Appy days

June 11, 2024, 6:47 am , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz follows the curve of water

The River Ayr flows forty one miles from the Scottish hills to the sea.

I’m midway as I follow its path. Over a stile

Through a gate

Past a rickety footbridge

And over the arch of a humpback

The river meanders through gorges, pastures, moors and valleys to empty into the Clyde estuary. It takes in forests, deep defiles, industrial remnants of pits, ironworks, quarries, mills, rail lines. The route turns and curves through the little towns of Annbank, Sorn and Catrin and past farms called Nether Tarrich Holm, North Limmerhaugh, Upper Heiler that thrive beneath Scaffold Wood, Witch Knowe and the grim martyrs’ graves from the vicious Covenanter Wars.

Today, curtains of rain pulse through. The sky turns grey, then blue, then grey again. Close your eyes and there’s the rumble of river water, the creaky sigh of big beeches in the wind. The weather isn’t of June. But of March, unpredictable, with a sting of cold rain. Then it’s clear and the fields are blessed with sunshine.

On the riverside, there’s wild rose

and cranesbill

Or I think it’s cranesbill. And here’s the rub. I use two apps that tell me things about plants. There’s my updated iphone that identifies flowers and trees. And there’s the Picture This app which also does the same. Many times they agree. Sometimes they don’t.

For instance…

One app calls this little beauty Heath Spotted Orchid. Another identifies it as Global Orchid. Nearby, tucked into the riverbank, is a cousin …

The phone calls it Common Spotted Orchid. But Picture This has it as Southern Marsh Orchid or, strangely, as ‘Overlooked Orchid’. You can have app overkill in this game.

And then there’s birds. I have software for them too. It’s called Merlin. Hear a song, a chirp, a call, record its voice and Merlin (most of the time) will conjure up an ident.

Since I’m ignorant about birds, I take it for granted that the software is accurate. Merlin has told me I hear chaffinches, chiffchaff, wrens, redcaps, bullfinches and linnets in nearby woods. And it raises a question: do I need to always know the manmade identify of a flower, of a bird, the name of a rose or a sparrow arguing in the hedges? A rose, after all, is a rose and, by any other name, would smell as sweet.

• Footbridge photo by Colin Park