Write some first words.

Now, Julian.

While the memories are as clear as the cool May air on the morning of the 16th. A dawn of such clean freshness, blue skies and sharp shadows that my ‘quick’ garden walk extended to 45 minutes. Finishing by 7.15 am, my mind and Flash card were filled with sights, sounds and sensory overload.

Last year during the middle of May, we were in the grip of what turned into an extended, glorious dry spell. This year, I haven’t watered anything despite a run of six dry days – it’s not been so hot, and the ground is still perfectly moist. But whilst the spring of 2023 will linger in my memory for that special six-week spell of drought, the whole of this spring will be remembered for its silence.

Not complete silence, I must add, but rather a lack of the seasonal noise and sound we’re familiar with in our valley amphitheatre during this special spring season. This year’s been quieter than lockdown, and perhaps a hint at how this landscape’s soundscape might change in the years ahead. There’s been an almost complete lack of sheep/lamb noise, very little road traffic, and minimal agricultural vehicle noise.

No silage has yet been cut nearby. It’s all very strange.

In part, I guess, because the land has been too wet for the safe use of heavy machinery, for so long. In part, perhaps, because people haven’t been travelling as far or as often as in the past. More people now work from home – around 35% do so for at least some of their week (as of June 2023 – the latest data I could find); and more people are economically inactive – many because of long-term sickness issues preventing work. Unfortunately, the graph illustrating this, below, shows no sign of plateauing yet.

Perhaps the 20 mph speed limits have also proved a disincentive to travel longer distances on rural Welsh roads. Entirely anecdotally we’ve had far fewer garden visitors this year than in 2023.

Around us, the landscape is bursting with greens and olives in all shades, but our immediate neighbouring farmers have very few sheep, and no cattle out on the land grazing. This quiet auditory backdrop makes the birdsong even more glorious, and yesterday, a little late, we heard the Garden Warbler, which has returned to join the Blackcap, Blackbirds and Song Thrushes with melodious riffs which seem to last for minutes on end.

Even the midges have, thus far, left us alone to enjoy the early morning and dusk scenes, unscathed. I’m sure that just writing this will herald the shattering of these illusions of this Welsh Eden.

Who knows the complex origins, but it truly has been a strange and silent spring for us. One in which nature and the natural world seem to be carrying on, regardless, and probably delighting in the reduced impacts of human activity. I’ve yet to read Rachel Carson’s book ‘Silent Spring’, but perhaps now would be a good moment to get hold of a copy. David Attenborough has stated that ‘Silent Spring’ was probably the book that changed the scientific world the most, after ‘On the Origin of Species’ by Charles Darwin.

Perhaps I should celebrate this change, and enjoy it while it lasts? That’s been easy to do, these last couple of weeks, since the often grey and rainy weather has largely left us. However, I did want to make a point of describing this. I guess living where we do and living the lifestyle we do, it’s easier to notice such a difference to previous ‘normality’.

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A very fortunate tip-off from Mark on the other side of the country, (thanks for this!) just an hour before dusk, alerted us to the unusual possible opportunity to glimpse a display of the aurora borealis, this far South in the UK. Never having seen this natural phenomenon before, we decided to drive up the mountain for the clearest view of the Northern skies. We parked up just short of the summit of Mynydd Llanllwni around 10.15pm, and stood outside on the short cropped grass, with camera on tripod, and waited in a gentle warm breeze as the lovely crescent moon dipped towards the Ceredigion coastline. We weren’t that hopeful, since it wasn’t a completely clear sky, and the peace and quiet were disturbed somewhat by an approaching helicopter which started to complete big circuits in the broken-cloud sky to the northeast. Someone hoping for a better view, we guessed, until the chopper left and then returned further South with a powerful ground-scanning searchlight, followed by a flashing blue light approaching the spot. An unexplained drama, played out as we waited with the small gaggle of skygazers who joined us, spread out along the normally quiet, single-track, mountain-crossing road.

We were getting close to wondering whether the trip had been worth it, when we both began to see a strange red/pink glow to the cloud cover, both above us and due North East. Uncertain, initially, of whether our eyes were deceiving us, we were soon convinced. Definitely not where we’d been advised to scan.

This was it!

And so began our own magical 45 minutes, when such colours slowly shifted around the sky in broad sweeps and shafts of coloured light. For once I managed to take some half-decent images which captured this unique moment for us both. None of the shape-shifting dramas I’d seen recorded by others, but real moments of awe. I’ve even put in a request to Fiona for her to have a go at one of her gorgeous pastel images, to record the scene below in physical form.

Finally, the colours left us, and we drove back home, thrilled by what we’d been lucky to see. It seems that against expectations, Wales had fared very well with numerous sightings from North to South.

