Dear Readers, if I sneak out into the garden very quietly, and make sure that my shadow doesn’t fall on the pond, I can get a glimpse of the frogs waiting around in the pond. Apart from the occasional ‘gribbit’ from one of the males, everyone is pretty much stationery, as if cast in stone. Such patience! But what are they waiting for?

Beneath the surface of the pond, some of them will be hanging on to a female with their specially adapted thumbs, in a process known as amplexus. The males will ride around on the female, sometimes for days, until she decides to release her eggs. At that point the male will release his sperm and the eggs will be fertilised. This is the whole reason for those days of being carried around by the (much larger) female – while he’s in situ no other male will get a chance to mate, unless a bigger male comes along and boots him off. This explains those situations you sometimes see where one female has numerous males attached to her. No wonder the females are sometimes very circumspect about jumping in the water.

And here’s a really enormous female frog that was found on our road – the lovely lady who found her was worried about her, but I’m pretty sure she’s just gravid. She leapt into the pond within 2 minutes of seeing it. It’s interesting how varied frogs are in colour – the frogs in the garden can be any colour from nearly black to palest yellow, and everything inbetween.

The patient males don’t all have mates yet, so some of them will be waiting to see if a female happens along. Every year the males come out of hibernation at the bottom of the pond first, and then the females, who usually hibernate elsewhere, wander along and sometimes sit on the edge of the pond for a bit as if weighing up their options before taking the plunge.

I’ve had this pond for fifteen years now, and it’s always so unpredictable – some years the weather stays warm and it’s a bumper year, other years (like this oneI it drops twenty degrees, sometimes overnight. Fingers crossed that the pond doesn’t freeze – the frogs can cope with anything else. And soon there will be tadpoles, and spring will really be here.

Dear Readers, it’s fair to say that the creatures in the garden don’t know whether they’re coming or going. Today has been a perfect spring day, with temperatures in the 60s (that’s about 17 degrees Celsius). But by next weekend we’re being threatened with a 20 degree Fahrenheit drop, and even the chance of sleet. I just hope that the pond doesn’t freeze, or the spawn on the top is likely to die (though any eggs underneath the water should be ok). I shall have a few buckets handy to pop on top of the spawn, just in case they’re needed.

As I was crouching by the pond hoping to get a froggy photo for your delectation, a male hairy-footed flower bee buzzed past to feed on the winter honeysuckle. They are very buzzy insects indeed, and always sound much louder than expected. They are another first sign of spring for me though. No photo from this visit, but here’s one I prepared earlier…

Male Hairy-Footed Flower Bee

We have been visited regularly by the cat below, who seems to have decided that our garden is a prime part of his or her territory. S/he walks along the edge of the pond, paying very close attention to ‘something’ – probably a frog. I only hope s/he doesn’t fall in. Cats generally don’t cause the frogs any problems while they’re in the water, though they can be a real menace when the amphibians leave the pond.

Lots of goldfinches around at the moment too, they really are the prettiest little birds, with the most tinkling song.

Here are some goldfinches recorded in the UK by David Darrell Lambert.

And finally, after I’d sat still for about ten minutes, a little face popped up out of the pond. Welcome, little chap! May the weather be kind to you.

Dear Readers, a few years ago I did a blog about the colouration of squirrels in Toronto, where a surprising number of grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are black, whereas this is very unusual in UK grey squirrels. So, I was very interested to read that scientist Bradley Cosentino at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York state had been doing some studies into why this might be. Cosentino had already shown that, in rural areas, predators spot the black squirrels more easily than the grey ones, which explains why the grey morph is more common in woods in the countryside.

However, in the city of Syracuse in New York State, black squirrels make up half of the population, and Cosentino wanted to find out why they were so much more common in an urban area. He had a hunch that it might have been connected to roadkill – we rarely seen squirrels killed by traffic in the UK, at least in cities (maybe everything is moving too slowly), but it’s a very common cause of death in US cities. After 50 roadkill studies around Syracuse, involving more than 100,000 photos of dead squirrels (the joys of being a scientist), Cosentino found that within 10-12 kilometres of the city, the black squirrels were about 30 per cent underrepresented. It’s already been found that drivers can spot a black squirrel faster than a grey one, which may mean that they’re easy to avoid, and this is the current working hypothesis.

However, this correlation doesn’t yet prove that this is why black squirrels are so much more successful in urban areas. It could also be that black squirrels have some other survival advantage, such as being more careful about crossing the road, or even that they’re faster than their grey conspecifics. Still, it’s an interesting hypothesis. I would love to see a similar study for Toronto.

