North Hill is a small village beside the River Lynher within a large parish on the eastern edge of Bodmin Moor. The village dates back to mediaeval times and is first recorded in 1238 as "Henle"; no-one is quite sure whether that was from Cornish e.g. Hen-tre (old farm) or Old English e.g. hindle from hind (deer) and leah (woods). London's Westminster Bridge was constructed from the stone quarried from this district.
The impressively large parish church in North Hill is dedicated to St Torney, whose Holy Well is situated by the River Lynher. Nothing is known about St Torney except that another church in St Germans is also dedicated to the same saint. The exact age of the church is also unknown, but it is thought to be over 600 years old. There are records relating to a church in North Hill which date back to 1238, though this is likely to have been a former building on the site.
Primrose flowers provide an important nectar source for pollinators that hibernate over winter and emerge quite early like brimstone and small tortoiseshell butterflies - these are some of the first butterflies to be seen in spring. Primrose is also the food plant for the caterpillars of the rare Duke of Burgundy butterfly.
Christianity in Roman Britain began in the 4th or 5th century AD. However there were no known cities west of Exeter, so the spread into Cornwall is likely to have been very limited. The majority of Cornwall is likely to have remained Pagan until "The Age of Saints" - the late 5th or early 6th century - when the Irish missionaries including St Piran and St Petroc settled in Cornwall.
The Ring o' Bells was North Hill's main pub until the start of the 20th Century. It is said to have started trading in the 13th century as a cider farm/alehouse for the stonemasons of St Torney Church.
The inn closed in 1918 after a man was thrown from his cart and killed. This followed an earlier fatality in 1916 when a rabbit dealer died whilst driving home, following a day spent drinking in the pub since 11 AM. For this, the landlord was charged with "permitting drunkenness".
The Racehorse Inn is roughly 100 metres from here (located along the lane to the left) should you wish to visit for refreshment after your walk.
The Racehorse Inn in North Hill is believed to be around 300 years old, originally built as a school for the village children. It was bought from the Diocese of Truro in 1964 and converted to an inn serving local beers and food. The name arises because the money to buy it came from a bet on the horses!
The Wesley brothers arrived in Cornwall in 1743 and began preaching, bringing with them charismatic lay preachers who spoke in the dialect of the locals. During the 18th Century in Cornwall, a rift had developed between the the elite Anglican clergy and the majority of the population who were predominantly miners, farmers and fishermen. The "down to earth" nature of the Methodists appealed greatly and is one of the reasons it was enthusiastically adopted.
All plants in the onion family are poisonous to dogs including wild garlic. This is one of the reasons that feeding dogs human foods (many of which contain onion such as gravy powder) is not good for them. Garlic is extremely toxic to dogs and cats and the consumption of even a small amount can lead to severe poisoning. Keep dogs away from wild garlic and wash their paws if they come into contact with it.
A romantic theory for the name of a kissing gate is that in the 16th Century, a lady would have been escorted through a gate by a gentleman to whom she would pass in close proximity and may reward a request for a kiss.
The Ramblers Association and National Farmers Union suggest some "dos and don'ts" for walkers which we've collated with some info from the local Countryside Access Team.
Do
Don't
The river is the Lynher, which eventually joins the River Tamar. From a rough back-of-envelope calculation of river velocity, it takes around a day for the water passing under the bridge here to reach Plymouth. The ditch that you cross before the main river was a mill leat. Hidden in the undergrowth just over a hundred metres downriver, somewhere between the mill leat and the river on private land, is a holy well. It is dedicated to St Torney and has a well-preserved granite well house.
The River Lynher (pronounced "liner", as in ocean) is just over 20 miles long, rising on Bodmin Moor and joining the Tamar in its estuary near Saltash. The name dates back to mediaeval times, being recorded as "Lyner" in 1318. It is also known as the St Germans River at the point where it widens into a broad, tidal channel, close to its mouth.
During Victorian times, the river was polluted by copper mining waste and during the late 20th century, runoff from intensive dairy farming and an increase in arable farming were found to be affecting water quality and silting the gravel beds needed by spawning salmon. In the early 21st century, a number of these issues were addressed under the Cornwall Rivers Project.
The river is now a haven for wildlife with several stretches being designated as Sites of Special Scientific interest (SSSIs). The river's resident species include otters, brown trout and Atlantic salmon which breed in its major tributary, the Tiddy.
