What is your idea of paradise? Perhaps a tropical beach or an Alpine lake? Yes, mine too, but also somewhere near the top of my list would be a watery ditch.
Okay, so I may be a bit weird, but I just love ditches, for they are mysterious places that abound with wildlife. Ditches are sheltered environments, protected from wind and extremes of weather, and as such make a pretty good home for a variety of creatures and plants.
With this in mind, there is a ditch near my home in Strathdevon that I’ve been itching to investigate. Bounded by high banks, the water flows ever so slowly along it and empties into the River Devon. Where it enters the river, the water is clear and benign, a place where water mint and water forget-me-not grows in profusion and minnows dart.
This was a ditch just crying out for further investigation, so one evening, with wellington boots donned and accompanied by Lottie, our Welsh springer, I waded in. The first thing that struck me was the lushness of the vegetation on either side – meadowsweet and monkey flower were particularly abundant.
Monkey flower is a foreign import to our shores, originating from western North America and now a plant that is quite common along our river banks and by damp margins. The lipped bright yellow flowers are subtly flecked with red and are absolutely stunning.
Ahead, a pair of wings flickered and a small brown bird rose into a hawthorn bush above me before delivering a short but lively chattering song. It was a sedge warbler, who swivelled his head from side to side to ensure his rather grating musical notes were projected in all directions. Somewhere hidden in the thick bankside vegetation will be its nest.
Beneath the swirl of my boots I could see that the stones on the bed of the ditch were encrusted with the protective casings of the pupae of a type of caddis known as the sandfly. Made from tiny gravel, these intricate domed casings covered the submerged stones much in the same way as how barnacles would to rocks on the sea shore. This little ditch was certainly a prolific nursery ground for caddis flies and other insects, the stable environment here being a perfect place for them.
These same insects in both their larval and flying adult stages provide valuable food for fish, birds and bats. This ditch, in other words, was a little food factory churning out an endless stream of protein for other creatures.
A ripple appeared in the water in front of me. It was gone in a flash and I could not determine what caused it – possibly a fish, maybe an eel, as this would be an ideal location for one to shelter and feed. Other possibilities whirred through my mind such as a trout or perhaps even a water shrew. Oh yes, I really do love ditches.
Info
Forget-me-not is a beautiful azure coloured wild flower. It is so named because legend goes that a knight in full armour fell into a river, and threw his loved one the flowers, crying ‘forget-me-not”!
