Bulrush and Swan on Half Loaf Pond

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 5 Jun 2022

The name of the pond is something of a curiosity, as it in no way resembles half a loaf of bread, which is obviously what first comes to mind. A good thing about there being a road running right past the pond is that the swan - unusually, there was no second swan milling about - is unfazed by anything, so just serenely does its own thing regardless of what you're up to. I have often seen the bulrush described as 'a sausage on a stick', which is a fair enough description, but to me they always look like burnt out sparklers. This one must be a survivor from last year as there are no leaves present and the stalk is brown and looks like bamboo. The fluffy stuff it is draped in has come from inside the sausage. Last year small flowers would have been growing out of the sausage - they eventually fall off and over time the sausage disintegrates and all the fluff, which apparently can contain as much as 20,000 seeds per plant, is exposed and blows away. There are videos on YouTube of (usually Scottish) men breaking the sausages apart and creating small fluffy mounds. They used to be used to stuff pillows and duvets back in the old days.

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