The size of the nuts from wild British chestnut trees is quite variable but the largest rival the nuts sold in supermarkets. Nuts that are very flat or less than the girth of your little finger are not worth harvesting; anything bigger is viable. A painless way to extract the nuts is to grip the husk between your feet and rub it between your boots or against the ground. This saves having to handle the spiky husks as the spikes are very sharp and tend to break off under the skin to leave behind splinters. Often the husks contain one (fairly round) large nut surrounded by several small, flat nuts, so it's worth squeezing out quite a few husks to get the larger nuts. Discard any nuts with holes in (as they will contain maggots) or that are very dark in colour - the fresher ones will be "chestnut" brown rather than dark brown.
Unlike many nuts which are designed to last through the winter and then germinate in the spring, chestnuts germinate in the autumn and waste no time putting down some roots. The leaves and stem follow in the spring and their established root system gives these a head start.
Badgers are most closely related to otters and weasels, but are omnivores and often catch their food by burrowing after it. Up until the 1950s, somewhat prior to the Gastro-pub revolution, many Westcountry pubs had Badger Ham on the bar!
Due to their relatively large body size, badgers are susceptible to the same pathogens as domestic livestock, and so badgers and cattle can catch tuberculosis from each other. In recent years, there has been controversy over badger culling as an attempted means to control the spread of bovine TB. The conclusions of the scientific trials of 2007 were that badger culling was not effective. One reason is that culling creates vacant territories and causes other badgers to roam more widely, continuing a spread. In 2010, a TB vaccine was produced which is hoped will prove more effective than culling, as a band of vaccinated badgers will act like a firewall, blocking a spread.
Hidden amongst the grass in the field are dandelion plants which are more obvious in April when they are in flower.
Dandelion and burdock was originally an alcoholic drink made from the roots of dandelion and burdock plants. In the Middle Ages the roots were fermented to create a light mead. During Victorian times, the non-alcoholic soft drink version was made as a result of the Methodist Temperance movement.
By using their tail as a parachute, squirrels are able to survive falls from high trees. This allows them to attempt risky jumps between treetops that don't always work out. They are one of the few mammals that can (but not always) survive an impact at their terminal velocity i.e. if a squirrel jumped out of an aeroplane, it may well survive.
The lane, known as Nodden Lane, is thought to derive from a mediaeval trackway. It was documented in the 17th Century as dating back to the 12th Century and is mentioned elsewhere as existing in the 13th Century.
Common gorse flowers have a coconut-like scent but rather than fresh coconut, it is reminiscent of desiccated coconut or the popular brand of surf wax, Mr Zoggs. However, not everyone experiences the smell in the same way: for some people it's very strong and for others it quite weak. One complicating factor is that Western Gorse flowers don't have any scent, so you need to be sniffing a tall gorse plant to test yourself.
Wetlands act as sponges, storing and gradually releasing water which helps to prevent floods and buffer river levels during dry periods. Sediment and nutrients washed off the land by rainwater are absorbed by the wetland plants, feeding the wetland ecosystem but also filtering and cleaning the water before it enters rivers.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
The yellow flowers to your left in spring are celandines.
The name celandine is thought to be derived from the Greek word for swallow, based on the arrival of swallows being a sign of spring. Another common name for celandine is spring messenger, based on the early flowering. This was presumably also the basis of the Victorian use as a symbol of "joys to come".
Moles have specially-adapted velvety fur which allows them to reverse in their tunnels as well as go forwards without their fur catching on the soil. It was found that by weaving a heavy cotton fabric and then shearing one side, a suede-like texture was produced. This was given the name moleskin (despite not actually being made from moles) due to the resemblance to moles' fur. The friction-reducing and insulating properties that benefit moles also made the material popular for workwear in cold environments. It is an example of biomimicry.
Rhododendron is a member of the Ericaceae family to which heathers also belong and like its cousins, it is tolerant of acid soils. The word rhododendron is from the Ancient Greek for "rose tree" due to their spectacular flowers. As a result of these, rhododendrons have been popular ornamental plants for over two centuries and the species that we now call the common rhododendron was introduced in 1763. The plants thrive in the UK climate and were once native but were wiped out by the last Ice Age. Being a vigorous plant, common rhododendron was often used as a root stock onto which more fragile but exotically-coloured hybrids were grafted.
There are two hills called Hawk's Tor on Bodmin Moor, one near North Hill and the other near Blisland. The one at North Hill is occasionally spelt Hawke's Tor, but usually they are spelt identically.
