Dear Readers, because one day’s worth of Benjamin Zephaniah isn’t enough, I thought that today I’d share one of his (many) nature poems. More widely known as an activist, commentator and all-round wonderful human, in 2021 he published a book called ‘Nature Trail‘, which begs to be read aloud, preferably to a group of small children. But somehow, he manages to sneak a more profound message into even to the lightest of poems. Have a look at the last lines of this one. I couldn’t agree more.

Nature Trail

At the bottom of my garden
There’s a hedgehog and a frog
And a lot of creepy-crawlies
Living underneath a log,
There’s a baby daddy long legs
And an easy-going snail
And a family of woodlice,
All are on my nature trail.

There are caterpillars waiting
For their time to come to fly,
There are worms turning the earth over
As ladybirds fly by,
Birds will visit, cats will visit
But they always chose their time
And I’ve even seen a fox visit
This wild garden of mine.

Squirrels come to nick my nuts
And busy bees come buzzing
And when the night time comes
Sometimes some dragonflies come humming,
My garden mice are very shy
And I’ve seen bats that growl
And in my garden I have seen
A very wise old owl.

My garden is a lively place
There’s always something happening,
There’s this constant search for food
And then there’s all that flowering,
When you have a garden
You will never be alone
And I believe we all deserve
A garden of our own.

Benjamin Zephaniah Friday, January 3, 2003

Benjamin Zephaniah in 2018 (Photo by By Edwardx – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74944196)

Oh, I was so sorry to hear about the death of Benjamin Zephaniah this week, aged only 65. When I was first getting interested in poetry, it was him who introduced me to a whole new rhythm and style of rhyme. Have a listen to him reading here – I love all of these, but ‘City River Blues’ is probably my favourite. In his all-too-short 65 years he wrote political poems, poems for children, poems full of rage, poems full of fun, and he found the time to appear in 14 episodes of ‘Peaky Blinders’.

I rather like this take on Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’, and if you’ve listened to him reading at the link above, you can here it in your head.

What If (2009)
If you can keep your money when governments about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust your neighbour when they trust not you
And they be very nosy too;
If you can await the warm delights of summer
Then summer comes and goes with sun not seen,
And pay so much for drinking water
Knowing that the water is unclean.

If you seek peace in times of war creation,
And you can see that oil merchants are to blame,
If you can meet a pimp or politician,
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you cannot bear dis-united nations
And you think this new world order is a trick,
If you’ve ever tried to build good race relations,
And watch bad policing mess your work up quick.

If you can make one heap of all your savings
And risk buying a small house and plot,
Then sit back and watch the economy inflating
Then have to deal with the negative equity you’ve got;
If you can force your mind and body to continue
When all the social services have gone,
If you struggle on when there is nothing in you,
Except the knowledge that justice can be wrong.

If you can speak the truth to common people
Or walk with Kings and Queens and live no lie,
If you can see how power can be evil
And know that every censor is a spy;
If you can fill an unforgiving lifetime
With years of working hard to make ends meet,
You may not be wealthy but I am sure you will find
That you can hold your head high as you walk the streets.

Not many people know that Zephaniah was a vegan, and an environmentalist. I rather love this festive offering.

Talking Turkeys

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don’t eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.

Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
“I cannot wait for de chop”,
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.

I once knew a turkey called … Turkey
He said “Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?”,
I said “I am not too sure turkey
But it’s nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash”.

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends “FOR LIFE”.

And finally, this one, very close to my heart. RIP Benjamin. You were, and are, a bright star.

We Refugees

I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.

I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don’t like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.

I come from a beautiful place
Where girls cannot go to school
There you are told what to believe
And even young boys must grow beards.

I come from a great old forest
I think it is now a field
And the people I once knew
Are not there now.

We can all be refugees
Nobody is safe,
All it takes is a mad leader
Or no rain to bring forth food,
We can all be refugees
We can all be told to go,
We can be hated by someone
For being someone.

