I was greatly saddened to hear of the death of Angus Forbes in January. The Payhembury Millennium Book tells us that three decades ago he carried out a tree survey, planted a 400 yard thorn hedge, 750 hardwood and 360 cider apple trees at Cokesputt and clearly mourned the loss of ancient hedgerows and trees in the parish. These days everyone knows about the need to plant more trees and hedges – here was someone way ahead of the times who understood the importance of bio-diversity. He was also the first person to bring the Payhembury daffodil to the attention of a wider audience, at the same time preserving those he found on his land. I remember him as a passionate gardener and had the privilege of being shown around his beautiful walled garden on two occasions. Angus will be missed by all who knew him.
Snowdrops started to appear along our lanes again in the last week of January and within 2 weeks were in their full glory – spring must be just around the corner!
Recently I have started to delve into the mysterious world of the gall wasps. Most of them are really tiny, many measuring no more than 2mm in length – so you are extremely unlikely to see them. The evidence, however, is there in plain sight. We had noticed clusters of brown marble sized galls many with small exit holes in them on some of the native oaks growing in the banks along the lane to Upton. The oak marble gall wasp Andricus kollari lays its eggs in dormant leaf buds and injects a hormone which produces abnormal growth surrounding the developing grub. Oak trees alone are host to around 70 different gall wasps and every gall is unique.
Then the penny dropped! Last year we had seen quite large galls on one of the mature oaks in the garden and have now realised that these were from Biorhiza pallida, the oak apple gall wasp. Then another penny dropped! Last autumn we had noticed some robin’s pin cushion near Leyhill. This is an attractive red mossy gall only found on wild roses and is a home for Diplolepis rosae or the robin’s pin cushion gall wasp.
So, there you have it, three gall wasps which I am very unlikely ever to see, but where there is clear evidence that they are present in the area and where there are three, there might also be many more to discover – the hunt is on.
In the meantime despite all the heavy frosts have you noticed that many of the birds have been developing their breeding plumage earlier than ever?
