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The Froghopper and the Cuckoo Spit – Early Purple Orchids blooming on the roadside near the Deerpark. Photo: Jim Lysaght

There may not be much sign of summer yet, but one of the heralds of the season is back in our fields and gardens, that is the little liquid cocoon that clings to grass and leaves. It is said to arrive with the first cuckoo, but so far there is no sign of that elusive bird.

The cuckoo spit clings to the leaves and it looks just like a little ball of froth. Inside the cuckoo spit is a tiny immature insect called a froghopper, if you take a strong blade of grass and gently probe into the spit you will see a little creature with protruding eyes, just like a frogs.

This insect is named very well because it does resemble a tiny frog and it can hop for enormous distances. The spit is the insect’s way of concealing and protecting itself. The spit is produced by forcing air into a liquid which then entirely covers the froghopper, it feeds on native plants such as grasses, but, unlike the leafhopper which feed on the sap of plants, it is not a harmful insect.

Another sign of the summer, that we all hope is on the way is the song of the chiffchaff. Walking by the river at Licklash earlier this week I heard its monotonous but welcome song, the song consists of only two notes and it is one of the few birds that sing in the month of July when most of the other birds are silent. In some parts of Ireland the chiffchaff is known as the sallypicker, it is very similar to the willow warbler, a bird that is known for its sweet waterfall of notes. In Scotland it is called the sallywren and its name in Irish is tiuf-teaf.

It is only now, in the middle of the month of May, that dace are beginning to shoal in the shallow pools of the Blackwater, when they become alarmed they turn in unison in a brilliant flash of silver. Dace are not native to the Blackwater, they are believed to have been accidently introduced in 1899 when some visiting English fishermen spilled a tin of live dace into the river. The Dace had been brought from England as live bait. They thrived in their new habitat, so much so that they can be found on much of the river and have also established themselves on the rivers Bride and Blackwater. They are sleek, fast-moving fish and as every trout-fisherman knows, they will readily take a fly.

There is the ruin of an old house near one of my walks, once a family home, it is now home to a family of jackdaws, yesterday as I walked there they were squabbling among themselves. I watched their comings and goings while I sat on the stump of an old oak, just then a fox emerged from the wood and loped as foxes do with his long brush trailing along the ground. He got a hot reception from the jackdaws, they quickly forgot about their own arguments and swooped and dived on him, forcing him into a run that took him back into the wood at Sweeney’s Glen.

Back on the road again and walking near the Upper Deerpark it was wonderful to see the varied array of wild flowers and plants that grow in the grass margins. The strange cuckoo pint grows in abundance here, it is a plant that attracts and then traps insects and having dusted them with pollen releases them to pollinate the female of the species. In autumn it bears bright red berries which are extremely poisonous and which you would do well to stay away from. The cuckoo pint has many poetic names including, lords and ladies and wake robin and it is also known as wild arum. On a grassy bank near here, every year there grows a cluster of purple orchids, they are among the most beautiful of our wild flowers. It is strange that so many of them grow in this one spot.

This morning I walked among the bluebells at Glenabo Wood, with shafts of the early sun peeping among the beech trees, they were a sight to behold; soon, too soon, they will be gone, well to everything there is a season.

My thanks to my friend, M.F., for her very kind words about last weeks Walk on the Wildside, like us, she too has very happy family memories of days spent in this beautiful part of Kerry.

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