Dad, fresh from helping to pilot a boat from Weymouth to Portland.

Dear Readers, it’s five years since my Dad died, at the very beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime away, and sometimes like yesterday. I miss them still. Here’s a piece that I wrote for last year’s anniversary. It still seems to sum it up. 

Dear Readers, five years ago today (31st March 2020) my father passed away, and I became a middle-aged orphan. Today, I think about how I used to phone my parents every Sunday, and how I sometimes thought of it as a chore – Dad would speak to me for about five minutes, but he never really knew what to say. Then he’d pass the phone onto Mum. If talking had been an Olympic sport she would definitely have got a gold medal, so I was rarely on for less than an hour. Mum had to tell every story verbatim, in real time – it was as if every detail was of equal value, every exchange, even the most humdrum, worthy of attention and retelling. Only later did I understand how diminished her life had become, how small her world, so that every incident grew to have an almost Homeric importance, though if a wooden horse had ever turned up in Milborne St Andrew I imagine that we’d still be on the phone now.

Yet, after they passed away, the time when I would have phoned them gave me a physical pain, every week for months and months. For a while I would ring their number, just to hear Mum’s telephone voice announcing that ‘Neither Sybil or Tom are able to take your call at the moment’. How I yearned to have one of those long, meandering, infuriating calls again. I would have loved to hear a verbatim report of Mum’s argument with the milkman, or to have a blow-by-blow account of the adorable thing that the cat did. I suppose that it’s often not the big things that we miss so much when someone dies, but the day-to-day familiarity of a voice, or a touch, a turn of phrase that no one else has.

Dad, on the other hand, was a very taciturn person. He was, however, easily exasperated by inefficiency and lack of planning, even after he moved into the nursing home because of his dementia. When I went to visit, Dad would often throw up his hands as he recalled some mishap or source of confusion.

“It was chaos, utter chaos!” he’d say, with a roll of the eyes. Sometimes, if the nursing staff were within hearing range, he’d lean in and say, sotto voce

“And that one” (jerk of the head), “he’s the worst”.

I’d turn to see some poor gentleman trying to manoeuvre his walker through a space that was clearly too small, or someone carrying a plate full of cake at a precipitous angle.

Dad was quick to judge other people as idiots, but he was easily conned or bullied, even before his dementia. However,  Mum took over the phone calls as Dad’s faculties diminished, and she was more than able for any scammers. One ill-advised chap was trying to persuade Dad to give him his credit card details when Mum snatched the phone and gave the scamster such an earful that he told her she was ‘a very wicked woman’ and put the phone down on her. Clearly her way with words was not always a disadvantage.

And so, as the years go by, I find myself thinking less and less about the last few years and the challenges that they brought, and more about what special people Mum and Dad were, and what a good team they made. They always presented a united front in public, and both of them hated it when they were with couples who were contemptuous of one another, or who spoke to one another with a lack of respect. Of course, things could be different in private – my brother and I used to call them ‘Stadler and Waldorf’ after the couple of old men in The Muppets – but basically they had one another’s backs, and were on the same team, for the best part of sixty-five years.

I once asked Mum what the secret of a life-long relationship was.

“Luck”, she said.

I was surprised. I’d expected ‘unconditional love’ or some such notion.

“When you’ve known one another since you were fourteen years old,” she said, “You’re bound to change over the years. The question is, do you change in ways that your partner can deal with? Can you still love one another? We were lucky, because we did, and we grew old together. But sometimes people can’t, and in that case it’s best that they find someone that they can love, rather than spending the rest of their lives miserable”.

I have no idea what happens after we die. Part of me would love to think of Mum and Dad still being together in some way, their essence mingling like smoke. But what I do know is that they were so much part of one another that Dad was always looking for Mum, in some way or another, until his dying day, even though he didn’t really understand that she had died. And now his searching is over, and if nothing else, he has some peace, even though I miss both my parents more than I can say. My heart is heavy today, but I am full of memories, and of gratitude for what they gave me, and who they were.

Mum and Dad in 2016

Hairy-footed Flower Bees

Dear Readers, my pal Leo from our local community orchard/garden/woodland Barnwood spotted these Hairy-footed Flower Bees mating a few days ago. How exciting! What usually happens with this species is that the males, the stripy white-faced individuals, emerge from their burrows first – the eggs were laid in tunnels dug by their mothers last year, and the larvae have been developing all this time, until they’re ready to emerge as fully-fledged bees. The males then go in search of a mate – the females are easily identified as they’re jet-black. You might see the males patrolling a flowering shrub in search of a hungry female coming in to feed after a long, cold winter, but sometimes they’re even more opportunistic, and will wait around the site that they emerged from in case a female pops out.

