September 20, 2023 • 30 mins
Welcome Home Everybody!
The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening.
In these sessions we play listening games, explore on foot, learn about the wildlife of the area, and tune in to their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. For todays episode we visit Incleborough Hill on the North Norfolk Coast, where a small group of us traversed the rises and falls of the Cromer ridge. Military jets training in the clear coastal skies made sound recording pretty difficult, but we found some temporary havens amongst the din. We also discuss the habitat management of the area, share tales of the shrieking pits, and see the Devils own Guts strewn wildly across the gorse bushes.
LINKS
Riverlands
Incleborough Hill
Homesounds
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
The HomeSounds project began working with the National Trust in the autumn of 2022 through its Riverlands project and has installed two live-streaming microphones at their Felbrigg and Blickling Estates. Running Alongside these installations are a series of educational activities encouraging people to become more active in their environmental listening.
In these sessions we play listening games, explore on foot, learn about the wildlife of the area, and tune in to their acoustic habitats through listening and audio field recording. For todays episode we visit Incleborough Hill on the North Norfolk Coast, where a small group of us traversed the rises and falls of the Cromer ridge. Military jets training in the clear coastal skies made sound recording pretty difficult, but we found some temporary havens amongst the din. We also discuss the habitat management of the area, share tales of the shrieking pits, and see the Devils own Guts strewn wildly across the gorse bushes.
LINKS
Riverlands
Incleborough Hill
Homesounds
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:29):
Welcome home, everybody, and welcometo episode seven of the Home Sound Show.
My name is Martin and I'm afield recordistant teacher. I'm the creator
of the Home Sounds Project and yourco host for the show along with Rob.
Hello everybody. My name is Roband I'm an educator a naturalist.
I work for the National Trust atSheringham Park in Norfolk as part of their
(00:52):
Children and Young People have The HomeSounds Project began working with the National Trust
in the autumn of twenty twenty twothrough its Riverlands Project and has installed two
live streaming microphones at their Felbrig andBlickling estates. Running alongside these installations are
a series of educational activities encouraging peopleto become more active in their environmental listening.
(01:19):
In these sessions, we play listeninggames, explore on foot, learn
about the wildlife of the area,and tune in to their acoustic habitats through
listening and audio field recording. Fortoday's episode, we visit Ingleborough Hill on
the North Norfolk coast, where asmall group of us traversed the rises and
falls of the Cromer Ridge. Militaryjets training in the clear coastal skies made
(01:45):
sound recording pretty difficult, but wefound some temporary havens amongst the din.
We also discussed the habitat management ofthe area, Share tales of the Shrieking
Pits, and see the Devil's ownguts strewn wildly across the Gorse bushes.
(02:06):
Okay, hello and introduce myself.My name is Rob and I work for
the National Trust. I'm mainly basedat Sheringham Park, which is about four
miles in that direction, but Ialso work at Felbrigg and we do own
quite a bit of land along inthe West Fronton area as well, including
several of the places that we're goingto be walking through today. So I'm
(02:31):
going to be leading the walk todayfrom here to Inkleborough Hill and the type
and back. And the title ofthis walk today is Gorse Hatches and Devil's
Guts. I'm going to leave thathanging for a bit, but I will
(02:53):
explain it at some point. Thatalludes to a couple of the things we
might see en route. I guessthat's all I'm gonna say about that.
