Corn Bunting (Emberiza calandra) Photo by By Steve Riall – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17750681

Dear Readers, what a bold, energetic little bird this is! A creature of farmland, its numbers declined drastically between the 1970s and 1980s, though it seems that the population might have stabilised at these new low levels. There have been local extinctions – Corn Buntings are effectively extinct in Ireland, and the small populations in Scotland are increasingly at risk. It doesn’t help conservation efforts that different populations of Corn Buntings are becoming more and more isolated, and that different groups of birds seem to need different conditions.

It’s not for want of trying to survive on the Corn Bunting’s part though – one male had 18 partners in a single season, and the males sit at the top of a tall weed or fence post and sing their heads off for hours. The song is described by the Crossley Guide as ‘like the jangle of keys being shaken, starts slow and accelerates’. See what you think (recording by Jarek Matusiak)

Although the Corn Bunting is another ‘little brown job’, there are a few things that distinguish it from other similar birds. First up, it flies with its legs dangling. Secondly, it is described (again in the Crossley Guide) as a ‘plump, streaky, rather featureless songbird with a big head, short tail without white sides and very thick pink bill with S-shaped cutting edge’. In fact, the Corn Bunting is the ur- Bunting, the classic example of the group. The word ‘Bunting’ used to mean a plump or thickset person (hence the nursery rhyme ‘Bye Baby Bunting’). The bird is thought to have arrived in the UK as a consequence of the woodland clearance by Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers, and has always been associated with cereal production – the fields provided seed, invertebrates, a nesting habitat and protection from predators.

Corn Bunting (Photo by Antonio Pena at https://www.flickr.com/photos/anpena/46783480884/)

Nesting on the ground makes Corn Buntings  particularly susceptible to predators. As I’ve mentioned before, the shooting (and dumping) of pheasants means that there are large amounts of food around for animals such as foxes, who have always taken some eggs and chicks, but which will be present in higher numbers because there is so much waste food around. This has been particularly important in the decline of the curlew, but many other farmland and wetland birds are also affected.

What is clear is that the birds need seeds during the winter (particularly weeds/late autumn-sown crops) and where these have been available, the birds do better. Nesting habitat and invertebrates are important in the summer, so all the usual rules about not spraying with pesticides and herbicides apply. It’s always heartening to see that some farmers are trying to restore habitat for farmland birds, who have as a group suffered drastic declines over the past fifty years, and many are provisioning birds over the winter.

This was once the commonest songbird in Shetland, and had a whole raft of local names, as outlined in Birds Britannica:

‘Docken sparrow, docken fool, docken laverock, trussy laverock, shurl, titheree, cornbill, corn-tief and song thrush’.

As the authors of the book (Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey) point out, all these names are now redundant, as the bird is extinct in Scotland. As nature disappears, so vernacular language too is impoverished. What a sorry state of affairs.

Dear Readers,

Today it’s pouring down, which is very bad news for the poor scaffolders who are working at the back and front of the house because we are getting some new windows and having the external decorating done. It’s not all bad, of course – I really enjoyed making this post about a previous rainy day in 2017, and as the first few frogs have appeared in the pond (of which more later) it makes me feel as if spring is just around the corner. But here are a few rain-related poems – do let me know if you have any favourites!

Rain by Don Paterson 

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one big thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from a play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a starlit gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign
and I’d read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood –
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain’s own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

And I know Robert Frost isn’t very fashionable at the moment, but I do rather love this…

Acquainted With the Night by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain – and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

And this is lovely, by poet Li-Young Lee, someone that I hadn’t come across before…

I Ask My Mother to Sing by Li-Young Lee

She begins, and my grandmother joins her.
Mother and daughter sing like young girls.
If my father were alive, he would play
his accordion and sway like a boat.

I’ve never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers
running away in the grass.