Near the top of the tor are the circular remains of a large (8 metre diameter) prehistoric hut. It seems incomprehensible such a barren location would be chosen as a residence, but during this period, all of the low-lying land would have been under forest so this would have been an elevated forest clearing rather than a barren moor.
On Hawks Tor Downs, on the slopes of the hill, are the remains of a mediaeval field system based on ridges and furrows and with cairns created from clearing lumps of granite from the fields.
The low stone walls remaining as hut circles were once the foundations of a round house. The granite foundations were likely to have been set into cob (mud and straw) walls which provided insulation and draft exclusion over bare-stone walls. A conical thatched roof on a timber frame rested on top of the walls. Heating was via a central fire which required some care with the thatched roof - presumably roof fires were not unheard of! These buildings varied in size from a just over a metre in diameter up to 10 metres. Some had walled enclosures attached and a few also had internal partitions.
The fields lie along along a tributary valley of the Lynher. The tributary river, known as Withey Brook, has its source on the moor at Minions near the Cheesewring in an area appropriately known as Withey Marsh.
A salmon hatchery is run by volunteers on the River Lynher to offset the effects of salmon being caught commercially in nets at sea on the river's population.
Salmon spawn in winter in the tributary streams of rivers, where the gravel is suitable. The young fish (known as "parr") grow by feeding on aquatic insects for one to three years. They then undergo a physiological preadaptation to life in seawater known as "smolting". In spring, large numbers of "smolts" swim downriver and migrate to the rich feeding grounds of the Norwegian Sea where they feed on fish such as herring and sandeels.
Salmon exhibit a remarkable homing instinct, locating their river of origin using the earth's magnetic field and smell which includes pheromones released by other salmon in the river. Some salmon reach maturity after only one year at sea; these are known as "grise" and return in summer, weighing between 1 and 4kg. Larger fish, that take two or more years at sea to mature, usually return considerably earlier in the year.
Salmon cease to feed on entering freshwater and having spawned, the fish (referred to as "kelts") are susceptible to disease and predators. However some do survive to repeat their epic journey again and there are records of some salmon spawning three times.
Some plant nutrients such as phosphorus tend to be more abundant near the surface of the soil where decaying organic matter collects. Bluebell seedlings start life at the surface so these are OK but as bluebell plants mature and send their roots deeper into the soil to avoid winter frosts, they have a phosphorus problem. They have solved this by partnering with a fungus that extends from their root cells, drawing in minerals from the soil in return for some carbohydrates from the plant.
Mosses don't have roots but instead have little rootlets known as rhizoids. Since there is no need to root into soil, mosses can grow on stones, tree trunks, buildings etc. This together with their wind-carried spores makes them excellent colonisers of barren land. The buildup of organic material from dead moss then provides an environment that other small plants can start to colonise.
In the fields to your right are the remains of Allabury Camp.
Allabury Camp is located on the north-east side of Hawks Tor, close the village on North Hill on the east edge of Bodmin Moor. The site was an Iron Age hillfort consisting of a single line of ramparts encircling a settlement. The location was strategically positioned near the confluence of the Lynher with Withey Brook. Little now remains of the fort except a ring of trees along the bank which was formerly the ramparts.
The purpose of enclosures within ramparts varied quite considerably. Some were built as forts to defend from marauding invaders such as the seafaring Scandinavians. Others were defences built around small villages either as a status symbol/deterrent or for the more practical purpose of preventing domestic crimes such as theft of property by occupants of neighbouring villages. There were even some which were probably just a confined space used to stop livestock escaping!
Young beech leaves can be used as a salad vegetable, which are described as being similar to a mild cabbage, though much softer in texture. Older leaves are a bit chewy, as you'd expect.
The word "beech" is thought to have the same origins as "book" as beech (most probably the bark) was used as a writing material in which to carve runes by Germanic societies before the development of paper. This is still apparent in modern German where the word for "book" is buch and "beech tree" is buche.
On the left of the track are spoil heaps from Wheal Luskey, an exploratory excavation for copper which initially looked promising but was soon abandoned when little ore was found.
The settlement of Castick was first recorded in 1284 as Keluystok so the name may have had a similar origin to Callestick near Truro (which itself was recorded in 1086 as Callestoch). Given the amount of garbling of place names that took place during the mediaeval period, it's possible this was based on a Celtic word with an -ack type of ending rather than a Saxon -stock ending.