The video below shows a rather torpid female, who probably can’t fly yet because she’s still too cold/not awake yet (I can sympathise). The males are clearly just waiting for their chance.

What is extra interesting is that the terrain that the bees are using is absolutely perfect – Leo tells me that it was left over from when their paths were laid, and it’s clearly at the right orientation for the bees to have burrowed into last year. It’s a clear illustration that if you create the right habitat, wildlife will come – it makes me think that I should somehow build a sandbank in my south-facing front garden (but probably not until the builders/painters have gone 🙂 ). It’s all so exciting, and shows that we can all make a difference and give our beleaguered wildlife a chance. It’s so encouraging.

Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa striata)

Dear Readers, this is a bird that I only ever saw when I visited Dorset – the one in the photo above was photographed in St Andrews Churchyard, in Milborne St Andrew, when I was visiting the grave of my parents. It is such an ordinary-looking little bird, and yet its behaviour reminds me more of something that you might see in the Serengeti – the one in the photo above sat still, then flew up to catch an insect, then landed back on the same perch, over and over again. The bird is an aerial dancer, taut and quick and effortless. And although it probably belongs in the Little Brown Job category, there is a sheen of silver and a neatness about it that is a joy to see.

There was even one hawking for insects on one of the thatched roofs in the village.

There is a theory that the Spotted Flycatcher was once a victim of the cuckoo’s penchant for laying its eggs in other birds’ nests. However, these days, Spotted Flycatchers have an excellent, and unusual, ability to distinguish their own eggs from those of the intruder, evicting any eggs that don’t look ‘right’. Unfortunately many other birds haven’t yet learned this trick – while warblers of various kinds often fall victim to the cuckoo’s deception, the poor old Dunnock is apparently a recent unwilling host, and can’t tell the difference between its own eggs and those of the cuckoo. What an interesting evolutionary arms race this is!

Juvenile Spotted Flycatcher (Photo By Hans G. Oberlack – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20376049)

Spotted Flycatchers spend the winter in southern Africa (sometimes as far south as Namibia) and then travel to Europe and the UK in May to breed, though their numbers are down a shocking 93% since 1967. Why this fall is quite so drastic is unclear, though the clue might be in the bird’s name – a species so dependent on insect prey will have been hit by the falling number of insects. It feels as if an ecosystem is like Jenga – pull out one key ‘stick’ and the whole edifice falls down.

A number of conservation efforts have taken place, from the removal of nest predators in a forest to the reforesting/deforesting of nesting areas. Another interesting study has shown that providing sources of calcium in the form of crushed snail shells and eggshells helps the females to lay larger eggs and bigger clutches, with more of the chicks surviving . I wonder why the birds are not finding calcium naturally, and also whether this could be a factor in the decline of other species? Nest boxes (especially nice new clean ones) have also proven to be a hit. So, all is not lost, though sometimes it might feel as if species are disappearing like sand running through our fingers.

And here are two Spotted Flycatchers chatting away in the Kruger National Park. It’s not a very melodious song (to my ears anyway), but there’s something companionable about it that I rather like. Let’s hope we’ll be hearing more of them soon.

Flat White (Photo By GeorgeMichaelFarewell – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66890818)

Dear Readers, for the past few weeks the house has been full of people replacing our tired and draughty windows, and this week we’ve started on getting them painted. When the painter came in to give us a quote, some mad impulse asked him if he could paint the bedroom and the kitchen cabinets as well. The end result is that, with one person sanding down the front of the house and someone else painting the back, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m better off in my local coffee shop. It doesn’t help that I’ve a crucial assignment coming up for my Open University course in a couple of weeks, so I have to make the time count. Today, dear Reader, I have been mostly learning about programmed cell death (Apoptosis) and the very, very many components that make the process up. If anyone wants to ask me about Bcl-2, Bax, Bak and Bid or PUMA just let me know, I’ll be glad to draw you a diagram :-).

Anyhow, all human life is here in the coffee shop, and very entertaining it is too. First up, there is a senior Barista (and she is mega-efficient) and a young woman who is a trainee, who is of course a tad slower. When some oaf told the latter to ‘hurry up’ this morning he was roundly cleaned by the former, who takes no prisoners. The oaf soon scuttled off with his tail between his legs while everyone in the queue suddenly found something very interesting on their phones. All except one elderly lady who commiserated with the trainee and told the oaf that he should ‘be ashamed of himself’. Hah!

Then there was the guy behind me who was participating in what was clearly a Zoom call about private initiatives in healthcare. I fear that he had a North American accent and very clear diction and a voice that I could have heard from the kebab shop across the road. There was some measure of tutting and eye-rolling but he continued oblivious until someone yelled ‘Save our NHS!’ and it occurred to him that he was in a public space.

