The Northiam prowler
22nd June 2010, TuesdayEarlier this evening a man was spotted walking the streets of Northiam, examining gardens in a suspicious manner. There are reports of the same individual doing this in previous summers, although links to crime have not been established.
Well, I am the prowler, doing my annual census of the very rare stinking hawk’s-beard that has become well established on my neighbours lawns. It looks likely that we will have in the order of 300 plants in Northiam this summer, well down on the 1,200 plants that grew here in 2006, but the wet summer of 2007 resulted in a dramatic reduction in numbers. At that point I feared the plant might be on it’s way out, but strangely, for a southern European species, it has been aided by the last two cold winters. Slugs do not chew the rosettes in frosty weather, and once it gets to April the plants seem to be immune to their nibbling. As a result we had an increase of 35 plants last summer, and so far this year there are 124 more plants in the neighbourhood.
Time for the prowler to transfer his attentions to monitoring the plants at Rye Harbour LNR.