Dear Readers, once every five years or so (or seven years in this case, ahem) I get the tree surgeon in to trim the whitebeam. The photo above doesn’t really do it justice – this magnificent tree is now nearly thirty feet tall, and is so dense in summer that it shades the whole garden. Just in front is a hawthorn which is about two-thirds as tall. But both are getting a little out of scale for what is essentially quite a small garden, and with the increasing number of storms that we have (particularly during times when both trees are fully-leafed) it feels important to look after them for the long-term.

The whitebeam and hawthorn in full leaf in 2022

I’m lucky enough to know a little bit about the history of the whitebeam, due to the magic of the internet – I was contacted by the lovely lady who used to live in my house, and who planted the original tree in 1976! That was a drought year, and the sapling was kept alive with bath water and washing-up water. Well, it’s certainly come on a bit since then.

Whitebeam berries

The trees will be trimmed as soon as possible (before the birds think about nesting), and for a while they’ll look very sorry for themselves. Part of me hates doing this, but I know that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind – if trees aren’t maintained then they can lose whole branches, or even topple over (my worst fear). Plus, when you live in a densely-packed neighbourhood you need to take account of the effect on the light in other people’s gardens. But I have a lot of faith in the tree surgeon – he’s trimmed the trees back twice in the past fifteen years, and I love how he always takes a drawing of the tree before starting work, and thinks carefully about preserving its shape and health.  I’ll make sure that the trees are well-watered and mulched post trimming, and I fully expect that they’ll come into even more vigorous leaf than they did last time we did any work. And then hopefully that will be that for another six or seven years.

Blue tit on the emerging whitebeam leaves

Is anyone else about to launch into something that they’ve been putting off? How do you feel? I feel a strange mixture of relief and trepidation (not least because sorting out parking for a van and a chipper outside the house is always a fraught occupation in these narrow County Roads streets) . Roll on the day when it’s all over and the trees can start to recover.

Starling in the hawthorn

Robin at Walthamstow Wetlands (Photo by Faye Cooke)

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

Dear Readers, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the plight of small garden birds here in the UK over the past few days. With temperatures well below zero here in the south, sparrows and finches and tits and robins have been hyperactive, looking for food from dawn until dusk to give them enough energy to get through the long, cold night. Many of them have transformed themselves into tiny feathery balls, using their feathers to create a honeycomb of warm air to prevent themselves from freezing.

This robin was very attentive when we visited Walthamstow Wetlands on Monday – we didn’t even have any crumbs to throw to him or her. Maybe next time I’ll take a pocket full of rehydrated mealworms.

Photo by Faye Cooke

Down feathers are not stiff like flight feathers – they are soft and flexible, and each thread of down is ten times thinner than a human hair. A single feather can contain miles of these tiny threads, which billow and form into spheres. Air is trapped between the layers of down, and warms up, providing an insulating layer, but also blocking the cold air that would otherwise sweep that warmth away. What amazing structures they are!

A down feather (Photo By Wouter Hagens – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=103988002)

There are actually three kinds of down. Body down is what is keeping our friend the robin warm. Natal down is what covers the bodies of newly-hatched chicks, and is most obvious in birds who have well-developed chicks (known as precocial) such as chickens.

Newly-hatched chicken chick.

The third kind of down will be familiar to anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have a pigeon fly into their window. Powder down is found in a small number of different bird families, including pigeons and doves, herons, and parrots. In these birds the tips of the barbules that make up a down feather disintegrate, producing a powder – these feathers grow continuously, and are never moulted. But why? In herons, it’s thought that the powder down may help with waterproofing, and with cleaning off fish scales and other gunk, but it’s not entirely clear if this is the same in the other bird groups. What is clear is that it’s an allergen, though it’s mostly a problem for pigeon-fanciers and anyone working in aviaries or with bird collections.

Bird imprint on window – Photo by By Ted – Flickr: DSC_0069, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22653492

In her piece in ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Rowan Jaines discusses Chaucer’s poem ‘The Parlement of Foules’, in which he describes four groups of birds, each part of a different social group represented by their feeding habits. At the top are the birds of the ravine, or birds of prey. There are the seed-eating birds, though they sit apart from the other birds so it’s hard to work out their status (definitely lower than the birds of prey though). Jaines has the worm foules (blackbirds, robins and starlings) at the bottom, though I have also read an analysis that puts the waterfowl at the bottom. However, what is clear is that robins and dunnock became symbols of the working-class, suffering through the winter – as Jaines puts it ‘puffing, whistling and working without respite’.

