Down to Earth

PAGAN VIEWS by JO BELASCO

The only day I forgot my phone/camera was the day I spotted a rare silverstudded blue butterfly on Portland. I was at Tout Quarry Sculpture park. The blue butterfly had landed on a stone covered with bright yellow lichen – it would have been a cracking picture but I was just happy to have seen it. Lichen is a great sign that the air is free from toxins and Portland is home to many rare specimens. There is a labyrinth of white stone blocks scattered over the hilltop. Some are just as they were left when the quarry closed in 1982, frozen in time with the chains still embracing them, but destined never to leave the tied island. They have another fate now. The sculpture park began in 1983 with artists’ residencies. Now there are more than 60 sculptures and more will be created in the future. There seems to be a mythical theme running through the sculpture park. An owl in the style of Athena the Greek goddess’s symbol stands her ground against the Roy dog, a mythical creature of Portland with the eyes of his victims studding his ferocious snout. The blue butterfly seemed to follow me and landed on the altar sculpted in the centre of a stone circle. I went back a few months later to get more pictures but alas the weather had turned and there was no sign of the blue butterfly. There may never be more sightings of the rare silver-studded blue butterfly or the rare lichens if the Portland Incinerator gets the go ahead. Pagans are known for loving and respecting the land but you don’t have to be a Pagan to see why plonking an incinerator on an area of outstanding beauty is an act of madness. Natural England write: “The habitats of the west side of the Isle, extending into Chesil Beach and the Fleet, are of international importance and designated a Special Area of Conservation. “Does anyone think that the pollution is actually going to politely avoid the, west side? It will all depend on which way the wind blows.” The next meeting about The Portland Incinerator will be on December 22 at County Hall – please contact debbie@portland association.com if you want to learn more or become involved.

ROCK OF AGES: A stone circle and altar at Tout Quarry and, below, from left, cables tied round blocks of stone, Zelda meets the Roy dog and the view across Chesil

Celebrating natural beauty of stone, left frozen in time

The West Dorset Magazine, December 16, 2022 43 Down to earth See yourself getting some binoculars

Kevin Quinn is a Dark Sky Custodian for the Cranborne Chase Dark Sky Reserve who lives in Piddletrenthide. Read his blog at theastroguy.wordpress.com

It’s often the case that binoculars are regarded as a poor relation when it comes to astronomy. They’re small, commonplace items (most households will have a pair knocking around somewhere), don’t offer much in the way of magnification, and surely they can’t be much good for observing the heavens … can they? The answer is, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, a resounding ‘yes’. While it’s true they don’t give give the same high magnification views as you get with the possibly more glamorous telescope, magnification isn’t the be all and end all … in fact, a great many astronomical objects are just too big to view with a scope, and are actually better at low magnification and with a wider field of view. Take the Andromeda galaxy, for example. At around six times the diameter of the full moon, it’s just too big to see in its entirety with a scope. Likewise the Pleiades, the Hyades, Messier 44, the North American nebula, and countless asterisms, such as Orion’s Belt and Kemble’s Cascade. Easily the best views I’ve ever had of the Pleiades were with my Celestron 20x80 binos. Okay, so you’re convinced that binoculars are a worthwhile investment, but how do you choose a pair, from the plethora of options available? Let’s start with the numbers: 20x80 means 20 times magnification, whereas 80 is the diameter of the front (objective) lenses in mm.

The larger the diameter, the better for astronomy, as it gathers more light.

I love my 20x80s, and even brought them all the way to Namibia with me (where they got a great deal of use even though we had a massive scope to use), but they are heavy and require the use of a sturdy tripod. The most commonly used astro binos are 10x50s (lighter, smaller), and 8x40 and 7x50 (lighter still). You can even get 2x40 binoculars that can accommodate the whole of the Plough asterism. These are very popular, and their lack of magnifying power doesn’t detract from the amazing views they give. The options are myriad, and like most things, it’s best to try before you buy, if at all possible. The retailer First Light Optics* has a great help desk and a generous returns policy. So what can you see with binoculars? Well, the Moon’s a great target, especially with larger instruments. All the aforementioned objects are great for bino observing, as is the Milky Way, even galaxies and planetary nebulae are possible, as are open clusters, comets … basically you can observe the same sort of things you can with a telescope. In fact, the whole of the Messier catalogue is within reach of a pair of 20x80s. Binocular ease of use also means they are great grab and go options, for when there’s a brief gap in the clouds, or those times when you don’t have the time or energy to set up a scope. They make great Christmas presents too... *Other retailers are available …

XX FAR-SIGHTED: Just some of the binos that are available Picture courtesy: First Light Optics