I come from a beautiful place
Where the valley floods each year
And each year the hurricane tells us
That we must keep moving on.
I come from an ancient place
All my family were born there
And I would like to go there
But I really want to live.

I come from a sunny, sandy place
Where tourists go to darken skin
And dealers like to sell guns there
I just can’t tell you what’s the price.

I am told I have no country now
I am told I am a lie
I am told that modern history books
May forget my name.

We can all be refugees
Sometimes it only takes a day,
Sometimes it only takes a handshake
Or a paper that is signed.
We all came from refugees
Nobody simply just appeared,
Nobody’s here without a struggle,
And why should we live in fear
Of the weather or the troubles?
We all came here from somewhere.

African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) Photo by Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Readers, I don’t know quite why I find penguins so endearing. Is it that they walk upright, like us? Is it the way that they bustle along with such purpose, or is it maybe their determination when faced by obstacles like finding their mate in an enormous colony of thousands of individuals? Scientists have been studying African/Cape Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) to find  out what they can about the species’ breeding behaviour – this is one of the rarest penguins in the world, with an estimated total population of less than 21,000 birds in 2019. A combination of a fall in the numbers of sardines and anchovies available for the birds to feed on, oil spills and pollution, avian flu and human persecution have led to the African penguin being on the IUCN Red List. One possible point in its favour is that it doesn’t require the very low temperatures of some other penguin species, and that it seems to breed easily in captivity – zoos are cooperating in establishing a captive breeding population in case the wild birds reach a point of no return.

Which brings us back to mate recognition. How do penguins recognise one another? African penguins form lifelong pair bonds. It’s been known for a while that they can pick out their partner’s call from all the other birds in a colony, but scientist Luigi Baciadonna, of the University of Turin, wondered if the penguins could also recognise one another visually.

If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that the penguin has a very distinctive pattern of spots on its chest. These spots remain in the same position after every moult, so Baciadonna wondered if they had a special significance. To find out, they tested 12 birds at a zoo near Rome.

First up, they made life-sized images of the penguins, showed them to the live birds, and recorded their responses. Individual birds spent more time gazing (lovingly, I’m tempted to add) at the photos of their partners than they did of any of the other familiar penguins. This was true even when the heads of the images of the penguins were obscured, so clearly our obsession with the face of our beloved isn’t replicated in the African penguin.

Then they showed the penguins two images of their partner, one with spots, one with the spots removed. The penguins preferred their ‘spotty’ partner. But when the birds were shown their partner with the spots removed and another unspotted bird, all preferences disappeared. Baciadonna and his team believe that this shows that the spots are critical to mate identification.

African Penguin at the Western Cape (Photo by Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

It’s estimated that there has been a 95% drop in the number of African penguins during the past century. Anything that helps us to understand these extraordinary birds, and to help them to survive, has to be useful information.

Mistletoe (Viscum album) in Somerset

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 can’t think about mistletoe without remembering the tree in the photo above. It grew in the garden of the Shrubbery Hotel in Ilminster, where we stayed both for happy occasions, such as my Aunt Hilary’s 90th birthday celebrations, and for sad ones, such as her Memorial Service. There are very few trees close to my home that have mistletoe (though one in East Finchley Cemetery comes to mind) but I often see them when I’m travelling by train to Dorset.

I’ve written about mistletoe before, so thought I’d share this (updated) article from my Wednesday Weed series a few years ago. This is a fascinating plant, and, as Lulah Ellender says in Nature’s Calendar, it makes us think about the whole nature of parasitism.

“Hung from ceilings and doorways this season, mistletoe does not just invite us for a seasonal kiss. It also challenges us to think about our perceptions around individualism, agency and autonomy in the natural world. Should we view parasitic plants as ecological freeloaders, sapping strength from an unwitting host? Or, by looking aslant at the notion of parasites, should we remember that interdependence is actually the essence of all living things?”

Indeed. There’s way too much ‘rugged individualism’ about in my opinion. None of us could survive without other people, especially these days when we outsource so many of the things that we need. We are all interconnected, and what harms one of us harms us all.

Rant over, and now back to the mistletoe!

