Dear Readers, back in the early 2000s I had a first stab at a biology degree, with Birkbeck University in central London. Part of the degree was a field course at Slapton Sands in Devon. I loved the field course, but for whatever reason I wasn’t part of the in-crowd – in the end, I hung out with a young woman, Rose, from Zimbabwe, who was determined to take her qualification and her skills back to her country. On one afternoon, the lecturer running the course asked if anyone wanted to go and look for the cirl buntings. Most of the others rolled their eyes and said they had too much work to do (plus they were recovering from the previous night’s hangover) but Rose and I were keen, and so off we went, sneaking along the edge of a hedgerow until suddenly we saw a little brown bird flittering in and out of the hawthorn, followed by a little brown bird with a striped yellow face.

“That”, said the lecturer, “Is one of the rarest birds in England”.

Cirl buntings are common enough in mainland Europe, but in England they have retreated from quite an extensive population across southern England to 118 pairs in Devon in 1989. It was clear that without support they were going to become extinct, but fortunately there was RSPB research on what was causing their precipitous decline.

Firstly, the loss of weedy winter stubbles meant that there was nothing for the birds to eat in the winter. Secondly, intensive grassland management meant that their main food, grasshoppers and crickets, were hard to come by in the summer. And thirdly the grubbing out of hedgerows meant there was nowhere for them to nest. What to do?

Armed with the specific knowledge from the research projects, the RSPB worked with local farmers and incentivised them to grow spring barley crops, which meant that there was food-rich stubble left to feed the birds through winter and into early spring. It was a success – the project started in 1993, and by 1998 the population had increased by 83%. By 2016 there were over a thousand pairs of Cirl buntings, still located in a small area around south Devon.

In order to set up a second population, some birds from the Devon population have now been translocated to the Roseland Peninsula in Cornwall, with 65 pairs now established.

This sounds like a success story, but is it?

Cirl buntings are homebodies, a bit like house sparrows – they move no more than a mile from their breeding areas to their wintering areas. They are totally dependent, as Sara Hudston says in ‘Red Sixty Seven’, on this hedgerow, this patch of stubble. They are totally dependent on farmers continuing to be supported to farm in a particular way. If the farmers revert to their previous practices, I have little doubt that the Cirl bunting will, once again, be on the verge of disappearing from England. And what a shame it would be not to hear its call, which Hudston describes sounding like ‘a sewing machine rattling down a hem’. See what you think (this recording is by Francesco Sottile, from Calabria, Italy).

 

Dear Readers, on Tuesday I took a trip to deepest darkest Enfield with my friend L to see Myddelton House Gardens. Enfield is one of those places that is no distance from East Finchley as the crow flies, but is a complete pain to get to on public transport, so I was very glad to be able to get a lift and we seemed to have timed it perfectly for the spring flowers – my photos don’t really do it justice, so if you’re in London and fancy a trip in the next week or so, you won’t be sorry.

The gardens were the work of Edward Augustus Bowles, who was born in 1865 and, after a projected career as a priest changed course to become one of the greatest self-taught botanists and horticulturalists of the 20th century. In particular he was known as ‘the Crocus king’, and people travelled from all over the country to see his collection. He brought back all sorts of wacky plants from his world travels (we’ll see a few examples later) including one which many people would probably prefer that he’d left where it was.

The house was named for Sir Hugh Myddelton, the engineer who created the New River, part of which bisected the gardens until as late as 1968.

I should like to point out that before exploring the gardens there are very good toasted teacakes in the café, and furthermore the gardens are free to visit.

Onwards!

The snowdrops are spectacular – there are a number of varieties, plus winter aconites and hellebores and early crocuses. I love these spring ephemerals, they lighten the heart.

There are spectacular specimen trees, including some fine conifers, and we saw (but as usual I wasn’t able to photograph) a pair of goldcrests piping about in the foliage.

My friend L likes these stone troughs, and I agree, they’re perfect for stonecrops and other small alpines.

No apologies for a few more winter aconites , and the berries of some stinking iris, so bright against the whiteness of the snowdrops.

And what on earth is this? Bowles collected some very unusual plants, and some of these are contained in what are described as ‘Lunatic Asylum’ beds.

This is the Anchor plant (Colletia paradoxa), a South American plant which is part of the Buckthorn family. The plant has tiny leaves, sweet-smelling white flowers and the most impressive thorns that I’ve ever seen – some plant sites recommend siting it away from small children or pets who might bump into it. I assume that the thorns photosynthesise, but must do some more research. And what on earth are the thorns defending the plant against, or is it more to do with protecting against water loss?  I have never seen one before, and was very impressed.