In English we often add a -y ending to a noun to turn it into an adjective; for example "rock" becomes "rocky". For many of the nouns imported from French, we add "-ic" (acidic, magnetic, artistic...). The equivalent in Cornish is to add -ack or -ek to the end of the word. Thus meynek is "stony" (men is stone), stennack means "tinny" (sten is tin).
Although it's obvious that you should ensure any gates that you open, you also close, what about gates you find that are already open?
If the gate is fully open then leave it alone as it may well be providing livestock access to a water supply, and by closing it you could end up killing them.
If the gate is ajar or swinging loose and not wedged or tied open then it's likely that the gate was left open by accident (possibly by another group of walkers). Properly closing the offending gate behind you will not only bring joy to the landowner but you can feel good about saving lives in a car swerving to avoid a cow in the road.
If you encounter a gate doubly-secured with twine that can be untied or a chain that can be unfastened, it's normally there because naughty animals have managed to undo the gate themselves at some point (e.g. by rubbing against the bolt), so retie/fasten it afterwards.
Once domesticated sheep had become woolly, individuals with white fleeces were selected for breeding as this was the easiest colour to dye. This was made easier by the genes giving rise to a white fleece being dominant. The recessive genes still do sometimes come together to produce a black lamb in an otherwise white flock. The expression "black sheep of the family" arises from this and its negative connotation was based on the economic undesirability of their fleeces.
The granite gatepost at the bottom of the field is thought to date from early mediaeval times. This period, after the Romans had left Britain, was formerly known as The Dark Ages because not much was known about it. In Cornwall this was a period of Celtic culture before the Norman Conquest.
If you look carefully in some of the slower-moving sections of the river, you may see fish slowly swimming against the current to remain stationary.
The trout that supermarkets and trout farms stock is the Rainbow Trout (which has a red flush along its side) and is native to North America not to the UK. Our native trout is the Brown Trout which has well-defined dark red spots along its sides. You can often make out the spots when you see them lying in pools. Rainbow Trout are often stocked in fishing lakes so do sometimes escape into the wild.
The River Lynher also has a population of Sea Trout.
Sea Trout have a very similar life-cycle to Salmon, being born in a river, migrating to the ocean to feed and then returning to the river to spawn. As with Salmon, they do not feed once they enter freshwater and after spawning they are susceptible to disease. It is not unusual to see them with fungal growths in early winter, but as long as these infections aren't too major, the trout return to the sea where they recover and return to spawn again.
What is intriguing is that Sea Trout are exactly the same species as Brown Trout, which live all their lives in a river. It seems to be that if there isn't enough food, young trout undergo "the change" (known as smoulting) in which their physiology permanently alters for an existence in saltwater, they change colour to silver, and they head off to live in the sea.
There are actually two different species of dog violet although they can interbreed to form hybrids. The common dog violet prefers shade whilst the heath dog violet prefers sunny spots and historically this is what kept them apart as separate species, although they are both relatively tolerant of a wide range of conditions. Human activity, particularly felling of woodland, has resulted in them ending up in each others' "territory" and they can sometimes even be seen growing side-by-side. The easiest way to tell them apart is from the shape of the leaves which are heart-shaped in the common dog violet but upside-down teardrop-shaped in the case of the heath dog violet.
The woodland here provides some ideal hiding places for deer, which you are most likely to encounter if you are walking very early in the morning.
Red and Roe deer are the two truly native species of the six found in the UK and both have pointy, branching (rugose) antlers. The Red deer is the largest of the species and has a characteristic large white V on its backside whereas the Roe deer just has a small white patch.
The fallow deer was introduced by the Normans and has flat, elk-like (palmate) antlers and an inverted black horseshoe surrounding a white patch on its rear end.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, three "exotic" Asian species (munjac, sika and Chinese water deer) were introduced. These all have quite rounded ears whereas the European species all have pointy "elf-like" ears.
Roe deer, Fallow deer and Red deer are all present in Cornwall and the populations of all three species has increased substantially over the past decade, possibly by as much as a factor of ten. There are also a small number of munjac deer, but far fewer than in the rest of England.
The Romans used to soak bandages in daisy juice as an antiseptic for sword wounds. Other common names include bruisewort and woundwort which also imply use for treatment of injuries.
The Roe Deer is unusual among hoofed animals as the egg is fertilised at the time of mating but then goes into suspended animation for several months - a process known as delayed implantation. This mechanism means that instead of being born in late winter, the young are born in early summer when food is more plentiful.