Dear Readers, as Christmas is just around the corner I thought I’d share a few thoughts about mistletoe. What a strange plant this is! It’s associated with Christmas because it stays fresh and green even after the trees lose their leaves, but it has a longer association with fertility: the branches, foliage and seeds are said to resemble various sexual organs, though I must admit that I am having to squint to see much of a likeness, innocent soul that I am. Update – Lulah Ellender points out that the fertility link with mistletoe is because of its resemblance to sperm (see Photo Two below). The Celts believed that it was the semen of Taranis, the god of the sun and thunder, and the ancient Greek name for it was ‘oak sperm’. Clearly I need to get out (or stay in) more. 

Mistletoe fruit (Photo One)

Nonetheless, mistletoe has been used as a ‘cure’ for infertility (though as it’s toxic one would have to be very careful), as a charm for young women seeking to find husbands, and, of course, as an excuse for kissing. My latest issue of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) magazine has an article on mistletoe, which mentions that the kissing business probably started in the southwest Midlands, which is where mistletoe is commonest, and spread out from there, probably as a commercial enterprise, with the plant being taken to other parts of the country by the rapidly-growing railway network.

What intrigued me most in this article, however, was the story of how the mistletoe is spread. Mistletoe is a hemiparasite, which means that it derives its water and nutrients from its hosts, although it can photosynthesise itself. The plant seems to prefer hawthorn, apple, poplar and linden trees, though it has been found on hundreds of other species. The name ‘mistle’ comes from the plant’s association with thrushes, in particular the mistle thrush, which loves the fruit. It was long believed that mistletoe was spread by the birds wiping their beaks on twigs to get rid of the sticky substance that coats the seeds. However, it seems that mistle thrushes don’t do this, but simply excrete the seeds, only some of which will fall onto the correct type of branch and stick.

Sticky mistletoe seed (Photo Two)

Mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) (Photo Three)

However, over the past few decades there has been a large increase in the range of mistletoe in the UK, and the reason cited in the RHS article (by Graham Rice) is the blackcap. These little warblers used to migrate in winter, but an increasing number are staying in the UK all year round. Not only do they love mistletoe, but they do wipe their beaks after eating the fruit.

Although mistletoe feeds from its host trees, it’s not generally seen as dangerous to them. Indeed, there is advice in the RHS article on how to persuade mistletoe to colonise your trees. So this seems like quite a happy partnership between the mistletoe and the blackcap.

Male blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) (Photo Four)

Female blackcap (Photo Five)

Mistletoes belong to the sandalwood family (Santalaceae), and I’d never really given any thought to whether there were other species. And of course, there are. In Southern Spain there’s the red-berried Viscum cruciatum or red-berried mistletoe.

Red-berried mistletoe (Viscum cruciatum) (Photo Six)

In central and southern Europe there’s the yellow-berried mistletoe (Loranthus europaeus) which favours oak trees. The plants in the Loranthanceae family are known as ‘showy mistletoes’. I can see why.

Yellow-berried mistletoe (Loranthus europaeus) (Photo Seven)

Another ‘showy mistletoe’ is the Western Australian Christmas Tree (Nuytsia floribunda). This is a hemiparastic tree, of all things – it draws nutrients from the roots of any nearby plants that it can reach. Almost all species are susceptible to attack, but normally the tree only takes a small amount from each individual plant. It will even infiltrate underground cables. This is an extraordinary tree, revered by some of the Aboriginal peoples of the country, who used the bark for shields and harvested small amounts of the sticky gum that it exuded. The flowers, which can grow to up to a metre long, are favourites with pollinators

Western Australian Christmas Trees (Nuytsia floribunda) (Photo Eight)

Nuytsia floribunda flowers abuzz with bees (Photo Nine)

And finally, there are the dwarf mistletoes, which are more closely related to ‘our’ mistletoe than the showy mistletoes above. These can be more serious pests of trees because they are considered to be disease-vectors. They don’t rely on birds to spread their seeds, but can shoot them at up to fifty miles an hour after building up thermostatic pressure within the plant. The species below, Arceuthobium oxycedri, grows on juniper, and can cause problems where the shrubs are being grown commercially (for example, for their berries to flavour gin).

Dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium oxycedri) growing on juniper in Lebanon (Photo Ten)

So there is a lot more to mistletoes than just our species, but of course, the plain old white-berried one is closest to my heart. And of course, it needs a poem. So how about this one, which is actually a song – the words are by Barry Cornwall, and the poem itself comes from a book called ‘Christmas with the Poets’ by Henry Vizetelly, published in 1851. It’s rather a rambunctious way to finish this post, but as winter comes we need to ‘banish melancholy’ in any way that we can, I find. I hope you enjoy it!

The Mistletoe

Words: Barry Cornwall

Source: Henry Vizetelly, Christmas With The Poets (London: David Bogue, 1851).

When winter nights grow long,
And winds without blow cold,
We sit in a ring round the warm wood fire,
And listen to stories old!
And we try to look grave (as maids should be),
When the men bring in boughs of the laurel tree.
O, the laurel, the evergreen tree!
The poets have laurels, and why not we!

How pleasant, when night falls down,
And hides the wintry sun,
To see them come in to the blazing fire,
And know that their work is done;
Whilst many bring in, with a laugh or rhyme,
Green branches of holly for Christmas time.
O, the holly, the bright green holly!
It tells (like a tongue) that the times are jolly!

Sometimes — (in our grave house
Observe, this happeneth not;)
But at times the evergreen laurel boughs,
And the holly are all forgot;
And then — what then? why, the men laugh low,
And hang up a branch of —— the mistletoe!
Oh, brave is the laurel! and brave is the holly,
But the mistletoe banisheth melancholy!
Ah, nobody knows, nor ever shall know,
What is done under the mistletoe.

Photo Credits

Photo One By Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=752332

Photo Two by By Fir0002 (talk) (Uploads) – Fir0002 (talk) (Uploads), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32885953

Photo Three By Yuriy75 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8897596

Photo Four By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=104326583

Photo Five By Vogelartinfo – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13276336

Photo Six By Nbauers – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77809079

Photo Seven by Stefan.lefnaer, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Eight  By enjosmith – Flickr: WA Christmas Trees, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30325757

Photo Nine  By Photographs by JarrahTree…commons.wikimedia.org, CC BY 2.5 au, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29752289

Photo Ten by By Elie plus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27859735

Tachystola mulliganae (Photo by David Lees/Trustees of the Natural History Museum) from Ealing: New species of moth discovered in west London park – BBC News

Dear Readers, I sometimes dream of how exciting it would be to find a species new to science in my back garden, but this week there was news that lifelong moth enthusiast Barbara Mulligan had done just that. Mulligan had been fascinated by moths since she was ten years old, and had recently retired from her job as a housing finance officer when she found a moth in her moth trap (in Ealing, West London) that she didn’t recognise.

She sent the moth to her local moth recorder, who was also stumped, so the moth ended up at the Natural History Museum, where it was recognised as being similar to a specimen of an Australian moth that had been in the collection since 1885. Genetic tests proved that although the moth was similar to the one in the collection, it was distinct, and was, in fact, a moth new to science. It was named Tachystola mulliganae in Mulligan’s honour, and she couldn’t be more pleased.

Since then, she’s found 25 moths in several other locations in Ealing, but how it arrived in the UK is a mystery. It’s likely that the moth larvae or eggs were brought in with some plants from Australia, but it probably happened fairly recently as the moth is only known from a limited geographical range. Though the question is, would we know? There are not that many dedicated and regular observers of moths, though maybe the thought of finding a moth new to science could be an encouragement.

And let’s not forget the amazing Jennifer Owens, who monitored the wildlife in her suburban Leicestershire garden and discovered six species of parasitic wasp that were new to science, and 20 species of insect that hadn’t been reported in the UK before. Her book ‘Wildlife of a Garden – a Thirty-Year Study'(currently out of print)  is a fascinating insight into what can appear in a garden that wasn’t designed just for wildlife, but also for fruit, veg and flowers for the humans who enjoyed it. And who knows what’s going on even in a modest urban patch? Eyes peeled, people! You could be the next person to have a plant or critter named after you.

