It’s all down to a special spring-like structure called a furca, or furcula which lies like a forked tail underneath the insect’s body. When released, under tension, it powers the springtail into space. In addition, there’s a strange tube-like structure beneath the abdomen, called a collophore, which by holding a droplet of water maintains contact and stability with the water surface, before take-off. And then by retaining a tiny drop of water within this tube after take-off, the centre of gravity of the insect is altered, so that as it falls back towards the water’s surface, it manages to land feet first, for around 85% of its landings. Which saves it the otherwise awkward problem of how to right itself, should it land on its back and stuck by the surface tension of the water!  An incredibly brilliant design for a creature so small. Click here for much more additional detail on an amazing website devoted to springtails created by French biologist/photographer Philippe Garcelon.

Phillipe explains that scientists who wonder about the nature of the mechanisms that enable the furcula to initiate the jump have put forward two hypotheses:

“1) The elastic energy (resulting from muscular action) necessary for the spring mechanism is stored in the base of the fourth abdominal segment.

2) The jump is triggered by a brief increase in haemolymphatic pressure in this part of the body.

Studies to date suggest that the answer may be a combination of the two: “muscular system + hydraulic pressure”.

However it actually works, Adrian Smith’s short videos are well worth watching to appreciate just how fast and successfully the jumping takes place. I’m sure you’ll be as amazed as I was.

You do have to be both very patient, and skilful and have seriously fast camera speeds (well over 70,000 frames per second) to be able to capture this. The second video, below, demonstrates the amazing multiple spinning backflips that the springtails I saw on the water surface must have performed, (except of course I didn’t see them with the naked eye!) every time they flew into space.

Springtails (the Collembola: which are categorised as a a subclass of the subphyllum hexapods – six-legged creatures; which in turn are members of the arthropods – jointed leg animals) are thought to be the most numerous insects on the planet. And it seems that the springtails I filmed were probably one of the Third Order of Collembola called Symphypleona. These springtails have a more rounded body shape and are frequently seen on the surfaces of leaves and ponds demonstrating their jumping prowess. There’s a very good short review of general springtail diversity, ecology and function in a PDF from the Natural History Museum, which you can read here.

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I should record that after the mildest February ever in Wales (which was also another wet and very gloomy one), March has continued in a similar vein. With just a few dry days at the end of last week, Fiona and I were able to burn all the brash piles from my hedge laying aided by a brisk, biting Easterly wind. I only discovered as we retreated inside for a quick tea and sit down, halfway through the job, that the distinctive smell of singed wool/hair wasn’t from my pullover, as I assumed at the time, but from Fiona’s eyebrows and fringe. She was aware of the sudden gust which caught her out, but not of the consequences, until she looked in the mirror.

The garden, Camellias aside, has frankly been disappointing at what is often one of the loveliest times of the year, and it seems few are in the mood to visit a garden when it’s nearly impossible to pick a dry, let alone sunny day. So this post is a bit short on lovely garden photos.

The Daphne bholua have given us months of fantastic scent, despite the wet, and even once the flowers fall, they retain their charm for weeks.

But it was a soggy time for the Crocus, with few occasions for them to even open, let alone for our bees to pollinate them.

On a rare sunny day, we managed to install a replacement base for one of our first wooden mushrooms, very kindly made for us by Fiona’s brother. We reckoned when I shaped these features with my chainsaw back in 2011, they’d decay at about the same rate as us, the gardeners. This seems to be the case!

A few dramatic cloudscapes have tempted me to grab the camera.

But in the main, this is what everything is having to get used to, as another new day begins.

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With the daffodil season beginning in earnest now, my effort to record the roughly 210 different ones which we now have growing here, has occupied a lot of time over the last month. The plan in collecting more was to try to showcase ones which, as with our snowdrops, actually perform reliably well in our wet conditions, and even better to find ones which multiply vigorously.

To do this, and be able to pass such knowledge on, one has to know which cultivar you’re actually looking at. But this is easier said than done without brilliant records, or a sophisticated labelling system, and I’ve never been keen on labels in our garden, or a terribly organised person.

(Eaton Song – AGM)

So the first job for me (and many thanks also for several hours spent by Fiona on this) had been cataloguing all the named forms which we know we’ve bought, looking them up, and recording such flowering details as are available. The trouble is that with over 27,000 named and registered cultivars, such information is very patchy. It’s also not helped by daffodil appearance changing quite significantly from season to season, and indeed after they’ve been moved.

