Nature Features

As the seasons change there are many signs in nature that things are changing. From the growth of new plants and animals in spring to the animals going into hibernation in winter, each season has its own particular quirks.

This plants leaves change in autumn

Charles David of La Société Guernesiaise told us about some of the signifiers of the change at the end of summer.

"All sorts of things happen," he said. The ones most people recognise are the leaves changing colour on the trees and the birds migrating. Charles said he had seen swallows and wheatears heading south, including ones that had already travelled from further north.

There are other things that happen as we head into autumn as well, while a lot of plants stop flowering others come into their own such as the adder's tongue and ground krillwort flower along with the ivy.

Youngsters picking blackberries

With the flowering ivy comes what Charles called his favourite autumn feature wildlife wise, the ivy bee. These stripy brown insects come out with the ivy flowers and can be found in the vicinity of them every year.

As well as the animals and flowers some plants start to bear their fruit in September. Most notable are those such as blackberries and sloes which many people head out to pick from the island's hedgerows in what has become something of a traditional autumn pass time.

Gill Girard leads a tour around some of Guernsey's lanes exploring what you can find in the hedgerows and its something she sees as part of human nature.

Blackberries

"We were hunter gatherers," she said, explaining how people in Guernsey had been gathering food in this manner for thousands of years as hazel nut shells had been found on Lihou Island dating back 8000 years!

Amongst the things that can be found growing to be gathered in this way are elderberries and elderflowers on the elder tree. Gill explained these were particularly significant trees in Guernsey folklore and in the past they were considered "almost sacred" and they were planted near houses and dairies as it was thought they would ward off witches.

When it comes to picking berries off the hedge Gill said, "you need to know what your doing" so you do not pick things that are inedible and that for her "mushrooms and toadstools are the most worrying".

She added though that books were available to guide people through what they could find and eat.