In most species with delayed implantation, the mother sends out a hormonal signal to tell the embryo to wake up. However in the case of the Roe Deer, the embryo has a built-in egg timer which sends a chemical message back to the mother that it's time to resume the pregnancy.
Spanish bluebells have been planted in gardens and these have hybridised with native bluebells producing fertile seeds. This has produced hybrid swarms around sites of introductions and, since the hybrids are able to thrive in a wider range of environmental conditions, the hybrids are frequently out-competing the native English bluebells. Sir Francis Drake would not be impressed! The Spanish form can be fairly easily recognised by the flowers on either side of the stem. In the English form, they are all on one side. In general, the English bluebells also have longer, less-flared flowers and are often a deeper colour. However, the easiest way to tell the difference between native and non-native bluebells is to look at the colour of the pollen: if it is creamy-white then the bluebell is native; if it is any other colour such as pale green or blue then it's not native.
It may be an urban myth that Eskimos have a large number of words for "snow" but it's cast iron fact that there are at least this many words for "hill" in Cornish:
Granite formed as a molten blob of rock beneath the surface, underneath millions of tons of other rock. As the granite cooled, it cracked, mostly vertically due to the pressure from above. Hot water circulated through the cracks, reacting chemically with the rocks and depositing minerals. Over millions of years, the softer rocks above were eroded and the pressure from the weight of the rock above was released, causing horizontal cracking in the granite. The result is cubic blocks where the rough edges have been gradually smoothed by weathering.
Granite is the most common igneous rock found at Earth's surface and also the oldest - thought to be formed up to 300 million years ago.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum (a grain), in reference to its coarse-grained structure. Granite forms from a big blob of magma (known as a pluton) which intrudes into the existing rocks. The huge mass of molten rock stores an enormous amount of heat so the magma cools very slowly below the surface of the Earth, allowing plenty of time for large crystals to form.
Granite mostly contains slightly acidic chemical compounds, and consequently there is nothing to neutralise acids arising from plant decay and carbon dioxide dissolved in rainwater, resulting in acidic moorland soils.
Granite is pretty hard stuff. It ranks at 7 out of 10 on the Mohs hardness scale. It's harder than normal steel but not quite as hard as hardened steel (which is 7-8). Cutting on granite worktops is therefore not a good idea as knife blades become blunt quickly.
Tors started out as a lump of granite beneath the surface, which cracked vertically into squares and then part-way through horizontally to form something resembling a stuck-together stack of square pancakes. Millions of years of weathering then gradually rounded these off and widened the cracks between the layers to result in a more burger-like appearance.
In some cases the horizontal cracks didn't go all the way through so the layers are still joined (the skewer through the brioche bun to stretch the burger analogy to its limit). In the cases where they did fully separate, a massive rocking stone such as the famous Logan Rock at Treen could be created, or the whole lot could collapse into a pile of huge rocks.
The "basins" on the tops of some of the tors are also the result of repeated freezing and thawing of water which has collected on the surface.
The word is from the Celtic language but is likely to have come from the Latin turris, meaning "tower", derived from a similar word in Ancient Greek.
The otter's semi-aquatic nature has been well known since ancient times, in fact the words "otter" and "water" both derive from the same original word. It has been reported that Bodmin Moor acts as an interchange for commuting otters as the rivers Camel, Delank, Fowey and Inny all have sources or tributaries in a quite a small area.
During the 1960s, the otter population crashed in the UK due to the widespread use of pesticides such as DDT which leached into the waterways and poisoned the otters. However, due to predominance of dairy farming in Cornwall during this period rather than the more pesticide-reliant arable, the county remained an otter stronghold. The Tamar Otter Sanctuary near the Devon border was a key part of the otter conservation movement which has been a remarkable success. It is thought that otters have now re-colonised all the areas in the UK that they were wiped out from during the 20th Century.
Adders are easily identified by the pretty diamond pattern along their backs. Also known as vipers, these are Britain's only venomous snake. Adders are a protected species, are not aggressive, and generally only bite if trodden on or picked up (unsupervised dogs or children may attempt the latter).
In the rare event of a bite, medication attention should be sought immediately. The smaller body sizes of young children or small dogs means the same amount of venom will have a greater effect in these cases. Although a bite is painful, no-one has died from an adder bite in over 20 years and the highest risk is to those with preexisting conditions or allergies.