Male Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) Photo by https://www.flickr.com/photos/sbern/13471929904/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36391956

Dear Readers, there has been at least one of these glorious sea ducks present at Walthamstow Wetlands on several occasions this year, but every time I visit I manage to miss him. What a treat it would be to see one! Goldeneyes breed in a few places in Scotland, but mostly they are winter visitors, and they are Red Listed because the wintering population has dropped by 55% from the mid 1990s. What is going on? It isn’t altogether clear: the best interpretation (for the ducks themselves, if not for birdlovers in the UK) is that the Goldeneyes are ‘short-stopping’ during their migration – if the winters are getting warmer in Europe, they may well choose to migrate for a shorter distance, to somewhere a bit closer to home. On the other hand, it may be that habitat disturbance, hunting and the ingestion of lead bait used by anglers is actually decreasing their population. Let’s hope it’s the former.

Female Common Goldeneye (Photo By  https://www.flickr.com/photos/sbern/13471581725/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36392009)

The Goldeneye’s rather unusual scientific name means roughly ‘bull-headed clanger’. You might remember that Alexander the Great’s horse was called ‘Bucephalus’, which wasn’t a compliment. These ducks have tennis-ball shaped heads and apparently no neck, which only adds to their appeal, to me at least’. But how about that ‘clanger’ bit? Well, here are five males and a female during their courting display. See what you think. This was recorded by Alan Dalton just outside Stockholm in Sweden.

They also have wingbeats that sound as if they had a Doppler effect built in  – recorded here by Uku Paal in Estonia.

But if all that splashing and general carry-on in the first soundclip has gotten you intrigued, have a look at some Goldeneyes during their courtship display here. The film starts off with one reason why Goldeneyes might be getting rarer. Who’d be a female duck? Though the whole display is extraordinary to watch, and it has a strange combination of tenderness and testosterone.

Male Goldeneye displaying (Photo by Andrew Reding https://www.flickr.com/photos/seaotter/32817183454)

One conservation success with these birds has been that the tiny Scottish breeding population, which was in single figures in the 1970s, has now increased to over 200 pairs. This may well be because these are ducks that will nest in nest boxes – as soon as this was realised, nest boxes went up in prime sites close to water and lo and behold, more Goldeneyes bred. There were some worries about predation by pine martens, and competition from Mandarin ducks, but so far the population seems stable.

Common Goldeneye images from the ever wonderful Crossley Guide https://crossleybooks.com/species/common-goldeneye/

And finally, how about that James Bond film, Goldeneye? You might know that Ian Fleming’s house in Jamaica was called ‘Goldeneye’, and that he was a keen birdwatcher. But is there a link? In fact the name came from a wartime intelligence operation, which was actually designed by one Commander Ian Fleming, who travelled to Gibraltar to set up the plan. The fear was that there would be an alliance between the Germans and Franco in Spain, and Operation Goldeneye planned to leave some operatives in place in Gibraltar if this occurred, so that they could coordinate sabotage missions and ensure communications were received by the Allied forces. In the event, no such alliance occurred.

This does beg the question of who named the Operation ‘Goldeneye’ in the first place. Could it have been named after the duck? I wonder if Fleming had a hand in naming it. I guess we will never know.

Fleming’s Goldeneye Estate in Jamaica (Photo by By Banjoman1 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15532437)

Psyllid bug Aphalara itadori(Photo from CABI website)

Dear Readers, on my Open University course we are currently exploring the world of invasive species, and none arouses my interest more than Japanese Knotweed. I’ve written about this plant before, back in 2015, but I wondered how things were going with the biological controls that were suggested to tackle the plant.