And this walk is part of NorfolkCommons Week, which Lucy knows about a
lot more than me, possibly becauseInclebra Hill is a registered common which is
(03:15):
why obviously we're going there. Okay, pause here, because well this is
kind of this is the camp ofRoman Camp, I think. And there
are signs of earthworks here and thehigh point that has been used as a
(03:38):
beacon for many, many years.We'll get onto the Roman part. First
of all, I believe the Romanpart of Roman Camp is a complete affectation
and no one has gained savee meon this. But there's no evidence that
Romans ever camped or fortified this spot. Now that there are Roman camps along
(04:03):
the Norfolk coast, but not here. And the thinking is it had always
been called Roman Camp for whatever reason, and some enterprising Victorian tourist guides cashed
in on this and started running RomanCamp tours, possibly with people in costume,
(04:23):
etc. Horse and carriage, horseand cart up from Chromer, visit
Roman Camp, spend your money,etc. So I think that is the
Roman connection with Roman Camp. Theshrieking Pits. Has anyone come across the
shrieking pits? Well? I thinkthe shrieking pits actually, rather than the
(04:46):
ones at West Runton, are morespecific to ones at Almon So just a
couple of miles that way, andthere's two, at least multiple versions of
the story. One version of thestory is there shrieking pits because as the
wind blows across them, they createa noise rather like blowing over the top
of a bottle. Doesn't seem thatplausible really, with the pit being only
(05:10):
about a meter deep. And thesecond is the ghost story version of a
woman, tall, thin woman,dressed in white, obviously very disturbed and
shrieking, shouting into the holes inthe ground. And obviously it's a ghost
story. And I've told the ghoststory a few times people. And then
(05:33):
on one occasional on doing a walk, will you hear that time, Lucy,
a woman on the walk, localwoman was yeah, yeah, I
have seen me. Yes, youknow, quite quite matter of fact about
it. Didn't want to be drawnon it, but so so who knows,
but a long standing local ghost story. But really relating to and that
(05:55):
the story goes that a jealous husbandhad killed a baby, killed them this
baby, and then killed her andthat was the origin of the of the
ghost. We've we've got a fairbit of up and down now and for
(07:10):
people who well, yeah, indeed, yeah, I think well, Noel
Coward describing Norfolk as in two words, very flat. He hadn't come across
this part of Norfolk. And aswe mentioned earlier, so this is part
of the whole Chromer Ridge, whichis essentially a glacial moraine. And you
get these quite steep especially the northernmostsides of the hit the scarp slope are
(07:33):
quite steep. And we're going togo down and up and back onto the
main part of the heath that wemanage at at West Runton here and a
lot of the management management not alot has been done in this particular area,
but has got this plant in mindtrying to restore the heather and if
(07:56):
if left to its own devices,trees invase and woodland forms. Heather requires
open open ground, and so byclearing and cutting areas creating open ground and
then actually cut in the heather sometimesas well scraping back to the seed bank.
Quite often heather seed does is viablefor quite a long time. And
(08:20):
if you scrape back this was allthis is probably now much more wooded than
it ever would have been, orwould have been for a long while certainly,
and there's certainly heather seeds in theseed bank. So if you do
clear areas or scrape back some ofthe soil. Often heather does regenerate quite
well, and open heathery areas supportsome different suite of species to closed over
(08:48):
over woodland. And this site atypical heath and site. It's good for
all sorts of things, including inparticular, I think invertebrates because of the
warmer Essentially, the warmer the warmerground good for invertebrates. In general.
Bare ground is often really good forfor lots of different species. And if
(09:09):
we see some some bare areas,we'll have a look investigates if we can
see any of things like the beesand that will that will colonize open sandy
soils and also reptiles as well.And the site does support adders and slow
worms. We might be lucky tosee them today. Adders are really only
(09:31):
that obvious in the beginning of theseason, so sometimes a bit later on
in the season this time of theyear, you you rarely see them there,
but they are definitely definitely here.Okay, well it's a it's a
down and then and up. I'mafraid m M. So we've got this
(10:24):
is the main part of the heathreally, but you can see we mentioned
about invasiveness of the of the bracken, and yes, certainly, I think
even since the last time I've comeup here, it is really starting to
come through. But we've still gotsome nice stands of heather here, and
you can see different age stands,so this is older heather where it's taller,
(10:46):
uh, and some some in herewhere it's it's been more recently uh
scraped back to her to just thesoil. And on the way up the
up the steps, we were disturbinga few insects, including some green tiger
beetles, which are very characteristic ofthis sort of habitat, so bright green
(11:09):
in the in the ground beetle family. They fly readily. And also some
of the holes that we might spotmight well be their larval holes, with
a larvae living in a hole andessentially grab things as they come past when
they're in their larval state before theyemerge as as adult adult beetles. So
(11:33):
yeah. Also, the other thingabout the heather is it is very good
for bees, so they're all producinglots of lots of nectar for the bees,
and heathland is one of the raresthabitat types. Really, is there
any there's not very much heathland worldwide, and so it's essentially a man made
(11:54):
habitat, and so without some formof management, it would just be lost.