And here’s a John Clare poem on the robin in winter. He wrote about these birds many times, but this poem is longer than most, and there is something in his description of ‘That house where the peasant makes use of a gun’ that makes me think he is speaking a bit more widely than just some robin-killing local. ‘Grimalkin’, by the way, is a cat.

The Robin by John Clare (1793-1864)

Now the snow hides the ground little birds leave the wood
And flie to the cottage to beg for their food
While the domestic robin more tame then the rest
(With its wings drooping down and rough feathers undrest)
Comes close to our windows as much as to say
‘I would venture in if I could find a way
I’m starv’d and I want to get out of the cold
O! make me a passage and think me not bold’
Ah poor little creature thy visits reveal
Complaints such as these to the heart that can feel
Nor shall such complainings be urged in vain
I’ll make thee a hole if I take out a pane

Come in and a welcome reception thou’lt find
I keep no grimalkins to murder inclin’d
—But O! little robin be careful to shun
That house where the peasant makes use of a gun
For if thou but taste of the seed he has strew’d
Thy life as a ransom must pay for thy food
His aim is unerring his heart is as hard
And thy race tho so harmles he’ll never regard
Distinction with him boy is nothing at all
Both the wren and the robin with sparrows must fall
For his soul (tho he outwardly looks like a man)
Is in nature like wolves of the appenine clan

Like them his whole study is bent on his prey
Like them he devours what e’er comes in his way
Then be careful and shun what is meant to betray
And flie from these men-masked wolves far away
Come come to my cottage and thou shalt be free
To perch on my finger or sit on my knee
Thou shalt eat of the crumbles of bread to thy fill
And have leisure to clean both thy feathers and bill
Then come little robin and never believe
Such warm Invitations are meant to deceive
In duty I’m bound to show mercy on thee
While God dont deny it to sinners like me!

Dear Readers, while I was considering the parlous state of the world before sleep last night, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe, out there in the universe somewhere, there were people who had never come across my two favourite internet cats. And if you haven’t, I hope that you’ll find them both as funny as I do.

First up is Simon’s Cat. Written and animated by Simon Tofield, for me it’s one of the best evocations of what living with a cat can be like (and it’s only mildly exaggerated). Tofield first started the animation as a way of experimenting with Adobe Flash – he was already an animator, working on commercials for products such as Marmite, and companies such as Tesco. The short animations were based on Tofield’s four cats, Teddy, Hugh, Jess and Maisie, with Hugh being the main inspiration.

I think it’s fair to say that the first film, released in 2008, was an instant hit. See what you think. Called ‘Cat Man Do’ it follows that typical cartoon habit of upping the ante on every iteration.

But actually, ‘Let Me In’, released at the same time, is probably up there with my all time favourites.

And finally, ‘Fly Guy‘ features the total destruction of a living room. What’s not to like? Plus this one is such an accurate depiction of a cat’s hunting technique, right down to the slapping a paw onto something and then letting it escape.

Secondly there’s Henri Le Chat Noir. Henri was a cat much given to musings on existential themes, such as the meaning of life, and the films are in black and white, with background music similar to that of a 1960s European film. The films were made by Will Braden, and Henri, apparently a rescue cat, lived with Braden’s mother. She spoke French and helped Braden with his pronunciation, although this is actually a source of some additional humour. Henri’s relationship with the household’s other cat, L’Imbecile Blanc, is one of utter disdain.

Taken by Henri’s human, Will Braden

In all there were 11 Henri films, with Henri retiring in 2018. The cat died in 2020, having been euthanized due to deterioration of his spine. What a very fine cat, though!

His first film, which kind of sets the tone, is here.  But actually the second one, which introduces ‘L’Imbecile Blanc’, is probably my favourite. And there’s a lot to be said for the third one, where he visits the vet, as well…

Some people think that the internet’s main purpose is the distribution of conspiracy theories and pornography, but clearly they are wrong. It’s an opportunity to celebrate our cat overlords, in all their tremendous variety. And goodness knows we could all do with a little light entertainment. Let me know if you have any internet go-to sites when it all gets too much!

