A leaf-miner leaves a lacy tracery on sow thistle leaves…

Dear Readers, this week one of my favourite New Scientist writers, James Wong, got stuck into two vexed questions. The first is ‘what is a weed’, and I think that the old answer is the best – a ‘weed’ is just a plant that grows somewhere that people don’t want it to grow. It’s worth remembering that even that most pernicious of ‘weeds’, Japanese Knotweed, was first planted by the Victorians as an ornamental (along with Himalayan Balsam and Giant Hogweed by the way).

But the second vexed question is, to me, more interesting. Wong asks: is it true that weeds ‘prefer’ poor soil? And for many of our so-called ‘weeds’, the answer would be no. Take nettles for example. They love nitrogen-rich soil, which is why they grow so prolifically in areas where men go for a pee after a night out at the pub.

Stinging nettles at a local ‘pee-stop’.

Nettles often also grow prolifically the middens or outside toilets used to be at abandoned sites such as those left by the Highland Clearances, the plants thriving long after the humans who used to live there had been displaced.

But in fact many weeds are opportunists, and will grow in poor soils where nothing else can thrive, particularly if they’re annuals and only have to last long enough to set seed. A lot of the ‘little guys’, such as shepherd’s purse or groundsel, do exactly this. I’ve noted before that many of our more recent ‘weeds’ are originally alpine plants (see Trailing Bellflower for example) – these can survive poor soil, low/intermittent rainfall and high levels of exposure to sunlight. One particular urban habitat that thrives on disturbed, poor soils is the Buddleia/Conyza group, where Buddleia and Canadian fleabane are mixed up with various willowherbs and even a few actual willows, given enough time.

East Finchley Petrol Station, now a sea of buddleia and valerian

As a great champion of ‘weeds’ (or as I like to call them, wildflowers) I’d much rather see some plants than no plants, but sadly Barnet Council often doesn’t disagree, and would rather nuke the lot with weedkiller. What gives me hope is the way that these  persistent plants always come back. After all, who wouldn’t prefer to see the green alkanet…

…to a row of dying plants?

Anyhow, onwards! Let’s have a chat about a very determined weed with a lot of biodiversity value, the perennial sow thistle.

Perennial Sowthistle (Sonchus arvensis)

Dear Readers, my friend A sent me the photo above.’What’s this triffid?’ she asked (the plant looks as if it’s about the height of a primary-school child).

Well, it turns out that it’s a Perennial Sow-thistle, also known as a ‘dindle’, though why I have not yet been able to ascertain. To dindle meant ‘to vibrate or tingle’ . When I Google the word it keeps presenting me with ‘dirndl’, which is one of those Tyrolean long skirts, worn with a lacy apron, and is not at all the same thing. Like all members of the Sowthistle genus, the milky sap was believed to improve lactation when eaten by domestic animals, particularly pigs.

It’s certainly an impressive plant, and it’s one of the ‘yellow Asteraceae’ that we were told not to try to identify when I went on a field course about twenty years ago – what with all the hawkbits and hawksbeards and nippleworts and dandelions it’s a very tricky family. But this one is pretty clear – it has nice shiny leaves, several large yellow flowers on each stem, and while it produces white latex like so many plants in the family, it doesn’t turn orange, which that of the Prickly Sowthistle and Smooth Sowthistle does.

Leaves of Perennial Sowthistle

Perennial Sow-thistle (Illustration Public Domain)

The Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) describe Perennial Sowthistle thus:

‘This patch-forming, horizontally spreading perennial, with its stems up to 150 cm tall, is very conspicuous and unmistakable as it waves to the passing motorist from the roadside verge from late July through to October as it bears its large, bright yellow, dandelion-like flowerheads.’

I very much like the description, although ‘our’ plant is clearly a bit early. The BSBI go on to say that although the plant  is classed as a dangerous weed in many countries, in the UK many of the seeds are eaten, particularly by beetle larvae, and of the rest only about 40% are viable. However, as each plant can produce 13,000 seeds per season, and as the plant can also reproduce via rhizomes, it can quickly grow into a clump if the conditions are correct. On the other hand, it looks to me to be rather more attractive than most of the other sow-thistles, which often look very knocked-about by the time all the leaf-borers and mildews have had a go at them. Plus, all manner of pollinators love the flowers.

