Swallows face a major weather forecasting challenge: to know when to migrate, they need to know what the temperature will be like 7,000 miles away. It is thought that swallows solve this problem by choosing locations at each end where the respective dipping and rising temperatures correlate well, so the temperature when leaving is what they can expect when they arrive.
Birds are technically considered reptiles and the only surviving group of dinosaurs as they are the descendants of the group known as theropods (that Tyrannosaurus rex belonged to). The oldest bird fossils are about 150 million years old and looked like small, feathered dinosaurs with sharp teeth.
The road from Port Gaverne which joins the Delabole road was quarried out in the early 1800s by the Delabole Slate company and known as "The Great Slate Road". Around 100 ships a year came to Port Gaverne to collect slate, each capable of carrying 50-80 tonnes. It would take thirty wagons, pulled by over a hundred horses, to load a sixty ton ship. The slates were loaded by women, who then packed them in straw to protect them on the voyage. The incoming ships also brought coal from Wales and limestone, for the local limekiln, which was used to whitewash the cottages.
The earliest recorded use of concrete was around 6500 BC in Syria and Jordan which was put to a number of uses including creating level floors. The Romans made concrete blocks from volcanic ash, lime and seawater.
In 1793, John Smeaton discovered a way of producing hydraulic lime for cement by firing limestone that contained clay. He used his cement for constructing the Eddystone lighthouse.
In 1824, Portland cement was invented by burning powdered chalk and clay together which were both readily available. During the 19th Century, this began to be used in industrial buildings.
Hendra is a common Cornish place name meaning "home farm" (from the Cornish word hendre which itself is based on the words hen meaning old, and dre is equivalent to tre). Hendra was also used as a boy's first name with the meaning literally "from the family farm".
Red campion is also known by a few local names including Johnny Woods (from its habitat) and Ragged Jack (from its flower shape). Some are colour references such as Scalded Apples, and particularly in the southwest, Red Riding Hood. Cuckoo-flower is a reference to the time of year that it flowers. Another name - "Batchelors' buttons" - suggests it was once worn as a buttonhole by young men.
The Ramblers Association and National Farmers Union suggest some "dos and don'ts" for walkers which we've collated with some info from the local Countryside Access Team.
Do
Don't
Wooded coastal valleys such as this small one are used for shelter by deer which venture out into the fields beside the coast path at quiet times, particularly in the very early morning.
Red and Roe deer are the two truly native species of the six found in the UK and both have pointy, branching (rugose) antlers. The Red deer is the largest of the species and has a characteristic large white V on its backside whereas the Roe deer just has a small white patch.
The fallow deer was introduced by the Normans and has flat, elk-like (palmate) antlers and an inverted black horseshoe surrounding a white patch on its rear end.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, three "exotic" Asian species (munjac, sika and Chinese water deer) were introduced. These all have quite rounded ears whereas the European species all have pointy "elf-like" ears.
Roe deer, Fallow deer and Red deer are all present in Cornwall and the populations of all three species has increased substantially over the past decade, possibly by as much as a factor of ten. There are also a small number of munjac deer, but far fewer than in the rest of England.
In autumn, sloes are often plentiful and can be used to flavour gin, sherry and cider. The berries can be harvested from September until nearly Christmas although more tend to shrivel as the autumn advances. Traditionalists say that you should wait until the first frosts in late November when the sloes are less bitter. This is because freezing breaks down the bitter tannins. Therefore you can pick your sloes in September before they go too wrinkly and then pop them in the freezer to achieve the same thing.
Given the right conditions, a blackthorn tree can live 100 years and grow to about 20ft in height. In harsher environments such as by the coast the bushes may be as little as 2ft tall.
At the back of the grassy hollow is the start of the tunnel to Barrett's Zawn beach.
Barrett's Zawn is a remote beach on the rugged coast between Port Isaac and Tintagel. It is located just north-west of the farm hamlets of Hendra. The beach can only be accessed by sea or via the now disused tunnel on the north side of Delabole Point which was known locally as the "Donkey Hole", because it was once used by donkeys bringing up slate from the beach quarry below.
It is still just possible to crawl through the tunnel to the beach but part of the tunnel roof has collapsed and it is now not recommended to go through the tunnel as the high cliffs above are unstable. If you do decide to risk it, be aware: there is one narrow squeeze in the tunnel where you'll need to get down onto your belly to slide over a rock, though the rest of the tunnel is reasonably tall; you will also need a torch as it's pitch black in the central section of the tunnel.
You can walk along the left side of the stream and get out onto the rock platform where the stream meets the sea.
The names of many coastal features are derived from words in the Cornish language:
Note that Haven has Saxon origins (hæfen in Old English) which is why it tends to occur more in North East Cornwall (Millook, Crackington, Bude etc).
There are more than 20 breeding pairs of Peregrine falcons along the coast from Bude to Padstow.
