Norwich 3000 AD

What will Norwich be like in 3000 AD?

That's only 40 generations away - just an instant in geological time.

The city and its environs are likely to look very different from today. We shall clearly be in the Anthropocene Epoch. While we cannot be sure what local details will be like, we can project something of the wider environmental changes which are likely to set the scene. To guess the elements of the biological and cultural environment at the dawn of the 4th millennium means analysing present trends and extrapolating them into a range of potential scenarios.

Factors include the burning of fossil fuels, shifts in biodiversity, the impact of human population growth and migration, shifts in land-use, the likelihood of conflict and warfare, technological changes including the growth of biotechnology, growing resource depletion (notably soil and water), the possibility of catastrophic events such as volcanic eruptions, and even the possibility of human extinction.

What follows is a conjectural reconstruction based on present trends, enlivened by some imaginative interpretation.

• The closest historical analogue we have for the predicted climate over the next century is the Mid-Pliocene warm period c. 3 million years ago. CO2 values are estimated to have reached 360–440 parts per million, and global mean annual temperatures were approximately 3 deg C higher than today (Salzmann et al 2009). However, for 3000 AD the closest climatic analogue we have for the planet is the early Eocene Epoch, c.50 million years ago, when the world was much hotter and there little or no ice at the poles. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum/.

• In our imagined scenario, fossil fuel consumption continued through the 21st century, notably coal use in China, although peak oil production occurred as early as 2022. The resulting global warming/heating lasted for five centuries before the climate slowly reached an equilibrium state in the 27th century. It caused deglaciation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and thermal expansion of the oceans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sea_level_rise), leading to sea-level rise of over 6 metres. Low-lying coastal areas of Norfolk were inundated and there was a corresponding landward shift of wetland environments. An estuarine environment now extends up the Yare and Wensum valleys as far as Bowthorpe and Drayton (http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/), with fringing mud flats and saltmarshes.

• The average global temperature in 3000 is over 6 deg C warmer than today. Thus, the average annual temperature in the UK may be comparable with southern Spain today. (http://www.climate-charts.com/World-Climate-Maps.html#temperature). However, in this imagined scenario dangerous exponential global heating has not occurred (c.f. Wasdell 2007). If it had, we would be envisaging a catastrophic scenario.

• Carbon dioxide levels are much higher than today’s levels, at over 1500 parts per million. (In 2013 the Mauna Loa observatory records broke the 400 ppm barrier; global pre-industrial levels were 280 ppm.) At these levels, the area would be experiencing a climate approaching those of the early Eocene Epoch (50 million years ago) see http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=1380 (n.b. peak Eocene levels were 2000 ppm (http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/35021000?locale=en).

• Atmospheric methane levels are likely to be higher than today. Forcing factors over the 3rd millennium included release of methane hydrates in the ocean and melting of tundra permafrost due to global warming; there was also a volcanic eruption (perhaps in Iceland). This resulted in abrupt shifts in global climatic patterns and amplified positive feedback loops in the weather systems, which lead to several centuries of intense weather instability. Methane levels stabilised after 2400 due to natural attenuation., but remained at concentrations eight times pre-industrial levels (https://en.ikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum; Sloan et al 2000).

• Unstable weather has become normal, with periods of drought alternating with bouts of intense rainfall. This has led to widespread loss of topsoil and extensive gullying of farmland. As a result, much agriculture is now carried out using artificial media under shelter.

• Wildlife is different from that of today. Some Norfolk species were able to respond to the challenges of climate change by shifting their geographical distributions and life-cycles; others became extinct both locally and globally. Heightened temperature and CO2 levels mean that plant growth rates are now enhanced, and fungi, bacteria and algae different from today form the base of the trophic pyramid. Immigrant species typical of Mediterranean, African and Asian habitats today have become established, particularly hardy plants, insects and spiders. These include the malarial mosquitoes Anopheles atroparvus, which breeds in warm, brackish water along river estuaries. However, overall biodiversity has been grossly reduced, with fewer species forming the bulk of the biomass, including those resistant to pesticides and other environmental stresses. Many genetically-engineered feral and mutant species are present in the environment.

Drought-resisting Mediterranean plants such as the pistachio 

may be at home in Norfolk in 3000 AD.

• Catastrophic changes to marine life occurred in the 3rd millennium, with the cumulative impacts of ocean acidification and warming, over-fishing and pollution contributing to ecosystem collapse in the North Sea, ecological phase shifting, and the rise of algal and jellyfish blooms. The effects can still be seen in 3000 AD in the ecology of the Yare estuary, which has a deeply impoverished fauna compared with 2000 AD.

• Globalised human society has undergone radical transformations. Rapid social evolution and much migration of populations has taken place in step with the forcing effects of environmental change, resource depletion, population growth, political instability, disease and an increasingly hostile and unpredictable climate. For instance, an influx of refugees from drought-stricken lands bordering the Mediterranean led to 37% of the Norfolk population being of Spanish and North African descent by 2200. Natural Malthusian processes have acted to control the human population through various decades of disease and starvation; this was particularly true in the aftermath of an Icelandic volcanic eruption in the early 23rd century, which caused a Volcanic Winter lasting nine years and triggered increased global warming feedbacks in the climate system. In 2000 the world population was just over 6 billion, and this climbed to 9 billion by 2040, boosted by continuing use of fossil fuels and genetically engineered foodstuffs. Birth control policies were finally implemented in the 2100s and again in the 2700s, and the world population has now successfully been returned to what it was in the year 1950, and is now artificially maintained at that level.