Photo by Phillippe Juillerat at https://www.infoflora.ch/en/flora/sonchus-arvensis-subsp-arvensis.html

My friend A, an inveterate forager, was also curious as to whether the plant was edible. My initial reaction was ‘no’ because of the white sap, but then  dandelion leaves are perfectly safe to eat (if not grown where they can be contaminated by dogs or pollution), and indeed the leaves of this plant, too, are said to be bitter but fine in a salad, particularly when young. You can find a few recipes here. One legend has it that Theseus feasted on sow-thistle before he entered the labyrinth to do battle with the minotaur.

On the other hand, while many creatures eat the leaves of the Perennial Sow-thistle, one of the rarest and most spectacular is the caterpillar of the Striped Hawkmoth (Hyles livornica). The adult moth is an immigrant which lays its eggs on a variety of plants, but particularly Perennial Sow-thistle. The caterpillars don’t often survive the winter (yet) but are well worth looking out for, with their black and yellow livery and natty red ‘feet’.

Striped Hawkmoth(Hyles livornica) – Photo by By Hectonichus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12673640

Caterpillar of the Striped Hawk Moth (Photo By picture taken by Paolo Mazei – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6346422)

Like many plants that produce milky latex, Perennial Sow-thistle also has a reputation for curing warts if the sap is applied to the area in question. In Wales, it was believed that carrying a sow-thistle leaf in the hat or belt would protect the person from ‘the devil, witches and hags of the night’. On the other hand, a person wearing a leaf could walk and never tire, although anyone walking alongside would tire more quickly and eventually die, which seems like a bit of a rum bargain if you ask me.

And here is a poem by Irish poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin. I rather loved it. See what you think.

Sow-thistle by Annemarie Ní Churreáin

at St Joseph’s Industrial School, Dundalk, Co Louth (1881-1983)

Here, in the aftermath of the orphanage,
I watch the local schoolgirls gathering
along the street’s chipped, black railings
and, two by two, link slender arms to troop
uptown against the sun, all high heads
and clear temples, all grit and burning,
all clean hair flashing ponies.
Who knows the earth more than a girl?
Who knows the auguries of stone?
We were often told, you are the lowest of the low,
we cupped our hands to the grass to see how low.
What cannot be written is rising up
through the cracks. I kneel to a sowthistle,
leaf-starred and gold between my fingers,
the stalk throbbing light. I encounter
its living testimony, as closely as I
would encounter the expert findings
of any state report.

Photo by Françoise Alsaker at https://www.infoflora.ch/en/flora/sonchus-arvensis-subsp-arvensis.html

Female Sparrowhawk in the garden

Dear Readers, my February copy of ‘British Birds’ has arrived. One of my favourite parts is where bird lovers of all kinds report on the behaviour of their local birds, and in this issue there’s an interesting story about a sparrowhawk who appears to have used a walker as a way to flush small birds.

Andy Stoddart had gone for a walk at Blakeney Point in Norfolk when he noticed a young female sparrowhawk ‘accompanying’ him – she would land on the ground, wait for him to catch up and then fly on a short distance. If any small birds were flushed by the walker, she would chase them (though she was never successful). This went on for an hour and a half as Stoddart strolled along. He thought at first that he might be ‘flushing’ the sparrowhawk but she seemed completely unbothered by him, at one point landing less than six feet away.

Now, I have been used by a sparrowhawk as cover – on one occasion I was sitting in Culpeper Garden in Islington, minding my own business, when a sparrowhawk flew over my shoulder, so close that its primary feathers nearly brushed my cheek, and plunged into a bush full of sparrows. This hunt, too, was unsuccessful, but I’m convinced that the bird knew that I was between him and the sparrows, and that the sparrows couldn’t see him. And many large predators use jeeps and other vehicles not only as cover, but sometimes as a vantage point in the Kruger and other national parks in Africa. What adaptable, opportunistic animals these are! I guess if you miss the vast majority of the kills that you attempt you’re going to try everything you can think of to increase your odds of getting a meal.