Snowdrops in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in 2022

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 have exactly two tiny patches of snowdrops in my garden, and neither is anywhere near flowering yet – the temperatures are below freezing, and look set to stay that way for the rest of the week. And yet, even the sight of those grey-green leaves poking above the frosty soil is enough to gladden the soul. Alfred, Lord Tennyson certainly thought so…

The Snowdrop
by
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid!

Welcome indeed, and do let me know how  the snowdrops are doing if you’re in the UK, I suspect that in some places they will be under about a foot of snow, but hopefully none the worse for that.

In Nature’s Calendar, Rebecca Warren describes how ‘our’ snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis, literally ‘milk flower of the snows’ is one of twenty species (and of course these days there are hundreds, if not thousands, of variants).

Here is Galanthus elwesii, or Greater Snowdrop, from the Caucasus…

Galanthus elwesii (Photo By Schnobby – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19185047)

This is the Pleated Snowdrop, Galanthus plicatus, from Eastern Europe and Western Asia…

Pleated snowdrop (Galanthus plicatus) Photo By V.Kotyak – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32689756

And this is the Green Snowdrop (Galanthus woronowii) from north-eastern Turkey and the Caucasus.

Green snowdrop (Galanthus woronowii) Photo By 4028mdk09 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13292602

Strangely enough, snowdrops are not native to the UK – they probably came with the Romans (cue the ‘What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us’ scene from Monty Python) but as they’ve been here for over 2000 years I think we can safely view them as a welcome part of our ecosystem. They spread easily (in theory, though as my garden shows, not necessarily in practice), and there were probably drifts of snowdrops in woods across the country when they’re first mentioned by John Gerard in his 1597 herbal.

A garden full of snowdrops in Dorchester

Snowdrops seem to have a calmness and austerity that I find most soothing at this time of year. They appear pristine whatever the weather, and they just seem to get on with it, resilient and stoic. They always lighten my heart with their promise of spring.

Dear Readers, just checking in to see if anyone else grew an amaryllis this year, and if so, how they’re doing. I have one friend who’s plant is about 6 inches tall, but I’m not being competitive, honestly. This particular variety has four flowers on each stem, and two stems, so it looks like one of those old-fashioned public address systems, much beloved of country fayres.

The other amaryllis is getting ready to bust, and I am excited to see what the flowers will look like. They’re supposed to be green and elegant, but only time will tell. I’ll keep you posted!

Anyhow, let me know how your bulbs, indoor or outdoor, are getting on. My snowdrops are putting in an appearance slowly, and some of my crocuses are sticking their heads up, but we’re expecting freezing temperatures and snow this week, so if I was them I’d press the snooze button and turn over for a few more weeks. And we’ve been relatively lucky in London (so far), there are other places in the UK that have had snow/ice/rain/wind sometimes all in one day. Hugs to everyone! At this time of year we could definitely do with them.

Dear Readers, sometimes when I’m stuck for inspiration for a post I have a quick look in my ‘Tree of the Day’ book by Amy-Jane Beer, and for 15th January it was all about collecting maple sap. As maple syrup is probably my favourite sweetener, and as we are expecting snow here in London next week, I thought it might be a good time to have a little chat about it.

One of the many reasons that I love maple syrup is its complexity of flavour – all those caramelly, toffee-like overtones make it much more interesting than your average brown sugar. Beware of imitations though! When in Toronto we always go to the Sunset Grill for breakfast (an ironic name as the place shuts at 4 p.m. but there we go) and if you don’t ask specifically for ‘real’ maple syrup (and pay a few dollars extra) you’ll end up with pancake syrup, which is basically corn syrup with brown colouring. Aaargh!

Maple syrup is the sap of the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) or the black maple (Acer nigrum). During the winter, the trees store carbohydrate in their roots as an energy reserve. In the spring, the starch is converted to sugar and the sap literally ‘rises’ as fuel for the developing leaves and buds. At this point, humans have traditionally stuck a spike into the tree just under the bark, so that the sap is diverted into a bucket. There’s then a whole lot of boiling involved to reduce the sap to about one-fortieth of its original volume, which concentrates all that sweetness.

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) Photo by By Bruce Marlin – Own work http://www.cirrusimage.com/tree_maple_sugar.htm, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2611206

Maples and maple syrup really are the emblems of Canada – after all, there’s a maple leaf on the national flag, and Canada produces over 80% of all the maple syrup in the world, with the rest coming from the north-east of the US. Within Canada, the bulk of the production comes from the province of Quebec. We watched an interesting documentary a while back about the ‘maple syrup heist’, when 3,000 tonnes of the sticky stuff, worth 20 million Canadian dollars, was stolen from the Strategic Reserve in Quebec. Who knew that there could be so much riding on tree sap?