Through the arch and into the kitchen garden, which is looking a bit bare at this time of year…

I imagine that this plaster hawk doesn’t scare the pigeons too much, especially at its current angle…

And look at this iris. I’ve never gotten irises to go in my garden (except for the yellow flag in the pond which, to be honest, goes rather too well), but I do admire them.

And here’s a conundrum, to me at least. This otherwise healthy-looking cherry laurel has curly leaves. I wondered if it had a virus, but L thought that it was a healthy variety. She was right! It’s Prunus laurocerasus ‘Camelliifolia’ or Curly-leaved Cherry Laurel. So there you go. For me, it comes under the heading of things that probably shouldn’t be encouraged, like flat-faced dogs or short-legged cats, but the plant was doing well so maybe I’m being mean.

There are some wild-type daffodils (very rare in the UK, and in the ‘wild’ pretty much confined to a couple of places in Wales, so it’s nice to see them being encouraged here).

Some very unusual snowdrops with long, thin petals – I’m not sure of the variety so shout if you know!

And some spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernalis) – easily mistaken for snowdrops, these have little ‘hats’, with a green mark on each petal.

We think that these are Chionodoxa (Scilla) and very pretty they are too, with their blue petals and red stems. I am envious as after planting about 100 in my garden not a single one has come up, probably snaffled by squirrels.

And then we turn for home. This is a nicely accessible garden in the most part, there were several ladies out for a constitutional with their walking frames.

But what is this all-too familiar plant?

Yes, it’s Japanese Knotweed! We love Mr Bowles, but he was the person who introduced it to the UK after his travels in the Far East. The Victorians did love to plunder the riches of the places that they visited/colonised and to bring prime plants home for their gardens – both Giant Hogweed and Himalayan Balsam were originally Victorian specimen plants that ‘jumped the fence’, and while they might be fine in a garden they are definitely not fine along a riverbank. Hey ho. I was amused to see the Japanese Knotweed in a cage, but I suspect it’s more to stop it flopping and deter people from trampling it all over the rest of the garden. Interestingly, it seems to have worked so far.

Incidentally, that remarkable perennial wallflower ‘Bowles Mauve’ is named for E. A. Bowles, just one of over 30 plant varieties that bear his name. I love that this idiosyncratic self-taught horticulturalist lives on, with some named for him long after his death, such as the Phlomis ‘Edward Bowles’ pictured below, which apparently originated from seed found at Myddelton House Gardens. There are many ways of being remembered, but being immortalised as a plant must be one of the nicest.

 

 

 

Dear Readers, I’m in tearing haste today after a very exciting visit (of which more later this week) but I wanted to share this link with you. ‘TreeFm‘ is a set of recordings from different forests around the world – you can either choose a forest to listen to on repeat or cycle through the many different choices.

Here, for example, is a Sichuan Golden Monkey from China

Or Indris calling in the Andasibe forest in Madagascar (spine-tingling!)

Or rain in the Ankasa forest in Ghana!

Or birds in the Bitza Nature Park in Russia

Or bees and birds in the Haut Diois-Forêt de la Sarcenna in France

Or the birds in the Nelson Lakes National Park in New Zealand

Or birds in Pilgrove Park, Bristol in the UK

Or a forest close to Rio Azul in Patagonia

I rather like this slowed down night in the rainforest of Panama (another spine-tingler)

And how about the Minnewaska State Park in New York State in the US. Lots of birds, bees and possibly frogs.

There are lots and lots and lots of recordings for you to have a listen to, and I guarantee that they’ll reduce your stress levels.

If you have a listen, let me know your favourite!

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

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.

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, as you might remember from yesterday I’ve got a bit of a throat infection at the moment – my voice is coming back (Hooray!) but now I have a cough (Boo!) and so I am confined to quarters for the rest of today. Fortunately, for inspiration I have my ‘A Tree A Day’ book by Amy-Jane Beer, and the entry for 4th February mentions the Borth Submerged Forest in Wales.

I am always fascinated by the things that the sea suddenly reveals after storms, or at particularly low or high tides, and at Borth, on the Ceredigion coast in Wales, what come up are the tree stumps of an ancient forest of hazel  and oak, pine and birch. The trees have been carbon-dated, and it seems that they died between 4,000 and 6,500 years ago. It appears that the sea level rose, and a thick layer of peat formed – these anaerobic conditions may have killed the trees, but the anaerobic conditions that they produced also protected the remains from rotting. Interestingly, a walkway dating from about 3,000 to 4,000 years ago has also been found, indicating that after the forest was destroyed, the local inhabitants found ways to live on in the increasingly boggy conditions. Human and animal footprints have also been found, along with the burned stones from ancient hearths.