For those who haven’t had the mixed pleasure of encountering this plant, Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) was imported to the UK as an ornamental by those pesky Victorians. Once here, it decided that it liked the place so much that it has set up shop in many areas, including the edges of Muswell Hill Playing Fields. The plant is actually sterile (there are no male plants in the UK), but the roots spread easily, and the smallest fragment of root can generate a whole new thicket. It is extremely difficult to eradicate, requiring either systematic digging out of every fragment of root for years, or multiple dosing with glysophate. It’s true that Japanese ladies harvest the tender tips and eat them, but you’d need an awful lot of foragers to deal with this lot.

Japanese Knotweed on Muswell Hill Playing Fields

Attention turned to the possibility of finding a biological control for the plant. The scientists had genetically analysed the Japanese Knotweed in the UK, and discovered that it came from a small area near Nagasaki. In the wild, Japanese Knotweed lives on volcanic soil and is a resilient and determined coloniser of these sites, so it’s no wonder that it likes the disturbed soil where it’s often found in the UK.

Once the plants’ genetic inheritance was established, it was a case of investigating what was preying upon it, and then testing the predators to ensure that they had a very tight preference for Japanese Knotweed. The best candidate was a ‘true’ bug (in the sense of being an insect that sucks sap), Aphalara itadori (pictured above). It was chosen because the scientists at CABI (The Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International) identified it as the ‘bug most likely to’ cause substantial damage to Japanese Knotweed, without transferring its affections elsewhere once the host plant was demolished.

Large scale releases of the insect have taken place under licence since 2015, but results have been mixed. The adult insects overwinter in vegetation near the Japanese Knotweed, and prefer pine trees, which can present problems if there aren’t any nearby. At several sites the bugs did survive the winter anyhow, but long-term establishment and reproduction seem to be a problem.

However, in 2019 a different bug was found eating Japanese Knotweed in the Murakami district of Japan, and there are high hopes that this insect will prove to be a bit hardier in the field. It’s currently being tested to ensure that it only eats what it’s supposed to eat, and to investigate its life cycle in detail. It will be interesting to see if this insect proves to be a better biological control than the previous bug.

Psyllid nymph damage on Japanese Knotweed (CABI)

Another possibility is a fungal pathogen that causes leaf spot on the plant in its native Japan. It would be much too risky to release this as a whole organism, but work is on hand to develop a mycoherbicide: this would use the active fungal ingredient, which has been treated to prevent it from reproducing or spreading. If it works, it could be sprayed onto Japanese Knotweed without any impact on any surrounding plants, or on the waterways that it often grows along. Let’s see how this turns out.

Japanese Knotweed leaves infected with leaf spot fungus

The nineteenth century was a time when the Victorians were cheerfully moving plants and animals from one place to another without any thought for what was going to happen if their ‘finds’ established themselves elsewhere. Himalayan Balsam, Giant Hogweed and Japanese Knotweed are just three of the plants that have escaped, with serious detrimental effects on habitats and native flora. There’s nothing wrong with any of these plants per se – they all have their charms and their uses as part of their native habitats. But having seen how Japanese Knotweed can completely screen out all the other plants that it grows with it’s clear that something has to be done, and in general I’d rather it wasn’t spraying with Round-Up. On the other hand, I also have an instinctive worry about fighting fire with fire. Let’s hope that all the research into the insects and fungi that are currently being mentioned with regard to Japanese Knotweed has been thorough enough to prevent unanticipated problems.

Another fine stand of Japanese Knotweed

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

Dear Readers, although my garden is quieter in winter than in spring, it’s not completely lacking in bird song. Robins are unusual amongst British birds because they hold both autumn/winter and spring territories. In the winter, the territories are smaller, and in many cases male and female robins hold adjoining ‘patches’, which are amalgamated when the warmer weather comes, and testosterone levels rise. Nonetheless, the robin in my garden was most indignant when a small flock of sparrows visited today, and s/he (for it is impossible to tell) tried to see the whole gang of them off. Sparrows are not so easily distracted however, and the robin left sitting indignantly in the climbing hydrangea while the sparrows gave the gutters a good going-over.