Before the American Civil War, abolitionists switched to using maple syrup as a sweetener because, unlike cane sugar, it wasn’t grown and harvested by slaves. And during the Second World War, when sugar was again hard to come by, American housewives were advised to switch to maple syrup. Not a hardship, surely?

And here is what looks like the mother of all maple syrup steamed puddings. The recipe is here. You’re welcome.

Interestingly, other trees also produce a sweet sap, and I was intrigued to hear that birch syrup is becoming popular with chefs. You apparently need twice the quantity of birch sap to make a syrup (presumably because it isn’t as sweet), and it’s described as having notes of soy sauce, molasses or balsamic vinegar. Not surprisingly, it’s more often used with savoury dishes as a glaze. Let me know if you’ve tried it, I’m intrigued! Birch syrup is produced in the chilly northern parts of Canada, the US and Russia, where there are (not surprisingly) birch forests. The sap is also used ‘straight’ for a whole range of medicinal purposes across the Baltic states, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.

Commercially produced birch sap from Russia (Photo By User:Fox89, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31920113)

And look, here’s a poem. I rather like the slow meander of this, and the house, with the root cellar underneath, feels like a familiar North American place. See what you think.

Maple Syrup
BY DONALD HALL

August, goldenrod blowing. We walk
into the graveyard, to find
my grandfather’s grave. Ten years ago
I came here last, bringing
marigolds from the round garden
outside the kitchen.
I didn’t know you then.
We walk
among carved names that go with photographs
on top of the piano at the farm:
Keneston, Wells, Fowler, Batchelder, Buck.
We pause at the new grave
of Grace Fenton, my grandfather’s
sister. Last summer
we called on her at the nursing home,
eighty-seven, and nodding
in a blue housedress. We cannot find
my grandfather’s grave.
Back at the house
where no one lives, we potter
and explore the back chamber
where everything comes to rest: spinning wheels,
pretty boxes, quilts,
bottles, books, albums of postcards.
Then with a flashlight we descend
firm steps to the root cellar—black,
cobwebby, huge,
with dirt floors and fieldstone walls,
and above the walls, holding the hewn
sills of the house, enormous
granite foundation stones.
Past the empty bins
for squash, apples, carrots, and potatoes,
we discover the shelves for canning, a few
pale pints
of tomato left, and—what
is this?—syrup, maple syrup
in a quart jar, syrup
my grandfather made twenty-five
years ago
for the last time.
I remember
coming to the farm in March
in sugaring time, as a small boy.
He carried the pails of sap, sixteen-quart
buckets, dangling from each end
of a wooden yoke
that lay across his shoulders, and emptied them
into a vat in the saphouse
where fire burned day and night
for a week.
Now the saphouse
tilts, nearly to the ground,
like someone exhausted
to the point of death, and next winter
when snow piles three feet thick
on the roofs of the cold farm,
the saphouse will shudder and slide
with the snow to the ground.
Today
we take my grandfather’s last
quart of syrup
upstairs, holding it gingerly,
and we wash off twenty-five years
of dirt, and we pull
and pry the lid up, cutting the stiff,
dried rubber gasket, and dip our fingers
in, you and I both, and taste
the sweetness, you for the first time,
the sweetness preserved, of a dead man
in the kitchen he left
when his body slid
like anyone’s into the ground.

Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) in winter plumage in Glencoe, Scotland (Photo By A S Begbie – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115432271)

Dear Readers, the ptarmigan is the UK’s only true mountain bird, found only in the Scottish Highlands, and becoming vanishingly rare even there. They are renowned for the way that their plumage changes, from a mottled brown which blends in perfectly with the heather-covered hillsides in the summer to pure white in the winter. Sadly, as the mountains of Scotland become warmer and snow falls less frequently, those white feathers become a liability rather than an asset, and the birds are easy pickings for the eagles that are their main predator.