But I love to hear it sung;
how the waterlilies fill with rain until
they overturn, spilling water into water,
then rock back, and fill with more,

Both women have begun to cry.
But neither stops her song.

And finally this one, by Conrad Potter Aiken (1889-1973), an American poet that I’d never come across before, but I think I’ll look out some more of his work. Anything that mentions snails can only be a masterpiece in my view…

Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise the Rain by Conrad Potter Aiken

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,—
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone…
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,—on a hawthorn leaf,—
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

Edgeworthia chrysantha in flower in Embankment Gardens this weekend

Dear Readers, a number of you have been telling me about the wonderful scent from the Edgeworthia shrubs that you have in your garden, so when I saw this plant during a walk along the Embankment at the weekend, I had to go in for a sniff. And indeed you weren’t exaggerating – this plant has such a delicious perfume, all the more remarkable on a chilly day. Otherwise known as the paperbush, the plant is named after amateur botanist Michael Pakenham Edgeworth, an Irishman who worked for the East India Company,  and for his sister Maria Edgeworth, herself an accomplished author (born in England, she was said to have been the ‘most celebrated and successful living English writer’ of her day). However, her heart seems to have been in Ireland, where there is not only an Edgeworthstown, but a Maria Edgeworth Center and Festival. This blog does lead me to some most surprising discoveries!

This species of Edgeworthia comes originally from Myanmar and southern/western China, where it grows in forests and on shrubby slopes. Here it is in flower in the Imperial Palace gardens in Tokyo (where it is naturalised). What is so unusual about this plant, to my eyes at least, is that flowers before any leaves appear and so the blossom looks all the more spectacular.

Photo by By Egghead06 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10752563

Why ‘paperbark’, though? Edgeworthia (known as mitsumata in Japan) is used to make a very special kind of tissue paper, which can be used for repairing any damage or tears in manuscripts or books. It’s also used for Japanese banknotes!

Japanese Tissue made from the bark of the Kozo (Paper Mulberry) tree. This can be repaired with fibres from the Edgeworthia.

Edgeworthia bark and roots are known as ‘Zhu shima‘ in Chinese medicine, and have been shown to have some analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects, while the flowers have been used for eye infections. The chemicals involved in the medicinal effects are derivatives of coumarin, which is the same ingredient which makes the plant smell so good.

Edgeworthia flowers (Photo By 清水五月 (Shimizusatsuki) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9098823)

Edgeworthia is a member of the Thymelaeaceae, a huge family of nearly 900 species and 50 genera. It will probably come as no surprise to hear that it shares the family with that other fragrant winter-flowering shrub, Daphne. Several other members of the family are also used in paper production. However, Edgeworthia chrysantha is unique in having a stem that splits into three identical parts, something that no other living plant is known to do. Don’t you just love botanists, with their attention to detail?

University of Bristol via https://www.newscientist.com/article/2467711-watch-a-cuttlefish-transform-into-a-leaf-and-a-coral-to-hunt-its-prey/

Dear Readers, I am forever amazed by the adaptability and intelligence of cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish and octopi) – in the past year we’ve had stories about octopi hunting in collaboration with fish (and walloping any freeloaders) for example. However, these cuttlefish use their extraordinary colouration, and ability to change shape and colour, to mimic leaves or coral. They also use a pulsing pattern of stripes, which may ‘hypnotise’ prey, or act as a kind of ‘dazzle camouflage’. You can see them in action in the video below:

https://youtu.be/BTNfDMYb5Qg

Scientists are still unsure how the cuttlefish decide which tactic to use: some cephalopods seem to change their colouration and shape according to which prey they’re hunting, but it may also be a way of avoiding predation themselves, as your average cuttlefish makes for a very tasty morsel. But at the moment, we don’t know, and I suspect that there might be a lot of variation between individual cuttlefish too. This particular species, the Broadclub Cuttlefish (Sepia latimanus) lives on and around Pacific coral reefs and mangroves, and the youngsters mimic mangrove leaves. The photos below give an idea of the range of colours that this species can achieve: these are both the same individual, with the pictures taken only a few minutes apart.  What astonishing animals cuttlefish are! And to think that previously I only knew them from the chalky-white object in my budgerigar’s cage.