Mistle Thrush in Cherry Tree Wood

And whilst we’re on the subject of opportunists, another reader, Malcolm Ogilvie, who lives on Islay in the Scottish Highlands, has found a photo of a mistle thrush eating a common lizard. Apparently mistle thrushes will also kill  nestling dunnocks, song thrushes and blackbirds and feed them to their own young. That line between ‘carnivores’ and ‘herbivores’ is often not as strict as we like to think, with many animals not turning up their noses/beaks if the chance of some protein presents itself.

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

Dear Readers, what a grey, dank, dreary and wet few weeks it’s been – just as well I have been up to my armpits in a group project for my Open University course, and so haven’t noticed. But this afternoon I sat outside for a few minutes, and realised that yes, spring is on the way, what with the collared doves chasing one another around and the parakeets eating the buds from the whitebeam tree.

In my last iteration of this ‘Birdsong Builds’ post, I included a lot of the more musical birds, but how about the ones with a less melodic song? Here’s the collared dove making that ‘toy trumpet’ sound that indicates that a male bird is in hot pursuit of a (usually uninterested, if not actively hostile) female…

And here is 46 seconds of collared dove ‘singing’. He has only one song, but at least it’s easily remembered.

And how about those cheeky parakeets? A musical friend of mine complains that these birds have completely changed the soundscape of an English wood, and she’s not wrong. Still, here we are. Forgive the blurred photo, but I do believe this parakeet is drinking something…..

These are some rose-ringed parakeets recorded in Queen’s Wood in Highgate by local bird expert David Darrell-Lambert. What noisy birds they are!

And finally, here’s a sound that I love – jackdaws chuckling. It reminds me so much of my time in Dorset with Mum and Dad, and now we have some jackdaws locally here in East Finchley.

So, are you hearing more birds where you are? Spring is starting to lurch into bloom here in London, but goodness knows it’s taking its time….

Great Tit (Parus major)

And now, back to 2024…

Dear Readers, have you heard it yet? That call of tee-cher, tee-cher from the highest branch of a shrub, signalling that a great tit is starting to declare his territory? Interestingly, the birds seem to have a different intonation according to where they are in the world. Here’s a Belgian bird…(from Wallonia)

Here’s a Spanish one (from close to Santiago de Compostela)

Here’s a French one (from Nantes in the Loire Valley)

And here’s one from the UK

In her piece in ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Lulah Ellender points out that spring starts a lot earlier than we expect, if we have our ears open. Lots of other birds are starting to sing too. There are song thrushes in Coldfall Wood, and in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery (apologies for the wobbly camera, it might be best to watch this with your eyes closed if you’re prone to sea sickness)

And the robins, who’ve been singing all year, suddenly have a new bounce in their step…

Everyone else will be starting to sing too. There’s the fluting of blackbirds, usually from a television aerial or the very top of a tree. This early on, Ellender points out that it will be the younger males, searching for a territory or defending one that they already have against other young whipper-snappers. The established males don’t bother singing until March.

The more high-pitched song of the dunnock – this mousey, discreet little bird can be found sitting high on a branch, singing its head off from mid February onwards…

And if you listen carefully, you can definitely hear blue tits. This recording starts off with one of their rather cross-sounding alarm calls, followed by their reedy, metallic song.

It’s much too early for most species to start nest-building (though there is a lot of confusion about in the natural world, as we know), but in some species the loudness and complexity of the song is an indication of the health and vigour of the male bird, and gives the females a chance to check them out before things really get going later in the year. Males sing less once they actually have a mate and a territory (though many still sing to announce that they’re still alive, and their territory is still occupied). But what all this activity signals is that spring is on the way, hard to believe for some folk in the North of England who are expecting a shedload of snow this week, but true nonetheless.

Song Thrush singing in East Finchley

Dear Readers, I should hasten to point out that the photos in this piece were taken over the past few years, but what a treat it was this morning, to stand in my back bedroom and gradually realise that I could hear a familiar chirruping sound. The sparrows have been away for months, but this morning they’re clearly back.

How I love these little birds! Their disappearance was a real source of sadness for me – during most years they bring their fledglings to the garden to feed them (and presumably to teach them where the feeders are).

I know that they nest under the eaves of a friend of mine, and she hasn’t seen them lately either. I hope that they’re making their way in her direction.

