Dear Readers, I’ve been reporting on the prairie planting at Coal Drops Yard (Kings Cross) for over five years now, and have been fascinated to see the range of plants. However, not everyone has been impressed: the Vascular Plants Recorder for Middlesex, Mark Spencer, had this to say back in 2021.

Sadly, much of inner London’s canal system is now vigorously tidied and in many areas, plants, both native and non-native are dwindling. This affect has been particularly severe in the areas around the King’s Cross and Olympic Park developments, nearly all of the semi-natural urban vegetation has been destroyed and replaced with prairie-style horticultural plantings. We are eradicating our urban natural heritage in favour of a colour-by-numbers floral arrangement to please the eye’.

Well, I do know what he means – there are plenty of plants that put on a spectacular and completely natural show, especially along the canal. But it appears that some of the plants from Coal Drops Yard are ‘hopping over the fence’ and finding life to their liking along the canal, according to my latest BSBI news, and several of them have been reported by Mark Spencer himself, who keeps a keen eye on any new plants on his patch.

First up is False Hemp (Datisca cannabina). This plant normally grows in the Aegean, the Middle East, and Asia, right into the Himalayas. A single male plant was found growing out of the canal wall near a lock on the Regent’s Canal, having made its way from the ornamental planting at Coal Drops Yard. This is the first record for this plant growing in the wild in Britain and Ireland. Will it spread? Who knows? The canal has a long history of alien plants derived from the barges that used to travel up and down with their exotic cargoes, so this is a continuation of that trend.

it’s a very fine plant, and you can see why it was favoured for the planting plan.

And in another first for Britain and Ireland, Spencer also found a mature flowering Giant Sea Holly (Eryngium pandanifolium) with several dozen seedlings, also alongside the Regent’s Canal towpath. This is a spectacular plant, that I haven’t been able to resist photographing myself on several occasions. With all those seeds it’s no wonder that it’s found a home outside the Coal Drops Yard planting.

So, although the natural plantings along the canal were destroyed, it looks as if new plants are replacing them. It will be interesting to see what wins out in the end, and what new balance of plants is established. In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled along any canals that you might walk along. You never know what unusual plants you might find.

It’s the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse. The horses in this poem are more fog than fire, but nonetheless….see what you think.

The Horses by Edwin Muir (1887 – 1959)

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
“They’ll molder away and be like other loam.”
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers’ land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers’ time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.

 

Dear Readers, I know you aren’t supposed to have favourites amongst those you love, but I must admit to a tremendous fondness for alder trees. They flourish in waterlogged soil where many other trees would keel over, they support flocks of finches and tits, and the presence of the catkins and cones at the same time makes them truly spectacular at this time of year, with a kind of golden/chocolate brown haze around them.

Unfortunately that’s also quite a lot of pollen, and scientists researching the effects of climate change found that, as the temperature rises, peak pollen season could come earlier, in February rather than March. Looking at the bounty of catkins on the tree above, that could be a real challenge for people with hay fever, who may already have found that the sneezing season is already expanding. If you suffer from hay fever, have you noticed any changes? It would be interesting to know.

And in the meantime, here’s a whole raft of info on this spectacular tree from my original post in 2020, and a Seamus Heaney poem as a bonus.

Dear Readers, last week I was in Kings Cross, scouting about for a blogpost on the landscaping that has been done around the old gasholders and the new Coal Drops Yard, when I spotted this magnificent alder on the opposite side of the canal. It was absolutely dripping with catkins and tiny cones, and it reminded me how much I have always liked this native tree. I remember watching the blue and great tits feeding on the cones of an alder in Culpeper Garden in Islington: it was the first time that I’d noticed how the two species portioned out the tree, with the blue tits seeming to stick to the more delicate twigs and the great tits going for the cones on the more robust branches. It might not be the most elegant tree, nor the most august, but as it is a pioneer that grows in boggy ground which most other trees wouldn’t endure, it will always have a place in my heart.

The buds and young leaves of alder are sticky, and the bark exudes a thick resin, hence the Latin species name ‘glutinosa’. The tree is a member of the birch family (Betulaceae), and it is found across Europe, Central Asia and North Africa. It has been introduced to North America, New Zealand and Australia but because it can thrive in waterlogged and nutrient-poor soils, it is not usually seen as a major problem. The main reason for alder’s resilience is  its symbiotic relationship with a fungus, Frankia alnii, which forms nodules on the plant’s roots and fixes nitrogen from the air in a form that the plant can use, in return for the carbon produced by the tree. This relationship improves the fertility of the soil, making it available to other plants.