• A variety of technlogical solutions to the problems of human life have been attempted, which imitate the functional logic of biological systems through biotech engineering, including bio-robotics and chlorophyll technology. The result is sustainable modular hive technology which guarantees human life is tolerable for the majority within certain limits. The recycling of water, nutrients and wastes are key considerations. Fabricated nutrients are an important component of human diet. What happens in the environment beyond the hive is a matter of general indifference to the human population; biodiversity is no longer a meaningful value. Biological entities are now valued in functional terms as sources of useful information and material resources to mitigate the effects of living on the depleted planet.

Artificial food production, from the film ‘Soylent Green’ 

(dir. Richard Fleischer, USA 1973). Image courtesy http://www.dvdbeaver.com

Some local detail

• The Hub City of Norrich is surrounded by subcentres such as Catton and Erlem. The old University of East Anglia site was reclaimed in 2287 following the destruction of its buildings in the Third Boreal War a century earlier, which had been fought over the allocation of scarce water resources. The site was then used for hydroponic cultivation, and drew its fluid from the Yeh Estuary. An entry in the Solicon Archive for 2654 shows that the site was used as a location for a new Chlorofusion Reactor to power the Eton Sub. The view of the valley in 3000 is of an estuarine landscape seen through hot, misty air; a series of low buildings and plant growing installations line the valley sides. Biodiversity is dominated by hardy plants and insects; some herbivorous and insectivorous birds and small mammals are able to thrive in set-aside wilderness strips. The few trees permitted living space are those which been designed or selected for their functional value, and they are arranged in plantations sheltered by awnings and irrigated by a water collection system; rainfall is too erratic and violent for unsheltered and untended trees to survive.

• A tall stone monument to Old Earth was erected in the centre of Norrich in 2128, and its remains are still visible in 3000. The stonework has been eroded by acidic rainfall, and the lettering is poorly legible. It shows a vertical scale marked with a series of global CO2 concentration levels linked with dates. The design is topped with a stone ball chiselled in the likeness of the planet, and the side and back panels are carved with a profusion of interlaced plant and animal species, most of which are unfamiliar to the city’s inhabitants.

• Three attempts were made to colonise polar areas of the planet Mars in the 22nd century. Norrich contributed three couples to one of the expeditions. Each colony was abandoned after a few decades because of supply difficulties, psychological problems among the colonists and the adverse environment (Mars Colony II was buried by a dust storm). It is now generally accepted that planet Earth is the only viable home for the human species.

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Sources and resources

o International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: Have we entered the Anthropocene? – see http://www.igbp.net/5.d8b4c3c12bf3be638a8000578.html
o National Geographic (2004): Six Degrees Could Change The World – Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKo4TSq40l0
o Lynas, M (2004): Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet; Harper Perennial
o Mitchell, D (2004): Cloud Atlas; Sceptre
o Reiter, P (2000): From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age; Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol.6, No.1 – see http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/1/00-0101_article.htm
o Salzmann, U, Haywood, AM and Lunt, DJ (2009): The past is the guide to the future? Comparing Middle Pliocene vegetation with predicted biome ditributions for the twenty-first century; Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 367
o Sloan, CL, Huber, H & Ewing, A (2000): Polar stratospheric cloud forcing in a greenhouse world; in: Abrantes, F & Mix, A 2000: Reconstructing the Ocean History; Springer Verlag
o Warrick et al (1990): The greenhouse effect and its implications for the European Community; Commission of the European Communities
o Wasdell, D (2007): Feedback Dynamics and the Acceleration of Climate Change; APPCCG – see http://www.apollo-gaia.org/BaliandBeyond.htm
o World Bank (2012): Turn Down The Heat - Why a 4 deg C warmer world must be avoided – see http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2012/11/18/Climate-change-report-warns-dramatically-warmer-world-this-century

‘Norwich in AD 2035 - A prophetic fantasy’, by WT Watling 
(Norwich Almanac and Record, 1935). Image courtesy Norfolk Record Office

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© Tim Holt-Wilson

 July 2013/ Sept 2015

The Blue Flower

19-9-2015

Small, intensely blue flowers are scattered in the sandy soil at my feet. They are pricking their way up among grass stalks here at Barnhamcross Common, near Thetford, England.  The terrain is hummocky, showing historic scars from many years of digging for sand and gravel.  This secluded corner of the Common is clothed with sedge and gorse, scattered oak and pine trees. It has a typical sandy Breckland soil, and lies not far from the Little Ouse river on level ground that was once part of the floodplain. In common with several of the Breckland heathland specialities, this blue flowering plant is tiny and unobtrusive, and yet quite beautiful in small detail.

I  have a real sense of a discovery here. Not only is the plant's identity a puzzle to me - its flower-head reminds me of a scabious, but isn't like any kind of scabious I can identify - but its beauty calls out to me: all shades of blue are gathered in its complexion: azure, caerulean, gentian, lapis, sky. I take photographs that barely do justice to this luminous phenomenon.




























24-9-15

I emailed a photo to Martin Sanford at the SBRC, Ipswich, asking for an identification. He named it as Sheep's-bit, Jasione montana, a member of the Campanula family that grows on light, sandy or stony soils. He said Barnhamcross Common is one of its known Breckland strongholds. The species is sparsely present in Norfolk - Beckett and Bull's 'A Flora of Norfolk' (1999) shows it as very localised, 'confined to short, acid turf', with its principal population centred in the dunes round Winterton-on-Sea. The 'Encyclopaedia of Life' maps Jasione montana as a native of the temperate parts of Europe. NatureGate in Finland says it is a native of rocky outcrops, sandy areas and hillsides.

The native distribution of Jasione montana @ The Encyclopaedia of Life

Sheep's-bit has been expanding in my imagination. Its flowers are true-blue scintillae studded like stars against the gloomy backdrop of my daily thoughts. Harry Godwin's 'History of the British Flora' provides an interesting local history. Its fossil pollen has been identified from late Devensian (Weichselian) levels at Old Buckenham Mere, an almost dried-up natural lake about 15 miles away. The pollen was blown into it from surrounding land and preserved in the mud. This takes its history back over 12,000 years to the end of the Ice Age. It would have favoured the freely-draining, coversand soils and sparse vegetation of the period. He says it was also found in the Roman to Anglo-Saxon levels, and suggests it owes its presence here to agricultural disturbance of sandy soils thereabouts.