Black squirrel in a patch of scilla…

You can read the scientific paper here.

“Soil – The World Under Our Feet” at Somerset House

Dear Readers, there is a positive plethora of interesting exhibitions on in London at the moment – it’s almost as if the universe knows that I’m getting close to my Open University exam and so is taunting me with all these good things. I will definitely try to report back on at least some of them, but in the meantime, here’s a round up of nature-related exhibitions in London during the next few months.First up is “Soil – The Earth Under Our Feet” at Somerset House on the Strand – it’s open now and runs until 13th April. The blurb says:

“This groundbreaking exhibition unites visionary artists and thinkers from around the world to explore the remarkable power and potential of soil. Through a range of artworks, artefacts and innovative approaches, visitors are invited to reconsider the crucial role soil plays in our planet’s health. The exhibition delivers a message of hope and urgency, encouraging a more sustainable, harmonious relationship with the Earth—if we choose to act now. “

Exhibitions at Somerset House are often an intriguing mixture of art and science, and they are often a lot of fun, with all manner of installations and other shenanigans.

Fly Agaric I by Marshmellow Laser Feast © David Parry, PA Media Assignments

Then a reader recently reminded me about an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in West London – “Flowers – Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture”. This is what the gallery has to say on the subject:

Flowers have, throughout history, inspired artists, writers and creatives. FLOWERS – FLORA IN CONTEMPORARY ART & CULTURE seeks to reveal the myriad ways that flowers continue to be depicted by artists and their omnipresence within our contemporary culture. Occupying two floors and over nine major gallery spaces, this exhibition features large-scale installations, original art, photography, fashion, archival objects and graphic design exploring the ongoing influence of flowers on creativity and human expression.

Aside from studies of their inherent beauty and drama, flowers are also utilised as symbols, signifiers or metaphors for human emotions and impulses.  Flora lies at the heart of myths and stories that inform our cultural outlook and language. Recognised as unparalleled objects of beauty in nature, artists continue to evoke the power and beauty of flora to convey a multitude of messages and meanings. 

Over 500 unique artworks and objects are on display throughout the exhibition, divided into nine sections – from Roots, In Bloom, Flowers and Fashion, Science: Life & Death, to New Shoots – each exploring different creative themes and media.

One room is entirely devoted to a bespoke installation piece by Rebecca Louise Law, made up of over 100,000 dried flowers, while another is transformed into a digital projection space featuring interactive work of the pioneering French artist Miguel Chevalier.

It all sounds very Instagram-worthy, and they are advising visitors to pre-book. This one runs until 5th May, so there’s a little more time to catch it if it appeals.

“Flowers’ by Matt Chung at the Saatchi Gallery

And here’s advance notice that on 2nd May “Unearthed – The Power of Gardening” will be opening at the British Library. The exhibition will include the only surviving illustrated collection of herbal remedies from Anglo-Saxon England, and the world’s first gardening manual, from 1564. The exhibition will run until 10th August 2025.

The exhibition’s focus is described below:

“From rural and urban gardens and allotments to indoor gardens and windowsills, the exhibition delves into how the act of gardening heals and sustains people in a multitude of ways. It explores how gardening brings people together, empowers communities and shapes our relationship with the natural world. It also considers gardening as a form of activism, as a means of challenging land ownership and highlighting social disparities, as well as the consequences of the international movement of plants for the environment and human societies.”

Sunflower illustration from “Unearthed” at the British Library

So, lots to see and do, and do let me know if you’ve already been to any of these exhibitions, and what you think!

Asian Hornet (Vespa volutina) Photo By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52006827

Dear Readers, I wrote a piece about the Asian Hornet last year. Whilst most of the articles published describe the impact of the insect on honeybees, I am personally also concerned about its impact on our native pollinator species, in particular bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies. While the number of Asian Hornet nests in the UK is currently pretty small, a recent study suggests that the range of prey taken by the insect is much broader than previously thought.The study looked at the stomach contents of both adult and larval Asian Hornets, and used genetic markers to indicate what the insects had fed on. The results showed an extremely diverse range of prey, from the expected honeybee to a wide range of other pollinators – 43 of the 50 commonest species found were flower visitors.

Most previous studies had looked at the prey taken by Asian Hornets in summer, and honeybees are certainly their favourite food at this time of year. However, early and late in the season bumblebees were a popular prey, along with wasps (particularly late in the year) and blowflies. Asian Hornets appear to be extremely adaptable and opportunistic predators, and will take whatever seems to be common and easily caught. Obviously bee hives fall into this category, especially as UK honeybees have not evolved with the Asian Hornet and so have none of the defence mechanisms that the Asian honeybee has, which makes them easy pickings. Bumblebees, too, are unfamiliar with this predator, and their larger size must make them a most desirable food source. While blowflies are not the most attractive animals to our eyes, they are extremely important ‘cleaners-up’ of everything from dead animals to cowpats, and again their high numbers at this kind of site must make them easy to catch.