However, the seedlings of alder cannot survive overshadowing and so, as the wood that the alder and its fungal ‘friend’ have helped to create becomes more extensive, the alder itself is limited to the forest edges, or to the places which are too wet for other trees to grow. This kind of wet woodland is known as a ‘carr’ (which comes from the Old Norse ‘kvarr’, meaning ‘swamp’).

As you might expect from a tree that already has a healthy relationship with one fungus, there are several other species that are also only associated with alders. One is Russula alnetorum, with its magenta cap and pure white underside.

Another is the Alder Roll-Rim, which to my untutored eye has a decidedly chanterelle-ish look about it. This is why you should never send me out foraging for fungi.

There is even a fungus, catkin cup (Ciboria amentacea), that grows only on the fallen catkins of alder and willow. Don’t they look like the most exquisite miniature wine glasses? Truly, the world is full of wonders.

But sadly, another fungus has been having a most deleterious effect on the poor old alder – Phytophthora alnii, a recently evolved species, causes a lethal rotting disease, and has been spreading across Europe. It sometimes seems as if all of our trees are under constant threat from pathogens, which makes the need for better plant hygiene in nurseries and when shipping plant products even more important. Although the native alder is not a popular street tree the Italian alder, a close relative, is, especially in the City where the pollution, poor quality of the soil and general disturbance require a robust and resilient tree. Let’s hope that our alders, wild and ‘tame’  are able to survive this latest onslaught.

Alder is extremely useful to wildlife – we have seen how birds eat the cones, but the tree also attracts over 140 species of leaf-eating insect, and the caterpillars of many moths and butterflies feed on the tree, including the delightfully-named alder kitten (Furcula bicuspis) which is a most attractive moth.

Humans have also used alder extensively. The wood from alder trees is often used in marshy conditions: many of the piles under the city of Venice are made of alder timber, and the Roman engineer Vetruvius mentions that the causeway across the marshes of Ravenna was also made from the tree. The wood is not particularly hard, so it has also been used for coppicing, charcoal making (particularly for use in gunpowder factories)  and for paper. However, alder is also the wood of choice for the bodies of most Fender Stratocaster guitars, both because of its tonal qualities and because the light colour of the wood means that it can take a variety of finishes. If you are thinking of buying an electric guitar and aren’t sure what wood to get it in, there’s an interesting article here, though I suspect that the biological origin of something like a guitar is often overlooked (I certainly hadn’t given it much thought until now).

Alder was also said to be the wood of choice for woodworm larvae, and so branches of the tree were sometimes brought into houses so that the insects could munch harmlessly away on their favourite food instead of gnawing their way through the weight-bearing beams.

The various parts of alder produce a variety of different dye colours: the catkins produce a green dye, which has been associated with the ‘Lincoln green’ hue of the clothing of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The bark contains a high degree of tannin, and can be used to dye clothes brown. The fresh-cut wood can produce a pinkish dye: when the tree is injured the exposed wood quickly turns brownish-red and looks as if it is bleeding, which may be why there is an Irish legend that it is unlucky to pass an alder tree when on a journey.

The photo below shows wool dyed with madder (orange), weld (yellow) and alder (brown).

Medicinally, the bark has been used in a decoction to treat burns, inflammation and sore throats. It was believed that alder leaves placed into the shoes before a long walk would soothe tired feet (and alder wood was also used to make clogs in the industrial North of England during Victorian times). The bark has also been used as a toothpaste. In the Alps, peasants would warm up bags of alder leaves and use them to relieve the pain of arthritis during the long, cold winter nights.