Such factors seem to be key to its survival at Barnhamcross Common. There is evidence that someone has deliberately broken the soil surface in places, presumably for bioconservation reasons - so preserving a suitable habitat. Instead of a blanket of over-shading sedge, gorse and trees, we have patches of open, disturbed ground that fosters greater floral diversity. In this way a delicate, late glacial species, with a local history of over 12,000 years, still flourishes in Breckland. Its flowers have the same blue that once reflected in the eyes of a Saxon farmer, a woolly rhinoceros or a tundra vole.

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Sources

*  Beckett, G & Bull, B: A Flora of Norfolk; Beckett, 1999.
* Godwin, H: History of the British Flora - A factual basis for phytogeography; Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition, 1975.
* West, RG: Plant Life of the Quaternary Cold Stages - Evidence from the British Isles; Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Shrews in my roof

18th August 2014

Today I took the opportunity to do some desk work out of doors, sitting on the terrace by the front door and proof-reading a book for a friend. Leaves were brushing the back of my neck from time to time as the wind stirred the vine there. It is a feature of the Bungalow garden: climbing up to the eaves and muffling the front of the house with a bright green jungle of stalks and questing tendrils.

The roof comes down to head height beside the front door. Twenty years ago we had a nest of hornets there. They were no bother - we saw them coming and going: they saw us doing the same; one of them was always on guard by the door to greet returning nest-mates and keep a weather eye open on the world; low-frequency murmurings heard at night, like Spitfires warming up on a distant aerodrome. I heard something different up there last week: a conversational twittering, scratchy and sporadic, like the sound of bats  - or pixies. I could not quite locate the source: was it coming from a chimney stack or a hole in the tiles? I had a vision of furry faces swivelling about in the semi-darkness of the roofspace, discussing something important.

My reading was disturbed by rustling among the leaf litter under the vine. Nothing to be seen. A few minutes later the rustling came from higher up among the thicket of leaves. A quick movement, and there - silhouetted by sunlight crossing a branch in the heart of the leafage - unmistakably a shrew, climbing about, hunting and exploring; perhaps nervously taking its first foray out of the nest, its nose twitching about in frenetic hyper-mobility. The identity of my nattering neighbours became clear.

The locals call a shrew a 'ranny'. I'd like to think that the Latin name for a Common Shrew, Sorex araneus, owed something to the East Anglian dialect, or some obscure Viking root of it revived by Linnaeus who named them. Its name has another dimension for me: odour. It reminds me of the word 'rancid', and shrews have a reputation for smelling bad.

Shrews in my roof.... The twittering is apparently a 'low amplitude, broadband, multi-harmonic and frequency modulated' sound used as a form of echolocation [1]. Coupled with a rosette of stiff but sensitive whiskers around their snout and a good sense of smell, that must be how they they find their way around in the roof. Their eyesight is said to be poor. Judging by size, I think mine are most likely to be the Common Shrew rather than the Pygmy Shrew.

I have always thought of shrews as being members of the Order Insectivora, along with hedgehogs. However recent genetic studies have shown they are part of an Order Soricomorpha (''shrew-forms') which they share with moles and a rare family from the West Indies called the solenodons. The latter are living fossils, with relatives dating back to Cretaceous times, over 65 million years ago, and teeth which can deliver a poisonous bite like a snake. Other shrews, including the Common Shrew, are said to have a poisonous bite, but this is due to a toxin present in the saliva [2, 3, 4]. 'It is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame, but being touched it biteth deep, and poysoneth deadly', says Topsell [5]. I have not yet tested the truth of this.

There is something primaeval about this animal. How old is the species Sorex araneus? Scientists have traced shrew origins back to the Heterosoricidae, a family living in North America in Middle Eocene times, about 45 million years ago; behind them must lie some ranny-like Cretaceous mammal, as yet unknown. Later, the Soricinae family evolved, to which my Sorex shrews belong, and the earliest fossils of the genus are found in Germany, in the Middle Miocene, c.11 million years ago [6]. The earliest likely British record for S.araneus is from Hoxne, Suffolk, dated 400,000 BP [7]. The site is no more than two miles away from my house as the crow flies, and only yesterday in geological time. The species itself is not quite as ancient as I had imagined.

Strange to tell, shrews are one of the most studied animals on the planet. S.araneus is one of the few species whose genome has been completely mapped, and as a result we are able to carry out detailed studies of its subspecies and their distribution in time and space. Some surprising results have emerged. 30 years ago we thought it was just one species, but it now turns out to be five cryptic species, each with distinctive genetic signatures which directly contradict their apparent similarities in size, skeleton and bodily appearance [8]. Externally the look the same, but internally S.araneus is 'characterised by spectacular chromosomal variation' [8], and shows 'one of the most spectacular chromosomal evolutions ever recorded in mammals' [10]; it has evolved an extraordinary wealth of chromosomal races (karyotypes).

Since 1987 S.araneus has been the subject of a specialist research group called the International Sorex Araneus Cytogenetics Committee. Through the work of Jeremy Searle and others, it has been possible to divide the British population into six racial types and plot their geographies; from this we can work out the story of how the Common Shrew recolonised Britain after the last Ice Age, having spent it sheltering in a refugium area on the Continent, most likely in central Europe [8]. Some of the genetic diversity within the species seems to have adaptive value, as slightly different karyotypes are found in different habitats, for example shrews in bogs are different from those in dry grasslands [11]. Apparently shrews are a rapidly evolving species, and this helps adapt them to changing ecological niches and ultimately leads to the evolution of subspecies and - on a much longer time scale - species. I have no idea which race my shrews belong to, but quite possibly they are of the Oxford race discovered by Searle which is typical of Eastern England [12]. It now seems likely the fossil S.araneus from Hoxne is one of the cryptic subspecies. David Polly's research holds out the hope that we may eventually be able to tell them apart by the details of their molar teeth [8]. There is a lot more to shrews than meets the eye.