Ptarmigan in summer plumage (Photo by By A S Begbie – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92497729), 

I have never seen these birds, preferring to walk in the mountains in the more hospitable summer months, but they are distributed across mountainous areas in Scandinavia, Europe, northern North America and Asia . During the breeding season, males develop rather fine red ‘eyebrows’ that remind me a little of Groucho Marx, but the colour seems to be directly related to the amount of testosterone that the bird produces, and may correlate to how aggressive the individual is to other male birds.

Male ptarmigan in breeding plumage (Photo By Daisuke Tashiro – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41916590)

The ptarmigan feeds throughout the winter, picking up everything from aspen seeds in North America to willow buds and catkins in Europe. Such a hardy bird! Its genus name, Lagopus, means ‘hare legged’ due to those feathery limbs, and the word ‘ptarmigan’ comes from the Scottish tàrmachan, which means ‘croaker’. So what’s with that strange ‘p’ at the start of the name, you might ask? Apparently it was added by Robert Sibbald because of the Ancient Greek word ‘pteron‘, meaning ‘wing’ (as seen in ‘pterodactyl’ for example, which literally means ‘winged finger’).

The recording below is of a ptarmigan from Lapland, recorded by Terje Kolaas – does anyone else think that it sounds like a fingernail drawn over a comb?

Actually, I can’t get enough of this extraordinary sound! Here’s another ptarmigan, again from Lapland, but this time recorded by Tero Linjama.

And finally, this one is of a displaying ptarmigan on Lake Mývatn in Iceland, with greylag geese, redshanks and redwings in the background. It certainly makes me want to rush off to Iceland. This was recorded by Patrik Äberg.

Honestly, what a truly amazing sound. How poor the mountains of the world would be without these birds around.

Ptarmigan in Norway (Male and female) Photo By Jan Frode Haugseth – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10534500

In Japan, the ptarmigan is known as the ‘thunder bird’, and because it has so few four-legged and two-legged predators it can be extremely relaxed around people. This is sometimes the case in the Alps too – I’ve seen photos of little flocks of white ptarmigan foraging around the skiers in Obergurgl. However, development for skiing can be detrimental to ptarmigan – one study found that breeding success was much lower in areas of the Cairngorms that were used for this purpose . Ironically enough, the lighter snow in the Cairngorms in Scotland might deter further construction of skiing infrastructure, and might prevent a further decline in this already beleaguered species.

Incidentally, in spite of its Red List status, it is still legal to hunt ptarmigan from 12th August (the so-called ‘Glorious Twelfth’) to 10th December. Words fail me, yet again.

Ptarmigan chick in Japan (Photo By Alpsdake – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33426292)

Great Tit (Parus major)

Dear Readers, my January edition of British Birds has come through, and while there are exciting articles on Common Nighthawks ( a rare vagrant nightjar that’s more often found in North America) and the breeding range expansion of the Caspian Gull (which will probably end up in the UK at the rate it’s going), I found myself drawn to the Letters section. In it, there was a response to an event that occurred back in 2023.

There was a report that, during a ringing session, a male Great Tit was briefly separated from its mate. The female started to sing, and the conclusion at the time was that she had taken over the defence of their joint territory. However, Richard Broughton, of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, had another explanation.

Many tits have a song that is used only when they are unable to locate their partner. . Known as a ‘mate-separation song’, it’s most commonly used when the female takes a brief break from incubating eggs, and can’t see her mate, but it can be used by either sex. Great tits are socially monogamous and they are totally dependent on one another to raise their broods, which can often comprise 12 chicks – that’s an awful lot of caterpillars. It’s no wonder that there are high levels of anxiety if one mate can’t see the other, so while the male was off being ringed the female would have been calling incessantly in the hope that he hadn’t been killed – the death of a partner invariably means the end of any eggs that haven’t hatched, and for most fledglings, especially as the remaining bird can’t both forage for food and either incubate her eggs, or defend her offspring from predators.

Great tits are not the only birds who have a mate-separation song – in North America, chickadees have a similar call, and in Europe the Marsh Tit also has one. But Great tits are renowned for the variation in their songs (up to 80 different variants have been recorded), and they were amongst the first bird species to have recognisable ‘accents’. This blog, by Sam Hardman, has a number of recordings of Great tits from different parts of the UK and Europe, and it’s fascinating to hear the differences, so do have a listen. I always think of the typical Great tit song as being a variation on ‘Tee-cher, Tee-cher’, but clearly I haven’t been paying enough attention. Hardman’s field of research was the great tit, and there is much to learn about these ubiquitous little birds – have a look at this post here, which mentions, amongst other things, that city great tits sing at a higher frequency than their country cousins, but are also duller in colour, probably due to the physical resources needed to combat city pollution.