Although in the UK the alder is often viewed as something of a ‘weed tree’, it featured in one of the most important works of the Dutch Golden Age of landscape painting. ‘The Avenue at Middelharnis’ by Meindert Hobbema was created in 1689, and is thought to be an extremely accurate portrayal of this avenue of alders, which were planted in 1664. This was an unusual departure for Hobbema, who usually painted idealised landscapes made up of several different locations. The man working amongst the saplings on the lower right of the painting is also unusual – there had previously been a sense that these landscapes had just sprung into being, rather than being intensely man-made. Hobbema was largely thought to have stopped painting some twenty years before this work was made: he had a lucrative job as a ‘wine-gauger’, someone who collected the taxes on locally-produced wine. This is a particularly successful late work, described by the American Dutch art specialist Seymour Sleve as ‘the swan song of Holland’s great period of landscape painting which fully deserves its high reputation’. I am not a great fan of landscape painting, but there is something rather enigmatic about this work – it beckons me on, between those rather lanky alders, towards the church.

And oh, how happy I am to find this poem by Seamus Heaney, with which to end my celebration of the alder. To hear the man himself reading the poem, click here. How deeply he loved the land that he grew up in, and how poignantly it comes through in his work.

PLANTING THE ALDER

For the bark, dulled argent, roundly wrapped
And pigeon-collared.

For the splitter-splatter, guttering
Rain-flirt leaves.

For the snub and clot of the first green cones,
Smelted emerald, chlorophyll.

For the scut and scat of cones in winter,
So rattle-skinned, so fossil-brittle.

For the alder-wood, flame-red when torn
Branch from branch.

But mostly for the swinging locks
Of yellow catkins.

Plant it, plant it,
Streel-head in the rain.

© 2006, Seamus Heaney
From: District and Circle
Publisher: Faber & Faber, London, 2006

 

Photo Credits

Photo One By No machine-readable author provided. MPF assumed (based on copyright claims). – No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=430484

Photo Two by By Cwmhiraeth – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21965251

Photo Three By Bernd Schade – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2138464

Photo Four By This image was created by user Irene Andersson (irenea) at Mushroom Observer, a source for mycological images.You can contact this user here. – This image is Image Number 197907 at Mushroom Observer, a source for mycological images., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18254339

Photo Five by By Irene Andersson – This image is Image Number 25465 at Mushroom Observer, a source for mycological images., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15986154

Photo Six by By Andreas Kunze – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14896380

Photo Seven by Ben Sale from UK [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Photo Eight from https://www.fender.com/articles/tech-talk/ash-vs-alder-whats-the-diff

Photo Nine from https://medieval-colours.co.uk/products/autumn-set-of-yarns-alder-madder-weld

 

 

 

 

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, I’ve done a few posts on sparrows over the past few weeks, but for many of us, the sound of the birds chirruping and generally being feisty and territorial is the very first avian sign of spring. In her chapter in Nature’s Calendar, Kiera Chapman mentions that the size of the black patch on a male sparrow’s chest is an indication of the dominance of the male: the black colouration is fed by testosterone. Furthermore, the size of a male sparrow’s testicles can increase a hundredfold, while a female sparrow’s ovaries grow over fifty times larger. But what triggers this increase?

One good suggestion would be day length – as the days grow longer, spring approaches, and with it the bounty of food (hopefully) that will feed the chicks. Something that I didn’t know (so many things I don’t know!) was that sparrows can apparently sense light through their skulls, as well as through their eyes. You don’t want to know the details of the experiment that was performed to prove this, but there we go. There are sensors in the skull of the bird that send signals to the hypothalamus, the area of the brain that controls such things as sex hormone secretion. Blind birds still had enlarged testes/ovaries as day length increased, but birds who had the skin at the top of their heads tattooed black with ink did not.

Sadly, artificial light at night seems to have a deleterious effect on many birds, including sparrows. They become active earlier in the morning and later at night, with subsequent stress, which also seems to affect their gut bacteria. Stressed birds are more likely to become diseased, which has implications for us – one possible disease that sparrows could carry is West Nile Virus. Birds are infected when bitten by mosquitoes, and then pass the disease on to humans. West Nile Virus is prevalent in the United States – though most people will have a flu-like disease for a few days, others can be more seriously affected, and may even die. Scientists have found that sparrow exposed to artificial light at night can transmit the disease to one another for a whole two days longer than sparrows kept in darker nocturnal conditions, so a sick bird could transmit the disease to many more sparrows, and potentially humans.

It’s easy to think there’s nothing we can do in the face of all the terrible things going on in the world, but one easy thing would be to turn off garden lights at night – they not only change things for birds but they confuse all kinds of night-flying insects too. Many people have chosen solar-powered garden lights, with the best of intentions, but of course these twinkle away all night. Maybe we should be thinking about digging out the candles and tea-lights instead (but let’s not set fire to ourselves or the garden eh).

