surprises and weather forecasts

25 August 2015

The forecast for Tuesday was cloudy but fine until about two o’clock so I decided to go out early and have a wander along the Itchen Navigation. There was a side path I thought I’d seen that might, or might not, lead me into the centre of Eastleigh without the need to walk all the way to Bishopstoke Road and back again. From the map it looked walkable and, if it was, it would cut off about two miles to the Swan Centre and make another bail out point from the Navigation should I ever need it. According to my calculations I should be able to walk there, have a quick coffee in the Swan Centre and walk back before the rain started. It sounded very much like a plan when I set off.

Not taking anything for granted I packed my waterproof in my rucksack and went out into the overcast morning. The first surprise of the day came when I got to the river. Close to Cobden bridge a pen and her brood of six cygnets came swimming proudly across the water towards me. How many times have I walked along the river this year looking for cygnets? Truly I’d lost hope of seeing any on this stretch of the Itchen. Last year the breeding pair that had kept me in fluffy cygnets for several springs were killed when their three offspring were still at the pretty, fluffy stage. For weeks and weeks I watched the three orphan cygnets afraid they wouldn’t survive but, against all the odds, they did.

People had told me they’d seen cygnets this year but, despite all my efforts, the only ones I’d seen were close to the boardwalk and even those were glimpsed from a distance one day at the beginning of the month. There were four as far as I could tell and I haven’t seen them since. It seemed I might have imagined them and I was beginning to think that there were no breeding pairs of swans left on the river here. Of course these cygnets were long past the fluffy cute stage and not far off the size of an adult swan although their feathers are still completely grey.

They came very close to the bank, as if the pen was showing off how clever she was to create such beautiful babies. I have to agree with her but I do wish she hadn’t kept them hidden from me for quite so long. After a few too many photos and a whispered thank you to the pen for finally letting me see her babies, I left them to it and carried on.

The second surprise of the morning was another meeting with one of the black swans I’ve seen from time to time at various places along the river. These illusive creatures are not natives. They originate from New Zealand and their ancestors were brought here as ornamental birds. Although most had their wings clipped to stop them straying a few have escaped into the wild and it’s thought some may even have bred. For the last few years there have been three in the area. I’ve seen them in various locations from Chessel Bay to Mansbridge in various combinations. So far I haven’t seen any sign of cygnets but I’m ever hopeful.

A less welcome sighting was Himalayan balsam on the bank near Woodmill. There’s no denying the pink flowers are attractive and the bees seem to love them but they’re terribly invasive and not native. The plants were introduced into the UK in 1839 as an ornamental. Within a decade the blasted things had escaped into the wild, probably because the seed pods explode and scatter seed as far as seven metres. As if this isn’t bad enough they produce large amounts of nectar attracting pollinators who choose the easy pickings over native species. They grow fast and tall, out competing the native plants and  squeezing them out. Worse still, when they die back in winter, they leave the river banks susceptible to erosion which, in turn, leads to flooding. Last year there were a lot of them at Monks Brook, now they seem to be spreading. All in all they were not a welcome sight although the beautiful garden spider I saw spinning a web between the leaves seemed to like them.

All the recent rain meant that Mansbridge Lock had the look of a working canal about it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was? If I half closed my eyes and ignored the trees overhanging the water I could almost imagine a barge or two heading up river filled with coal. It would be wonderful if the Navigation could be repaired and reopened one day and, like the canals I’ve seen in Manchester and along the Thames, filled with bright boats bustling with people enjoying the river. What a wonderful journey it would be to sail up the  Itchen Navigation from Northam to Winchester. As it is I shall have to content myself with walking. At least I can stop to admire the hemp agrimony growing along the bank.

Smiling to myself at the thought of a barge trip along the Itchen, I continued through the tunnel of trees. The old canal may have been wetter than usual but I was surprised at how dry the path was. With so much recent rain I’d expected mud and lots of it so I’d worn my oldest shoes. If the leather of my poor old faithful boots hadn’t finally cracked and sprung a leak I’d probably have worn them. There were agrimony flowers of a different colour between the trees. Wild yellow spikes of starry flowers to make me smile again.

The smile didn’t last long. The rain began to fall more than four hours before schedule and heavily at that. Thankfully the path was sheltered by trees for the most part so I didn’t get soaked but what ever way I went I had a long wet walk ahead if it didn’t stop. For a while I dithered and looked in dismay through gaps in the trees as the downpour soaked the water meadows beside the Navigation trail. At this point I was closer to Eastleigh than home so there was nothing for it but to keep going but mud suddenly became a real worry.

Thankfully it turned out to be nothing but a heavy shower and a few moments later it had stopped. There were cows in the meadows beside me now and I peeked through the gaps watching them safe behind the barbed wire fence. Cows are best viewed from a distance in my opinion. Even so, with a fence keeping me safe I’m more than happy to see them.

There were comfrey flowers beside the path still dripping from the shower. They certainly seemed to be attracting the insects. One bunch had a fly with a rather striking orange abdomen clinging to the downturned flowers. On another, a surprisingly dry and hairy bee didn’t quite seem to know where the nectar was. The bee made me chuckle, he looked almost cuddly with all that fur.

Another furry growth had me scratching my head a little further on.  A big ball of rather waterlogged red hairiness on the leaf axil of a dog rose was strangely attractive and obviously a gall of some kind. Later Googling quickly told me this was caused by the gall wasp diplolepis rosae commonly called rose bedeguar gall, Robin’s pincushion gall, or moss gall. The mass of branched filaments are a chemically induced distortion of the normal growth caused by the four millimetre long black bodied female wasps with yellow red legs and abdomens. They lay up to sixty eggs within each leaf bud. The larvae develop over winter and emerge in spring. Ninety nine percent of them are female.

The next surprise was absolutely stunning jelly ear fungus on a dead tree. No prises for guessing where these lovely things get their name, they really do look like ears made of jelly. The surprise came from seeing them so early in the year but I suppose that’s what comes of having the wettest August ever. On the same branch there were some more unexpected fungi, tiny white mushrooms, each the size of a pin head. Try as I might I couldn’t get a decent photo, they were just too small.

Not long after this I hit the first mud. The rain had done its work and there were puddles ahead along with patches of slippery, sticky mud. It wasn’t easy, but I got through without slipping up or getting too muddy. Soon I was passing Lock House Lock and it was time to look out for the side trail. I passed the trail to the airport field and, by my reckoning, it shouldn’t have been much further on.

On I went looking carefully for the trail. From past walks I knew it cut right across the Navigation path and I was sure it would be easy enough to find. I could almost taste the coffee and the muddy trail made me keen to get back to the road, After a while I began to get worried. It seemed to be taking far longer than I remembered. Then I came to the corrugated iron railway bridge and I knew I’d come too far. Briefly I considered turning back and searching for it but I knew it would be futile. All the rain meant everything had grown faster than usual and I suppose this had hidden the trail. Even if I did find it I might not be able to get through.

There was nothing for it, I’d have to go on to Chickehall Lane, the next place I knew I could get off the Navigation. It was not the happiest of walks because the rain started to fall again just as I reached the turning point. It may have been a good three hours before the forecast predicted but this was no shower. My waterproof came out of my rucksack and I marched head down to the railway station and hid under the bus shelter until the next bus came. Obviously the lesson here is never to trust the weatherman.