Spot on

An exciting (for me anyway) update on my ragwort experiment. It turns out that ragwort is just the thing if you're hoping to attract flies and flycatchers.

With the benefit of hindsight I suppose it's fairly obvious. The ragwort flowers are a magnate for just about every flying insect in the district - which, of course, is just what a flycatcher is looking for.

A couple of days ago we had one good sunny afternoon and I stretched out on my garden bench with a newspaper. A stone's throw away in full sun the ragwort was fly central all over again.

Spotted flycatcher
Photo: Andrew Easton

Then I noticed a small grey bird in the lower branches of my neighbour's apple tree. A grey bird that launched a lightning attack on fly central, skimming the flowers and then landing on a fence post close by.

It then flitted back to the same apple branch before going through the whole procedure again. And again for the rest of the afternoon, or as much of it as I could waste flycatcher watching.

Its been a while since I've seen a spotted flycatcher. And I've never seen one in my garden - it was a real thrill.

The next day it rained and there was no sign of the flycatcher.

No sign the following day either as the rain kept on coming; perhaps it was a bird on the move south, I decided. 

But then today the sun came back and the flycatcher has been busy working 'its' ragwort through another afternoon. I think my experiment is convincing me that ragwort isn't such a bad thing to have around. 

Yellow peril?

'You can't leave that there. You know it's poisonous, don't you?' Well yes I do - and thank you for your interest.

The 'that' is a glorious big, bold Senecio jacobaea in full bloom right in the middle of my wildflower 'meadow'.  Ragwort, or Stinking Billy, that is.

Why is it that some people can't resist imposing their way of gardening onto anybody they meet? My visitor was horrified that I'd not rooted it out and felt he had to tell me so, but I wouldn't dream going into his garden and telling him how I feel about his decking.

Anyway, the ragwort in question is a bit of a monster and looks ridiculous because it is now about a metre and a half tall. That makes it a bit of a Gulliver in a meadow where nothing else grows to more than knee-height. 

It's a self-seed that has blown in and I'd normally have pulled it out. I didn't get around to it and as its grown I thought I'd leave it to flower as a bit of an experiment. I thought it would be interesting to see what insects are attracted to the flowers.

And with the change in the weather over the last few days the ragwort has come into its own. In full sun the flowers are covered in feeding insects - hoverflies, flies, bees and wasps. 

It's quite something. I spent time yesterday trying to get pictures of some of the insects feeding, although without a gret deal of success.

But the plant will have to go before it starts setting seed. Ragwort leaves contain a powerful alkaloid poison that can cause fatal damage to the livers of grazing animals.

They won't eat the growing plant (and I don't usually graze livestock on my lawn), but will eat it if it gets into hay. There's actually a Ragwort Act, which puts a legal duty on landowners to prevent its spread to grazing land.

And because its seeds are wind-dispersed it can spread. So before mine sets seed I'm going to cut it down to be on the safe side.

In the meantime though I'm going to let the hoverflies enjoy it to the full. And there's the added bonus of knowing that it annoys my opinionated neighbour.