I can quite see why people could become mesmerised by such events. In my last post, entirely by chance, I’d included a couple of songs from the CD ‘Northern Lights’, by Ēriks Ešenvalds. It seems appropriate to include here a recording of the titular song he composed after his own journey of discovery, which he explains in this Ted Talk, titled ‘What do the Northern Lights sound like?’ His lecture references the impact that these phenomena have had on the mythology and culture of those countries where they appear much more frequently. Well worth a listen.

And here’s his composition, ‘Northern Lights’, sung by The Providence Singers, with Christine Noel conducting. With on-screen lyrics.

 

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Thank goodness for Fiona’s efficient filing. When I asked if she could recall when we’d planted many of our Rhododendron plants beneath mature Larch trees in our copse, she said she’d kept the list we’d chosen them from. She dug it out, and here it is.

I can vividly remember the trip down narrow country lanes to the garden in Devon, which Nigel Wright had created over many years, and which, I guess, he opened for the National Garden Scheme. (It’s still possible to visit this special place, now with a new owner). The date of the list shows that we probably visited in 2006 or 2007. I also note that no website existed for his extensive collection of nearly 200 cultivars which the octagenarian Nigel had propagated himself, mainly by cuttings and a few by layers. Fiona recalls that we bought them all, as small plants with no flowers, after trawling through the text on-site, and selecting what we thought was a decent range which would give us a range of flowering times from February through to June/July. But without any real idea of what the plants or flowers would look like.

Some of the names we’d highlighted like ‘Old Copper’ and R. racemosum, I remembered, but also knew that these plants had died several years ago from fungal disease. However, the majority have thrived, and grown. And this spring, with the mild wet weather of last autumn and winter, they’re blooming better than ever. They’ve been a huge delight.

However, planting such shrubs requires a long-term perspective. And a bit of suitable space. I guess we were lucky to have this part of our then-developing garden where we saw the potential for a woodland shrub display. And had also been inspired by seeing the fabulous mature Rhododendrons in bloom at Hergest Croft, Westonbirt Arboretum, and Bowood House, from our years living in Bristol. Talk about delusions of grandeur, eh? Looking back at my early photos of this part of the garden, I was still excited when the different flowers opened, but the overall visual impact was underwhelming.

Moving on to these scenes, 17 years later, and even some of the smaller cultivars have a huge impact, individually, and as an ensemble.

There’s one cultivar though which has produced few, if any flowers before, and frankly has a rather unattractive, lax, floppy habit. Eventually, we worked out that it’s a cultivar listed in Nigel’s catalogue as ‘Miss Kitty’. It doesn’t currently seem to be available for sale in the UK, and I could only find more details from a small Californian Nursery, which implies that its name has changed to ‘Oh Kitty’. Whatever its name, its flowers are mesmerising. Huge in size and with the most delicate blending of pinks across petals, which subtly change over time. I’m not surprised that the Singing Tree Nursery says that its blooms always win best-in-show prizes when exhibited.

This is what Linda Draper in her tribute to the American plant breeder, ‘The Indomitable Fred Minch’, who bred this stunning plant and was clearly ‘quite a character’, has to say:

“There was a modern businesswoman who lived in a shoe
With 100,000 rhodys she didn’t know what to do.
Then one day she decided and she gave a long, loud shout,
“I’ll have to help my husband before these rhodys drive me out”.
To learn to do this rhody thing she found there was no class
For digging, weeding, potting, seeding-then planting seeds en masse.
From flat to pot she watched them grow and then she gave a pinch.
Could she be under the auspices of a wise old owl named Minch?
November came, she was so proud; she even thought it fun
Picking, planting, flatting out – but glad her work was done.
A sigh she gave and then collapsed against the empty greenhouse door.
With grin so sly she did declare, “Wow! I have room for more.”

Beginning in 1967 Fred expanded his garden until by the mid-1970’s he had 150,000 rhododendrons on his three-acre yard and in two 10′ x 30′ lath houses.

Fred’s most famous offering, ‘Miss Kitty’, named for his daughter, is almost ready for release through tissue culture. Though many who see pictures of it say it resembles ‘Cotton Candy’ it is much larger and a comparison of size, leaf, etc., shows a big difference. It is most likely a R. fictolacteum cross. Each flower measures from 5″ to 7″, piling up to an immense tight truss of usually 15 to 17 flowers, majestically arising from large deep green leathery leaves. Add to this a bonus – it’s fragrant.”

The other thing I’ve observed this year after spending a lot more time gazing deeply into the throats of individual flowers is how much colour variation there often is, and also how variable the length of ‘attractive flowering time’ is between cultivars.

Most look fabulous for at least a week!

“Come on, Julian. You can not be serious! All this fuss about something so fleeting?”

