FELLOW-TRAVELLERS

People often build strong bonds with well-loved and familiar places. The word ‘place’ itself helps to suggest why this is, as explained by artist Alan Gussow:

The catalyst that converts any physical location - any environment if you will - into a place, is the process of experiencing deeply.

In his book Irreplaceable, Julian Hoffman expands on this, pointing out that ‘places which are held dear instil feelings of joy, calm, peace, rejuvenation, security and belonging’. He goes on to highlight studies based on MRI brain scans showing that ‘signif­icant places spark greater emotional resonance in people than personally valued objects, a particularly surprising find in a largely material culture’.¹

Perhaps because I’ve moved around the country a lot, I’ve found it difficult to forge meaningful, lasting connections with place. Instead, it’s my bonds with individual species that run deepest and have stood the test of time. A plant or animal that is common and widespread in the landscape can follow you around on your travels, even as your favourite places are left far behind. I understand what Gussow and Hoffman are getting at, but I want to replace ‘physical location’, ‘environment’ and ‘place’ in their quotes with references to species, animals and plants.

As an ornithologist, most of my ‘special’ species are birds. I’ve written elsewhere about the Wren. It’s my favourite fellow­traveller, a bird that is capable of soothing a troubled soul almost anywhere in Britain. This species is familiar from our gardens, parks and urban areas, but it will also appear if you venture into dense woodland, cross open expanses of moorland, climb our highest mountains or find your way to our remotest island outposts. Wherever there are trees, or bushes, or rocks, in summer or in winter, the humble Wren will be there, scratching out an existence.

For Stephen Rutt, with his love of seabirds, it’s the Fulmar that offers familiarity and connection as he travels around Britain’s coast and islands:

Birds are bridges. I found Fulmars everywhere on my journey, ghosting along shorelines in effortless flight. They make me feel at home, regardless of how distant the ground under my feet is.

If I were told I could never again visit the local common, or any of my other favourite wildlife sites, I’d come to terms with the news pretty quickly. But if I were not allowed to see another Wren, or Rook, or House Sparrow - or, come to think of it, another Fulmar. Well... that would be tough to take.

A few plants also make it onto my ‘specials’ list, and I can travel further back through time with one of them than with any bird. This plant needs a certain amount of light to do well, so it favours open habitats, but it can make do in woodland provided the canopy is not too dense. Where it thrives, it changes the character of the land. On open ground it may be so dominant that it’s often considered as a habitat in its own right, one that is not welcomed by everyone; there is reedbed, grassland, heathland - and then there is Bracken.

In autumn the bright green fronds fade to yellow and then brown, as the head-high stems begin to fold and crumple. Different individual plants change at different rates, providing an ever-shifting mix of colours and textures. In woodland, Bracken seems to reflect the changing colour of the trees high overhead. And as autumn proceeds, the two come together as the tree leaves fall.

The dense foliage takes a while to die back, but by midwinter the plants lie limp and broken on the ground.

Bracken has some practical uses as well as being aesthetically pleasing. It doesn’t like getting its feet wet, so if you feel the same way it’s a good plant to look out for. On open expanses of moor and rough grassland it maps the driest patches of land. By scanning ahead and seeking out the patches of Bracken, you can avoid the most treacherous, waterlogged places.

It was once highly valued as an easily gathered, soft and absorbent bedding for livestock, and it was also employed in thatch for livestock shelters. Local people had the legal right to harvest Bracken from common land, and that no doubt helped to keep it in check. This is a plant that connects us with our history and the way we once worked with, rather than against, wild places. Today it is still occasionally put to good use by being cut and made into potting compost or even ‘brackette’ logs for the fire.