Tonight I saw one climb straight up a brick wall and disappear under the eaves. They are evidently bold and enterprising animals. They are also fevered and vulnerable beings, who live with death as a constant companion. Shrews have an incredibly fast metabolism, and when frightened their heart rate can shoot up to over 1200 beats per minute [13]; their digestion lives on a two-hour turnaround, so if they go without food for more than a few hours they will starve and quickly die [14]. I imagine they suffer greatly, passing their short and passionate lives in a ferment of hunger and competition for food and living space. I have often heard them shrieking at each other, hidden deep in the undergrowth of some grassy forest - 'a rapid succession of shrill cries, which pierce the ears like needles of sound'  [15]. Gladiatorial screams of defiance, triumph and submission! If I wanted to tame one I would have to bring it offerings of woodlice, beetles and spiders, and promise to keep it in solitude. 'They love the rotten flesh of ravens', says Topsell, but I think I'd have to draw the line there.

From Topsell, 1658.

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References

1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soricidae#Echolocation.
2 - Buczacki, S. 2002: Fauna Britannica; Hamlyn.
3 - Poisonous Shrews, at: Shrew Culture, Myths, Stories and Poisonous Facts; The Shrew (ist's) Site aka 'The Shrew Shrine' - online at: http://members.vienna.at/shrew/cult-poison.html [accessed Aug 2014].
4 - The poison is a paralysing organic peptide called Soricidin - see Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soricidin  [accessed Aug 2014].
5 - Topsell, E. 1658: History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents; London; p.406. Online at: https://archive.org/details/historyoffourfoo00tops [accessed Sept 2014]. 
6 - Rzebik-Kowalska, B. 1998. Fossil history of shrews in Europe. In: J. Wojcik, J. & Wolsan, M. (eds.): Evolution of shrews; Mammal Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, Białowieza, Poland. 
7 - Schreve, D.C. 2000: The Vertebrate Assemblage from Hoxne, Suffolk. In: Lewis, S.G. et al (eds) 2000: The Quaternary of Norfolk and Suffolk Field Guide; Quaternary Research Association.
8 - Polly, D.P. 2003 - Paleophylogeography of Sorex araneus (Insectivora, Soricidae): molar shape as a morphological marker for fossil shrews; Mammalia 68.2.
9 - Borodin, P.M. et al 2008: Recombination Map of the Common Shrew, Sorex araneus (Eulipotyphla, Mammalia); Genetics 178.2 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248351/ [accessed August 2014]
10 -Taberlet, P. et al 1994: Chromosomal versus mitochondrial DNA evolution: tracking the evolutionary history of the southwestern European populations of the Sorex araneus group (Mammalia, Insectivora); Evolution, 48.3
11 - Wojcik, J.M. 1991: Chromosomal polymorphism in the common shrew Sorex araneus and its adaptive significance; Mémoires de la Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, no.19.
12 - Searle, J.B. & Wilkinson, P.J. 1987: Karyotypic variation in the common shrew (Sorex araneus) in Britain – a 'Celtic Fringe'; Heredity, no.59.
13 - Crowcroft, P. 1963: Shrews; Animals of Britain Series  no.17, Sunday Times Publications, London.
14 - Churchfield, S. 1988: Shrews of the British Isles; Shire Natural History, Princes Risborough.
15 - Wood, J.G. 1865: The Illustrated Natural History. Mammalia; George Routledge & Sons, London; p.434.
16 - Topsell, E. 1607: The History of Four-footed Beasts. 

Rock Samphire

2nd August 2014

A warm, boisterous wind is pushing me around today on Bigbury beach, south Devon. I am here with family enjoying the wide expanse of sand and sparkling sea. Rough, slaty cliffs make a backdrop to the beach, and their rocky outcrops provide a choice of sheltered places for setting out a picnic.

The rocks and pebbles are a galaxy of subtle pinks, greens and grey slates of Lower Devonian age, classified by geologists as belonging to the Meadfoot Beds. They have been polished smooth in the zone below the tideline, but remain sharp and pitted by salt spray weathering above it. The bedding of the rock is almost vertical, being evidence of severe folding after it was deposited. Up in the cliff, the bedding has been further distorted in places by frost action during the Ice Age, shattering and remobilising it into interesting patterns.

The sea is working a further transformation on the slates, steadily recycling them into pink, green and grey sand. This will, in turn, feed the formation of other rocks - on multi million-year timescales.

Up on the cliff, tiny roots are also doing their part in breaking up the slate. Pale green patches of Rock Samphire (Crithmum maritimum) are growing in any places where their roots can penetrate. They have sought out joint planes in the rock, where rainwater is concentrated and a rudimentary soil has formed. The result is a pattern of hanging gardens scaling the rock face, with neat rows planted by nature.

Rock Samphire gives me a pang of nostalgia for southern skies. It looks as though it belongs - as it essentially does - to the Mediterranean world; it is found along warm coasts from the Black Sea to Atlantic Europe. It has a pleasant, aniseedy smell which reminds me of fennel and the holiday aroma of ouzo and pastis; they call it 'sea fennel' in Latin countries [1]. Its fleshy, drought-resistant leaves look good to eat, but reportedly taste like 'a mixture of celery and kerosene' [2]. I suspect this may be an effect of the phenolic and tannic phytochemicals it contains [3].