And so it is an important Itjust supports an important suite of species
that you wouldn't get if nature wasallowed to take its course. There's a
lot of a lot of talk anda lot of interest at the moment of
(12:18):
rewilding, but an area like thiswould be quite difficult to maintain just through
natural processes. It's too small reallyfor natural processes to take much effect.
And yet very much a managed habitat. People would have come to heathlands,
(12:39):
it would have been extensively grazed asa common and then people would have been
taking firewood. So it would havebeen lots of effort of people through grazing
animals and also through their own firewoodremoval keeping the area open in the past.
And obviously that doesn't happen anymore,and so that's why management needs to
(13:00):
intervene to kind of replicate those processes. But it's a really important little pocket
of habitat. When gorse is inblossom, kissing is in season is an
(13:24):
old folk saying known throughout Britain.Mirroring the distribution of the plant. Gause
is a densely spiny evergreen shrub andoccurs on acid soils in all sorts of
places in hedges, rough grassland andscrub, and it's particularly typical of heathlands
in Norfolk and much of Britain.Gause is a characteristic landscape plant of heaths
(13:45):
and common land, and is thedominant vegetation on Inculbraugh Hill, which is
classed as both a shrubby member ofthe pea family. Its ability to fix
nitrogen via symbiosis with bacteria and itsroot nodules enable it to thrive on thin
soils. It also spreads quickly tocolonize new ground by producing abundant seed,
although most gore seed falls directly belowthe plant in hot, dry weather.
(14:07):
They are also capable of dispersal throughthe action of their dihescent pods, which
split and twist explosively, ejecting theseeds of the five meters with an audible
pop. Did you get any ofthe poppers? He's got here? The
(16:15):
popping of the hearing, the popping, Yeah, yeah, oh. That
that clicking noise, yeah Colorado.That that's the beetles eating the bark.
It's very similar to right, soI'm looking for beetles. No, it's
yeah, just it's the dispersal mechanismof the seas. They just eat up
(16:37):
and then pop out. In spring, gauses abundant yellow blossoms produce a deliciously
coconuty fragrance, creating a sensorially spectaculardisplay on Norfolk's heaths. There are two
closely rated species, Common Gause andWestern Gaws, which both occur on the
Chroma ridge. They're sequential flowering times, with common gorse beginning in January and
(17:00):
blooming until Midsummer and Western gorse floweringin July and out for the remainder of
the year. Goes some way toexplain the kissing season, saying gorse has
had a long history of human use, where its ability to grow quickly on
land and suitable for farming have madeit a valuable common as resource. As
a fuel, the high oil contentenables a quick intense burn, making it
(17:22):
suitable for bakers and brickmakers ovens asit reaches a good cooking temperature quickly.
The seemingly formidable spiky foliage was harvestedas cattle fodder, crushed and stored for
winter. There are also some oresotericuses as a washing line, a chimney
brush, or a source of ayellow dye for easter eggs. The plant
also goes by the local dialect namesof wind furs, fuzz and furrh in
(17:47):
Norfolk. Gorse is an excellent plantfor wildlife, and its spine served to
protect the nests of linnets, yellowhammers, Dartford warblers and stone chats, as
well as giving the name to thewind chat. Number of beetle and bug
species, including the attractive gorse shieldbug, feed on gorse leaves, and
it provides a nectar sauce early inthe year when other flowers are scarce.