Nearly every civilisation has ‘deluge myths’ – tales of how the sea/rain destroyed a city, or a whole civilisation. In this part of Wales there are tales of Cantre’r Gwaelod, a city that disappeared beneath the waves. It’s described as a walled city protected by a system of dykes and dams. Alas, one night one of the watchmen tasked with closing the sea protections got drunk, and the water poured in and inundated the city. It may be that this story is built upon Ice Age memories of sea level rise and the dangers that it presented to coastal communities. There is also a story that the city continues to live on beneath the waves, a kind of Welsh Atlantis. I find these stories very evocative – they are so full of yearning, a wish that things that are destroyed may continue against all evidence to the contrary. How human it is to wish for such things.

The remains seem to be revealed and then recovered by storms (Storm Hannah in 2014 and a storm in 2019 uncovered a whole swathe of the forest) and more enigmatic depositions and removal of sand. Sea defences to protect the existing village of Borth have been put in place and there is some thought that the sand and debris that used to cover the forest up are now being diverted elsewhere. Whatever the cause, archaeologists and palaeobotanists rush to look at the remains before sediment covers them again.

Let me know if you’ve visited Borth, or seen anything similar – the UK seems to be full of submerged villages, some of which (like Dunwich) apparently have church bells which still toll from under the sea. We have got a lot of coastline, and the sea has been giving and taking since the islands were formed, so it’s no wonder that stories, part truth and part fable, have grown up and buried themselves in our consciousness. I find it all very intriguing.

 

Dear Readers, I’ve had a bit of a cough and throat infection for the past few days. Last night I had my online writing community meeting, which involves a lot of reading out our work and chatting. And today, I’ve lost my voice. I try to say something and a little cartoon squeak comes out. Fortunately, my husband has volunteered to speak enough for both of us. So that’s alright then.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world hasn’t volunteered to be quieter in compensation. Outside, we are having electric vehicle chargers installed for about twenty house-lengths along the road. This is great news, but involves lots of goings-on. Yesterday we had a huge delivery of soil to fill up the trench that was dug, and this morning we had that machine that tamps the soil down (and goes thumpety-thump like a gigantic mechanical rabbit). Then we had lots of shouting up and down the road as the workmen tried to get themselves coordinated. Then we had my favourite, the angle-grinder, which cut up a paving stone right outside the house. There’s something about this that reminds me of fingernails down a blackboard. As the guy did the cutting, three other guys stood around to observe. None of them, as far as I can see, were wearing eye or ear protection.

Yesterday, when I was feeling a little better than I do today, I stopped to converse with a man who was up a ladder using an electric drill to dig into a wall. The noise was infernal, and when it stopped, I had to say something.

“Mate”, I said, “Shouldn’t you be wearing ear protection? I hate the thought of you being deaf as a post by the time you’re fifty”.

When you’re a grey-haired lady you can get away with more because everyone thinks you’re their Mum.

“This isn’t too bad!” The man shouted. The noise had stopped and he didn’t need to shout, which rather proves my point that his ears were ringing. “Yesterday I was doing this indoors and it was painful!”

“It’d be awful for you to go deaf, though”, I said. I’m already losing a bit of hearing and wish I’d not gone to so many loud concerts and clubs in my youth.

“Don’t worry!” he said brightly. “If I’m deaf I won’t have to listen to all the terrible stuff in the news!”

So I wished him luck and went on my way, leaving him to carry on drilling.

I know that on well-regulated building sites things like proper boots, hard hats and ear and eye protection are mandatory, but for guys working for small companies there doesn’t seem to be the same culture or duty of care. I imagine that nobody thinks that hear-loss can happen to them – after all, most youngsters seem to think that age-related damage is in the distant future. Little do they know how quickly the distant future catches up. But at least I tried with this guy, and I will continue to try when I think it’s not going to get me a black-eye or a mouthful of abuse. Showing that you care about somebody can sometimes make them stop and think, or at least I hope it does.

And now, gentle Readers, I am heading back to bed with some lemon and ginger tea. It’s not the day I planned to have, but maybe it’s the day I need.

Dear Readers, on Tuesday I went to the Natural History Museum with my artist pal Robin Huffman – she was passing through London en route to volunteer at the Ape Action Africa animal sanctuary in Cameroon. If you haven’t ‘met’ her before, have a look at her work at the link above. Anyhow, we’re always in the market for inspiration and so off we went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. I thought that it was a little smaller than in previous years, and the images weren’t quite as well displayed, but it’s still well worth a visit, and here are a few of my favourite images.