Dear Readers, the Tree Council is a charity that ‘brings everyone together with a shared mission to care for trees and our planet’s future. We inspire and empower organisations, government, communities and individuals with the knowledge and tools to create positive, lasting change at a national and local level.’  They provide a variety of grants and schemes, from encouraging people to be volunteer tree wardens or young tree champions, through providing grants for research and community orchards. So I was fascinated to see this billboard campaign, which is aimed at increasing awareness of the beauty and importance of trees. See which is your favourite!

There are two photographers, Adrian Houston ( I love his images, above and below)….

and Rob Kesseler, who takes a different, micro approach. I think the horse chestnut pollen below looks a bit like the mutant plant from ‘Little Shop of Horrors’. His book, ‘Seeds – Time Capsules of Life’ looks absolutely fascinating.

Digital artists Rob and Nick Carter created an AI image of an English oak, based on a painting from 1870, ‘The Old Oak’ by Jacques Dupré, which is in the National Gallery. It’s worth having a look at the artist’s webpage – they are doing some very interesting things, and are the first living artists to exhibit at the Frick Collection. Here’s their image…

…and here’s the original. Clearly, the image above has reimagined the tree and the landscape as it approaches autumn. The little person sitting under the tree in the original picture seems to have not liked the look of the clouds in the altered one…

And finally, there’s an image by graffiti artist Joe Webster. This is a really joyous evocation of looking up through golden leaves to the sky above, and I love the energy and colour in Webster’s images – have a look at his web page to see some more.

So, these images will be going up on billboards around the country. Which one is your favourite? I’m dithering a bit, so will be interested to see what you think. Over to you, Readers!

Dear Readers, after weeks when it’s rained every single day, we’ve had a brief interlude of sunshine today so we thought we’d make the most of it, and headed off to Walthamstow Wetlands. Half of the population of London had the same idea – I’ve rarely seen it so crowded, except for during the summer holidays – but it’s still large enough to find some peace and tranquillity.

The ducks and geese are coming into their breeding plumage, and even the most apparently monochrome of tufted ducks is showing off a purple and green sheen on his head.

We’d gone to the north side of the reservoirs to try to spot the kingfishers, but yet again, no luck. Still, there were lots of other wonderful birds: some mallards were doing that ‘up tails all’ business…which reminds me! Here’s the ‘Ducks’ Ditty’ from Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’. No swifts yet, but soon…

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all.

Ducks’ tails, drake’s tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight,
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim–
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!
We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call–
We are down a-dabbling,
Up tails all.

And the Egyptian geese seem to be gradually taking over the place – they’re smaller than the Canada and Greylag geese, but ‘though they are little, they are fierce’, as they say in Twelfth Night.

I love the mixture of old and new here, like this Victorian water tower juxtaposed with the very new tower blocks.

After a most sustaining slice of mandarin and chocolate cake at the caff on the other side of the wetlands, we wandered along past the gorse – as it was Valentine’s day it was most appropriate to see it in flower, as they say ‘when the gorse is out of flower, kissing’s out of fashion’. Most appropriate, as I’ve never seen the gorse here without at least a few flowers on it.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the heron…

…and some more Egyptian geese, looking very splendid as they preened away…

There was a lovely volunteer from the London Wildlife Trust, who had her telescope trained on the island in the middle of the reservoir. There was nothing unusual, but a lot of people were learning about the difference between a Canada goose and a Greylag goose, and what a cormorant looks like. It’s easy to sneer, but we all learnt from someone, and if our parents didn’t know, who better than this person, who had tremendous knowledge, but wore it very lightly.

And finally I was struck by a row of alder trees, amongst my favourites with their cones and catkins, and a little family of long-tailed tits working through the branches.

Well, tomorrow we’re back to downpours, and a fortnight of rain is forecast, but at least we had today….

Well Readers, you might remember that after my broken leg/peripheral neuropathy diagnosis, I’ve been using a walking stick when I’m out and about. I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who spring to their feet when they see me lurching on to the tube, and also by the ‘dance’ of who stands up and for whom – I will stand if I see someone in worse shape than me, and that almost always leads to a cascade effect of people standing up. Who said that Londoners were unfriendly/uncaring?

