A-Z Challenge 2018 - British Rivers: 'O' Ouse, Otter

There are several British rivers named Ouse from the Sanskrit word for water. The Great Ouse is the longest at 160 miles but it is the North Yorkshire Ouse with which I am most familiar.

This is a continuation  of the River Ure; the Ure/Ouse combination at 129 miles makes it the sixth longest in the UK. Tributaries include the Aire and the Nidd (earlier Challenge entries). Its catchment areas drain much of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorks Moors.

Map of the River Ouse and its catchment area

The Ouse and the River Trent combine to form the Humber Estuary (see A-Z 'H'.)

As the city of York knows to its cost the Ouse is prone to severe flooding. York is a place that we know well but again I have only one decent photo of the river as it flows through the city.

River Ouse in York - 2006

There are many bridges over the river that give great opportunities for photography.

The Ouse from Skeldergate Bridge with the Ouse Bridge in the background.

Shame I haven't taken any.

I have chosen the Somerset/Devon River Otter because of its name. It's only c20 miles long from its source to where it runs into the English Channel at Lyme Bay on the Jurassic Coast.

River Otter near Otterton

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1771-18340 wrote the 'Sonnet to the River Otter'.

Dear native brook! wild streamlet to the West!

How many various-fated years have past,

What happy, and what mournful hours since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,

Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest

Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:

Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

I wonder if he wrote that today whether he would also sing the praises of the beavers that have reappeared in the river in recent years. The Otter is the only river in England known to have a breeding population of this industrious animal.

Mouth of the River Otter at Budleigh Salterton

The pebble beach and cliffs at Budleigh Salterton are part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

Photo attributions:

• River Ouse - catchment area map: 5 March 2014 ex Ordnance Survey OpenData by Nil j Fanion - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence
• River Ouse in York from Skeldergate Bridge: 30 September 2007 by Chris Wood - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence
• River Otter near Otterton: 30 July 2008 by Liz Moon - CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
• Mouth of River Otter at Budleigh Salterton: 18 March 2012 by Barry Lewis - CC BY 2.0 licence,

A-Z Challenge 2016 - Wildflowers 'H'

My theme this year is wild flowers. Most of us will be aware of the flowers that grow in our gardens but what surprises me is how few wild flowers that I know.


I pass them every day but rarely look at them. Well this year will be different - even if many of them may fall under the letter 'X' for unknown.

'H' - Hawthorn, Horse Chestnut

My flowers for 'H' appear on bushes and trees.

The hawthorn is one which appears early and covers hedges in white blossom.

Hawthorn blossom

It is often confused with the blackthorn I wrote about under 'B', but the hawthorn flower appears with the leaves; the blackthorn flowers before the leaves appear.

Hawthorn, also known as May blossom

        "There stands the flowering May-Thorn tree!"

Later in the year the tree/bushes have a small red fruit loved by birds like thrushes, finches and tits.

Haws, the hawthorn fruit

The common hawthorn has a single stone (seed) in each haw. Birds help the bush spread by distributing the stone in their droppings.

One of Britain's trees is a majestic sight bedecked with large white flowers.

Horse chestnut tree in flower

And of course all of us are familiar with the game of conkers.

Conkers on the horse chestnut

Of course you have to get the conkers out of their prickly case before they can be pierced and loaded on a string.

In recent years autumn seems to come early for the tree - in June/July before the conkers are ready the tree's green leaves turn brown.

Characteristic 'browning' of the leaves

Thanks to the activity of the - 

Horse-chestnut leaf miner moth

It's the larvae of the moth that mines between the leaves.

First seen in 2002 in London, this disease which is not detrimental to the tree has spread throughout the country.

Even blue tits cannot eat all the larvae in the leaves which give the tree a distinctly jaded look.

What a shame it would be if it does not remind us of Longfellow's - 

         "Under a spreading chestnut tree

          The village smithy stands."

Attributions:

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Flowering May-Thorn Tree
• Horse-chestnut leaf miner moth - Cameria ohridella - 22 July 2005, by Soebe, Northern Germany - CC BY-SA 3.0 
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Village Blacksmith

Xanadu to Xerox

A-Z Challenge – ‘X’

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

If Xanadu was the place to be, and in Vietnam, I wonder whether you had to pay for the pleasure with a xu, one-hundredth of a dong. If a dong sounds musical to you could play the note by hammering on a xylophone. I’m sure however that my efforts would not qualify me as a contestant on the X Factor show.

I understand that birds and bugs may be xylophagous, i.e., they bore into wood. I hope that they would not choose to bore into the three masts of a xebec, a Mediterranean sailing ship on the way to Treasure Island.

On treasure maps X always marks the spot. If pouring over an old map hurts your eyes then perhaps you need a fluorescent lamp containing xenon. Bones recovered from the treasure site may even need to be X-rayed.

To relax at Xmas time you might decide to watch episodes of the X Files. If an alien can be a foreigner it’s no good being xenophobic. It’s definite that as a blogger you can’t be with followers from all over the world.

I’ll bet that you are all glad that X is the 28^th letter of the alphabet; think of it, if the letter for today was xi it would only be the 14^th.

There is to be a referendum in the UK on May 5^th on possible changes to the voting system. The AV (alternative vote) system would require you to record your preferences for candidates in an election as 1, 2, 3 … and would do away with the current first past the post system. As an advocate of X all I can say is that A and V have had their chance.

If you believe that this post is worth saving you could always print it out and use a Xerox machine to copy it to your friends.

Finally, love and xxx to you all.