You can read the research paper here.

Broadclub Cuttlefish (Photo by By Nhobgood Nick Hobgood – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6261651)

By Nhobgood Nick Hobgood – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6261651

Theodore Gericault (1791-1824)(Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank (French: Le Monomane du Commandement Militaire), 1822 (Collection Oskar Reinhart am Römerholz, Winterthur)

Dear Readers, today we visited an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House, to see some paintings from the Oskar Reinhart collection. There are examples of the work of all the big name Impressionists here, but as the review in The Guardian suggested, these are generally not as ‘great’ as the ones already in the Courtauld collection. For me, some of the best paintings were actually those who came before or (technically) after the Impressionists, including this portrait by Gericault (above). Gericault is best known for his enormous painting ‘The Wreck of the Medusa’ (well worth a look if you’re in the Louvre), but he also painted a series of portraits of ‘the insane’ from the patients of his friend, Dr Etienne-Jean Gorget, who was a pioneering psychiatrist. The man in the portrait is wearing a policeman’s hat, and the ‘medal’ around his neck identifies him as a patient at the asylum. As in all of this series of paintings, Gericault is able to portray the man as afflicted whilst preserving his dignity as a human being, maybe because there was a history of insanity in Gericault’s family, and his own mental health was fragile.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)Ward in the Hospital in Arles, 1889, Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz”, Winterthur, Switzerland

There were also two Van Goghs in the exhibition which have never been seen in the UK, both painted in the last years of Van Gogh’s life. Following the artist’s cutting off of his ear, he was taken to a hospital in Arles, where he continued to paint. I rather like the painting above – the stove seems to be almost a character in itself. Both this and the other painting made in Arles (below) have a distinct blue-green tinge to them, and I wonder if this was how Van Gogh saw the world, or if there really was a kind of ‘bottom of the sea’ atmosphere to the hospital.

The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles, 1889, Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz”, Winterthur, Switzerland

And finally, a ‘proper’ Impressionist painting – Claude Monet’s ‘The Break Up of Ice on the Seine (1880-81). Monet loved the paint the same scene multiple times, from different angles and in different lights, as if once he found something that interested him he had to explore every facet of it.

Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) The Break Up of Ice on the Seine (1880-81) Oskar Reinhart Collection

I love the way that Monet has managed to show both the reflections and the solidity of the ice, and the coldness of the image almost has me pulling a scarf around my neck.

I enjoyed this exhibition, and it’s really worth wandering around the rest of the collection, which has some Impressionist masterpieces and also, on the first floor, some very interesting Medieval altarpieces – I think after my trip to Ravenna I feel like anything after the end of the first millennia BCE is modern, but there we go. And it was so good to be able to wander around London again, even though I still keep an open for trip hazards, of which there are many.  London is such a gift for the art lover, we are so lucky.

Giant Springtail (Holacanthella spinosa) Photo by By Andy Murray – Holacanthella spinosa (14017688257), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33671693

Dear Readers, I have always wanted to go to New Zealand – so many interesting plants and flightless birds and fungi! But most of all, there are the invertebrates, and to celebrate them, New Zealand holds a ‘Bug of the Year’ competition, with the results for this year just being announced. So, here are the top three.

In at number three is the Giant Springtail (photo above). You might remember me getting all enthusiastic about springtails a few months ago, but Giant Springtails are found only in New Zealand, and they grow to an impressive 17 mm long. Admittedly that’s not very big, but it is about 17 times longer than your average springtail. Plus, they are very spiny and colourful, some with yellow spines, some with red ones. Sadly, these springtails don’t jump, but instead hang around munching upon dead and decaying wood. They are found only in New Zealand’s old growth forests, where the trees have never been logged, so they are true ‘ancient forest indicators’. Well done, Giant Springtail! Third out of twenty-one nominees is excellent work.