(18:08):
It is also the host for thefascinating parasitic plant dodder, which festoons the
bushes on inquib A Hill with itspink and red stems. So I'll pause
here and talk a little bit aboutthis unusual plant that actually you could spot
(18:33):
from a mile off, covering thegorse on the hill here, and that's
this pink stuff ahead of us.And once you start spotting, it'll see
it all over the place, whichis dodder, and it grows here in
profusion. Probably the I don't knowcertainly the most dodd are youre going to
see in Norfolk. Possibly, I'venever seen it, Lucy, if you've
(18:56):
ever seen so much dodder in one'splace, it's dodd Are central. Yeah.
So it's a really really unusual plant. It's this red, completely red
plant, so it doesn't contain anychlorophyll. And it's a parasite, so
it's a parasitic on it's actually parasitichere on gorse, but on a range
(19:21):
of other things as well. Andit's it's related to bind weed, so
it's in that same family of plantsand similarly grows anti clockwise around wherever it's
growing up and growing over. Butunlike bind weed, it's it's a parasite,
(19:42):
so it gets all its energy fromits host host plants. It's a
funny thing. It's it's sometimes annual, but it can be perennial as well.
It can survive as a gaul insidethe tissue of the host. But
more often and you can see it'sthe some here that's died back from last
year. More often it's a it'san annual, so it sprouts from a
(20:07):
little seed and grows a little uprightroot or not. It's not really a
root, but it's a it's anorganelle that grows into the into the tissue
of its host plant. And itneeds to do that within a few within
a short while of germinating, otherwisethe seed won't get anywhere. But once
it produces a little a rootlet thatgoes into the host, it then starts
(20:33):
to draw all its nutrients from thehost plant and then grows in this well,
it's a bit like sort of sillystring, isn't it. This kind
of bright red, bright pink growthform and at this time of the year,
and I think I can see someit does produce some little flowers,
yeah, which have a well.People react differently to the smell of the
(20:57):
flowers. Actually, some people cansmell it at all. Other people think
it's quite pleasant. Other people thinkit's unpleasant. But see what you think.
And so, yeah, a reallyunusual vampiric plant. There's not many
other other plants that are totally loosesthe botanists really but not I can't think
(21:22):
of there's not many other species thatare yeah, hemi parasites or semi parasites,
but not wholly parasitic. And butclearly we we look most parasites,
it's not in their interest to killtheir hosts. And obviously there's plenty of
gorse here, but there's also aprofusion of this dodder and known as one
of its many local names, whichwhich actually shares with blind weed, is
(21:48):
Devil's guts. Uh and perhaps youcan you can you can, you can
see why. I'll be interested tointerested to know what people think it smells
(22:18):
like. I've heard a few differentit's not. Okay, yeah, mhm.
So some people aromatic, okay,so pleasants are pleasant or unpleasant,
(22:42):
okay, but some people well,okay, good, good side. Well
(23:06):
it's yeah, the books say anythingfrom pleasant, unpleasant to rotting flesh.
I'm not getting any rotting flesh.But but what do you think half an
okay, a bit kind of yeah, maybe a bit cause I can see
(23:29):
that. Yeah, yeah, okayof interesting but but the but the but
yeah, but uh the the flowersearlier couldn't smell at all, did they.
So it's whether it's the buts thatcould be that could be it.
They are very small flowers, aren'tthey. But they are they are fully
out there. This is kind ofthe start of the flowering season. Actually,
(24:03):
I've talked about the Devil's guts,and we've seen devil's guts, but
the other in the walk title,the gorse hatches, and I haven't actually
seen or heard one so far,but this is good habitat for a bird
that nests in gorse. Classically reallythe linit, so lovely little song bird.