It’s clear that if the Asian Hornet becomes established in the UK it will continue to prey on honeybees, particularly because where present the bees are usually available at a very high density. However, the threat to other insects, in particular pollinators, is also clear, especially as they are already endangered by a number of other factors including  honeybees themselves,  which can outcompete many other bee species because of their sheer numbers. The hornets’ stomachs also contained such diverse prey as spiders, beetles, butterflies, moths and true bugs.

So, what to do? The Asian Hornet is not yet considered to have become established in the UK by DEFRA, and this page shows the location of nests found in 2024, all of which were destroyed. At present, sightings are limited to the south of England and the Channel Islands, but if you think you have seen an Asian Hornet you can report it here. There’s also an app that you can use to report. Please do have a look back at my original Asian Hornet post for details of how to identify the insect – the last thing we want to be doing is killing our native hornets, or any of the other stripy critters that resemble them.

The establishment of the Asian Hornet (and a variety of other species that haven’t been able to survive here previously) may feel inevitable, but at least we can put it off for a bit longer. I’d like to hope that the refusal to allow neonicotinoids to be used on sugar beet last year is also a sign that at least one source of the decline of our insect populations might be removed. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, whilst also planting anything I can think of for invertebrates to munch on.

Dear Readers, as a change from the usual Thursday poetry, I’d like to bring you the winners of the first ever ‘Tune In and Celebrate Nature’ prize, awarded to musicians between 18 and 30 whose work ‘celebrates a true collaboration with nature’ and who are resident in the UK. The description of the prize is:

“Research shows that a closer relationship with nature comes through tuning into nature with our senses, responding with our emotions, appreciating beauty, celebrating meaning and activating our compassion for nature. We also seek to reverse the typically extractive relationship with nature that has been present across many creative sectors, and instead to recognize and reward nature as the artist she is. So, be creative in the nature sounds you include, from birdsong and rainfall to the sounds of the soil.”

Well, I couldn’t agree more. There is music all around us if we can only find the time and space to stop and listen (and if we can hear it above the hubbub of daily life, and the noise pollution). I love the early morning for just this reason – it’s then that the traffic drops, the banging and crashing of workmen doing their jobs stills, and you can hear the lone blackbird, or the rustle of a fox in the undergrowth.

I rather like both the winning pieces (all the pieces submitted had to be 5 minutes long or less). First up is Josephine Illingworth, with ‘Dawn – Singing the Mountain’. I rather like the way that it builds, that sense of light gradually travelling across a landscape, the gradual arrival of the dawn chorus, the sense of awe. One for the headphones ideally, I think.

Josephine explains: “Dawn, Aurora is a piece made from sounds I collected over several weeks of sleeping alone in mountain huts across the Dolomites. Its lyrics are taken from entries left in the guestbooks of these huts by past visitors. It is a tapestry of the memories and experiences taking place across the mountains, and a call for us to see life and movement in things we may think are silent.”

You can listen to the piece here.

The second winning piece is ‘Nightingale’, by Wildforms, and it couldn’t be more of a contrast (i.e. you might want to adjust the volume of your earphones before you put it on). I liked this too, for its high energy and youthfulness – it sounded rather like the drum and bass that I used to listen to as a young(er) person, and I was pleased to find out that this was, indeed, the inspiration. Here’s what the artist has to say:

“The track is based around the Nightingale song, which I recorded in Spring 2024. Upon hearing the birdsong for the first time, I thought – this really reminds me of the Jungle and Drum & Bass music I loved as a teenager.
So – I took the recordings home and began working it into a piece of music. Rhythmical Wood Crickets and Grasshoppers make an appearance as well as ‘cymbals’ made from Marram grass. A lot of the higher percussion is created with snapped dry twigs.”

You can listen to the piece here.

And if this has gotten you in the mood for more of this kind of thing (as Father Ted would say), there are links to all the shortlisted pieces here.

See what you think! Let me know!

Radiata/Monterey Pine (Pinus radiata) Photo By dalvenjah on Flickr – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6078804

Dear Readers, today’s ‘weed’ is a story of how a tree originally from North America ended up, via New Zealand and the Netherlands, in some East Finchley window frames. For, in another guise, Radiata Pine is also known as Accoya, a ubiquitous wood which, when treated, probably forms most of the wooden frames used across the UK.