I thought that the image of the possum eating a cicada (above) had a very painterly quality to it – if a Dutch Old Master had painted possums instead of bowls of fruit or dead animals, I’m sure he would have come up with something like this, even down to the highlights on the dead insects strewn on the window sill. A great image!

I think that cropping a photo can often produce a startling image, as in Max Waugh’s image of a bison (below).

And of course, lighting is key…

But strangely enough, the images that appealed to me most this year were the more abstract ones. The one below is a real mind-blower. Even though I know that it’s not possible to have a vertical wall of rice paddies, I still can’t see the photo any other way. See what you think!

And finally, I loved this one most of all. So much, in fact, that I bought a teeshirt with this photo on it. The photographer, Uge Fuertes Sanz, spent hours sitting by the River Cabriel in the Sierra de Albarracin Mountains, Spain, waiting for a cloud to pass over so that he could capture this soft light. What a beautiful image, and what a fitting end to the exhibition!

But of course we couldn’t leave without saying hello to this chap….Yes, it’s the Natural History Museum’s Tyrannosaurus Rex, popular with children (and adults) for many years. He doesn’t walk anywhere (fortunately) but he does raw, wriggle his teeny tiny front legs and generally look at the audience menacingly, which is enough to reduce small children to quivering wrecks.

You can see him in action below…I love all the unimpressed people walking past and looking at their phones.

The gallery for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year is here, and the People’s Choice photos (the competition has just closed) are here. Well worth a look if you’re in London!

Dear Readers, I have never knowingly seen a Scaup (though several have been spotted at Walthamstow Wetlands this year), but it’s an easy duck to miss, especially when hanging out with a bunch of Tufted Ducks. But what an elegant duck it is! I love the ball-shaped iridescent green head and that scraffito pattern on the back. The female is definitely trickier but is gorgeous in her own right.

Scaups are larger than Tufted Ducks, and don’t have the characteristic Tufty ‘tuft’ on their heads. They are also technically sea ducks, though they can also be seen on reservoirs. They are largely winter visitors and can be seen anywhere in the UK and Ireland except for the north of Cornwall and the west of Scotland. Incidentally, the much rarer Lesser Scaup is an occasional visitor to the UK – I once joined a group of birdwatchers who had found a Lesser Scaup on a gravel pit in Dungeness, with no idea of what a privilege seeing this nondescript little duck was. The Lesser Scaup is a North American bird, so one of those that’s occasionally blown off course and ends up in Europe.

Anyhow, let’s return to the (Greater) Scaup. It isn’t a rare bird across its range (which includes the tundra areas of Canada, Alaska and Eurasia), but it is becoming rarer in the UK. The number of birds visiting the UK has declined by 60% from 2009 to 2018, but their numbers have stayed stable in Denmark, and have increased in Sweden, Estonia, Germany and Poland. In short, this is yet another example of a migratory bird ‘short-stopping’ – as we’ve said before, why would you travel all the way to the UK if you can find what you need closer to home? However, even here the birds are under threat, from intensive fishing reducing the quality and quantity of food available, particularly in the Baltic.

The species name ‘marila‘ means ‘charcoal embers’ or ‘coal dust’, both rather beautiful descriptions. And what does a Scaup sound like? Well, here are some Finnish Scaup in flight, recorded by Lauri Hallikainen:

And here are some Icelandic Scaup calling on Lake Mývatn (recorded by Patrik Āberg) with lots of other exciting waterbirds in the background (including Whooper Swan)

And here’s another flight call but with lovely wing beats as well (recorded by Lars Edenius in Sweden)

And finally, here’s a poem by Megan Snyder-Camp. Read it slowly. And in fact, you can hear it being read by the author, which makes it clearer. I rather like it – it reminds me of the generosity of many birdwatchers when they realise that you are serious.

Nisqually

At the riverbank listening for sea lions
from years ago the husk of their breath

a woman photographing trees
the rest of us staring up at a pair of falcons

the rest of us wanting to feel other lives pass through us
with swiftness and fear the migration we’ve read about

naming midflight what’s leaving us my son is twelve
and men along the path offer their scopes

so he can see each feathering hours lavished years between sightings
nights listening to recorded calls feathering their phones

to show what they’ve seen before and when my son
names each bird the men light up to have been loved in return

along the shore a duck which over the next hour
becomes a lesser scaup my son’s name entered

in the logbook of rarities a day of utter joy the blue beak dappled back
the particular rise of the headfeathers the golden eye opened and shut