Rock Samphire has evolved to exploit this rocky niche; I can't see any other plants competing to occupy this bit of uncomfortable, salt-blasted, sun-baked habitat. It is triumphantly doing what it is best at. 

Every plant expresses the special will of its species, and says something that cannot be expressed in any other language. [4]

Schopenhauer's thought leads me to new insights. Living things may be seen as verbal forms as well as nouns. They are dynamic doers and effectors. Crithmum maritimum does what it does - says what it says - according to the deployment of its genetic programming. It 'crithmums' at the genus level, and 'maritimums' at the species level. We can see it as a kind of selfhood - deploying life-seeking information specific to its own kind, existing and acting in the service of maintaining and reproducing itself. If Rock Samphire tastes like ‘celery and kerosene’ that is because it needs phytochemicals to defend itself from being eaten where it stands.

Here, I find Crithmum maritimum growing in rocky clefts. As a species, it is bound to its particular ecological niche, and as individuals these plants are bound to their clefts. They are constrained to make the best of their circumstances, and as individual plants fixed to the soil in which they are rooted (for better or worse) they can only transcend them through effective reproduction strategies. I reckon plants are absolute, blind optimists: they must wait for their environment to bring them what they need. By contrast, animals can move around and seek better circumstances, mate with whomsoever they will, but as a consequence they are naturally prey to the ceaseless, questing dissatisfaction which Schopenhauer identifies as their existential condition of all living things, and which the most conscious beings experience most acutely [5]. Psychologically, I reckon the more conscious an animal is the more capacity it has for pessimism as well as pleasure. Animals in zoos may mope or go mad [6].  

I am an example of the most mentally complex species present on Bigbury beach today - a human being. As an animal, I can exercise existential freedoms that are denied to Rock Samphire. I am able to make choices about where to lay my towel down on the beach or what food to eat. Like a dog I can choose where to dig a hole in the sand, or like a herring gull I can think how best to tackle a picnic hamper.

The onshore breeze is strengthening as the afternoon wears on. As an animal I am free to decide many things for myself - I can change my circumstances.

I think it's time to put on a pullover and fetch an ice cream from a café a few hundred yards away.

My innate pessimism tells me the café is sure to be closed by the time I get there.

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References

[1] - Crithmum maritimum L. Gardening in mediterranean climates worldwide. Online at: http://www.gimcw.org/plants/Crithmum.maritimum.cfm [accessed August 2014]
[2] - Crithmum maritimum L. Plants for a Future. Online at: http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Crithmum+maritimum [accessed August 2014]
[3] - Houta, O, Akrout A & Amri, H (2011): Phenolic amounts, antioxidant and antimicrobial potential of Crithmum maritimum cultivated in Tunisian arid zones; Planta Medica 77. Online at: https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0031-1282826 [accessed August 2014]
[4] - Schopenhauer, A (1969): The World as Will & Representation; Book 1, chap.28. Dover Books. 
[5] - Schopenhauer, ibid; chap.56.
[6] - Masson, G  (1996): When Elephants Weep: The emotional lives of animals; Vintage Books.

Enchanter's Nightshade

With such a compelling name, Enchanter's Nightshade must surely have magical powers. Its Latin name Circaea lutetiana was given to us by Carl Linnaeus, that intrepid genius of the imaginative epithet. 'Circaea' comes from Circe, a powerful enchantress in the Odyssey, and 'lutetiana' presumably from the ancient Gallic town of Lutetia, which is now Paris.

A plant of shady places, the white flowers of Circaea lutetiana shine like tiny candles in the gloom of woods and hedges. The contrast between its large, robust-looking leaves and its spindly, fragile-seeming stalks fitted spaciously with small, luminous flowers is remarkable. Its large leaves seem equipped to harvest as much of the scanty daylight as they possible; its flowers seem devoted to the art of luring micromoths. Linnaeus, who had an eye for the mythic and erotic dimensions of the plant world, has cast the plant is the role of an attractive Parisian enchantress - all libido and lace.

Enchanter's Nightshade and Cuckoo-Pint

The plant has been slipping in and out of my thoughts for the last few days - not entirely sure why. Perhaps it is because I found some Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum) recently in Norfolk, and have been meditating on its name. Perhaps it is fallout from a relationship with a certain lady in which I feel powerless to move in any direction that satisfies my heart. The painting of Merlin and Nimue by Burne-Jones comes to mind - the enchanter finds himself enchanted. 

I came across Circaea lutetiana yesterday in a Devon hedgebank - a high bank sheltered by trees with a magnificent view over hilly South Hams countryside between Harberton and Totnes. It was keeping company with Arum maculatum, otherwise known as Lords-and-Ladies or Cuckoo-Pint. The one a spindly complex of dull green and flickering whiteness; the other a stalk topped by lurid orange knobs. The two could hardly be more different.

I am not sure what sorcery Enchanter's Nightshade can work. Perhaps it has the power to manage painful separations.

      Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night

      In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.

                                          [Matthew Arnold, 'Thyrsis']

Perhaps it is just a light in dark places.

Meanwhile, cloud shadows move over the Devon landscape, and life moves on.

Old Man Ivy

Heronry Wood at Earlham is a mature wood, filled with tall trees casting a deep shade. My eye reaches up into the sunlit canopy where tiny birds are twittering and foraging, and from where unripe beech mast is dropping sporadically to earth through solid space. At ground level,  ivy is crawling everywhere like a lustrous, dark green fog, masking the tree trunks and blanketing the woodland floor; it has had over 160 years to put down roots here.

The wood is now part of the grounds of the University of East Anglia. I shall be leading a group of young students around the campus next Tuesday, as part of the Art & Nature Summer School at the Sainsbury Centre. I am looking for things to fire their imaginations.