As an example, here are a couple of photos of ‘Itzim‘, which we planted in a big bag to bulk up 2 years ago, and then replanted into our Malus copse. Like most daffodils, they’re much smaller in the garden, in grass than in a bed, but look at the trumpet colour. And the plant size.

One of the best sites I’ve found for helping with daffodil IDs is the Daffseek web page. Here, if you have a name, you often get some very specific information about the flower size, and also some interesting information about the name and breeder. Thus I discovered that ‘Beersheba’, above, wasn’t named after a biblical figure, as I’d assumed. But rather named in 1917 by its breeder, Reverend Engleheart, to commemorate the victory of the British army at the Battle of Beersheba. This was fought on 31 October 1917, when the British Empire’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force attacked and captured the Ottoman Empire’s Yildirim Army Group garrison at Beersheba, beginning the Southern Palestine Offensive of the Sinai and Palestine campaign of World War I. It was memorable as being the last great cavalry charge and made by the 4th Australian Light Horse.  The 4th and 12th Light Horse casualties were thirty-one killed and thirty-six wounded; they captured over 700 Turkish soldiers. The capture of Beersheba meant that the Gaza-Beersheba line was broken. Gaza fell a week later and on 9 December 1917, the British troops entered Jerusalem.

A reminder of how much that part of the world has suffered from major conflict for generations. Lovely though it is when the flowers are mature and in a bowl, above, and although it was awarded a First Class Certificate from the RHS, it doesn’t stand up to all the recent rain and wind very well.

I’ve safely negotiated the first 35 or so to flower, but yesterday got bogged down over a classic ‘old style’ charming daffodil sourced a few years ago from Kate and Duncan Donald at Croft16 daffodils

It’s vigorous, early and the flowers are standing up really well with all the foul weather we’ve had. Unlike Engleheart’s ‘Beersheba‘.

But which daffodil is it? Two clumps are emerging at almost the same time. One looks taller and has a partially folded leaf edge – sadly no daffodil growers ever seem to mention or illustrate what the foliage looks like. A shame since this can impact the plant’s garden appeal significantly. In the end, I cut and brought in examples of flowers from each clump. Let them dry out, and then set them up in front of the computer screen with images of the two probable options behind them. ‘Sir Watkin’ on the left, and ‘Fintry Beauty’ on the right.

In the end, after a ludicrous amount of time, I’m pretty certain that it’s the cultivar ‘Fintry Beauty’.

Sadly, there’s not much definitive history on this cultivar, nor indeed much that can be found out about it online. It doesn’t even make it into the list of nearly 7,000 cultivars which the American Daffodil Society have compiled, and which is another useful resource for anyone interested in such things.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time looking and trying to photograph the seedling that cropped up on the shale bank behind the house, above and below. I really like it – it’s early and quite short but seems tough and vigorous, and has a really distinctive ‘presence’. Worth naming and registering? I’m still undecided, but for anyone interested, there’s a form which can be easily accessed and completed should one wish to go this route. One just has to take all the information and measurements whilst the flowers are around, or need to wait for another year.

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I thought I should make another brief comment about my decision to try to kick the news habit, which was prompted by Oliver Burkeman’s short radio series, which I mentioned in a post in late December 2022 here.

It’s been well over a year since we turned off the radio. I have to say that life has been calmer. Fiona agrees! I still keep an eye on the news, through a digital newspaper, but ration myself to just one brief session a day, and try to glance at headlines, picking just one or two articles to read in full. With many global elections ahead in 2024, I feel no inclination to get sucked back into the many topics over which I have no influence and often only limited ability to discern just how slanted an angle we’re being fed by most of the mainstream media.

I am, it seems, now a confirmed ‘news avoider’ to use the term that Nick Robinson explained in this interview last September. I prefer to be in control of what I choose to listen to or read. Even if, of course, I get swayed by whatever pops up on screen by the Google algorithm and AI which seeks to try to understand my curious mix of behaviour and influence it. I certainly feel no desire to return to former habits and follow the flock.

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One subject I do still try to keep abreast of will now get what I hope to be its last airing for a little while, as the Gelli Uchaf snowdrop ‘Whelm’ fades from existence for another year.

I’m always interested in the detailed weather statistics that the Met Office pushes out. The latest Met Office reports for February and the whole winter confirm our findings here – it’s been the mildest February ever on record, with mean daily temperatures a whopping 2.4 degrees C above the 30-year average, at 6.9 degrees C.  44.2 hours of sunshine – just 64% of the 30-year average and the national average rainfall for Wales of 205.8mm, is 171% of the 30-year average.

