Tag Archives: Sea Beet

Nature Reserves

On the Swale NNR

The Swale National Nature Reserve, seen here looking southwest from Shellness, is an extensive area of brackish saltings, formerly saltmarsh (top right), with a shelly beach and rich mudflats (left) beside the Swale, the channel that separates the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. A Second World War blockhouse is in the distance.

To reach Shellness one has to jolt very slowly along a long, straight, dusty, potholed track, minding out for one’s shock-absorbers. The reward is a magically quiet, spacious realm of … nothingness. Wide mudflats with occasional Shelducks. Wide horizons. Long empty shelly berms above empty windswept beaches. Sea kale. Sea lavender. Sea campion. Sea everything. The song of skylarks over the wind.

A Meadow Pipit chooses a good vantage point on the lichen-covered blockhouse.

The cry of a Black-Tailed Godwit over the marsh draws my attention to an elegant medium-sized wader with its long straight bill and agile flight. On the groynes and mudflats are plenty of cheerful Oystercatchers, resting or foraging in little groups. A Little Egret flaps distinctively past.

Beside the path is a little beach, marked off with a sign, posts and a plastic rope for a “rare” colony of Little Terns. I scan it with binoculars, and am lucky enough to catch one in flight; it lands out on the mudflat, its long wings poking out past its tail, a slender sea-swallow.

Three Oystercatchers feeding on the Swale mudflats

Even as I parked up, some chunky Corn Buntings flitted overhead giving their sharp calls. They were once common in farmland everywhere. A single Swallow flew past.

Sea Campion

Along the mudflats occasional Ringed Plovers went their solitary ways. The telescope showed little groups of Shelducks in quite large numbers — perhaps I saw 50 all told. A few Black-Headed and Herring Gulls, and as always a few Starlings (convinced they were waders) visited the marsh. A sudden flock of a hundred Dunlins, wheeling and sweeping together, made me catch my breath, a glimpse of wild beauty.

Sea Beet, the origin of Spinach Beet, our favourite green leafy vegetable

Over the marsh, Skylarks kept lifting up for their song-flights, pouring out their astonishing, continuous, rich melody until they were almost invisibly high in the sky. It was impossible not to think of Shelley’s poem To a Skylark (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert …”), so marvellously immaterial did they seem in the wind and the bright sky.

At the little headland, bounded by a muddy, marshy creek, a Redshank flew up, piping.

This Yellow Wagtail landed just in front of me at the end of the walk, hawking quietly for flies, mostly on foot.

As I returned, a Yellow Wagtail, seemingly almost tame, walked unconcernedly along the path in front of me. I ate my picnic sitting below the dyke out of the wind, absorbing the space and sunshine, my heart full of birdsong.


Gardening, Natural History

Pipits and Peregrines at Portland Bill!

Thrift, Birdsfoot Trefoil on Isle of Portland
Thrift, Birdsfoot Trefoil on Isle of Portland

We had a fine airy walk in brilliant sunshine, cooled by a stiff northerly breeze, around the tip of the Isle of Portland. Underfoot was fine maritime turf and massive Portland limestone, dotted with tufts of pink Thrift and yellow Birdsfoot Trefoil. The sea sparkled blue and silver around a wooden sailing ship with four triangular sails. A pair of Gannets flew effortlessly down the wind, tilting their long black-tipped wings.

To the south, the fearsome tide-race splashed ominously as if some Odyssean sea-monster (Charybdis and its whirlpool?) lurked beneath: the tide there runs faster than a yacht can sail, one way and then the other. Jonathan Raban describes it wonderfully in his book Coasting, the feeling of rising alarm and then, going for it, being shot like a cork from a champagne bottle through the swirling water.

A Rock Pipit, its beak full of insect grubs, called urgently as we strayed too close to its nest. A Razorbill, improbably proportioned like a fat impresario in black tie and tails, flapped by on small rapid triangular wings.

Oedemera nobilis, the thick-kneed flower beetle
Oedemera nobilis, the thick-kneed flower beetle

We saw few insects – some bumble bees, some handsome Thick-kneed Flower Beetles glowing iridescent green on buttercups, later on one male perched on a pebble on Chesil Beach

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Yellow Rattle at Portland Bill
Yellow Rattle at Portland Bill

The best flower of the day was probably the Yellow Rattle, an odd-shaped parrot-beaked yellow flower with spiky leaves. It’s a member of the Figwort family (like the Eyebright, whose growth habit is similar though smaller), and a hemiparasite of grasses: an important plant, as it weakens the grasses, keeping them low and allowing in a wealth of other flowers. It was once common in our meadows and permanent pastures, but fertilizers and ploughing have destroyed over 95% of these, and Yellow Rattle and the rest of our grassland flowers are now all desperately uncommon.

Overhead, two Peregrine Falcons slid through the air, circling without visible effort. A pair of Ravens came by. Standing at the top of the western cliffs, Fulmars flew out from their cliff nests, circling on stiff wings.

Scarlet Pimpernel
Scarlet Pimpernel

A little patch of Scarlet Pimpernel by a gate again reminded me of how this once common weed of cultivation (and sand dunes – presumably it was pre-adapted to disturbed ground) has declined.

We left Portland and drove down the hill to the Chesil Beach, struck as everyone is by the enormous shingle bar that stretches miles from Abbotsbury to the Isle of Portland, forming a bar with the Fleet lagoon behind it.

Sea Kale on Chesil Beach
Sea Kale on Chesil Beach

A few handsome Sea Kale plants clung to the lower part of the landward side of the shingle, including this one on the edge of the car park. It is the ancestor of the domestic cabbage in all its varieties, from Broccoli to Brussels Sprouts, Kale to Cauliflower. It is itself (obviously) edible, though as a now-scarce maritime plant one wouldn’t want to pick any of it at all often.

Sea Beet
Sea Beet

Nearby, the ancestor of another valuable food plant, the Sea Beet, origin of Sugar Beet, purple Beetroot, and Spinach Beet. The wild plant too is edible, though the leaves are small, thick, and leathery!