And holy moly, Hardman reports that in times of food scarcity, a population of great tits in Hungary learned to feed on hibernating pipistrelle bats. They located the bats by their calls (even when hibernating, some bats will stir and call, which ist thought to deter mammalian predators by indicating that the bats are awake and will be difficult to catch). When the researchers provided sunflower seeds for the birds, the bat predation stopped, indicating that it is a last resort – bats have sharp teeth, and even a small bat would be a match for a great tit if it was fully awake. Furthermore, the behaviour was observed over a period of eight years – the lifespan of a typical great tit is only four years, so the behaviour is likely to have been taught to each generation by their parents. As Hardman says, there is clearly still much to discover about these unassuming little birds.

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 always had a soft spot for the small, unobtrusive plants and animals that live amongst us, going about the business of photosynthesising or munching up detritus while being studiously ignored by everyone except the very young, or the very curious. So I was very happy to see that this mini-season featured moss. As the author, Kiera Chapman, points out, when there are other, more flamboyant plants to attract our attention the delicate beauty of moss is easy to overlook. But it has been around for a long time, and it grows in locations where nothing else could possibly grow.

Mosses are non-vascular plants, which means that they don’t have the internal pipework that allows them to transport water and nutrients through their bodies. Neither can they stand up tall like a tree. Instead, they inhabit very particular microsystems, generally ones that are damp, as they can’t just find water deep in the soil and use it as plants with more developed root systems do. They like areas which are calm, and which have lots of water vapour – look closely at where mosses grow, and they’re so often in cracks and crevices, on the sides of trees that are protected from the prevailing wind, and which allow them to husband any water that they can find. Some mosses, however, live in places where water is fleeting and the area where they live dries up at certain times of year. You might think that this would be a death sentence, but no – some mosses can survive being desiccated by 85 or even ninety percent, only to revive when the rains come.

Some mosses, of course, live in places that are not just a bit on the damp side, but positively wet, such as sphagnum moss which is the backbone of a bog. It is this moss which forms a key ingredient of peat, which is fortunately, finally, being recognised as the important carbon sink that it is. Sphagnum moss has an extraordinary ability to soak up fluids, and it was used as a wound dressing during World War I – not only was it more absorbent than cotton, it also seemed to have a microbial action which meant that it could be left longer without needing to be changed.

In the photo below we see the UK’s largest moss, Common Haircap moss, with sphagnum moss in the background.

Common haircap moss (Polytrichum commune) plus sphagnum moss (Photo Five by ceridwen )

All mosses, like all frogs, need water to reproduce: they produce spores, but the male sexual cell needs to swim in order to fertilise the female cell in the first place. In order to spread their spores, the mosses need an area of more turbulent air in order to distribute them, which is why many mosses produce their fertilised spores on setae, long stalks.

Setae on moss

Some mosses also have the ability to catapult their spores up to eight inches away from the plant, which is quite some feat when you consider how small the moss is.

Chapman points out that mosses are indeed ancient plants, but they are far from being relicts: they have adapted to live in the harshest of environments, which our walls and pavements and buildings certainly represent. But in a talk by Jeff Duckett, who was describing the changing flora of Hampstead Heath, he points out that mosses and liverworts are reliable indicators of the levels and types of air pollution, and the moss and lichen population of London changed greatly after the Clean Air Acts in the 1960s. These days, some mosses are taking advantage of the nitrous oxides produced by cars – the nitrogen-loving marble screw moss hated the sulphur that used to foul London’s air, but are quite happy with the products of car exhausts.

Syntrichia papillosa or Marble screw-moss (Photo by HermannSchachner, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

What’s always interested me about mosses is the way that they make tiny microhabitats. If you look closely you can often see other plants growing with and through a mossy spot, and little invertebrates hurrying about their business. These are miniature worlds, full of interest and complexity. Next time you’re hurrying along an urban street, or strolling through a woody glade, stop and have a look at any mossy spot that you find. I guarantee that you’ll find something to surprise you.

For more on mosses, here’s a piece that I did following a talk at the Natural History Museum a few years ago. It’s what really got me interested in these plants. Plus there’s an amazing Theodore Roethke poem at the end, for those of you who are poetry lovers….