Well, this week I was amazed to read about ‘the Batman effect’. Here’s how it goes. Scientist Francesco Pagnini and his colleagues set up an experiment on the Milan underground system, and ran it 138 times. A female wearing a pregnancy ‘bump’ which made her look obviously pregnant got on to the Metro with a colleague who observed and recorded what happened. In 38 percent of cases, the ‘pregnant’ lady was offered a seat. However, if another colleague dressed as Batman entered the carriage through a different door, the number who stood up increased to 68 percent. In 44 percent of Batman plus ‘pregnant’ lady cases, those who volunteered their seat said that they hadn’t even noticed ‘Batman’. So, what the hecky decky is going on?

One theory is that events that are out of the ordinary promote feelings of ‘prosociality’, even when not consciously observed. I suppose we’ve all experienced the sudden burst of chatter when something unusual or eccentric happens on public transport, if it isn’t too scary, though Londoners will often wait until the incident is over before they start discussing it (we’re much too cool to gawp at Batman, even if we did notice him). I remember on one occasion a man wearing a bowler hat, no trousers and stockings and suspenders entered a tube carriage and nobody raised an eyebrow until he got off.

Could it be that people are subliminally not only seeing Batman, but absorbing some of his ethos as ‘the caped crusader?’ The chap in costume wasn’t wearing a mask because it was considered to be ‘too scary’, but was otherwise full garbed in cape, gloves, tights etc. However, the people who stood up were mostly women (about 68 percent when Batman was present, 65 percent when he wasn’t), and they were mostly in their 40s. I wonder if those women grew up with Batman when they were little girls? Or whether they were just more sensitive to what it felt like to be a pregnant woman? Now there would be an interesting vein of inquiry.

In short, I am puzzled about the Batman thing: this was a small sample, and I look forward to a positive rash of fake pregnant ladies and super heroes on tube systems all over the world in the near future. But why would more people stand up in the presence of Batman even if they didn’t notice him? I would be grateful for all  hypotheses, however ‘out there’. And in the meantime, if you see the pair in the photo below, you might want to carry on reading your book.

Dear Readers, yesterday we ‘took delivery’ of our latest foster cat, Jolene. She’s about a year old, and the sweetest, friendliest little cat, but has had a bit of a rough start – she was found dragging herself along the road by a kind passer-by, who took her to the vet. She was X-rayed, and it was found that she had a hip fracture. After nearly two months ‘cage rest’ she’s now ready for re-hab, which involves some physiotherapy. Who knew that I’d be a cat physiotherapist?

Actually, Jolene moves around pretty well – she doesn’t seem to feel confident about jumping, which is fortunate at the moment. Hopefully in a home environment she’ll gradually gain some mobility and confidence so that she can be rehomed, but in the meantime she’s finding her way around the ‘cat room’, eating all her food and enjoying exploring.

More updates soon!

Dear Readers, sparrows are much on my mind at the moment: one male visits the garden every day. But where are the rest of the flock? I note that when the picture above was taken in 2023, I was being visited by at least a dozen birds right through the winter. We’ll have to see what happens as spring heaves itself gently into view, but for now, here’s a sparrow poem, to go with the rather lovely one by Paul Laurence Dunbar that I published last year.

Ledwidge was an Irish poet, referenced by Seamus Heaney in his 1979 elegy. He volunteered for the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers during the First World War, and was killed at Ypres in 1917. In this article in the Guardian, Carol Rumens explains that, as a moderate Nationalist, Ledwidge probably saw no contradiction in fighting against the Germans, but all this changed after the execution of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. His poem ‘Lament for the Poets:1916’ is a beautiful work, which references both Irish mythology and the natural world (see Guardian link above).

But for now, our subject is sparrows. But not just sparrows. See what you think.

To a Sparrow by Francis Ledwidge

Because you have no fear to mingle
Wings with those of greater part,

So like me, with song I single

Your sweet impudence of heart.


And when prouder feathers go where
Summer holds her leafy show,

You still come to us from nowhere

Like grey leaves across the snow.


In back ways where odd and end go

To your meals you drop down sure,

Knowing every broken window

Of the hospitable poor.


There is no bird half so harmless,

None so sweetly rude as you,

None so common and so charmless,

None of virtues nude as you.

But for all your faults I love you,

For you linger with us still,

Though the wintry winds reprove you
And the snow is on the hill.