One way that robins defend their territories from other robins is by singing. Have a listen to this. You can see the bird listening out for another robin and then responding. On some winter days, if you listen carefully, you can hear how you are walking out of one territory into another as you travel along. Such energy!

In her piece on robins in ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Kiera Chapman points out that the breast of the robin is not really red, but is closer to orange. Alas, the word for ‘orange’ arrived with orange trees in the late fifteenth century (from the Sanskrit ‘naranga‘) – before that, things that we would now describe as orange in colour were designated as red or yellow. So it was with Robin Redbreast. I guess that Robin Orange-breast doesn’t have quite the same satisfyingly alliterative quality.

And so, if you’re up early on these dark mornings and hear someone singing, chances are that it’s a robin. And there’s something about it that always makes me feel less grumpy at getting up on a cold and frosty morning. I think I might buy the robins some Christmas mealworms. After all, at this time of year they need all the help that they can get.

Dear Readers, when I first started visiting Dorchester (from about 2001 when Mum and Dad moved nearby) I often passed the King’s Arms with a sense of real sadness. This is the hostelry where Thomas Hardy set some of the scenes from The Mayor of Casterbridge ‘ (anyone who’s ever visited ‘Dorch’ will know that it’s Hardy Central), but the King’s Arms stayed decrepit and unloved for years. Then, about seven years ago there were signs that something exciting was happening – scaffolding went up, plaster was repaired, there were builder’s vans outside more or less constantly, and a great sense of excitement was in the air. And then, of course, the pandemic struck, just after the new King’s Arms had opened. I feared for the worst, but how splendid it looked!

PHoto from 2020 (https://www.dorchesterdorset.com/blog/news/kings-arms-dorchester-reopening/)

Parts of the King’s Arms date back to the 16th Century but most of it was rebuilt in the early 19th Century, giving it an elegant Georgian charm (true of so much of Dorchester). In the 20th Century it was owned by a series of breweries and private entrepreneurs, before finally going into receivership in 2015. It was bought by the Stay Original company  who specialise in refurbishing and preserving historic pubs and hotels. A lot of the restoration involved removing what the new owners describe as ’20th Century Tat”, including false ceilings and carpet covering a Victorian encaustic floor. The public areas really are lovely, as you can see.

This is the Casterbridge Room, said to be where Hardy wrote ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ (from King’s Arms website)

As regular readers know, I’ve been staying at Westwood House, a Bed and Breakfast opposite the King’s Arms, but it was closed for this visit so I decided to try out the King’s Arms. It really is a delightful place. I was a bit worried about noise, what with it being a busy restaurant and pub, but I asked for a quiet room and got one towards the back and side of the building, so not only was there no noise of people enjoying themselves (yes, my middle name is clearly Scrooge) but there wasn’t any traffic noise either. And as the temperature didn’t get above zero, it was lovely to just pile downstairs in the evening for my dinner, which was excellent. It’s rare that I want to eat all of the main course options, but I wished I was staying for a week to eat my way through the lot. Portobello Mushroom suet pudding, anybody? I can’t remember the last time I saw a suet pudding on a menu (and this was vegetarian too). Plus they had a Winter Kir cocktail, with prosecco, Cointreau and orange. Just as well I didn’t have far to stagger.

It made my heart a little bit sad that I never had the chance to bring Mum and Dad to the King’s Arms, they would have loved it, especially the sticky toffee pudding with date ice cream. But I ate it for them, and remembered how Dad would rub his hands together with joy when he really liked what he was eating, and how Mum would always make sure she put a little bit of everything on her plate onto her fork so she got the full range of tastes with every bite. And I realised that I do both of those things. The things we inherit from our parents don’t just live on in our DNA, they live on in our expressions and our tastes, the ways that we do the smallest of things. It’s not just through the obvious things that they live on.

Not sticky toffee pudding but it will have to do!

So that’s two excellent places to stay in Dorchester – Westwood House is about half the price but doesn’t have the extra facilities, so it’s a bit of a balancing act. I’m sure I’ll be back to both.

The website for the King’s Arms is here.