All the websites and books suggest that house sparrows are intensely sedentary, rarely venturing more than  2 kilometres from home. So where have the sparrows been? And are these even the same sparrows? Apparently they form foraging flocks and head out to find food together. I suspect we’ll never know, and I imagine that many people have the experience of birds frequenting their gardens and then disappearing.

And for those who are still sparrow-less, here is a cheery group of sparrows from France, just getting ready to start their day…they are not the most tuneful of birds, but  what they lack in lyricism they make up for in energy.

Well, Readers, it’s clear that the horrible wet weather hasn’t stopped any of the usual suspects from visiting the garden. First up, there’s our usual dog fox. Here, he’s clearly been distracted by something going on upstairs, or in the kitchen.

And how do I know he’s male? As with dogs, only the males cock their legs. Thanks for doing this all over the water butt, lad.

Then there’s the usual parade of cats…

And holy moly, what’s the story with this one? I shall try to find out….

I suspect this fox is calling to a friend. I haven’t seen two at the same time for a while, which is a bit strange as this is breeding season….

But wait! What on earth is this person doing in the garden?

Gordon Bennett, it’s me! These trail cameras aren’t very flattering, are they.

Photo by By Martin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12503487

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

Dear Readers, on February 5th 2026 it’s another blustery day, much beloved of Winnie the Pooh and also by the crows, who seem to love to throw themselves into the wind and let it carry them along. It’s much the same as in 2024, when I wrote the piece below. But for a moment I wanted to talk about the phenomenon of named winds, such as the Foehn wind of the Alps, or the Mistral in the south of France. Those of you with long memories might remember that I reviewed a book by Nick Hunt, called ‘Where The Wild Winds Are’, in which Hunt travels across Europe in search of the named winds, meeting with all kinds of adventures on the way. You can read my review here – I heartily recommend the book. Hunt has a real ear and eye for an unusual story.

One of the more unusual winds that he looks for is the Helm: this is the UK’s only named wind, which blows over Cross Fell in the Pennines. This is a very coquettish wind, requiring perfect conditions and even then sometimes refusing to show up. Hunt  visits Cross Fell several times. Does he find the Helm? You’ll have to read his book to find out :-).

Incidentally, author Sarah Hall has recently published a novel called Helm, which is a kind of imagined biography of the wind – has anyone read it? She also wrote a wonderful book called ‘The Wolf Border‘, about an imagined re-introduction of wolves to the UK. ‘Helm’ is definitely on my list.

Anyhoo, let’s pop back to 2024 to see what was going on with the wind then….

Dear Readers, it’s one of those days when the wind is whistling over the top of the chimney like someone blowing over the top of a milk bottle. Outside, the pond is full of ripples and waves, and I’m continually mistaking the turbulence for an early frog (wishful thinking if ever there was!)

On East Finchley High Road, Tony’s Continental has taken down its awning, which is always a sign that it’s going to be a gusty day. I just hope that the oranges don’t go skittering down the road. And they have a lovely new sign, but this is an old photograph.

Tony’s Continental – no awning today!

One of the effects of global warming has been an increase in extreme weather events, and for us in the UK, the way that rising temperatures have affected the Arctic is particularly relevant. In her piece in ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Rowan Jaines describes how climate modellers are predicting that the warming to the north of the UK is likely to drag the polar jet stream north, meaning that more storm systems will be drawn behind it, and that they are likely to stay for longer. At the moment it feels as if there is barely a gap between storms, with Storm Henk following Storm Gerrit within a few days, and then Storm Isha being followed up by Storm Jocelyn. The next storm is Kathleen, so let’s see when she arrives. In a normal year we would have six or seven named storms, but this year we’ve already had ten and it’s only early February.

Still, the UK has likely always had its fair share of windy weather, and I find myself fascinated with local vernacular names for breezy, gusty conditions. When I was in Scotland (Dundee to be precise) it was often described as ‘blowing a hoolie’, ‘Blirtie’ means a day of sudden blasts of wind or rain. ‘Fissle’ is the sound of the wind as it rustles through leaves. A ‘gouling day’ is a windy, stormy day. When the wind begins to ‘kittle’, it means that it’s starting to increase.

In Yorkshire, ‘brissling’ describes a brisk wind, while a ‘faffle’ is a light intermittent wind. ‘Peerching’ (surely from ‘piercing’) describes a bitterly cold, biting wind. A ‘waft’ is the slightest puff of wind, barely a breeze.