A guy came in on his electric scooter, and the senior barista came over for a chat – the man didn’t look very well at all, and she chatted for a few minutes to see if he was alright. What a community hub this place is, like so many here in East Finchley, even though it’s part of a chain.

A lady came in with a small white dog wearing a ‘cone of shame’. She was incandescent after a small boy had apparently come over and tried to kick the dog. Goodness! The dog looked none the worse, fortunately, but the woman was furious, as I would have been too. On the other hand, I am furious when I see small children trying to chase and kick pigeons too, so it doesn’t take much to get me going. Then the Senior Barista told her that the dog would have to sit on the floor, not on the seat next to her, which she complied with with some muttering.

And now, I’ll have to head back to see what’s going on with the windows. We’ve chosen a very nice shade of green for the front door. It’s already green, but this is very slightly different so I’ll feel as if it was worth doing. And who could resist the opportunity for a bit of Shakin’ Stevens? You’re welcome 🙂

Photo by Fernando Soare

I love this. It feels like both hope and the end of hope to me. See what you think.

Dear One Absent This Long While by Lisa Olstein

It has been so wet stones glaze in moss;
everything blooms coldly.

I expect you. I thought one night it was you
at the base of the drive, you at the foot of the stairs,

you in a shiver of light, but each time
leaves in wind revealed themselves,

the retreating shadow of a fox, daybreak.
We expect you, cat and I, bluebirds and I, the stove.

In May we dreamed of wreaths burning on bonfires
over which young men and women leapt.

June efforts quietly.
I’ve planted vegetables along each garden wall

so even if spring continues to disappoint
we can say at least the lettuce loved the rain.

I have new gloves and a new hoe.
I practice eulogies. He was a hawk

with white feathered legs. She had the quiet ribs
of a salamander crossing the old pony post road.

Yours is the name the leaves chatter
at the edge of the unrabbited woods.

Well, Readers, after a few days of over-excitement in the pond it looks as if most of the spawn has been laid. All that are left are a few hopeful males looking wistfully into the mid-distance. It’s cold–ish today, but promises to get warmer during the week, so maybe there will be a last flurry of activity. There is already loads of frogspawn, though, which doesn’t appear to have been damaged by the frost of a fortnight ago.

The mysterious white cat has been paying regular visits, but for the first time (fingers tightly crossed) there haven’t been any sad little frog corpses as there are during some spring times. The worst that the visiting cats seem to do is occasionally pat a frog on the head. Maybe they’ve learned that frogs taste awful.

And the flowering currant that I was so worried about last year has resurrected itself, and promises to be full of flowers, just in time for the arrival of the hairy-footed flower bees. Everything in the garden is a bit late, but it seems to be mostly getting there. I hope that spring has arrived in your garden too!

Red Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum)

Dear Readers, after all the thunder and lightning yesterday we went for a short walk around East Finchley just to see what was in flower, and what a pleasant walk it was! We started off in Cherry Tree Wood, where there’s a very pleasant mix of wild flowers and bulbs.

It wasn’t bright enough for many flowers to open, but it was very encouraging to see the windflowers (wood anemones) surviving and thriving in what had been a very compacted, well-trodden part of the wood. Nobody likes fences, but sometimes they’re needed just to give things a chance to recover.

And there’s a very fine patch of daffodils just where you come into the wood. I knew that there were lots of different varieties, but it’s not until you see them altogether that you realise the range of colours and ‘designs’. I am monomaniacal about plants with pollinator value (and daffodils are not high up the list), but these are so cheerful that even I refuse to be curmudgeonly for once.

And then we head out onto the unadopted road, which looks as if it’s had a bit of a trim and a tidy-up (unfortunately). Still, there is green alkanet, and some ivy-leaved toadflax, both looking very pretty against the brick walls.

Here’s a thing  that I haven’t seen before (or at least haven’t noticed) – this cherry tree looks as if it’s two varieties grafted together – white flowers at the bottom, pink flowers at the top.

I’m always impressed by these acid-green euphorbias as well, they seem to flower for months.

And then it’s on to the County Roads, to see what we can see there. There’s a very fine evergreen clematis with a sweet, citrus smell (Clematis armandii I think)…

…and next to it there is a cloud of winter gnats. These little flies appear during the first mild days of spring, and gather in some numbers to mate. The males only live for about five days, so let’s hope they managed to fulfil their life’s purpose, which is to reproduce. These tiny insects are food for so many other creatures, and their larvae are often detritivores, clearing up decaying matter.

