Agitated bird calls drew me to the window that overlooks a long gravel path. At its end, growing either side of a lichen-covered bench, are planted a pair of amelanchiers. From their vigorously shaking branches I knew the blackbirds were having their annual feast of their small berries. Together with a song thrush, they queued up along the drystone wall like holidaymakers at an ice-cream van.
Amelanchiers are known variously as Juneberry, snowy mespilus or shadberry. Maybe they fruit in June in Canada, where they originate; here in Allendale they ripen in August. The name of snowy mespilus celebrates the white clusters of star-shaped spring flowers, fragile looking but standing up to the wind. Mespilus is the botanical name of the medlar, which also has five-petalled flowers. Shadberry links its flowering time to the migration of shad, a herring-like fish, from sea to fresh water.
These edible berries, the size of petit pois, taste rather like blueberries and can be used in pies and jams or in a variation on sloe gin. They start out red before turning dark purple. The leaves of amelanchiers flare red and orange in autumn and, with its compact size, it’s a good shrub for urban wildlife gardens. Later that morning, when I went to taste the fruits, I found that the birds had stripped every one.
Some of the twigs had curled leaves, matted together by a fine mesh. It’s the web of a micro-moth, the bird-cherry ermine, Yponomeuta evonymella, whose caterpillars spin this protective fleece around themselves. There’s a nearby bird cherry (Prunus padus), but although it is the caterpillar’s main food source, other plants in my garden, such as the rosemary, are sometimes encased in white silk. Despite this defence, blue tits made regular trips between the tree and their nest box to feed their chicks. The moths emerge in thousands, leaving the tree half stripped of leaves, but never enough to kill their hosts. Now, the branches are studded with hard little black cherries, and the blackbirds teeter on the tips to snatch at their next course in this smorgasbord of fruits.
