By the Frome, July

[puddleshark]

Sunshine and cloud. A warm still morning. The sun not fierce, but the air humid and heavy. Took the walk from Wareham, along the river, and through the reedbeds.





The first section of the walk is pleasant, from the edge of town along a private drive, through the sunshine and shade, then onto a little track beside which the summer vegetation is running rampant. Honeysuckle flowering in the hedgetop. Bindweed and Tufted Vetch scrambling up through the grasses. And the ditches full of tall late-summer flowers: Rosebay and Great Willowherb, Corn Sow-thistle, Hemp Agrimony.


Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca). Vicia from the Latin "to bind", and cracca from Pliny's name for a vetch.


Rosebay Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium).






Puddles from yesterday's rain.


Common Carder Bee (Bombus pascuorum) visiting Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica). I'm seeing a few Common Carder bees about, but it seems to have been a disastrous year for Red-tailed, Buff-tailed and White-tailed Bumblebees.


Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum).

I stopped by a buddleia bush growing wild beside the track to make the first butterfly count of the summer:


Comma (Polygonia c-album).


Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta).

Today's Big Butterfly Count:
3 Red Admirals
2 Small Whites
2 Meadow Browns
1 Comma



Reaching the river, the track ends, and it's time to take the narrow path along the water's edge. Not that you can see the river. Mostly it hides behind the reeds.


Someone had been out with a strimmer and cleared the first section of the walk. I said to myself, "Well, it certainly makes the path easier to follow..." while feeling a little disappointed that I wasn't going to get to brush through the reeds. This turned out to be a case of Be Careful What You Wish For.

Now and then a Sunday morning yacht went motoring gently by, heading for Poole Harbour. They wouldn't be able to sail. Scarcely a breath of wind in the day - just enough to stir the topmost leaves of the trees.


A passing boat. I tried to take a picture, but the auto-focus on my camera thought the reeds were more important.


A glimpse of the river.






Wareham, not far as the crow flies, but the crow is not following every bend of a very meandering river and will get there far sooner than you will.


The Rowan calendar has reached the month of orange berries.


Corn Sow-thistles (Sonchus arvensis) winding through the reeds. The poor person's chrysanthemum. On a breezy day, the big ragged flowers are incredibly beautiful seen blowing in the wind.

Further along the way, the strimmer must have run out of petrol, and the path had not been cleared.


The path has not vanished entirely. If you lift up your head, you can see a place ahead where the reeds are thinner: that is the path.

But you cannot see where you are placing your feet. Every step must be measured, because the path is unlevel, full of sudden holes and unexpected slopes where it is subsiding into a neighbouring drainage channel. And where there is no vegetation, the black mud is slick as oil - a reminder that you are walking on a bank constructed from finest river silt.



A path of not just reeds, but also Stinging Nettles, which must be brushed past very gently, almost absent-mindedly while softly humming "Don't mind me. Just passing by."

Such a short walk this, but one that takes forever. More a penance than a path. Being so roughly scrubbed by reeds that you cannot remember how long you have been walking, or where indeed you are going, must surely wash away a few small sins of omission.


Through the narrow Great Willowherb Gate.

Further along, a short respite: a shaded section of the path, slightly less overgrown.



Where the path widened, I took a rest. There being nowhere dry to sit, I sat on my hat which did not entirely mitigate the dampness of the earth. (It is a very ancient, and much-abused hat. It is used to such treatment.) I drank a cup of coffee from my thermos, ate a little chocolate to cheer myself up. It was peaceful, and warm, and very still. But after a while it became apparent that it was perfect horsefly weather, so I was forced to slap myself, pick myself up and move on.





But the end is finally in sight. Nearing Wareham there start to be moorings along the river.


The poor boat is alarmed.


Final stage of the walk: onto the boardwalk.


A Sedge Warbler in the reeds.