Bracken helps connect me to my own history. Whenever I see an expanse of it growing in woodland I’m drawn back to early childhood and the hours I once spent playing within its forest of fronds. There was a lightly wooded hillside within a few minutes of home. Every spring, a jungle of foliage would rise up, transforming the slope into an irresistible outdoor playground. By flattening the plants in a small square of land, our ‘gang’ could create an instant hiding place, screened from the adult world

(and imaginary rival gangs) by lush, tall greenery. We’d make many of these hideouts across the slope, connecting them via narrow pathways beneath a roof of arching leaves - our own secret network. The ferns could even be fashioned into weapons to defend our hideouts. By stripping the side branches and leaving just a short sprig of leaves at the top, the stiff stems made serviceable spears, held true by the tuft of leaves, like the feathers on an arrow.

Bracken is not everybody’s cup of tea of course. It can be invasive and it sometimes spreads inexorably across habitats that we value highly, shading out the plants beneath. It produces toxins that inhibit the growth of other species, and it can make livestock sick if they resort to eating it. In some countries the young shoots are still eaten by people, though this too comes with a serious health warning as they contain known carcinogens. A search online will soon reveal outpourings of hatred against Bracken, and contractors lining up with offers to eradicate it. Some will even take to the skies to spray herbicide in order to rid the land of this plant.

There is another plant capable of covering large areas of ground, mostly within woodland. It shares Bracken’s ability to dominate at the expense of other species, and it too contains toxins that deter attack from insects and other herbivores. All parts of the plant are poisonous and dogs are at risk if they inadvertently ingest the bulbs when digging in the soil. Unlike Bracken it has no practical uses, though a handful brought indoors will certainly brighten up a room. What sets it apart from Bracken, and assures it of a place in our affections, are its flowers; a plant that creates a vibrant haze of blue in the spring is universally welcomed, and so we turn a blind eye to its ability to outcompete other plants.

When our family moved south from Cheshire to Oxfordshire in the early 1980s, the woods adjoining the garden had a carpet of Bluebells. In late winter, the leaves would begin, once again, to push up through the leaf-litter, spearing through decaying leaves, lifting them clear of the ground. The muted brown of the woodland floor was slowly erased, becoming green and then, gloriously, blue. My mum would keep a watchful eye on the unfolding scene on her daily dog walk. Any plant threatening to grow up and spoil the monoculture was shown no mercy. Nothing was allowed to detract from ‘the blue buzzed-haze and the wafts of intoxicant perfume’ that so enraptured Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Britain and Ireland apparently have more Bluebells than the rest of the world combined. It has been suggested that the absence of the Wild Boar, hunted to extinction here long ago, may have helped it to establish the unbroken carpets of plants that we have come, so much, to love. Boar rootle into the earth with their snouts when foraging. When they were common this would have damaged and dislodged Bluebell bulbs, as well as providing fresh earth where other plants could become established. If Wild Boar continue to recolonise, having escaped from commercial farms, the spectacle of massed ranks of Bluebells may be diminished in future, replaced by a more diverse (and arguably more natural) assemblage of plants on the woodland floor.

On our local common here in Devon there are small patches where Bracken and Bluebells come together in the spring, showing that, just occasionally, harmony is possible. The Bracken forms a miniature forest of fronds, shading the ground and stifling competition from the otherwise dominant grasses. Here, plants more typical of woodland and hedgerow can find space. There are Bluebells, as well as Lesser Celandine, Red Campion, stitchwort and violets growing beneath the protective canopy - vibrant splashes of blue, yellow, red, white and pink, offering a welcome contrast to the pale straw of dead grasses across the rest of the moor. When the sun comes out, delicate Small Pearl- bordered Fritillary butterflies appear, adding bright orange to the palette as they bask on the Bracken fronds or seek out the leaves of violets on which to lay their eggs.

Our dog sometimes disappears inside dense Bracken beds, weaving between the wiry stems, exploring a hidden world. Occasionally, while I wait, I’ll lie back on the ground, hemmed in by the soft green foliage. And I’ll dream of that distant hillside, and the ghosts of its long-forgotten gang of small boys, defending their territory with Bracken-stem spears.