BEACHCOMBING with JO BELASCO BA Hons History of Architecture and Design

At Sherborne School there is an 18th century shell grotto. It is a good example of where the design concept of rococo came from. Rococo means broken shells and rocks. There was a frenzy of interest in the foreign as more ancient Roman ruins were uncovered. Many palaces in ancient Rome had a grotto decorated with broken shells and they became a fashion statement with the upper and middle classes of the 18th century. The scallop was used and still is used as the oil company Shell’s logo. The company was named Shell after the profession of one of the founders fathers (Marcus Samuel Bearsted) who made a fortune in the 19th century from buying exotic shells from sea captains and turning them into shell boxes. But back to the 18th century. The British were still in love with classical architecture – with ancient Rome’s mastery of mathematics and architecture. The straight lines, the symmetry and the order all appealed to the British character. However, we were not immune to Royal fashions and Louis the XIV’s court was agog with the new rococo style of interior design. You can see muted traces of it at St Nicholas church in Abbotsbury. There is a massive golden coloured candelabra in the nave and the unmissable massive reredos (a screen). These two objects were given to the church in the 18th century by Susannah Stangways Horner. She was friends with Augusta Princess of Wales, formerly of Saxe Gotha, who gave Susannah a beautiful clock which is a high example of rococo so its easy to see how new styles travelled fast though Royal connections. At this time St Nicolas’ would have been church of England but Catholicism was still very much alive in the countryside of West Dorset. Rococo was thought of by some as a papist style as it had come out of Louis XIV’s court and was seen as part of the counter reformation which wanted to see a Catholic back on the throne. The riotous swirls and asymmetrical designs were condemned as frivolous and even corrupting. What rococo design there was in England was mostly confined to furniture – I think you can see some at Kingston Maurward in the Grand Hall on the fireplace. The colour underneath the re-whiting used to be a dainty pink and blue and those colours are certainly the hues of rococo. Personally, I believe the scallop shell looks best on a backdrop of sand but it’s nice to know a bit about its glamorous past.

Riotous glamour of rococo design

SUPER SWIRLS: Rococo-style chandelier and reredos at St Nicholas Church at Abbotsbury. Below: Scallop shells inspiring scalloped edges of plates

The West Dorset Magazine, December 16, 2022 45 Down to earth Birds of a feather hunt for food & warmth together

Sally Cooke lives in Tolpuddle with her husband, two grown up sons and her spotty rescue dog. You can follow Sally on Instagram at Sparrows in a Puddle.

After all the grey, wet weather of November, December has brought some welcome proper wintry weather. Wrapping up warm to walk the dog on frosty blue-sky mornings has really lifted my spirits. It has meant the sudden end of the hangers-on from the summer garden, the nasturtiums, marigolds and marguerite daisies, but as my friendly postie gleefully pointed out, it will mean tastier parsnips and brussels sprouts on Christmas Day. The vegetables withstand the frosty weather by converting some of their starch stores into sugars, which work as antifreeze in their cells, meaning we get sweeter veg. The sudden change to much colder weather is a challenge for my garden birds. They need to spend most daylight hours looking for food and I help them out by keeping the feeders full and by putting food out on our flat garage roof that serves as our bird table. Another important job I do each frosty morning is thaw the water in our birdbath so that the birds can have a drink too. To keep warm, the birds fluff up their feathers, trapping a layer of warm air, making them look fat and round. They need to spend time maintaining their feathers, using their beaks to make sure their feathers are in good order and spreading preen oil on them from a special gland on their back. This oil helps to keep their feathers flexible and strong and provides waterproofing and insulation. If keeping themselves warm and fed during the day was not enough of a challenge, the birds then need to survive sub-zero night-time temperatures! Many birds will gather together to spend the night, starlings for example are known to roost in their thousands in trees or down in a reed bed. In my garden I’ve noticed lots of activity among the nesting holes in our wooden cladding and in the nestboxes I have put up. The British Trust for Ornithology has observed many garden birds using nestboxes for roosting in, with blue tits, known to be rather feisty, roosting alone and sparrows usually settling down in small groups. One of our smallest birds, the wren, which weighs only 9g, will keep warm by snuggling together with several others in a nestbox. Amazingly, the highest number of wrens recorded entering a single nestbox for the night was 63!

The winter fungi with a flaming dash of velvet

JOHN WRIGHT is a naturalist and forager who lives in rural West Dorset. He has written eight books, four of which were for River Cottage. He wrote the awardwinning Forager’s Calendar and in 2021 his Spotter’s Guide to Countryside Mysteries was published.

Not many fungi brave the winter, with correspondingly fewer still that are edible. Yes, there are always a few jelly ears clinging to dead elder, especially if it is wet, and maybe a few goblet mushrooms, those these are not easy to identify and need to be cooked. The jewel of the winter fungi, however, is the velvet shank. It has a very descriptive Latin name: Flammulina velutipes, meaning ‘little flame with a velvet foot’. The ‘flame’ is the brilliant orange of the cap and ‘velvet’ nicely describes the stem which is covered in what looks like black velvet, fading to brown then the pale yellow of the gills at the top. It grows in dense and sometimes massive tufts on dead tree stumps or fallen trees. Its favoured habitat was once dead elm, causing a large flush in the 1970s and 80s, but now contents itself with dead beech, oak, willows and a number of other broadleaved trees. It does not grace every dead tree trunk, but an occasional find that will raise your winter spirits. I must add two more characteristics to those already provided: the stickiness of mature caps that turns to dripping slime in wet weather, and the colour of the spores. Knowing the spore colour of a mushroom is a great aid to identification of fungi. Cut off a single cap and lay it, gills down, on some white paper.

Within an hour or two there will be sufficient spores deposited for you to be able to tell their colour – white, in this case. If the spores are any other colour, then you most certainly have something else; something deadly, even. Rusty brown is the most likely colour of any lookalikes, and almost no species that produces rusty brown spores is edible. The slime, so helpful in identification, is nevertheless a challenge to the cook. It can be wiped away (just about), otherwise, count it as being a useful sauce-thickener. The stem is too tough to eat, so do discard it. The flavour is mild, but pleasant. There is a reasonable chance that you have eaten velvet shanks before, but without knowing that you had. The deathly-white, small-capped and spindlystemmed cultivated mushroom, enokitake, is exactly the same species despite all visual evidence to the contrary. The dramatically at-odds form they take under cultivation is down to them being grown in the dark.