I could start with ivy (Hedera helix). It is scrambling over the ground and scaling the trees with its hairy limbs. The contrast between its five-pointed, palmate leaves at ground level and its lance-shaped leaves on the vertical plane is striking. There's a story here. 

The plant ramps across the forest floor in a dark green, immature state, before finding an opportunity to reach for the light. It then starts climbing, bushing out and questing for reproductive maturity: its leaves become lance-shaped and lighter in colour, and its flowers develop and so disperse their pollen at a suitable height from the ground [1]. There's also a story in its thick, bristly stems which look more like roots. They embrace the trunks and climb upwards in a basket-work of ramifying arms. Recent research has shown that these adventitious roots are able to climb because they secrete a glue made of polysaccharide and miniscule nanoparticles. Scientists believe that synthesised ivy nanoparticles will have important technological applications [2].

Ivy is our only native representative of the Araliaceae, a complex family of plants, originally of palaeotropical origin over 50 million years ago, which includes Panax (ginseng), Tetrapanax, Fatsia and Fatshedera. The oldest fossil examples of the genus Hedera date from Oligocene times in Korea, perhaps 30 million years ago [3], and Hedera helix probably evolved in the Mediterranean area in Miocene times, perhaps 10 million years ago. It is now a native of the warmer parts of Europe and western Asia. 

Ivy looks exotic and behaves strangely - there's something rather un-British about the way it thrives in shady places and shamelessly exploits other plants to meet its needs. It has a whiff of the jungle about it. Its mode of life is that of a liana, one of those long, tropical vines beloved of Tarzan which use other trees for support in order to reach the light. It flowers later than most other plants, in October and November, which may be evidence that the plant is not fully adjusted to our present climate [4], but a fact that is convenient for insects who struggle to get late-year food. Its pollen gets plenty of attention then. Foresters are not so enamoured: they cut it off at ground level, in the belief that it strangles growing timber. Ivy is an alien tree in America which has invaded deciduous forests and created an 'ivy desert', stifling understorey and ground cover plants [5]. It has a reputation as a poisonous food plant for humans [6], although my neighbour's sheep eat its leaves with gusto in winter time, and rabbits often gnaw its bark when deprived of their usual food by a snowfall; their depredations are evident in Heronry Wood. Ivy  may be palatable to rhinoceroses too: fossil ivy pollen has been found in sediment embedded in the tooth of an extinct species of rhinoceros found in river deposits of Hoxnian age at Clacton, Essex; as much as 37% of the pollen was ivy, suggesting that the animal died in autumn time [7]. A cynic would blame the ivy.

Ivy limbs scarred by browsing rabbits.

Ivy ramps around in my imagination. Its Will to Life is uncompromising. While some people may find it sinister, I like to follow its deep, Aralian genetic roots back to the time of our remote ancestors, to the immense forests of the Palaeocene, which were home to the monkeys, lemurs or tree shrews which gave rise to our Miocene forefathers, the apes. Hedera helix is far older than human kind. It was was thriving in the forests which 'Adam and Eve' entered when they first came out of Africa; it lives alongside us today in our technological civilisation, and will no doubt embroider our bones when the last of us eventually becomes extinct. 

With its unscrupulous vertical ambition, ivy may be a good plant metaphor for human invasiveness and hubris. Perhaps we recognise a kindred spirit when we see one. 

I wonder what my students will make of it.

---

References

[1] - Okerman, A (2000): Combating the 'Ivy Desert': The Invasion of Hedera helix (English Ivy) in the Pacific Northwest United States; Restoration & Reclamation Review, 6.4 - Online at http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/59738/1/6.4.Okerman.pdf [accessed July 2014]
[2] - Burris, N et al (2012): Nanoparticle biofabrication using English ivy (Hedera helix); Journal of Nanobiotechnology 10, 2012
[3] - Metcalfe, D (2005): Hedera helix L.; Journal of Ecology, 93.3 - Online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2745.2005.01021.x/full [accessed July 2014]
[4] - Godwin, H (1975): The History of the British Flora. A factual basis for phytogeography; 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press.
[5] - Okerman, ibid.
[6] - Hyde, M (1976): Hedgerow Plants; Shire Publications Ltd.
[7] - Godwin, ibid.

And they call the wind Roger

The Broads area of Norfolk is prey to occasional whirlwinds known as 'Roger'. They strike without warning - wrecking buildings and trees; ripping sails off wherries and windmills; battering small boats into the water - and a few moments later they are gone.

My introduction to the diabolical 'Roger' is a recent one. I have been reading 'The Land of the Broads' by Ernest Suffling (1892), lent me by my friend Jenny [Gladstone]. It's one of those attractive, late Victorian books with nice engravings and floridly printed covers. It belongs to the days when the Broads were undisturbed by pollution and motorised traffic, and were teeming with wildlife; when wherries silently plied the rivers and there were so many eels at Rockland Broad that they 'swarmed among the reeds'. It is a tourist guide to the rivers Bure, Yare and Waveney, with particular advice for people on sailing holidays.

"I would council amateur yachtsmen against an unseen danger, which appears to be peculiar to Norfolk, and that is 'Roger' - beware of 'Roger'!.... [It] is the name given to a whirlwind which occasionally strikes yachts before the crew are aware of its approach. ... At Wroxham Regatta in 1881, no less than three competing yachts were overturned and sunk by a 'Roger', whilst a tent on shore was taken up in the air and carried a distance of 80 yards." [1]

Other writers have described this disturbing phenomenon.