And so it’s back onto our road, where there is a whole ecosystem growing in the cracks closest to the walls and front gardens. Greater Celandine is clearly having a good year already…

The dog violets from next door are happily spreading along the road…

and there are even some grape hyacinths, which have made themselves at home in most unprepossessing circumstances.

And now it’s time to get stuck into my Open University course again. Wish me luck!

Dear Readers, Heathrow might have been closed completely by a substation fire, but this doesn’t put off the birds! I heard my first Chiffchaff in Coldfall Wood last week, and I’ve seen and heard Blackcaps (though as some of these little chaps are staying all winter now). It would be interesting to hear a Willow Warbler – they look so similar to Chiffchaffs, and yet their song is so different that it’s the best way of telling the birds apart. Here’s a Chiffchaff.

And here’s a Willow Warbler.

You might find either bird in a lightly forested glade, a park or a woodland, and all you’re likely to see is a fast-moving LBJ (Little Brown Job), but the song should do the trick.

Common Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) from Common Chiffchaff – Facts, Diet, Habitat & Pictures on Animalia.bio

Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) by By Aviceda – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6615095

As I write this, the sky is the colour of charcoal and there’s a rumble of thunder, but the frogs are really having fun in the pond, and the flowers are gradually coming on the Flowering Currant that I would have sworn had died. If we have time to get out for a walk, we might not see an Osprey arriving, or a Nightjar, but you might notice something that tells of the quickening of the pulse of the season. Everything starts to get a little more intense, a little more hectic. Am I ready for spring? Part of me wants to carry on hibernating, but part of me is definitely up for longer days, warmer weather, and the chance to shed at least a few layers of clothing. Watch the skies, and bring it on!

Monarch Butterfly from https://animalia.bio/monarch-butterfly

Dear Readers, after the rather sad poem that I featured on Thursday,  I was fascinated to read in New Scientist that there is evidence that Monarch Butterflies, and some other species, ‘self-medicate’. Lots of animals have been found to seek out things that they seem to know will help them get better when they’re sick – think of all the animals that seek out mineral licks, for example, or the way that cats and dogs sometimes eat grass. But to my knowledge, no one has previously found this behaviour in invertebrates.

Jaap de Roode has a new book ‘Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes and Other Animals Heal Themselves‘, and very fascinating it is too. First up, those Monarch Butterflies. They are prone  to being infected by a parasite (Ophrycystis elektroscirrha), a protozoan that infects female Monarchs and then passes on to their caterpillars when they eat their egg shells. It’s been found that when the females are infected, they preferentially feed on milkweeds which are high in chemicals called cardenolides, which are toxic to the parasite. The species of milkweed which is most poisonous, Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is now widely planted across the Monarch’s range. This is a controversial plant in other ways because its flowering period can disrupt the Monarch’s migration |(keeping it in the north when it should be heading south) but nonetheless this is a very interesting observation.

Garden Tiger caterpillar (Arctica caja) Photo by Gail Hampshire at https://www.flickr.com/photos/gails_pictures/52962034953

Next, my beloved ‘woolly bear’ caterpillars (the larvae of any species of Tiger Moth) increase their consumption of plants containing alkaloids when they are parasitized by flies. How does that work? De Roode points out that the researchers in the woolly bear study have really looked into the detail. Caterpillars have four different taste receptors (not so different from us actually) and one of those receptors recognises the taste of the alkaloid. When the caterpillars are infected, that particular taste receptor starts to fire more frequently, so the nerve impulses to the brain encourage the caterpillar to seek out that particular taste.

De Roode thinks that self-medication in the animal kingdom is much more widespread than we usually think, and in many areas of the world, native peoples have observed what plants the animals use, and have then experimented with it themselves, discovering new treatments along the way. We are discovering so much about invertebrates, and de Roode is undoubtedly right when he wonders what other animals use to self-medicate, What does an octopus take if it has a headache, I wonder?

And finally, here’s an interesting  (and commoner) take on one particular self-medication behaviour, anointing. This is what a cat does when it rolls around on a patch of catmint, or plays with a catnip toy. Clearly, the animal is having a great time, but what’s going on? Interestingly, scientists in Japan have discovered that when catmint is crushed, it releases a chemical that repels mosquitoes. A cat doesn’t need to know that’s what’s happening, but cats who have this behaviour may have had a better survival rate in the Middle East, which is thought to be the origin point for domestic cats. Nowadays most UK cats don’t need to worry about mosquitoes (yet, but I suspect climate change is saying ‘hold my beer’), but many still behave like twits when they smell catmint.

Frankie the Cat on Catnip – Photo by Marcy Leigh at https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcyleigh/18375701278