2025 Rydal Mount celebration of local biodiversity Review

We had diversity on the land and among the people. With over 60 attending, and a whole day’s immersion, there was a time for connecting and conversations as well as listening and learning.

Having invited all local parish councils, it was heartening to see half a dozen Councillors attended, along with farmers and land owners. Ed Flaxman’s talk on Wissett Biodiversity was particularly relevant and inspiring, involving Rydal. Both landowners (Ed and Alan) with the same objectives, wondered how they could join up their patches of land with similar wildlife corridors. They spoke to the adjoining farmers who welcomed the idea and so it began. Now with over 200 acres pledged, baseline surveys completed on many, green hay exchanged to spread the seeds, they displayed an impressive parish map identifying key habitats biodiversity.

Led by Peter Aiano, the discussion on land use was interactive as we traced back our land use history. We were amazed to learn that the UK percentage of home produced food – 50-60% – is the same as it was just after the war when there was much less pressure on land and far more for agricultural farmland (less housing, roads, industry etc). Ah the green revolution. Peter and Sarah outlined 3 possible land use systems and asked us to choose – very few of us committed to one or the other, perhaps because the sacrifices were so complex. Richard Symes, as a farmer, shocked us by quoting Professor Peter Hobson, who has said that due to climate change at the current rate by 2050 East Anglia would no longer be able to produce much food.

Workshops were inspiring: Photographing wildlife with John Ellerby; bird ringing and watching with Brett Edmonds; the wild flowers, meadowland and butterflies
with Dorothy Casey; Rydal Mount tree and woodland management with Ben Holzer.

“You are about to enter a world totally unfamiliar to you, yet you pass it by every day.”

Neither plant, nor animal, neither fungal nor algal, the enchanted world of lichen was revealed to us by Dr Anthony Speca. I was charged with being the scribe – not an easy task – hence these more substantial notes.

Who knew that vintage Harris tweed was dyed with lichen dyes? Or that lichens are made up of two or more different organisms living together, symbiotically, fungus and algae ? Or that most lichen common names were devised by Americans, but some are traditional and probably English, such as ‘lungwort’ for Lobaria pulmonaria, and dog lichen for Peltigera canina.  Or that a rare lichen Anthony saw on the concrete traffic island in Bungay is Physcia caesia, and it can be found on all seven continents, from the farthest north reaches of Greenland to the coasts of Antarctica. Or that, like moss, a lichen spent 18 months in space, and survived. That lichen are competitive, and when they meet another, they form an edge, sometimes seen as a black line. That they are indicators of air quality and we can use lichens to assess atmospheric nitrogen pollution.

1. Apple fruit tree in garden
   The common yellow lichen on the orchard trees (and everywhere else) is Xanthoria parietina – the so-called ‘maritime sunburst lichen’ because its natural habitat is coastal rocks fertilised by birds.
   The grey-green lichen on the orchard trees is Physcia – I saw P. adscendens but P. tenella might have been there as well.
   These are both nitrogen loving.
   Orchards are an important habitat for lichen. The bark of orchard trees (Malus, Prunus, etc) ‘mild’ in the sense of being less acidic, and the lichen favour the open light spaces around the orchard trees.
2. Ash
   The ‘tippex splash’ on the ash was Phlyctis argena.
   The ‘horizontal’ growth of lichens on tree-trunks is due to the expanding growth of the tree, which the lichen ‘backfills’. Ash is good lichen habitat mainly due to the bark.
   Arthonia radiata was one of the crustose (crusty) lichens on the ash
   Anthony put potassium hydroxide on Lecidella elaeochroma on the ash, which gave no reaction (unlike the crimson red on the X. parietina from its sunscreen chemical parietin) – but it showed mint-green under UV-light due to the breakdown of the xanthone chemical arthothelin (which L. elaeochroma also uses as a sunscreen).
3. The Garden Bench
   Gravestones, concrete, old benches are perfect light-filled surfaces for lichen. They are enriched by nitrogen dust.
   The apple-green foliose (leafy) lichen on the picnic table was Flavoparmelia caperata – it went yellow with KOH due to the chemical atranorin (also a sunscreen), but didn’t then turn red (which would have indicated norstictic acid, and therefore F. soredians instead).  The chemical tests help to tell these two look-alike species apart.
4. Bench
   Oakmoss (scientific name Evernia prunastri) is a species of lichen.
   Perfumes are derived from this.
5. Around the pond
   ‘Chewing-gum lichen’ or Protoparmeliopsis muralis were visible on the concrete pavers around the pond.

Lichen reproduction was discussed, but that’s for another day. To contact Anthony and go on one of his magical mystery tours go to http://aspenecology.com/

The final panel discussion (Solar on Farmland: the good the bad and the diversity) involved three District Councillors, to face the community at Wissett, where the plans for a solar farm were agreed on land adjacent to Rydal Mount. We heard the community concerns, the complex and restrictive process of how decisions like this are made, what improvements to the process could be made, and how important it was to ‘join up energy projects’. Tom Daly, Cabinet member for Energy, inspired us with the example of Charlesfield Community Energy. In his view, this is the way forward, with communities taking control of their energy and land rather than top down ‘projects’ such as those we are facing increasingly in flat, sunshine-filled East Anglia.

Thanks to Halesworth Millenium Green and Wenhaston for their exhibitions of the extraordinary work that goes on in our communities to protect and nurture our biodiversity. I learned about the bench Wenhaston are installing in memory of Serena, a founder member of Blyth woods and worker for biodiversity.

Huge thanks to Alan Witherby for opening his garden for the 3rd weekend running and to a new event.

To Halesworth Ash, whose team prepared, ran and dismantled the event with care and skill.

To the talkers walkers movers and shakers, who ventured in, and willingly shared their knowledge and experience.

To all of you who came, despite the heat and took part, challenged us, and heard us.

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Thanks..

To Alan Witherby, without whom Rydal Mount would not be diverse. To Halesworth Ash, and friends, including Leslie, and Julia who walked my dogs.