💾 Archived View for magda.cities.yesterweb.org › observations › locations.gmi captured on 2024-05-26 at 14:50:35. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2024-03-21)
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My home, the north-eastern part of a valley with a moderate climate and continental climate influences, is a particularly interesting area hosting a wide variety of biotopes in various shapes. The vast majority do not fit common ecologicial classifications and do not tend to be larger than 1 hectare, with all of them largely being surrounded by intensively-managed fields. Despite both the climate naturally switching between arid and humid seasons – and, depending on the year, quite drastically at times – and the rather huge amount of agriculture nearby, those "islands" still offer a safe haven for at least some flora and fauna species.
My usual route encompasses approximately 1 kilometer, yet from time to time I expand my usual route and visit other areas, though less frequently.
Each description is kept very brief and superficial, as not all parts of each section are reachable and, in some cases, are rather "unstable" and thus prone to fast changes. Each description was written in 2023 and are based on two years of data collection.
Back in 2018, I decided to create a tiny garden within my yard alongside the facades of my home. Over the years I began to collect seeds of wild flowers, while other wild plants such as the stinging nettle and the rare columbine began to grow randomly. A plant much loved by hummingbird hawk moths and death's head hawk moths is the suncup, which I successfully planted myself. The stinging nettle is a popular spot for nettle-loving butterflies to lay their eggs on and it already has attracted female red admirals and maps. As some plants are vulnerable to powdery mildrew, the 22-spot ladybird also calls my yard its home.
By sheer accident, my improvised greenhouse next to the yard has also attracted a variety of insects and spiders, most notably both the small and the large cabbage butterfly, the American house spider, the cross spider and the wasp spider. A small compost not only attracts many worms but also vineyard snails that grow considerably larger than those I spot in the wild.
During one of its "invasion years", a painted lagy made a surprise visit in my yard, which only was a year old and hosted no wild flowers but a few columbines at that time.
As I pass several vastly different, albeit considerably small biotopes during my walk, this list would become too long and redundant, so instead each small area is part of a larger zone consisting of similar areas bordering each other. "Similar" within this context refers to the area's species composition.
This private property tends to vary in biodiversity, depending on the year and season. When either or both are blooming or being ready to harvest, it usually only attracts whites, however it's also possible to spot a rare yellow and the common blue. It only partially overlaps with the following zone, hence its own description.
Despite maps claiming that it's got a vastly different name, locals only ever refer it to the "cherry hill" due to its old meadow orchards. While the top of the hill is being intensively used, the hillsides consists of one hay meadow that sees a little more traditional management, a tiny forest mostly dominated by maple and an abandoned meadow orchid bordering a smaller, still maintained meadow orchid on the hill's southern side. Even further south, right at the edge of the hill, is an abandoned hay meadow that is dominated chicory. Few spots are covered in oregano, boar thistle, hay flower, common melilot, burdock, horseshoe vetch and cypress spurge.
Although the hill itself is much larger, only its western- and southernmost brinks can be accessed from my route, which follows an official asphalt bike way. The section of this way passing the western side of the cherry hill is scrubby.
In the season of 2024, David is practicing crop rotation, thus parts of the following description only apply to 2022 and 2023.
An important note regarding Zone II at the end of log 14 March, 2024
Just next to the still-maintained hay meadow, the bike way cuts through a junction connecting another path to the main one. Right in the middle of this junction is a solitary bush, effectively turning the junction into a tiny roundabout. The bike way briefly follows alongside a small stream, the "meadow stream", that cannot be seen without peaking through the silver-leaved poplar on the westernmost edge of the bridge, wheras the dirt path follows another stream, the "deer stream".
Both paths and streams make up the border of property owned by a villager, which my parents never call by his actual name for no particular reason. David maintains three fields exclusively cultivating lacy phacelia, fodder beet and alfalfa, each having its own very tiny but permanent section. The entire area is protected from winds by hawthorn, willows, a single elder, one aspen, two cherry trees of varying ages, chestnuts, and a few plum trees bordering the western side of the stream following the dirt path. Eleven fruit trees grow between the fields, which borders a larger corn field to the north.
During most of the year it's possible to walk alongside the deer stream from both sides, where I recently (early 2023) managed to discover two old sallows and a Canadian poplar of respectable size.
⅓ of the remaining path, which leads to a nearby village, is mostly surrounded by ash maple and black cherries, each end of the row hosting a black poplar.
To the southwest of the junction, following the grassy dirt path back to the village, this area is noticelably wetter due to a pond on the right side of the path and a small cow meadow to the left. The pond, which used to be a fire-fighting pond until the 90's, now belongs to a former resident of the village less than 100 meters away from said pond. Their father used to be the previous owner and they have taken it upon themself to renaturalize it. After roughly 20 years, and largely only due to being surrounded by a variety of trees, the pond's slowly developing swamp-like characteristics in its northern area. Various water-loving birds now use the pond as a breeding spot. The rest of the path follows the cow meadow and a wheat field.
During some weeks across the year, it's possible to follow the stream next to the pond and instantly reach a grassy path and a small, intentionally abandoned cottage owned by the same person maintaining the pond. They decided to not rebuild it in order to make it a living space for insects and spiders, so anyone interested is allowed to enter the open part of the cottage.
Further up to the northwest, some villagers began to dump their garden waste on an empty spot next to a rubble pile. Albeit right next to an intensively managed field, this tiny spot is filled with escaped garden plants, including eastern larkspur, doubtful knight's-spur, featherfew, dill and garden cosmos. The northernmost part of the pile is covered in glossy-leaved orache. A walnut tree surrounded by stinging nettles and black horehound marks the end of this path.
The grassy path crosses and largely follows the deer stream to the village. One side is covered in a row of trees, most notably willows, which separates the stream from the fields west from it.
There are some other places I often but not regularly check out. Some offer little differences regarding species composition, some offer none at all, whereas others simply are too far away from me and offer little shade to take a longer walk.
West to Zone III is a combined car repair and agricultural enterprise, which is surrounded by wasteland. Some spots are covered in huge piles of rubble attracting pioneer plants such as mulleins and suncups, while other spots are covered in alfalfa and chicory. One fence right next to some alfalfa is dominated by snails.
Although the FFH ("Flora-Fauna-Habitat" Directive) territorium also including another, much smaller hill, I only got to visit the bog hill, so far. Contrary to its name, it's the exact opposite of a wetland and was intentionally turned into a mix of hay meadow and steppe to "perserve cultivated land". It underwent planned overgrazing and thus contributed to the decrease in biodiversity both in terms of flora and fauna. Lacking proper walking paths around and across the hill, plus now being entirely unmaintained to the point no one can even approach the only existing sign located on its western brink, it is being dominated by tall oatgrass on its western and southern sides, and by few pioneer plants on its southeastern side. The latter is still used as an illegal motocross track.
Because this devasting state was intentionally caused under the banner of "environmental protection", it deserves its own separate entry, which will follow in the near future.
This tiny forest is located approximately 7 kilometers east to a village east of mine. It is becoming of growing interest of me due to the sudden appearance of silver-washed fritillary in Zone I and II, a species I only observed near this forest in 2022, in 2023, possibly having used the dirt path as a corridor to occupy territories further to the west. It still remains the only spot I ever got to see a rare white-letter hairstreak.
Some other areas like the southern region of my village are being visited, as well, however they currently lack a somewhat different species composition that would qualify those as noteworthy areas to be studied extensively. This may change in the future but for now they'll only be elaborated in my observation log during specific visits.