New Zealand Praying Mantis (Orthodera novaezealandiae) Photo by By Bryce McQuillan – DSC_9358E, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6334041

In at number two is the New Zealand Praying Mantis, described as ‘a very active little mantis’ . This is another endemic species, found nowhere else in the wild but in New Zealand. Unlike most praying mantises, the female of the species doesn’t eat the male, although unfortunately there are stories of male New Zealand Praying Mantises mating with females of other, introduced species, who do eat their partners. Could miscommunication get any worse? This insect is a great muncher of flies and other ‘pests’ and has a prodigious appetite for its size (about 40 mm which is smallish for a praying mantis), but alas is affected by pesticides. More mantises and less chemicals, I say.

As you might have gathered from the mention of a pet website above, this species does well in captivity, though I note that the newly-hatched nymphs are said to be extremely fast, and capable of leaping fairly far too. Probably not one for the spare room, then (my husband is tolerant of my funny little ways, but not that tolerant).

So, what won the Bug of the Year 2025? This little critter…

Ngāokeoke | NZ Velvet Worm (Peripatoides novaezealandiae ) Photo by Frupus at https://www.flickr.com/photos/frupus/10853890484)

This is a New Zealand Velvet Worm, yet another endemic species, and a very interesting one. As the name suggests, its skin is velvety to the touch, and it has fifteen pairs of hollow, cone-like ‘legs’ called lobopods. They grow to about 5 cms long, and are usually found beneath or in hollow logs as, like woodlice, they are prone to drying out and can’t manage their own moisture levels – they lose water twice as fast as earthworms, and forty times faster than caterpillars. Earthworms and caterpillars, like velvet worms, breath through trachae, little holes in their sides, but unlike velvet worms they can close the trachae if it gets too dry. Velvet worms are truly creatures of a very limited habitat.

Baby velvet worms are born alive, developing from eggs while in the body of their mother, and in this species they’re pure white when they emerge.

Don’t be taken in by the velvet worm’s rather cuddly exterior, though – this is a voracious nocturnal predator, who tracks their prey and then shoots out a net of slime from their mouth. The slime hardens on contact with air to form a net that encases the prey (which can be anything that you’d find under a log, from a spider to a centipede).

What is a velvet worm, though? Taxonomically it’s thought that velvet worms are closely related to both Arthropods (animals with jointed legs such as spiders, crabs, insects etc) but also to Tardigrades (extremely resilient micro-animals, also known as water bears).

Tardigrade (Water Bear) Photo by By Bryce McQuillan – DSC_9358E, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6334041

So the Velvet Worm, with its squidgy feet, velvety ‘skin’ and lethal slime-throwing, wins New Zealand’s Bug of the Year for this year. And well deserved, I think. Well done, also, to the Entomological Society of New Zealand for publicising the ‘little things that run the world’.

Now, where’s the website for Air New Zealand?

Great Skua (Stercorarius skua) Photo by By Ómar Runólfsson – Great Skwatua – Catharacta skua – SkúmurUploaded by Snowmanradio, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15516838

Dear Readers, here we are at Red List Forty, and we’re just over half way through the 78 birds currently on the UK list of birds of Conservation Concern. Sadly, the list gets longer every year, and at this rate I’ll never get to the end, but here we are. And I thought that this week I’d feature one of the very few birds that I’ve ever been attacked by, though I only have myself to blame.