On warm days from late April, you may be lucky enough to witness the "dance of the adders" (a pair of adders wrestling). This was once thought to be a mating display, but is actually a larger male attempting to drive away a smaller one.
Unlike many species of snake, adders don't lay eggs but give birth to live young as there isn't enough warmth available during the spring to hatch eggs. It usually takes the female adder two to three years to replenish the energy reserves to be able to breed again.
Victorian naturalists believed that female adders protected the young and would swallow them if they were in danger and regurgitate them later. No evidence has been found for any of this. As far as biologists been able to tell, the young adders are left to fend for themselves after they are born. The offspring often remain close to the parents for a few days before they gradually dissipate so it's possible this was misinterpreted as the parents protecting the young.
The name "adder" arose through a mistake. In mediaeval English, a word for any generic snake was a nadder. Through a process of misunderstanding known as "wrong division", the correct form a nadder became the incorrect an adder. Eventually the usage became restricted from any snake to just the snake also known as the viper.
The buzzard family is quite closely related to hawks and consists of a number of different species which occupy different habitat niches (e.g. colder countries further north). The buzzard species we see in the UK is the common buzzard. This is one of the largest birds of prey in Britain with a wingspan of over 4 feet.
The name buzzard is from mediaeval English buisart which itself came from the Old French word buson. It is based on the Latin word for hawk or falcon buteo hence its scientific name is Buteo buteo.
Buzzards are not quiet birds! Their long, loud "pieeuuu" call can be often be the first thing to give away their presence and is one of the easiest bird calls to remember. It is thought that the original Latin word for buzzard was probably an onomatopoeia (i.e. an imitation of the bird's call) within the constraints of what was deemed an acceptable Latin word (suggesting "pieeuuu" would probably have resulted in being fed to the lions!).
Buzzards were once thought to be a threat to game birds and were actively shot. During the 1950s-60s, the combination of myxomatosis nearly wiping out one of their main food sources and use of pesticides such as DDT caused further decline in the buzzard population. Since then the population has gradually recovered and buzzards are now the commonest and most widespread bird of prey in the UK.
A large proportion of buzzards diet is earthworms and carrion and consequently they have a reputation for being lazy and scavengers. However, when they need to be, buzzards are formidable predators. Diving on rabbits and small mammals from a slow or hovering flight, or from a perch, they nearly always make the kill on the ground.
In a natural habitat, buzzards perch at the top of trees to survey the surrounding fields. Their brown-and-white pattern camouflages them quite well so it's quite common for walkers to inadvertently disturb what turns out to be a huge flapping monster just feet away. Telegraph poles provide a perfect alternative to trees without any cluttering branches so buzzards can often be seen perched on the top, unfazed by cars passing beneath.
Buzzards breed once they reach 2-3 years old. During their breeding season in spring, male buzzards create spectacular aerial displays to impress females by soaring high into the air and dropping suddenly towards the ground. The birds then pair for life.
A pair of buzzards have a territory which includes a number of possible nesting sites which can be as many as 20. They move nesting site each year which prevents a buildup of nest parasites such as bird fleas. The new nest is decorated with fresh green foliage.
Pond skaters are able to stand on the surface of water due to long legs and water-repellent hairs on their feet.
The weight on each foot is less than the combined cohesive forces between water molecules ("surface tension") around it. Their long legs space out their feet so that the dents in the water's surface from each foot don't connect.
However, in order to walk on water, pond skaters must exert extra force to propel themselves which if applied to the surface of the water would sink them. The very tips of the water-repellent hairs on their feet penetrate the surface of the water and these create swirling vortices like tiny oars. The vortices transfer momentum down below the surface of the water so the surface of the water doesn't need to take all the force.
Fungi are often most noticeable when fruiting, either as mushrooms or as moulds but their main part is a network made up of thin branching threads that can run through soil, leaf litter, wood and even living plant tissue.
Fungus is the Latin word for mushroom but is derived from the ancient Greek word for sponge since this is what they were thought to resemble. Biologically, this isn't so far off either as fungi are more closely-related to animals than plants.
95% of all plant life on Earth, including trees, relies on a symbiotic relationship with fungi. It is thought that without fungi, land plants could not have developed at all. Fungal mycelium often grows around or actually within the roots of plants and give the plant access to water and nutrients it couldn't otherwise obtain easily from the soil. In return, the plants provide the fungi with sugars produced through photosynthesis.
Full page maps cannot be printed due to copyright and terms of use.