Meadow vetchling

Meadow vetchling (Lathyrus pratensis) is a common plant that grows throughout the British Isles in grassy place and also in hedges and on banks such as railway embankments, where it forms large clumps.

Meadow vetchling is a nitrogen fixer, so it is a welcome plant on grass meadows. It also contributes to the nutritional value of pastures and hay crops, due to being relatively rich in protein, especially in its seeds.

It is a scrambling plant that produces weak, spindly stems up to 48 inches (120 cms) in length. These gain support from other plants by virtue of tendrils at the leaf tips. Leaf-like stipules grow at the base of the leaf stalks, which are square in cross-section.

Despite having a small, forked tendril on each leaf, meadow vetchling is not a great climber.

Meadow vetchling flowers from May to August, with five to twelve yellow flowers being carried on stalks that are longer than the leaves. The flowers are visited mainly by bumble bees, which have tongues that are long enough to reach the nectar at the bottom of the long flower tubes.

The seed pods look flattened when ripe and sometimes are covered with fine hairs.

The plant also spreads due to its creeping, underground rootstock. These throw up a profusion of sharply angled stems.

Folk names for meadow vetchling include “lady`s slippers” and “old granny’s slipper-sloppers”, these names referring to the shape of the flowers. Another name, “yellow tare-tine”, makes use of an old name for vetch, namely “tare”, although this should not be confused with the word for weed that appears in the Authorised Version of the New Testament.

© John Welford

Klipspringer

The klipspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus) is a small tiny-hoofed antelope that lives in mountainous areas of eastern and southern Africa. 

It measures up to 4 feet (1.2 metres) in length and weighs up to 40 pounds (18 kg). It has a glossy olive-yellow coat with yellow and brown specks, fading to white on the underparts and legs. Male klipspringers have small, spiky horns.

Klipspringers browse on evergreen shrubs and live in pairs, raising up to two young at a time.

© John Welford

Nilgai

The nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), which is also known as the bluebuck or blue bull, is an Asian antelope that is endemic to India.

It measures up to 7 feet (2.1 metres) long and stands up 21 inches (53 cms) high. It weighs up to 660 pounds (300 kg). The front legs are longer than the rear ones. Male nilgai have stout tapering horns up to 8 inches (20 cms) long and also sport a throat tuft.

The male’s coat is bluish grey and the female’s is tawny coloured.

The nilgai prefers open woods to thick forest and is very alert to danger, fleeing at speed from predators, which include tigers.

Nilgai graze on grasses of various types and browse leaves and fruit from bushes, feeding during the early morning and early evening while resting in seclusion during the hot part of the day.

Male nilgai compete for territory and females by kneeling in front of each other and lunging with their horns. Successful males are able to acquire harems of up to 10 females.

Breeding occurs throughout the year, although most calves are born between June and October.

© John Welford

Crane fly

Crane flies belong to the order of Diptera and are related to mosquitoes, although they do not bite. The species usually found in the United Kingdom are commonly known as “daddy long-legs”.

They are readily recognized both from their legs – which are only weakly attached to their bodies and can easily break off – and their long, narrow wings. Some of the larger species, such as the phantom crane fly, have wings that stretch to 2.5 cms in length.

Crane flies are mainly nocturnal and are usually only seen inside a house during the day when they have got in through an open window after dark and become trapped. Campers regularly see them dancing round their lamps and torches in the evening.

Female crane flies lay their eggs in damp soil and these hatch into larvae that are grey or pale brown in colour. Some species feed on dead and decaying matter, some on small insects and some on plant roots.

It is the plant root feeders that cause most trouble to gardeners, horticulturalists and greenkeepers. The larvae, known as leatherjackets, can quite easily kill plants, including grass, leading to bare patches on otherwise pristine golf and bowling greens, for example. Another problem is that leatherjackets are tasty snacks for birds such as crows, which peck annoyingly large holes in the grass to reach their prey.

Despite all the treatments that have been devised for tackling leatherjackets, there still seem to be plenty of adult daddy long-legs surviving to get in the hair of summer-time campers!

© John Welford

Common shrew

The common shrew (Sorex araneus) is correctly named, given that it is one of the commonest mammals found in Great Britain. However, most people have never seen one, because it is a secretive animal that is most active at night. 

The common shrew is about 5-8 centimetres long and it weighs up to 12 grammes. It has silky dark brown fur that is lighter on the underside. 

Its habitat is woodland, hedgerows and grassland, where it spends much of its time hidden beneath vegetation or burrowing underground. When active, the common shrew spends most of its time searching for and eating its food, which consists of worms, insects, spiders and other small animals. It hunts by using its acute sense of smell. It needs to eat up to three times its own bodyweight every day in order to survive. 

The common shrew is too small to hibernate during the winter – it cannot store enough fat in its body to make this possible. However, it has evolved a survival mechanism by which it shrinks in size and reduces its body weight by up to 20%, thus reducing the amount of food it needs to find and eat. This shrinkage involves reductions in size of bones, including the skull, and internal organs. When Spring returns the lost weight is recovered. 

The common shrew breeds during the summer months, and a female can produce up to four litters during that time, each one containing up to seven young. Given that the normal lifespan of the common shrew is only 14 months, a female can only expect one breeding season during its life. 

By being active mainly at night the common shrew is itself prey for other nocturnal wildlife, particularly owls and foxes. However, the species is not endangered.

© John Welford

Common vetch

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) grows in grassy places and tilled ground throughout Great Britain, although it only lives up to its name in south-eastern England. It is an introduction from continental Europe, where various hybrids have been used for cattle food. 

There are two varieties of common vetch found in Great Britain, one with slender stems and narrow leaflets and the other with taller, stouter stems and broader leaflets. It was this second variety that was cultivated in Great Britain in the 18th century so that its seeds could be used for pigeon food. 

Common vetch can be distinguished from other types of vetch found in Britain because it usually has a pair of flowers and two black-blotched stipules at the base of each leaf. 

The stems of common vetch straggle along the ground or climb by means of tendrils on the leaves, which have four to eight pairs of leaflets. The plant grows up to 48 inches (120 cm) high. 

Common vetch flowers from May to September. The flowers are purple in colour. The pods are smooth or slightly hairy and contain between four and twelve seeds. 

© John Welford

Tufted vetch

Tufted vetch (Vicia cracca) is a common plant of grassland and hedgerows throughout much of Great Britain. Indeed, its tall spikes of up to 40 purple/blue flowers make it one of the more distinctive hedgerow plants. 

Tufted vetch is also sometimes used as a garden plant to provide a display of colour in late summer. This is despite its close relationship to the “hairy tare” (Vicia hirsuta) that is the “tare sown among the wheat” in the parable told by Jesus in Matthew chapter 13.

Tufted vetch climbs by means of branched tendrils that are similar to those used by other members of the pea family. The leaves have between 12 and 30 leaflets. The flowering spikes grow on stalks that are up to 80 inches (200 cms) long. Flowering is between June and August.

The sepals join in a tube that covers nearly half the flower. The seed pods are smooth and square-ended. They each contain up to six seeds.

© John Welford