Great Skuas, like many seabirds, are very protective of their nests, so when we visited the island of Handa, off the west coast of Scotland, I shouldn’t have been surprised that these large birds were watching us with a jaundiced eye as we stumbled along the rocky paths. We were kept well away from the nest sites, but even so some of the parents were not pleased, flying up and then zooming past our ears in a display of aerial acrobatics that was most impressive, even if it made me fear for my sunhat. ‘Bonxies’, as Great Skuas are known across Scotland, are kleptoparasites, and will attack birds as large as gannets in an attempt to make them disgorge the prey that they’re trying to bring home for their nestlings. They are also fearsome predators of smaller seabirds themselves, and also take by-catch from fishing boats. Great Skuas really are piratical birds, big, strong, daring and adaptable. The Crossley Guide (which has something of a sense of humour) describes the Great Skua as a ‘heavy-bodied troublemaker’, and who could argue?

When Great Skuas first arrived in the Northern Isles (as recently as the 18th century) they were welcomed by crofters as these ferocious birds frightened away the ravens and white-tailed eagles who used to prey on their lambs. Alas, it was then found that the Bonxies themselves were eating the lambs, and so the islanders retaliated by taking the Bonxie chicks and fattening them up for the pot. Apparently Great Skua eggs were eaten on the island of Foula as recently as 1970 (illegally, but then it’s a long way to go to make an arrest). It could be argued that until recently there were plenty of Great Skuas to go around – it was estimated that the birds were killing up to 200.000 Kittiwakes every year in the 1990s. This was probably because the birds that the Great Skuas used to steal from, the puffins and gannets, were themselves affected by the crash in the sand eel population, which was one of the foundations of the food chain for all these creatures. Everything is connected, as we know.

Photo by By Erik Christensen – With permission from: Murray Nurse, Guildford , England, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9508570

So why are these seabirds, which were previously not causing any concern with regard to their UK population, suddenly on the Red List? The Great Skua has been badly hit by Avian Flu, with a number of the Scottish populations showing a drastic reduction in numbers. This is especially worrying as about 67% of Great Skuas breed in coastal areas of the UK.  The disease has been devastating for a number of seabird species, with some terns losing an entire generation of fledglings to the disease. Let’s hope that numbers start to recover once the Avian Flu outbreak has peaked.

Photo by By T. Müller – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1838990

And I’m sure you’re all intrigued to know what a Great Skua sounds like. Here are some of the birds in Iceland, recorded by Stanislas Wroza. They sound rather charming and chucklesome to me.

And so, fingers crossed for this big bully of a bird, apex predator of a complex and dynamic ecosystem. And if you ever go to visit them, keep to the paths, and wear a stout hat.

Dear Readers, as the pond is still frozen it’s a little early to be waiting for the frogs to put in an appearance, but hopefully as the weather warms I might soon see their little faces looking up hopefully from under the duckweed (which is currently under control, but I think that every year). And in the meantime, here is some amphibian-related poetry.

The Frog

By Hilaire Belloc

Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’
Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’
Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’
Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:
The Frog is justly sensitive
To epithets like these.
No animal will more repay
A treatment kind and fair;
At least so lonely people say
Who keep a frog (and, by the way,
They are extremely rare).

And here’s Norman MacCaig, a man who loves frogs almost as much as I do. This is so well-observed.

Norman MacCaig – Frogs

Frogs sit more solid

than anything sits. In mid-leap they are

parachutists falling

in a free fall. They die on roads

with arms across their chests and

heads high.

I love frogs that sit

like Buddha, that fall without

parachutes, that die

like Italian tenors.

Above all, I love them because,

pursued in water, they never

panic so much that they fail

to make stylish triangles

with their ballet dancer’s
legs.

And finally, here’s a poem by Goethe, no less, who clearly didn’t appreciate the vocal qualities of the frog…

The Frogs
by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A pool was once congeal’d with frost;
The frogs, in its deep waters lost,

No longer dared to croak or spring;
But promised, being half asleep,
If suffer’d to the air to creep,

As very nightingales to sing.

A thaw dissolved the ice so strong,
They proudly steer’d themselves along,
When landed, squatted on the shore,
And croak’d as loudly as before.