(24:25):
And yeah, quite often associated withwell farmland bird as well as these
sort of heathy areas with plenty ofgorse for them to nest in. And
yeah, we may well yet encountersome linits. I think you've been listening
(27:17):
to. Thanks go to Lucy Seelyfrom Norfolk Wildlife Trust, who provided additional
support for this walk as part ofthe trust's annual celebration of the Heritage of
common Land Norfolk Commons Week. Ifyou'd like to keep listening, look for
the Riverlands Show on poppy Land Radio, which broadcasts the sounds of Felbrig and
(27:41):
Blickling every Wednesday evening at ten pm, or you can visit www dot homesounds
dot org for more opportunities to activelylisten. We'll be back again next month.
Welcome home everybody, m m mmmmany aptrip sten s s and losing
(29:34):
stoking about the Assi
Welcome home, everybody, and welcometo episode seven of the Home Sound Show.
My name is Martin and I'm afield recordistant teacher. I'm the creator
of the Home Sounds Project and yourco host for the show along with Rob.
Hello everybody. My name is Roband I'm an educator a naturalist.
I work for the National Trust atSheringham Park in Norfolk as part of their
(00:52):
Children and Young People have The HomeSounds Project began working with the National Trust
in the autumn of twenty twenty twothrough its Riverlands Project and has installed two
live streaming microphones at their Felbrig andBlickling estates. Running alongside these installations are
a series of educational activities encouraging peopleto become more active in their environmental listening.
(01:19):
In these sessions, we play listeninggames, explore on foot, learn
about the wildlife of the area,and tune in to their acoustic habitats through
listening and audio field recording. Fortoday's episode, we visit Ingleborough Hill on
the North Norfolk coast, where asmall group of us traversed the rises and
falls of the Cromer Ridge. Militaryjets training in the clear coastal skies made
(01:45):
sound recording pretty difficult, but wefound some temporary havens amongst the din.
We also discussed the habitat management ofthe area, Share tales of the Shrieking
Pits, and see the Devil's ownguts strewn wildly across the Gorse bushes.
(02:06):
Okay, hello and introduce myself.My name is Rob and I work for
the National Trust. I'm mainly basedat Sheringham Park, which is about four
miles in that direction, but Ialso work at Felbrigg and we do own
quite a bit of land along inthe West Fronton area as well, including
several of the places that we're goingto be walking through today. So I'm
(02:31):
going to be leading the walk todayfrom here to Inkleborough Hill and the type
and back. And the title ofthis walk today is Gorse Hatches and Devil's
Guts. I'm going to leave thathanging for a bit, but I will
(02:53):
explain it at some point. Thatalludes to a couple of the things we
might see en route. I guessthat's all I'm gonna say about that.
And this walk is part of NorfolkCommons Week, which Lucy knows about a
lot more than me, possibly becauseInclebra Hill is a registered common which is
(03:15):
why obviously we're going there. Okay, pause here, because well this is
kind of this is the camp ofRoman Camp, I think. And there
are signs of earthworks here and thehigh point that has been used as a
(03:38):
beacon for many, many years.We'll get onto the Roman part. First
of all, I believe the Romanpart of Roman Camp is a complete affectation
and no one has gained savee meon this. But there's no evidence that
Romans ever camped or fortified this spot. Now that there are Roman camps along
(04:03):
the Norfolk coast, but not here. And the thinking is it had always
been called Roman Camp for whatever reason, and some enterprising Victorian tourist guides cashed
in on this and started running RomanCamp tours, possibly with people in costume,
(04:23):
etc. Horse and carriage, horseand cart up from Chromer, visit
Roman Camp, spend your money,etc. So I think that is the
Roman connection with Roman Camp. Theshrieking Pits. Has anyone come across the
shrieking pits? Well? I thinkthe shrieking pits actually, rather than the
(04:46):
ones at West Runton, are morespecific to ones at Almon So just a
couple of miles that way, andthere's two, at least multiple versions of
the story. One version of thestory is there shrieking pits because as the
wind blows across them, they createa noise rather like blowing over the top