"The cutter Zoe, with all sail set, was moored by a strong rope to a tree. It was a dead hot calm, when without any warning, a whirling puff of wind came upon us. The Zoe was thrown over almost on her beam-ends. She snapped the mooring-rope like a piece of thread... " [2]

"Sudden strong gusts of wind.... are known locally as 'Rogers'. They strike usually without any warning, and for twenty or thirty seconds blow with almost hurricane force... they have torn down windmill sails, stripped off thatched roofs, capsised haystacks and taken a wherry's (sailing barge) canvas out of the bolt-ropes....on one occasion five wherries were crossing Breydon Water together in a gentle breeze when a Roger struck them. They heeled over at a terrifying angle sending quants, boathooks, buckets, brooms and all other loose gear over the side...." [3]

From The Land of the Broads by E Suffling, 1892.

CR Davies says that the 'rodges-blast' [sic] is a 'frequently recurring' phenomenon in the area, that it is most likely to occur with a south-west wind, and is essentially unpredictable. "Even if you see one coming over the marsh, convulsing the grasses of lifting the reed-stacks high in air, you cannot tell whether it will strike you or not, its course is so erratic. It may wreck a windmill fifty yards away, and leave the water around you unruffled". [4]

Use of the term goes back to the early 19th century, or earlier. Forby (1830) relates it to dust devils. He says a 'Roger's-blast' is "a sudden and local motion of the air, not otherwise perceptible but by its whirling up the dust on a dry road in perfectly calm weather, somewhat in the manner of a waterspout.".[5]

Today, any sudden, powerful wind in the Broads may be called Roger, ranging from 'strong gusts' of very localised wind and 'unexpected squalls' [6], through 'mini-twisters' [7], 'small whirlwinds' and 'rotary wind-squalls' [8], to 'proper whirlwinds' and maybe even tornadoes.

"There on the other side of the dyke was a mini tornado! It was well over 60 ft high, about 15 ft wide, made entirely of water picked up from the dyke. The wind went from about 15 mph to about 35 mph and it was headed directly for us!  Well it hit us and we got soaked in fine spray and then it was gone." [9]

Artist's impression of a Roger at Barton Broad, August 2009.

Image used courtesy jillwix @ Norfolk Broads Forum

A very powerful Roger struck the Thurne valley in 2001. "A tornado lasting for 15 seconds created a column of debris half a mile high as it swept across the Norfolk Broads in Potter Heigham; holiday homes were badly damaged, and electricity poles and telephone lines were brought down". [10]

An eye witness has supplied more graphic detail: "Over towards Repps all hell had broken loose. A menacingly dark coloured spout of branches, roof tiles, straw, tarpaulins - and that was just the recogniseable debris. There must have been tons of the stuff up there defying gravity. There wasn't a breath of wind on the staithe, but what sounded like a freight train was approaching fast..."

This particular blast is even reputed to have lifted cattle off the ground. Another eye witness reported: "... they said the cows stampeded when the wind started and it picked them up - someone mentioned about them being in the air." [11]

Tornado alley? A summer view of the Thurne valley from Potter Heigham Bridge.

A 15th century devil. 
From The Travels of
Sir John Mandeville (1484)

Rogers may develop in Broadland due to the combination of flat, open fields, warm water surfaces and abundant sunshine. While we can explain the phenomenon as the result of spiralling updrafts of unstable air, to our unscientific ancestors the sudden arrival of a Roger must have represented something uncanny: the irruption of a capricious, invisible, hostile power in a summer's day. According to Charles PG Scott (1895) 'Old Roger' is a nickname for the Devil.[12]  Personally, I suspect our rude forbears explained 'Roger's blast' as the fart of the Devil, who is 'prince of the power of the air'. [13]  However, we may perhaps find traces of older, more complex peasant beliefs in its diabolical status, for example the mythology that whirlwinds are caused by fairies or demons, invisible travelling sorcerers or damned souls passing in flight, or that they have special power to impregnate women [14]. The uncanny and inexplicable is named and personified, then gets mythologised. Stories are told about it.

I saw a very minor Oxfordshire example of a Roger when I was at school in the 1970s. It took the form of a dust devil crossing the cricket pitches during a First Eleven game. It came whirling along as a mini tornado of dust and grass clippings which ploughed through the square, blowing off the bails and the striped caps of the players. They were too absorbed in their game to see it coming. As they ran after their caps and wiped the dust from their eyes, I enjoyed the spectacle much more than the cricket match. A little bit of Nature's chaos had come whirling through the preposterous world of boarding school.

Old Roger is a reminder of the physical laws which frame our planetary existence. Evidently he may have entertainment value as well as disruptive energy. If anyone has first hand experience of him in the Broads I would be interested to hear from them.

---

References

[1] - Suffling, Ernest R. [1892]: The Land of the Broads; Benjamin Perry, Stratford; pp.137-8.
[2] - Davies, C (1884): Norfolk broads and rivers; William Blackwood & Sons, London. p.54.
[3] - Amsted, M (2005): Not so jolly Rogers; New Scientist no.253, 11th June; quoting: Clark, R (1961): Black-sailed Traders - The keels and wherries of Norfolk and Suffolk; Putnam & Co Ltd, London.
[4] - Davies, C (1884), ibid.
[5] - Forby, R (1830): The Vocabulary of East Anglia; JB Nichols & Son, London; vol. 2, p.280.
[6] - Tozier, J (1904): Among English Inns; LC Page & Co, USA; chap.10.
[7] - billmaxted (2006): online in: Topic: Tornadoes?; The Norfolk Broads Forum, Feb-27-2006 @ 7:22 am; online at: http://the-norfolk-broads.co.uk/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=22&Topic=3636. [accessed June 2014]
[8] - Davies, C (1884), ibid, p.265.
[9] - jillywix (2006): online in: Topic: Tornado on Barton!; The Norfolk Broads Forum, Aug-24-2009 @ 4:00 pm; online at: http://the-norfolk-broads.co.uk/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=23&Topic=17995. [accessed June 2014]
[10] - Monthly Climatological Summary for Oct. 2001. Online at: http://www.neforum2.co.uk/ferryhillweather/wxreports/oct01.txt [accessed June 2014]

[11] - Graeme Coles, quoted in: Tornado shakes holiday homes; BBC News, Sunday, 7 October 2001, 14:51 GMT; online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1584659.stm. [accessed June 2014]

[12] - Scott, CPG (1895): The Devil and His Imps: An Etymological Inquisition; Transactions of the American Philological Association; vol.26, p.135.
[13] - The Bible; Ephesians chap.2, v.2.
[14] - Giraudon, D (2007): Supernatural Whirlwinds in the Folklore of Celtic Countries; Béaloideas, 75.