Our rainfall was higher in what seems to be becoming a clear trend for wetter months: 273mm in 2024, the anomaly of 31.2 mm in 2023, 254mm in 2022, 354mm in 2021 and 357 mm in 2020. ‘Just’ 135mm in 2019 which was our sunniest February ever. And a mere 103 mm in 2018, with 149 mm in 2017. Moreover, we only had 3 light frosts throughout the month to minus 2.5 degrees C

Click on the first of these links, and you’ll see there are 2 simple tables where this February’s data is compared to a 30-year average. The 2.4 degrees C above the 30-year average, which I’ve just referenced relates to the average for the 30 years of data between the period 1991 to 2020. They also include a comparison between the February 2024 data and the 30 years between 1961 and 1990. In this case, the difference is not 2.4 degrees higher, but 3.6 degrees C higher.

WOW! That’s some change. Let’s hope we don’t continue to double the change in the next 30 years, or frosts will definitely become a distant memory.

But at least the concept here is a simple one: take a suitably long period, average the monthly figures, and compare them with the current ones. A similar approach has historically been used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in displaying excess mortality levels in Britain. Again a simple concept, you might think.

Take several years, (they’ve historically chosen to use 5 years’ data), average them and compare them with what’s happening now.

With all-cause mortality data and any hint of excess mortality above the longer-term average, this has historically been recorded for every week of the year – a sensible decision since weekly mortality rates always tend to rise during winter months, and then fall back in the summer.

Something slightly odd has happened recently though. A lot more people have been dying than these weekly averages would predict, and not just in the UK, but around much of the Western world. And particularly in the years after the novel Covid treatments were rolled out. There may be lots of reasons to account for this. However, the numbers have been high enough, for long enough to alert first one determined MP, and more recently a wider group of cross-party politicians who have written to the Health Secretary urging her to release the necessary (and centrally collected) data to try to elaborate what might be causing thousands more people to die than would be expected. One might have thought this merited urgent appraisal. Apparently, all of this data has already been released to the drug companies that manufactured the novel treatments. So why not release the data more generally, is this group of politicians perhaps not unreasonable request?

Just before this step was taken, however, a remarkable move was made by the ONS. A decision was taken to change how the excess mortality figures are calculated.

Out goes the simple concept of comparing figures with a 5-year rolling average.

In comes some snazzy statistical modelling.

Try to understand the ONS explanation, if you fancy your chances, given this is the relevant section copied verbatim, as currently displayed on their publicly facing webpage.

Statistical modelling
Our new methodology for estimating the expected number of deaths involves fitting a quasi-Poisson regression model to aggregated death registration data. This statistical model provides the expected number of deaths registered in the current period, if trends in mortality rates remained with the same as those from recent periods and in the absence of extraordinary events affecting mortality, such as the peak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

To prepare the dataset for modelling, numbers of deaths are summed by period (weeks or months), age group, sex, and geography. For weekly data, the expected number of deaths in age-sex-geography stratum i in period t is the predicted value, d[i,t], from the statistical model:

Hmmmm. What to make of this?

Plain English, guys? Plain maths?

It may come as no surprise that rather as with the statistical switch from RPI to CPI at a time of rising inflation in the 1990s (which instantly lowered the extent of the rise), miraculously, with this bit of snazzy modelling, this change has reduced the rise in excess mortality.

Will I write once more to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)  complaining about the lack of clarity and dodgy statistical interpretation? I think not. I think I’ve come to realise the futility of attempts at rational democratic debate in our manipulative modern world.

Although I did over the Welsh government’s recent use of data supporting their reduction of speed limits to 20 mph. And which, along with probably countless other letters of complaint, perhaps contributed to a formal letter being written to the Welsh Government by Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation at the OSR about improper use and clarity of statistics). In a wonderful quote from Mr. Humperson’s letter:

“In short, I do not consider that this analysis’s presentation in the leaflet fully aligns with our expectations for Intelligent Transparency.”

Ahh. What a wonderful goal for governments to strive for: Intelligent Transparency.

I’ll finish with another even older song, which seems appropriate for our current, locked-in weather patterns.

From possibly simpler times, as well as considerably cooler ones.

A 1966 live recording of ‘Early Morning Rain’. A cover version by Peter, Paul and Mary of the song by the Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot. A discovery for me, since as a young lad I only remember hearing their “Puff the Magic Dragon” played on the radio.

 

Just a shame they couldn’t rise to a microphone for Mary, eh?