of a bottle. Doesn't seem thatplausible really, with the pit being only
(05:10):
about a meter deep. And thesecond is the ghost story version of a
woman, tall, thin woman,dressed in white, obviously very disturbed and
shrieking, shouting into the holes inthe ground. And obviously it's a ghost
story. And I've told the ghoststory a few times people. And then
(05:33):
on one occasional on doing a walk, will you hear that time, Lucy,
a woman on the walk, localwoman was yeah, yeah, I
have seen me. Yes, youknow, quite quite matter of fact about
it. Didn't want to be drawnon it, but so so who knows,
but a long standing local ghost story. But really relating to and that
(05:55):
the story goes that a jealous husbandhad killed a baby, killed them this
baby, and then killed her andthat was the origin of the of the
ghost. We've we've got a fairbit of up and down now and for
(07:10):
people who well, yeah, indeed, yeah, I think well, Noel
Coward describing Norfolk as in two words, very flat. He hadn't come across
this part of Norfolk. And aswe mentioned earlier, so this is part
of the whole Chromer Ridge, whichis essentially a glacial moraine. And you
get these quite steep especially the northernmostsides of the hit the scarp slope are
(07:33):
quite steep. And we're going togo down and up and back onto the
main part of the heath that wemanage at at West Runton here and a
lot of the management management not alot has been done in this particular area,
but has got this plant in mindtrying to restore the heather and if
(07:56):
if left to its own devices,trees invase and woodland forms. Heather requires
open open ground, and so byclearing and cutting areas creating open ground and
then actually cut in the heather sometimesas well scraping back to the seed bank.
Quite often heather seed does is viablefor quite a long time. And
(08:20):
if you scrape back this was allthis is probably now much more wooded than
it ever would have been, orwould have been for a long while certainly,
and there's certainly heather seeds in theseed bank. So if you do
clear areas or scrape back some ofthe soil. Often heather does regenerate quite
well, and open heathery areas supportsome different suite of species to closed over
(08:48):
over woodland. And this site atypical heath and site. It's good for
all sorts of things, including inparticular, I think invertebrates because of the
warmer Essentially, the warmer the warmerground good for invertebrates. In general.
Bare ground is often really good forfor lots of different species. And if
(09:09):
we see some some bare areas,we'll have a look investigates if we can
see any of things like the beesand that will that will colonize open sandy
soils and also reptiles as well.And the site does support adders and slow
worms. We might be lucky tosee them today. Adders are really only
(09:31):
that obvious in the beginning of theseason, so sometimes a bit later on
in the season this time of theyear, you you rarely see them there,
but they are definitely definitely here.Okay, well it's a it's a
down and then and up. I'mafraid m M. So we've got this
(10:24):
is the main part of the heathreally, but you can see we mentioned
about invasiveness of the of the bracken, and yes, certainly, I think
even since the last time I've comeup here, it is really starting to
come through. But we've still gotsome nice stands of heather here, and
you can see different age stands,so this is older heather where it's taller,
(10:46):
uh, and some some in herewhere it's it's been more recently uh
scraped back to her to just thesoil. And on the way up the
up the steps, we were disturbinga few insects, including some green tiger
beetles, which are very characteristic ofthis sort of habitat, so bright green
(11:09):
in the in the ground beetle family. They fly readily. And also some
of the holes that we might spotmight well be their larval holes, with
a larvae living in a hole andessentially grab things as they come past when
they're in their larval state before theyemerge as as adult adult beetles. So
(11:33):
yeah. Also, the other thingabout the heather is it is very good
for bees, so they're all producinglots of lots of nectar for the bees,
and heathland is one of the raresthabitat types. Really, is there
any there's not very much heathland worldwide, and so it's essentially a man made
(11:54):
habitat, and so without some formof management, it would just be lost.