The peregrine falcon can reach over 322 km/h (200 mph) during its hunting stoop (high speed dive) making it the fastest member of the animal kingdom. In 2005, a peregrine was measured at a top speed of 389 km/h (242 mph). The air pressure at this speed could damage a bird's lungs. However small bony tubercles on a falcon's nostrils guide the powerful airflow away, enabling the bird to breathe more easily while diving. In Cornish dialect, these falcons are known as "winnards" and local expressions include "shrammed as a winnard" (meaning chilled) and "rumped up like a winnard" (meaning huddled).
Hanging valleys are common on the North Cornish coast and are created due to erosion of the relatively hard cliffs by the Atlantic waves being faster than erosion of the valley by a small river. In many cases, this results in a waterfall where the small river meets the sea cliff, though many of these are little more than a trickle in dry weather. When there is a strong onshore gale, the waterfalls sometimes run backwards!
The sea carrot is technically the same species as a wild carrot, from which the carrot was domesticated, but is shorter, stouter and more splayed-out than a wild carrot. The two converge the further north and east that you go in Britain: West Cornwall is therefore the pinnacle of sea carrot evolution.
In Cornwall, cliffs erode at an average rate of between roughly 3cm - 30cm per year depending on the hardness of the rocks and location. In reality this often happens in infrequent sudden collapses rather than as a steady, gradual process. It was found that one massive storm in 2014 caused around 100 times the average amount of erosion. There are obvious implications from climate change leading to more frequent or more intense storms.
Next to the beach below the ruined hamlet of Dannonchapel, you can still see remains of a slate dressing and shaping floor located on a rock jutting out to sea below the main line of the cliffs. Here, lengths of wall enclose a level platform on the rock where there are traces of dressing waste. At the point nearest the mainland are rows of stacked finished slates, apparently never retrieved and now inaccessible. When the quarry was working, this rocky platform was probably linked to the mainland either by an aerial cableway (known as a blondin) or a horse-powered winch (known as a whim).
Wild thyme grows along the coast and flowers from June to September with tiny pink flowers. During mediaeval times, the plant was a symbol of bravery, possibly due to derivation from the Greek word thumos, meaning anger or spiritedness. An embroidered motif of a bee on a sprig of thyme is said to have been given by mediaeval ladies to their favoured knight.
Coastal land management including removal of excess gorse and grazing to keep taller plants in trim has allowed wild thyme to become more widespread as well as the Cornish chough. Wild thyme is a nectar source for many bees and butterflies and the food plant for young caterpillars of the large blue butterfly.
The more widely accepted theory for the name is that it is based on the way that the gate touches either side of the enclosure which is a key feature of the design. The word "kiss" is in the sense of "light touch" as used in e.g. billiards.
The ruined hamlet of Dannonchapel, near Tregardock, is over 1000 years old and included a manor house first recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086 when it was known as Duuenant. Its Domesday entry notes that it had "land for 3 ploughs" and 40 acres of pasture. The name comes from the Cornish downans which means "deep valley". The suffix "chapel" was added later in the 1300s.
The farmhouse garden at Dannonchapel included four bee boles - external wall recesses in which woven straw beehives (known as bee skeps) were placed. The woven basket structure provided some insulation for the bees in colder weather. Examples of bee boles and bee skeps can be seen at Godolphin House near Mount's Bay.
It's possible that after wet weather, what we describe here as a "track" may be what you'd call "a stream"!
In wet weather, water running off the fields can find a path or track that has been worn by many travellers and adopt this lowest point as a watercourse. If you find yourself walking on a path or track that a stream is running along, it's often best to walk along the watercourse which is likely to have a stony bed. The edges are often soft mud, where you are more likely to sink.
Pineapple weed is related to chamomile and is consequently also known as false chamomile. Unlike chamomile, it doesn't have white flowers - its flowers consisting of little yellow balls are therefore quite distinctive. Even more so is the fruity pineapple-like scent when is trodden on or squeezed.
Pineapple weed was introduced into the UK in the late 19th Century but is now widely naturalised. One reason it has been so successful is that it is able to colonise poor soils on waste ground including cracks between paving and consequently one of its common names is "street weed". In the rural environment it's often encountered near gateways or tracks through fields where the ground has been disturbed by tractors.
The Red Fox has been present in Britain since the last Ice Age and is our most widespread and numerous predator. Foxes are omnivores: as well as hunting small mammals and birds, they will eat fruit and anything else they can scavenge, in fact a major component of their diet is earthworms. This flexibility has allowed them to adapt to farmed and urban environments but also varied natural environments including the coast. In the wild, a lucky fox can live to an age of about 8 but the lifespan of most foxes is typically only 1.5 - 2 years. One reason for this is that around 100,000 foxes are killed on roads every year.
