Disgressed

“If a person wants herons, he cannot have fish, and if fish are wanted, he cannot keep herons.”

This observation, and the picture on the left, comes from my recently-acquired copy of “My Garden” by Alfred Smee, published in 1872. Smee was an interesting man in several ways, but he was perhaps best known in his day for this book, which describes a garden he created in Wallington, just up the road from where I live. Besides describing the garden, the book describes the practical techniques of garden design and maintenance, gives some local history and touches on the wildlife to be found hereabouts. Nowadays the area which formerly made up the garden is incorporated into Beddington park, with a pub/restaurant standing on part of it. There are a few recognisable features of the old garden remaining, but only a few.

However, we still have herons, as the rather poor picture below on the right, taken on my way to work recently, shows. This one is taking advantage of a local pond, not part Mr Smee’s garden, which was dry for years but has been restored and equipped with a new fountain through the sterling efforts of the Friends of Old Wallington Hamlet. It may have been a mistake to put fish in it, as Mr Smee could have advised. I’ve certainly seen large goldfish which it appears to have caught and then abandoned on the side of the pond.

“The Heron (ardea cinerea) comes to our water, and , though so elegant on the wing and so interesting to observe, is not altogether a welcome visitor…”Smee remarks, “…It is usual on the Upper Wandle to watch for the herons at night, and shoot them. They are also frequently taken in rabbit traps.”
“There is no heronry around us, although they build on the tops of the tallest trees…” And they still do. It doesn’t look quite right for such a large bird to be sitting in the topmost branches of a tree, but it doesn’t seem to bother them.
“…probably our herons come from Claremont. I have also heard of a heronry in Windsor Park. These birds visit Beddington Park and the upper part of my water.”

I wonder if this is still the case. One of the most striking features of Mr Smee’s heron is its magnificent Victorian beard. I’ve never seen anything like this, but I’m sure he didn’t imagine it. I’m no ornithologist, but I would hazard a guess that it is part of a special set of plumage for the mating season?

[I've had to disallow comments on this post because of an inexplicable storm of comment spam - Peter]

Well, the Hyperborean regions were very nice, and the van kept going (though I now have a completely new set of muscles in my arms, and flip the steering wheel of a normal car around with dangerous ease).

We took a boat trip on Loch Ness (which apparently contains more water than all the lakes and reservoirs in England and Wales put together – so much for you, Lake District!). I quite expected to hear all the old stories, but in fact this was a pretty scientific affair. The boat was equipped with sonar, which allowed you to see a 3D picture of the loch on one monitor, and a 2D cross section of what was under the boat at the time on another. This second display had a resolution good enough to pick out single fish down there, so I’m sorry to say the chances of anything plesiosaur-sized escaping attention are pretty minimal. But monsters of a different kind – ah…

The loch apparently has a normal complement of fish in its upper waters, together with a variety of Arctic char which, no longer Arctic and adapted to fresh water, are left over from the last Ice Age. Although the water in Loch Ness isn’t salty, it’s cold enough down there to suit fish more common in Siberia.

But lurking at even greater depths, in the pitch blackness of the loch, there are Ferox: eight feet long*, ravenously carnivorous (piscivorous, really, but I wouldn’t take any chances myself) and not averse to a bit of cannibalism when the opportunity offers. Apparently Ferox are some times caught in the classic Russian doll state – a large Ferox with a medium sized one in its stomach, and a smaller one inside its stomach.

Actually, whisper it quietly, but Ferox are not really a species at all. Genetically, they are simply brown trout. The brown trout seems to have a remarkably loose relationship with its own DNA: in different circumstances it can take on several different appearances and modes of behaviour. Would a brown trout from some more innocent environment, introduced into Loch Ness, grow big and vicious, and sink gradually into the depths, spoiling for a fight?

I don’t know. But although they’re not monsters, in my view they’ll do quite nicely until a real monster comes along.

*Fisherman’s figure, probably equal to nearly three feet in ordinary terms.