And so it is an important Itjust supports an important suite of species
that you wouldn't get if nature wasallowed to take its course. There's a
lot of a lot of talk anda lot of interest at the moment of
(12:18):
rewilding, but an area like thiswould be quite difficult to maintain just through
natural processes. It's too small reallyfor natural processes to take much effect.
And yet very much a managed habitat. People would have come to heathlands,
(12:39):
it would have been extensively grazed asa common and then people would have been
taking firewood. So it would havebeen lots of effort of people through grazing
animals and also through their own firewoodremoval keeping the area open in the past.
And obviously that doesn't happen anymore,and so that's why management needs to
(13:00):
intervene to kind of replicate those processes. But it's a really important little pocket
of habitat. When gorse is inblossom, kissing is in season is an
(13:24):
old folk saying known throughout Britain.Mirroring the distribution of the plant. Gause
is a densely spiny evergreen shrub andoccurs on acid soils in all sorts of
places in hedges, rough grassland andscrub, and it's particularly typical of heathlands
in Norfolk and much of Britain.Gause is a characteristic landscape plant of heaths
(13:45):
and common land, and is thedominant vegetation on Inculbraugh Hill, which is
classed as both a shrubby member ofthe pea family. Its ability to fix
nitrogen via symbiosis with bacteria and itsroot nodules enable it to thrive on thin
soils. It also spreads quickly tocolonize new ground by producing abundant seed,
although most gore seed falls directly belowthe plant in hot, dry weather.
(14:07):
They are also capable of dispersal throughthe action of their dihescent pods, which
split and twist explosively, ejecting theseeds of the five meters with an audible
pop. Did you get any ofthe poppers? He's got here? The
(16:15):
popping of the hearing, the popping, Yeah, yeah, oh. That
that clicking noise, yeah Colorado.That that's the beetles eating the bark.
It's very similar to right, soI'm looking for beetles. No, it's
yeah, just it's the dispersal mechanismof the seas. They just eat up
(16:37):
and then pop out. In spring, gauses abundant yellow blossoms produce a deliciously
coconuty fragrance, creating a sensorially spectaculardisplay on Norfolk's heaths. There are two
closely rated species, Common Gause andWestern Gaws, which both occur on the
Chroma ridge. They're sequential flowering times, with common gorse beginning in January and
(17:00):
blooming until Midsummer and Western gorse floweringin July and out for the remainder of
the year. Goes some way toexplain the kissing season, saying gorse has
had a long history of human use, where its ability to grow quickly on
land and suitable for farming have madeit a valuable common as resource. As
a fuel, the high oil contentenables a quick intense burn, making it
(17:22):
suitable for bakers and brickmakers ovens asit reaches a good cooking temperature quickly.
The seemingly formidable spiky foliage was harvestedas cattle fodder, crushed and stored for
winter. There are also some oresotericuses as a washing line, a chimney
brush, or a source of ayellow dye for easter eggs. The plant
also goes by the local dialect namesof wind furs, fuzz and furrh in
(17:47):
Norfolk. Gorse is an excellent plantfor wildlife, and its spine served to
protect the nests of linnets, yellowhammers, Dartford warblers and stone chats, as
well as giving the name to thewind chat. Number of beetle and bug
species, including the attractive gorse shieldbug, feed on gorse leaves, and
it provides a nectar sauce early inthe year when other flowers are scarce.
(18:08):
It is also the host for thefascinating parasitic plant dodder, which festoons the
bushes on inquib A Hill with itspink and red stems. So I'll pause
here and talk a little bit aboutthis unusual plant that actually you could spot
(18:33):
from a mile off, covering thegorse on the hill here, and that's
this pink stuff ahead of us.And once you start spotting, it'll see
it all over the place, whichis dodder, and it grows here in
profusion. Probably the I don't knowcertainly the most dodd are youre going to
see in Norfolk. Possibly, I'venever seen it, Lucy, if you've
(18:56):
ever seen so much dodder in one'splace, it's dodd Are central. Yeah.