Roger on Mars

• NASA Mars Orbiter Catches Twister in Action.

Jackdaws at Midsummer

June 21st, 2014

It was a fine day last Thursday. Wisps of cirrus and dispersing vapour trails drew a light veil over the blue sky. The business of jackdaws in the trees behind my house reached a climax that afternoon.

Blue-skies flocking

I call this land behind the Bungalow the Wilderness: a domain of brambles, nettles, elders and elm suckers, which may once have been a field. Muntjac and rabbits skulk there, and the blackcap sends out jets of pure lyric beauty in summer. Its eastward boundary is a long, thin rectangular pond of mediaeval date shrouded by tall oak and ash trees. The pond brims up in winter, but soon shrinks away leaving a blackened pit of detrital mud. For some reason the local jackdaws have made this belt of trees their focus for the last fortnight.

Ask Konrad Lorenz what jackdaws have to say. His years of study at Altenberg  identified a range of calls such as kia, kiaw, zick and yip, also rattles and churrs. Kia means 'let's fly abroad' and kiaw means 'let's fly home' [1]. Karrr means 'threat'; the main flight call is a cheerful, 'metallic and squeaky' chyak.
For the past two weeks a chorus of kia and chyak has been ringing from the belt of trees and swirling round the neighbourhood. When it started I assumed that a nest of jackdaws had fledged from a hole in one of the trees, perhaps the largest oak, with much joyous 'let's fly abroad' communication. They were then joined by other local families, perhaps from the grounds of Ivy House three hundred yards away, where several mature oaks contain nest holes.

Lately, all the families have joined together in a rabble of playful exploration. They fly around the estate in loose, shifting flocks, calling to each to each continually, circulating among leafy ash summits and stag-horned oaks. Some drop to the sheep field and forage for insects in the close-cropped turf. Others scramble about among the branches hoping to be fed. They seem to be living a swirl of impulses, like children crying out "let's do [such & such]", then waiting to see how the collective will picks up the idea and runs with it. 

 From Wood's 'Natural History. Birds' (London, 1864)

'Fly with me' call-notes, says Lorenz, are "purely indicative of the mood of the bird in question and are in no way a conscious command. These completely unintentional expressions of individual feeling are as of highly infectious a nature as yawning in human beings. It is this mutual mood-infection which ensures that all the jackdaws finally act concertedly" [3]. So the swirl of activity among the jackdaws here seems to be flickering of moods and social conjugations, testing out ideas and linkages, coming to decisions then abandoning them - in fact, classic teenager activity. I think my jackdaws are learning and testing out their life skills. I have watched a begging fledgling being instructed by a parent how to get food from sheep droppings.

On Thursday afternoon the mood was extremely expansive: the jackdaws wanted to be up and flying high. Loose flocks were forming and reforming aloft, riding the thermals - splitting and diving, rising and swapping, overlapping. I took my binoculars and watched them, enchanted. The sky was alive with kia and chyak, pealing from lofty distances. Black specks approaching from the south resolved into four individuals drawn from further afield, the parish of Eye. They passed overhead, ignoring the largest cluster of their fellows, before breaking down and entering a group. This commotion was attracting attention, and a few rooks had come to investigate as well as me.

There are 72 jackdaws in this photo. Many more are out of view to the left.

Lorenz spent years fostering and studying a jackdaw colony at Altenberg. Here in the parish of Brome and Oakley, I suspect several families have lately been raised in this attractive, wooded corner of Suffolk. For some reason they have now made the land round the Bungalow their flocking place; in previous years the wooded belt has only yielded carrion crows. This year it has hosted jackdaws. I am worried that my neighbours will classify them as a nuisance, and try to drive them away by shooting a few. I can't see the point, as they are very companionable birds, 'of infinite wit and humour, and one that has an extraordinary attachment for man and his habitations' [4]. Studies have shown that each mates for life [5].

High on the stag-headed oak in the Bungalow garden today, a few jackdaws are busy socialising. One catches sight of me looking up from far below and gives a karrr alarm call; they take flight. Ten seconds later the bare branches of the tree are occupied by more individuals. I am part of their perceptual universe, as they are of mine. I doubtless signify 'non-jackdaw' and 'predator' to them, but for me they signify 'companion' and 'friend'. They are part of my community, and the fact that they have chosen the Bungalow area as 'significant place' pleases me. I like to think that they see it as a secure place for bringing up young, a 'magical environment' as Jacob Von Uexküll might have put it [6], though I am afraid a few gunshots from my neighbour could change all that.

---

References

[1] - Lorenz, K (1952): King Solomon's Ring. New light on animal ways; Methuen & Co, Ltd, London; p.169.
[2] - Western Jackdaw; Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_jackdaw#Breeding [accessed June 2014]
[3] - Lorenz, ibid; p.170.
[4] - Wood, JG (1864): The Illustrated Natural History. Birds; Routledge, Warne & Routledge, London; p.398.
[5] - Western Jackdaw; ibid.
[6] - Uexküll, Jacob Von (2010): A Foray into the Worlds of Humans and Animals; University of Minnesota Press; p.119 ff.