There are over 4,000 farms in Cornwall covering over a quarter of a million hectares. Over 70% of Cornwall's land is farmed.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
Sheep are now farmed pretty much solely for their meat rather than their wool. The reason that you may see scruffy sheep with wool falling off is that due to cheap synthetic (plastic) fibres, demand for wool declined through the late 20th and early 21st centuries resulting in many sheep not being shorn due to the wool price being lower than the cost of the labour to remove it.
There a nice views from these fields across the Camel Valley with the tors of Bodmin Moor in the background. The two highest tors visible are Roughtor on the left and Brown Willy on the right.
The name celandine is thought to be derived from the Greek word for swallow, based on the arrival of swallows being a sign of spring. Another common name for celandine is spring messenger, based on the early flowering. This was presumably also the basis of the Victorian use as a symbol of "joys to come".
Many hoverflies have colour patterns that mimic stinging bees and wasps so predators avoid them even though they don't sting. They are quite convincing con-artists and when caught will push down their abdomen in a simulated stinging action to keep up the illusion.
The path through the trees was once a lane leading to the lost settlement of Bodwin, first recorded around 1190 and last recorded in 1884. A small, thin field with an irregular hedge lies to the north where the settlement was once located.
The walls were originally railway bridge crossing the North Cornwall line.
The North Cornwall Railway was a venture backed by the London and South Western Railway to compete with the Great Western Railway for services to Cornwall. The North Cornwall line ran from Halwill in Devon to Padstow via Launceston, Camelford and Wadebridge and was built for economy rather than speed, including climbs and curves to avoid costly construction work. The line was opened in sections at the end of the 19th century, reaching Padstow in 1899. There was an aspiration to connect Wadebridge to Truro, but this was never realised. Due to holidaymakers increasingly travelling by car in the 1960s, demand for passenger services dwindled and the line was closed as part of the cuts in 1966.
The buzzard family is quite closely related to hawks and consists of a number of different species which occupy different habitat niches (e.g. colder countries further north). The buzzard species we see in the UK is the common buzzard. This is one of the largest birds of prey in Britain with a wingspan of over 4 feet.
The 10ft long Porbeagle shark caught and released off Boscastle in May 2012 was estimated at 550lb which would make it the largest shark ever caught in British waters. The Porbeagle feeds on a variety of fish and is fast enough to chase mackerel, herring and pilchards which shoal around the Cornish coast hence is sometimes known as the "Mackerel Shark". Despite its size, there are very few reported attacks on humans (and these are questionable). The reverse however cannot be said: the Porbeagle has been overfished to the point of being endangered and continues to be caught both intentionally and as by-catch. Strict regulations and greatly reduced fishing quotas introduced in 2000 have begun to reverse the stock decline, though recovery is projected to take decades.
Basking sharks are the second largest fish in the world with adults typically reaching 20-25ft in length and the shark with the smallest brain relative to its body size. They slowly cruise along, usually in small groups, filtering plankton. They migrate in search of plankton blooms and are seen off Cornwall between May and October. Occasionally they come in close to the shore on sandy beaches, causing much excitement for swimmers.
Stoats and weasels are related to badgers and to otters, which they more closely resemble. The stoat is roughly twice the size of a weasel but can be distinguished without the need to measure it by its black-tipped tail. The weasel preys mostly on voles, but the stoat will take on prey much larger than itself including birds and even full-grown rabbits. During the winter, the coat of the stoat (and also some populations of weasel) changes colour from brown to white to camouflage it in the snow.
The soft, silky winter fur of the stoat is known as ermine and garments made from this were a luxury associated with royalty and high status. Given that stoats mark their territory using pungent anal scent glands, it’s likely a fair amount of washing of the furs occurred before being draped over royalty.
Betony is a grassland herb, common on the coast, with pretty purple anthers that stick out from the plant. The name is derived from the ancient Celtic words bew (meaning head) and ton (meaning good) as it was used as a cure for headaches. From Roman times onward, it was believed to be a cure for a number of things (the Romans listed 47!) including drunkenness. Even as late as the 1800s, Richard E. Banks stated that you should "Eat betony or the powder thereof and you cannot be drunken that day" and John Gerard (1597) said that "It maketh a man to pisse well". Betony was also used to ward away evil spirits (hence it is planted in a number of churchyards) and also to make a dark yellow dye for wool.
The dandelion-like flowers along the coast are most likely to be catsear, also known as false dandelion. Catsear is very salt tolerant, not only growing along the coast but actually in sand dunes. The easiest way to recognise it is by the hairy leaves, hence the name. If you can cope with the texture, the leaves are edible and are much less bitter than dandelion leaves.
Another way to tell them apart is when they are flowering. Although dandelion flowers over quite a long period, the most profuse flowering is in April and May whereas catsear's intense flowering period is in late June and through July. Catsear has neater flowers than dandelion with squarer edges to the petals (but still toothed). The stems supporting the flowers are also solid, in contrast with the hollow stem of the dandelion.
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