In my defence, I’d suggest that many of life’s exciting experiences linger longest in the memory, and give the most profound pleasure, entirely because they are quite fleeting. And familiarity can’t breed contempt.

(FMI/FYI – this expression ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ was first used in English in the 1300s by Geoffrey Chaucer, in his work, the  ‘Tale of Melibee’. An even earlier first use of the phrase is credited to Publilius Syrus, a Roman citizen who began life as a Syrian slave and lived around 50 B.C. His master was so impressed with his intellect that he freed Publilius Syrus and educated him.)

 

Then particularly in the case of the paler colours, the flowers tend to fade to mainly white, and the talon marks from the many (particularly bumblebee) flower-visiting bees, leave the flowers looking a bit bedraggled. ‘Miss Kitty’, and the earlier ‘Bruce Brechtbill’ seem to excel in flower longevity and looking good for nearer 3 weeks, at least this year, with damper soils and cooler temperatures..

Never mind starting a family and wondering how the kids will end up as they blossom and mature, it seems it’s never too soon to plant a few Rhododendrons, to leave a legacy that will likely outlive one’s own presence on this planet, and lift spirits and set pulses racing, every May.

To finish with a final quote from Linda Draper’s piece which I read after writing the above line:

“It seems appropriate to end with a Biblical quote. After all, Fred has named a rhododendron ‘Oh My God’ because so many visitors used that exclamation upon seeing it. As the saying goes, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven…a time to plant…” In the case of Fred Minch, it’s a time to plant a rhododendron.”

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Apart from excessive gazing into Rhody flowers’ throats, the honey bees have also grabbed my attention over the last 10 days. The two hives vacant since last autumn have, to the best of my observation, had no visits from scouts at all this year: in marked contrast to previous years, when the odd one or two scouts, or even masses, have begun to appear from early March onwards, in fits and starts.

A big change with the occupied hives was observed on the first warm sunny day in early May, when the 3 most vigorous colonies were all bringing in pollen in several colour shades, in large quantities.

This got me thinking about making a rough estimate of the percentage of incoming bees carrying pollen as part of my file name for the video clips of each colony which I keep as a record of activity. Along with percentages of drones visible.

For a ‘beekeeper’ who chooses not to open colonies, the percentage of pollen-carrying foragers is possibly the best guide to how many new bee larvae (and by extension, how many eggs have been laid by the queen), are inside the colony.

Within a couple of days of this burst of activity, I noticed the very few first scout bees around one empty hive. Within just 36 hours, the scene was transformed with huge numbers and activity.

I should add that I’d worked on both these empty ‘hives’ in the last two weeks of April, anticipating the upcoming swarm season. I left the main body of the hive untouched, but noticed, to my surprise that in both colonies, an upper box containing 6 x 750ml glass jars had been built out with beeswax comb. The last time I’d checked these boxes when the hives were occupied, the bees had (after 18 months) completely ignored the empty spaces which these jars provided.

I’m guessing that the wax comb may well have been filled with honey too, but this had been removed by robber bees when both colonies failed last year. Inside many of the jars, all I’d found were several large slugs, and the comb was obviously quite mouldy. I’d removed the slugs from between the wax combs with a skewer(!) but otherwise left them alone, and re-assembled the hive, adding extra foil-backed bubble wrap, to try to aid heat retention in this above-colony space.

Simultaneous to this 24 hours of manic activity, bees began to leave the most active colony and ‘beard’ on the front of the hive. I’d already increased ventilation options for this colony by opening a top vent. But still the bees hung out in ever greater numbers, as the sunshine and temperatures increased for 3 days, to around just 20 degrees C.

Such bearding can be a prelude to swarming, as the colony becomes overcrowded, or simply an epigenetic behavioural strategy by the bees to remove some of their bodies, and thus extra metabolic activity and heat production, from inside the hive to keep the hive’s temperature sufficiently low. Which is vital to optimise larval bee development, and avoid issues with comb wax softening.

I even staked out the empty hive with a chair, sat and watched expecting a swarm to fly in that afternoon.

Except nothing happened, and I was pretty certain that I hadn’t missed the actual moment of a swarm flying in, since none of the bees was exhibiting the characteristic tail-in-the-air behaviour when they release Nasunov pheromone to guide straggler bees to the new home’s site entrance.

The following day more bees were appearing at the other empty hive, above, in large numbers, and diminishing in numbers at the first empty box. Which I also took as confirmation that a swarm hadn’t moved in. Yet.

All this came to an abrupt halt when the following day, temperatures fell dramatically and we had a day of rain and gloom. No bees appeared at either empty box, yet still, despite the wet and cold, a significant beard hung from the active colony.