So it's a really really unusual plant. It's this red, completely red
plant, so it doesn't contain anychlorophyll. And it's a parasite, so
it's a parasitic on it's actually parasitichere on gorse, but on a range
(19:21):
of other things as well. Andit's it's related to bind weed, so
it's in that same family of plantsand similarly grows anti clockwise around wherever it's
growing up and growing over. Butunlike bind weed, it's it's a parasite,
(19:42):
so it gets all its energy fromits host host plants. It's a
funny thing. It's it's sometimes annual, but it can be perennial as well.
It can survive as a gaul insidethe tissue of the host. But
more often and you can see it'sthe some here that's died back from last
year. More often it's a it'san annual, so it sprouts from a
(20:07):
little seed and grows a little uprightroot or not. It's not really a
root, but it's a it's anorganelle that grows into the into the tissue
of its host plant. And itneeds to do that within a few within
a short while of germinating, otherwisethe seed won't get anywhere. But once
it produces a little a rootlet thatgoes into the host, it then starts
(20:33):
to draw all its nutrients from thehost plant and then grows in this well,
it's a bit like sort of sillystring, isn't it. This kind
of bright red, bright pink growthform and at this time of the year,
and I think I can see someit does produce some little flowers,
yeah, which have a well.People react differently to the smell of the
(20:57):
flowers. Actually, some people cansmell it at all. Other people think
it's quite pleasant. Other people thinkit's unpleasant. But see what you think.
And so, yeah, a reallyunusual vampiric plant. There's not many
other other plants that are totally loosesthe botanists really but not I can't think
(21:22):
of there's not many other species thatare yeah, hemi parasites or semi parasites,
but not wholly parasitic. And butclearly we we look most parasites,
it's not in their interest to killtheir hosts. And obviously there's plenty of
gorse here, but there's also aprofusion of this dodder and known as one
of its many local names, whichwhich actually shares with blind weed, is
(21:48):
Devil's guts. Uh and perhaps youcan you can you can, you can
see why. I'll be interested tointerested to know what people think it smells
(22:18):
like. I've heard a few differentit's not. Okay, yeah, mhm.
So some people aromatic, okay,so pleasants are pleasant or unpleasant,
(22:42):
okay, but some people well,okay, good, good side. Well
(23:06):
it's yeah, the books say anythingfrom pleasant, unpleasant to rotting flesh.
I'm not getting any rotting flesh.But but what do you think half an
okay, a bit kind of yeah, maybe a bit cause I can see
(23:29):
that. Yeah, yeah, okayof interesting but but the but the but
yeah, but uh the the flowersearlier couldn't smell at all, did they.
So it's whether it's the buts thatcould be that could be it.
They are very small flowers, aren'tthey. But they are they are fully
out there. This is kind ofthe start of the flowering season. Actually,
(24:03):
I've talked about the Devil's guts,and we've seen devil's guts, but
the other in the walk title,the gorse hatches, and I haven't actually
seen or heard one so far,but this is good habitat for a bird
that nests in gorse. Classically reallythe linit, so lovely little song bird.
(24:25):
And yeah, quite often associated withwell farmland bird as well as these
sort of heathy areas with plenty ofgorse for them to nest in. And
yeah, we may well yet encountersome linits. I think you've been listening
(27:17):
to. Thanks go to Lucy Seelyfrom Norfolk Wildlife Trust, who provided additional
support for this walk as part ofthe trust's annual celebration of the Heritage of
common Land Norfolk Commons Week. Ifyou'd like to keep listening, look for
the Riverlands Show on poppy Land Radio, which broadcasts the sounds of Felbrig and
(27:41):
Blickling every Wednesday evening at ten pm, or you can visit www dot homesounds
dot org for more opportunities to activelylisten. We'll be back again next month.
Welcome home everybody, m m mmmmany aptrip sten s s and losing
(29:34):
stoking about the Assi
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