First things first. Radiata Pine (also known as Monterey Pine) comes originally from the Central Coast of California, and from two islands off of Baja California in Mexico – Guadalupe and Cedros Islands. In one of those strange connections that seem to occur more and more as I get older, I have actually been to Guadalupe Island – the place is littered with the bleaching skeletons and skulls of goats. The goats were introduced years ago by settlers, but as the water supply is extremely limited, the settlers soon left, leaving the goats to their own devices. Being hardy and resourceful animals, the goats sustained themselves by nibbling all the baby Radiata Pines until they were stumps. Eventually, someone realised that this particular subspecies of tree had been almost extincted (new verb) by the goats, and so the poor old goats were culled. The trees are now regenerating, which is just as well, because although the Radiata Pine is the most widely-grown timber tree in the world, as a wild tree it has become vanishingly rare across its original range.

Goat Skull from Guadalupe Island

Now, Radiata Pine plantations are found all over Australia, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa, Argentina and a host of other countries. The tree grown for timber is very different from the wild tree – it has long, straight trunks, which don’t divide as the tree grows (see the wild specimen in the photo above). New Zealand has become a major source of wood for Accoya production – the timber is transported by sea to the Netherlands, where it’s transformed by a process called acetylation. This makes it as tough and durable as the hardwoods that it’s increasingly replacing, and my window frames have a 50 year guarantee, which should, as my Dad used to say, ‘see me out’. The wood has all sorts of environmental accreditations, including from the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). Am I completely convinced? Of course not. In many places, native forests have been cut down to grow Radiata Pine, and a plantation is no substitute for a long-established, diverse forest. Plus there’s the environmental cost of transporting timber from New Zealand to Europe – I’m sure it’s by sea, of course, but marine traffic is also implicated in climate change and environmental damage.  It seems as if the choices that we have to make these days are all fraught with ethical problems, and we have to do the best we can.

Radiata Pine plantation in Australia (Photo By Wikipedian, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53692872)

In ‘the wild’, Radiata Pine forms a diverse community with Monterey Cypress, another fine conifer. The gaps between the trees harbour some extremely rare plants, such as Hickman’s Potentilla, known from only two Radiata Pine sites in California.

Hickman’s Potentilla (Potentilla hickmanii) Photo by By John Game, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56210367

The orchid Plantathera yadonii grows only in Radiata Pine forests in California.

Platanthera yadonii (Photo by By Irene – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/146515368, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114428450)

A remnant Radiata Pine forest in California (Monarch Grove) is an important over-wintering site for Monarch Butterflies on their way south, with approximately 16,000 butterflies hibernating there in the winter of 2022-23.

At Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, CA near Monterey (Photo by By Kenneth Lu – https://www.flickr.com/photos/toasty/12934272853/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=152229127)

Writing this blog has made me think about the trip that I made to Monterey to watch whales, and also my trip around Baja California and the Sea of Cortez. Again, as I get older I think more and more about experiences, places I’ve been, people who’ve touched my heart and made me think. How very lucky I’ve been to see some of the things I’ve seen, and to have done that in the company of such precious human beings.

Elephant seal pups (Baja California)

Blue whale at sunset, Sea of Cortez

Grey Whale spyhopping in St Ignacio lagoon, Mexico

Grey Whale calf coming for a look in San Ignacio lagoon, Mexico

Brown Tree Ant (Lasius brunneus) Photo by Ryszard at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ricosz/16664758345

Dear Readers, we had a wonderful guided walk in Coldfall Wood yesterday, led by ecologist Russell Miller. We learned all sorts of interesting things, but of course I was most excited by the discovery, in a fallen birch log, of what we think is the nest of the Brown Tree Ant (Lasius brunneus), a most elusive and unusual (and probably under-reported) insect. And no wonder it’s not well known! Usually, the Brown Tree Ant lives inside living oak trees, but it will also live in dead wood, as in this case.

My Ant bible, ‘Ants’ by Richard Jones in the British Wildlife Collection series (highly recommended) describes the species as ‘timid and non-aggressive, and disappears quickly if its galleries are uncovered when peeling bark off old rotten trees’. Much, I suspect in the same way that I would run for cover if a giant alien took the roof of the houses off for a look. Apparently, though the species prefers ancient woodland, it is occasionally found in houses with timber frames, and Jones reports  being given a biscuit tin that had been invaded by the species from a house in Guildford.