Then the weather warmed again, and gradually bees returned, checking out the empty two boxes. I’m still pretty certain that a swarm hasn’t moved into either empty hive yet. So what on earth is going on? As I’ve speculated before, I reckon that the bees are aware that both empty boxes represent prime real estate for a new home, albeit both need ‘modernisation and a thorough clean out’. So my guess is that they’re staking claims on the vacant pads, and probably beginning the clean-up in anticipation of a later move.

There’s certainly evidence of significant fighting on the threshold/landing board. This suggests that bees from more than one existing colony would like to make this their new home. To date, all this activity has continued now for well over a week.

Time will tell what happens.

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As if throats and beards weren’t exciting enough, Fiona was the first to spot that around the same time, as the weather warmed up, an overwintered female wasp, was checking out the beams above our bed, where two years ago, Winnie the wasp built her nest. Which I filmed and photographed at length.

Calling her ‘Wendy’, she decided that the crux of the A-frame trusses, on Fiona’s side of the bed made the perfect spot to begin her nest construction. So off she went, with regular trips in and out of the just-ajar-Velux window, flying close to my head and computer station, and had made good progress by the end of the first day. As light faded outside, I turned on the keyboard illuminating spotlight. This clearly disorientated Wendy who flew towards this, and not the Velux, as she headed out on one of her last pulp-gathering trips of that day.

She overshot me, and ended up at the other closed Velux. Quickly, I jumped from my chair and carefully managed to open this Velux enough for her to fly out. Then closed it, and the first Velux as well. Result? We had the bedroom to ourselves overnight, and Fiona could sleep in peace.

The following morning, I opened both Velux half an inch around 5.45am, and within 15 minutes, Wendy returned as I was making the tea downstairs. Once I’d returned to the bedroom, Fiona told me we now had 2 wasps building nests – one in the crux of the A-frame above my side of the bed. But a bit of observation confirmed that this wasn’t the case. Clearly, Wendy had been thrown by the near-identical visual scene on entering through the second Velux. So had done exactly as before – flying in through the gap, towards the far side angled truss beam, about halfway along its length, then walking up to the apex, where she was beginning to build a second nest.

So she’d ‘forgotten’ that she’d already begun constructing a nest, including crafting the first cell and laying her first egg in it, and was starting from scratch. It’s also interesting to note that there was no attempt to pick up on the 2 or 3 days of work Winnie had completed on her early nest last year – a marked difference to honey bees which actively seek out previously abandoned nests with wax comb, since this gives them a head start in establishing a new colony.

Sadly for Wendy, this curious memory failing gave me the germ of an idea. By manipulating which Velux window I opened, I could convince her to work on both nests alternately, and move them towards different stages of construction. My plans suffered a slight glitch when the day of rain and strong winds meant that she hardly ventured outside, preferring to rasp a bit of fibre from the tung oiled truss beams in the bedroom. It also meant we couldn’t shut her out at night, but she behaved herself impeccably, curled around the pedicel of her smaller nest above my side of the bed, until dawn came and I could let her out again.

By day 4 she’d created two nests showcasing intermediate stages of wasp nest construction to complement Winnie’s efforts, which will adorn our bedroom for years to come. Who knows, they may even prove to be USP’s should we come to sell-up in the years ahead? Or maybe not!

Interestingly her method of construction was identical as far as I could make out to Winnie’s, with pulp being deposited in narrow, darker, moist strips, whilst she walked backwards, around a third of the perimeter of the pedicel-insulating, golf ball-sized shell. I also managed to film her harvesting wood pulp (or if not her, another queen) from a beam above our woodstore. Using a backwards-walking, vigorous gouging action which left a strip of different coloured wood beneath.

I’d noticed last year just how much damage has been done over the years by pulp harvesting wasps to the upright supporting post of a plant sales bench, just in front of the woodstore: they clearly have preferred sites for fibre harvesting.

The final part of my trial was to re-open the Velux after a 48-hour time period.

Wendy didn’t return. I’m guessing by now behind the curve and time frame for viable wasp nest establishment she’d moved on to an alternative, less tricksy, and less confusing environment.

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To finish, I’m including another piece from the excellent new CD, Oculus, by Welsh composer Julie Cooper, which I’ve now bought, listened to, and studied the detailed album notes. There’s a colour theme to many of her pieces on this album, mostly orchestral, some choral. Indeed the conductor for many of the recordings, Jessica Cottis, experiences synaesthesia/chromaesthesia: she experiences different colours when she hears different pieces of music. ‘Lullaby in Valley Green’ references this, and Jessica’s Welsh music, cultural and landscape background.

Beautifully recorded with great clarity, it’s well worth getting the CD as a relaxing piece for sitting down to and letting the music wash over you at the end of a busy day.

Quite unlike the shocking experiences I was subjected to after rashly deciding to see what the top few contemporary ‘pop music’  Eurovision songs threw up, this year.