Dainty danger lurks in the hedgerow

Much of the whiteness comes from the flowers of the elder tree, and this year there seems to be more blossom than usual. On a hillside which overlooks my study window, there is a mass of elder flowers; they are almost smothering a copse of elder trees and from a distance, the dense flowers look like a covering of thick snow or frost on the branches.

This solid patch of colour is complemented by the road verges which are full of cow parsley, now fading after flowering earlier in the year, but still adding more strands of pure whiteness to our summer landscape. Cow parsley is surely one of the most abundant of roadside flowers and it is particularly noticeable now that the verges are not trimmed so frequently. This is one of several plants which look very like one another - both the bur chervil and the rough chervil are members of the parsley family, as are the poisonous hemlock and cowbane.

Cow parsley is harmless to humans, however, and in times past, country children would cut down the flowers to make whistles and pea-shooters from their hollow stems. These hollow stems are a feature of the large group of parsley-related flowers, but not all of them are as innocuous as cow parsley.

Rough chervil, which flowers in June and July, can cause a condition in humans which looks rather like drunkenness, and if anyone chews the leaves of bur chervil, they will experience a very hot and unpleasant sensation. One of the worst is the hemlock; it is said that children have died merely through using its stems as whistles or pea-shooters. Hemlock is infamous as a poisonous plant - every part of it is dangerous to some degree, and it has a smooth stem which is covered in blotches of purple. This is a good means of identification, but it also produces a very unpleasant smell. Unfortunately, the flower and plant do look very like cow parsley, a mistake some have learned to their cost, but hemlock flowers later, around this time of year.

There is not enough space to feature the other very numerous wild members of the parsley family - the total is somewhere around 40 varieties - though 1 will refer to the delightful sweet cicely. If any part of this plant is crushed, it produces the scent of aniseed, and it seems that sweet cicely was introduced to England so that it might be used in the preparation of food. It is also used medicinally, being highly regarded as a stimulant for the elderly and as a means of easing rheumatism. Though it can be found in many older gardens, it is abundant in the wild.

One curious modern use is for polishing oak furniture - apart from producing a wonderful finish, it also adds a delightful scent to the piece.

The occasional bursts of bright colour to which I referred earlier come from poppies which are dominating our corn fields. On my morning walk, I have been surprised by one such field for it seems to be producing nothing but bright red poppies. And what a beautiful sight as it adorns a distant hillside.

Buttercups are numerous too - a recent visit to Wensleydale and Swaledale revealed meadows awash with them, and with other field flowers, a pretty but sad reminder of the absence, through foot-and-mouth disease, of browsing cattle and sheep. In addition, perhaps these buttercups and the many other meadow flowers are also the outcome of a more selective use of pesticides.

The net result is that our summer countryside this year is a true picture, a colourful reminder of rustic delights from times past.

Bird of prey

Another sight to treasure this week was a magnificent bird of prey which flew low and fast from a moorland ditch as I motored past. It was on the North York moors, not far from Hamer House between Rosedale and Glaisdale, and I was fortunate to spot the bird as it skimmed the heather in a shallow moorland valley.

As I was driving, I did not catch a very clear view of it - in fact, my first thought was that it was a curlew due to its size and colouring, and because it displayed a distinctive white rump. Then it wheeled around and flew across my path and I could then see that it lacked the downward curved beak of the curlew but had all the features of a bird of prey.

It was a female hen harrier. This is not the first time I have spotted a hen harrier on those moors, but the sight of one is always a thrilling moment. The female is brown on her upper parts with white feathers streaked with brown below, and like the curlew, she has a very distinctive white rump which is readily noticeable when in flight.

The male's back, on the other hand, is a beautiful silvery grey and he has black wing tips. He is slightly smaller than the female but also sports the distinctive white rump which is clearly seen when the bird flies. These birds are fearless hunters and will take most small mammals and the chicks and eggs of other birds. In former times, they were blamed for stealing the chicks of domestic poultry and game birds, hence their name, and were ruthlessly persecuted for that reason.

Their numbers were dangerously low in the early years of the last century - in fact, it is said they vanished completely from mainland Britain by 1940, but now that birds of prey are protected by law, hen harriers have multiplied dramatically and are no longer a rare sight on our moors. But they are fascinating.

One of the most spectacular feats performed by hen harriers occurs when the female is on the nest. Having caught some food, the male flies over the nest - which is on the ground - and calls her from it. When she responds, he drops the catch towards her. She flies beneath it, turns over onto her back while in flight and catches the food in her talons - a wonderful display of feathered aerobatics.

More tall tales

The Chronicler of Kelderdale is keeping me up to date with events in the village and it seems that, following a couple of burglaries in isolated houses, the parish council felt it should encourage a neighbourhood watch scheme. This was a novel idea for Kelderdonians, and it seems it did not meet with universal approval by the villagers. Some older folks felt the burglaries had resulted from widespread publicity about the snack bar-cum- souvenir shop and the resultant millennium initiatives. Mrs Ada Spenceley, in a letter to the new chairman of the parish council, said there had never been a burglary in Kelderdale until the millennium carry-on had been approved and now it seemed, all sorts of undesirable folk were heading into the village to take what spoils they could.

It was a great shame that Miss Carruthers had had her King George VI coronation mug stolen during that raid, but in her opinion, that dreadful theft echoed the lawless state of the world today.

At the parish council meeting, however, Arthur Bone expressed his concern that a neighbourhood watch scheme seemed an official way of prying into the business of others. He did not want strangers and incomers watching him, even if they were neighbours, and he thought he might write to the Darlington & Stockton Times about it. He wondered about the feasibility of growing a hedge of leylandii trees to stop the neighbours spying on him - and he had already caught one of his neighbours spying on his prize turnips. He was therefore against a neighbourhood watch scheme - he didn't want folks stealing his turnips or sizing up his sprouts.

The new chairman of the parish council, Mr Adolf Unthank, attempted to clarify the matter by stating that a neighbourhood watch scheme did not involve neighbours watching each other. If that wasn't its purpose, then what did it do? asked one member. This uncertainty, with no clarification as to exactly what a neighbourhood watch scheme was supposed to achieve, caused something of an uproar at which the chairman brayed his desk with his gavel at least ten times before order was restored. Arthur Bone stormed out saying, "We want no Big Brother tactics here. It's bad enough having speed cameras trying to catch me on my tractor.