The status of this quiet little ant is not clear in the UK – it may well have benefitted, as Jones suggests, from the different management of woodlands since World War II. Previously, woods were coppiced, pollarded and cut for the wood that they produce on a regular basis, but these days such activities are rare, resulting in the deeper, darker woods that we’re familiar with now. This may well have benefited an ant that prefers to live harmlessly in living trees, though it’s fair to bemoan the falling numbers of butterflies who used to benefit from the more open, sunny areas in woods that used to exist. Swings and roundabouts, I guess!

And even life beneath the bark is not without its challenges. There are whole communities of tiny rove beetles and weevils who seem to co-exist with the ants, but there are also other ant species, such as the Yellow Shadow Ant (Lasius umbratus) where a queen will infiltrate a Brown Tree Ant nest. First she will munch a few worker ants – it’s thought that this may change the way that she smells, and enable her to move through the nest more easily. Then, she finds the queen ant and kills her, before starting to lay her own eggs. The workers accept her, because by this time she smells like ‘one of us’. For a while, the colony will be a mixture of Brown Tree and Yellow Shadow workers ants, but, as the former die off and are not replaced because their queen is dead, the nest becomes a Yellow Shadow Ant nest. All these tiny battles going on, unseen beneath a piece of bark!

Yellow Shadow Ant (Lasius umbratus) Photo by By This image is created by user Dick Belgers at Waarneming.nl, a source of nature observations in the Netherlands.

Dear Readers, there’s a reason that the old  proverb about not ‘casting a clout (item of clothing) till May is oot’ makes a lot of sense -after a few days of the weather feeling a bit warmer here in London, it froze over night. What about the frogs, though? They’d been starting to sing at the start of last week, but fortunately there isn’t any spawn yet.

Spawn above the surface of the pond can be damaged or even killed by frost – I remember when the ‘Beast From the East’ struck in late March/early April a few years ago, I ended up putting buckets over the blobs of spawn. The eggs that are under the surface of the water, where it isn’t frozen, will usually be fine.

Pond starting to thaw where it’s in the sun

Adult frogs will also usually be fine – after all, they’ve spent all winter in a state of torpor in the sediment at the bottom of the pond, and so they take a few days of ice in their stride (or maybe that should be ‘in their hop’. There is a phenomenon called ‘winterkill’, when the gases from decomposing vegetation at the bottom of the pond build up and can’t escape due to the ice, but this is more likely to happen in ‘natural’ pond that don’t have a worried human to look after them.

We’re always advised not to break the ice (the shock is bad for the critters) or to pour boiling water on it, though I have sometimes made a hole in the ice by resting a hot saucepan on it. Just don’t get distracted and leave it, or chances are you’ll have one saucepan at the bottom of the pond. Chemicals are obviously a no-no, and most people swear by leaving a football/tennis ball floating on the surface so that you can have a nice hole in the ice. I’ve always found that that only works if you have a smallish pond, where you can reach aforesaid ball from all angles.

Sunshine starting to touch the pond!

I am noticing that the duckweed is getting naughty again, so there’s something for me to think about next week while the windows are being done, and I’m desperate to get away from the noise and dirt. At least the weather forecast for next week is absolutely stunning, so there shouldn’t be any delays for that. Keep your fingers crossed for me, and the frogs!

Dear Readers, as The Big Day for our window replacement gets nearer, I’m spending more and more time trying to be realistic about what I will and won’t do during the rest of my life. Honestly, my cook book collection is out of control. If I cooked a new recipe every day from now until I’m 95 (which is 30 years from now and probably pushing it a bit) I still wouldn’t get through them. So here I am, trying to persuade my neighbours to take my books and enjoy themselves. We’ve had a few takers, but I suspect there will be a few more trips to the RSPCA charity shop.

There are so many memories here. In 2016, following the Brexit vote, I decided to become a qualified TEFL teacher, and here are just some of my text books. I spent a few years teaching groups, particularly women, the basics so they could navigate things like shopping, going to the doctor, using public transport and sorting out their children’s schooling, and it was an amazing experience, particularly the way women from different countries came together to help one another. Plus we often ended up with impromptu  cooking and gardening sessions. Every woman had a story to tell, and every one was determined to make the best possible productive life for themselves and their children. I often wonder how the women are doing now.

And here are the very last of the flowers from Fran – so many went to people all over the country (don’t forget to send me any photos if you remembered to take any!) A number of parents have taken some seeds for their children to grow, and I’m pretty confident that at least some will come up. I hope Fran would have approved of how far her seeds have spread, and how many people they’ve cheered up. I’m sure she would love that small children will be watering them and encouraging them to grow just like I used to when I was a child. Plants are a miracle that we should never take for granted, especially now, in the face of all the terrible stuff that’s happening. When everything seems bleak, there’s always something growing.