Once, every region would have had its own words for its own very specific geographical and meteorological features, and these were intrinsic to a feeling of belonging and connection. Robert MacFarlane writes about this extensively in his book ‘Landmarks‘. He describes the need for a ‘Counter-Desecration Phrasebook’ which would preserve these place names, with all their specificity and detail, and argues that they make us look more closely, pay more attention. Take, for example, ‘fizmer’ – ‘the rustling noise produced in grass by petty agitations of the wind’ (East Anglia), or a phrase collected by author Nan Shepherd from the Cairngorms – ‘roarie-bummler’, meaning ‘fast-moving storm clouds’. What different conditions these two words/phrases describe, and what pictures they conjure up in the mind! And how much more precise they are than ‘breezy’ or ‘windy’.

There is something about windy weather that is both agitating and exciting – the cat is restless when the chimney is singing, even though she’s deaf, and the birds on the feeders seem to have a restlessness about them. The wind has its own voice, after all. Let’s close with Jaine’s thought-provoking conclusion to her piece for this micro-season.

“With this shift in the weather, our UK winters will begin to sing different or more intense songs from those we have been accustomed to. The howling winds of this microseason perhaps mark a shift in the auditory texture of winters to come. This opens up a space of unknowing. What if we heard the movement of high winds as anarchic Nature reclaiming, momentarily, the streets of the cities? As it tears through the urban fabric, setting off car alarms, throwing rubbish around and playing alleys like flutes, might we hear a song of rebellion? In this space of unknowing, what might our ears tell us that our eyes, in the dead of night, cannot perceive?” (Rowan Jaines pg 38)

Dear Readers, what a great poem this is – although I’ve read a lot of Ted Hughes, I hadn’t come across this one. It sums up that frightening yet exciting feeling of very windy weather. See what you think.

Wind by Ted Hughes

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up –
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap:
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

Dear Readers, I have long been a fan of Stock Doves – they go about almost unnoticed, and yet they are very attractive birds, with their ‘kind’ dark eyes and iridescent patch on the neck (no white on these guys, which is one way to tell that they aren’t Wood Pigeons). In Coldfall Wood they hang about in pairs, and are very shy, often flying away when I am within a ten metre radius. The population of the bird has fallen by about 50 percent in the UK over the past fifty years, but  recently it’s been making something of a comeback, which as we know is unusual for birds that are usually associated with farmland. And could it be that they’ll soon be back in some numbers? Have a look at this photograph of a roosting site in the Marais de la Vacherie regional nature reserve in Vendée, where no less than 12,800 Stock Doves were recorded back in 2024.

Stock Doves heading for their roost (Photo from https://www.ornithomedia.com/breves/un-mega-dortoir-automnal-record-de-pigeons-colombins-dans-la-reserve-naturelle-regionale-du-marais-de-la-vacherie-vendee/)

Previously, many European Stock Doves would head south when the weather got too cold, but a lot more are now staying put or migrating for shorter distances. Might some of them hop over the Channel to swell our Stock Dove numbers? I have no idea, but they would be most welcome. I had a Stock Dove in the garden back in 2023, and it hung out with the squirrel very nicely. Fingers crossed for a few more.

Pudding and Sunrise demolishing an egg box

Dear Readers, you might remember that I said goodbye to my foster cats Pudding and Sunrise last week. You might also remember that they were completely addicted to food when they arrived: we suspected that they hadn’t had a reliable source of food in their previous home, and so were constantly anxious about where their next meal was coming from. To keep them occupied, I hid a small amount of dry food in an egg box, in the hope that this would keep them busy for half an hour. Within ten minutes they’d ripped it to bits and eaten everything.

Butter wouldn’t melt….

Well, they settled down a bit and spent time playing and snoozing as well as rushing out to the kitchen every time I stood up. On  Thursday they went to their forever home, and I tearfully wandered out to the kitchen after they’d gone, dabbing my eyes with a bit of kitchen roll, when I noticed this….

I’d heard peculiar noises coming from the kitchen, but hadn’t gone out to investigate. At least the eggs are still intact. Clever kitties! They’d previously broken into a loaf of bread, so I assume they just wanted an egg butty.