Iberian Orca and calf (Photo By Renauddestephanis – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77951957)

Dear Readers, a while back I wrote a post about the Orcas who live around the Straits of Gibraltar attacking sailing boats, and I thought it might be interesting to revisit the subject in the light of some more recent research. At the time, there were a lot of stories along the lines of ‘orcas taking revenge on rich people with yachts’ following the sight of some scars on a matriarch orca called White Gladis – these were thought to be the result of a boat collision. Alas (because this was a most excellent story), the scars are now thought to be the result of a little ‘tooth-raking’ within the orca pod, which is almost the equivalent of a hug.

However, the theories that remain suggest the complexity of these human/whale interactions. You can watch a fascinating film about the way that this saga has developed here, but the first theory relates to the food that the orcas eat. The Iberian orcas feed more or less exclusively on blue-fin tuna, and they hunt them in a very particular way, by corralling an individual tuna and then ramming it with their snouts. This behaviour seemed to some cetacean experts to be very similar to the way that adult orcas will bring adolescents up to the boats and watch while the youngsters try to ‘ram’ the rudder, and the theory is that the adults are teaching the young whales how to kill the tuna by letting them practice on the rudder.

One expert, however, suspects that it’s more complicated than this. Fishermen used to shoot the orca, because the number of blue fin tuna was going down and the whales were inclined to ‘steal’ them. However, from 2005-2011 the numbers of tuna went down so much that there was a moratorium on hunting them. The tuna recovered, the fishermen were allowed back if they caught the tuna on a line, and the orcas would come along and steal the tuna, but the difference this time was that a whale-watching industry grew up, worth millions of euros. So, the fishermen learned to endure the attention of the orcas, the tourists were delighted, and, after all, no one is going to shoot a whale in full view of a boat full of children.

The side effect was that the orcas became very familiar with boats, and people, and were no longer afraid of them. So, they started to ‘play’ with the rudders, simply because they could. There’s one film of a whale swimming around a boat with a rudder in its mouth, as if to say ‘see what I did!’ And we know that orcas love to play – see this story about them wearing fish on their heads, or this one about them bringing humans gifts. So I can fully believe that the whales are just being curious and mischievous.

Of course, we can’t rule out other possible explanations – the Strait of Gibraltar is one of the busiest in the world, and the noisiest, and we know that underwater noise can cause whales to strand, and probably to show other behavioural changes. Persistent chemicals also accumulate in orcas, as they are top predators, and this too can cause neurological damage. So, the Iberian orcas will certainly be suffering from a range of stressors, and the boat ramming may well be the result of a whole combination of factors. However, boat attacks are down in 2024 and 2025 due to two simple pieces of advice given to sailors:

• You’re safe in water less than 50 metres deep
• If you see killer whales approaching, run like mad – they don’t seem to attack moving boats, just ones that are at anchor or moving slowly.

It was heartening that even people who had had their boats attacked by orcas were still full of respect for them, and saw them as an important part of the ocean’s ecosystem, rather than a nuisance. Some described it as the most amazing experience of their lives. This definitely gives me hope.

Dear Readers, I have long loved the Poems on the Underground series – the poems have often brought me up short, and I’ve sometimes seen someone look up from their phone and stare, transfixed, at the words. There are six new poems for this autumn, and here are my favourites.

The W.H Auden poem above could not be more apposite for the times we live in, and neither could the Benjamin Zephaniah poem below. Once a Londoner, always a Londoner.

And here is a poem by local East Finchley poet Fleur Adcock who died last year.

And I love this one. So powerful.

Dear Readers, my back is playing up a bit at the moment (nothing serious, just too much sitting around and not enough moving around) but it does mean that I get to gaze out of the window and wonder what on earth is going on. Take this magpie, for example. I’m sure it’s just innocently checking out gutters for tasty titbits, but there is something so considered about this one as it goes about its business.

Also, the iridescence on the feathers is really quite something – these are very handsome birds, for all that they don’t endear themselves to everyone. In cities they often seem part of the clean up squad. Our local magpies have also had a huge falling out with the crows who nest in a big tree on the other side of the road, so this one was quiet, and relatively mannerly.

I’m loving the leaf colour on the Juneberry/Shadbush/Amelanchior opposite too, although it wasn’t a source of much curiosity for the magpie, who much preferred the opportunities that human habitation provided.

And then it was up and away, probably to find a high vantage point to investigate further culinary opportunities.

And then off. As for me, I’m still trying to decide whether I need a cold compress or a hot water bottle. I shall probably be fine tomorrow. And in the meantime, I’m going to take myself downstairs to give the foster cats a cuddle. They’ve calmed down a fair bit since their arrival, and are now just about the friendliest cats you can imagine. And they’re available to rehome via the RSPCA here…

https://www.rspca.org.uk/local/friern-barnet-adoption-centre/findapet/details/GOBLIN_WHITE_TIP/273751/rehome

Ink Cap (Mycena sp)

Dear Readers, it’s autumn so it must be time to skip around Coldfall Wood and look for fungi. Alas, it’s been extremely dry, so there hasn’t been quite the bumper crop that we’ve seen in previous years, but there was still enough to keep us all interested, including one Red List fungus, a great find!

First up Ink Cap – interestingly, this is considered edible when young, but it becomes poisonous if consumed within a couple of hours of alcohol. In fact, the reaction (sweating, nausea, vertigo) is the basis of some drugs that are given to alcoholics to help them ‘kick the habit’.

Stump Puffball (Lycoperdon piriforme)

These little puffballs weren’t ‘ripe’ yet – when fully developed, they will emit a ‘puff’ of spores when rain falls on them. ‘Lycoperdon‘ means ‘wolf’s fart’. Whoever said that mycologists have no sense of humour?

Honey Fungus (Armillaria sp.)

We found a dead oak with a fine  collection of honey fungus on the stump – many fungi need their hosts to continue to live and thrive, but honey fungus lives on dead plant matter, so it doesn’t need the tree to stay alive.

Spindleshank (Gymnopus fusipes)

Spindleshank is another common parasite of stressed and ageing oak trees.

Trooping Funnel (Infundibulicybe geotropa)

Trooping Funnel is a most attractive, porcelain-white fungus which often grows in rows or as fairy rings. It’s also known as Monk’s Head, probably because of the resemblance to a monk’s tonsure.

Reishi or Lacquered Conk (Ganoderma lucidum)

And look at this shiny fungus – it looks almost as if it’s had a coat of varnish! It’s said to have healing properties in Chinese medicine, and is highly valued as a medicine.But this was probably our most exciting find: this is the Zoned Rosette (Podoscypha multizonata). Over 80% of all Zoned Rosettes are found in Southern England, and London is real hotspot for the fungus, which is Red Listed, and has its own Biodiversity Action Plan. It’s easy to miss if you don’t know what you’re looking for, as you can see from the photo below. The fungus grows on  the roots of oak trees but doesn’t appear to cause any particular damage (and may, indeed, have a mutualistic relationship with the tree).

Zoned Rosette – Photo by By Lukas from London, England – Podoscypha multizonata, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93617761

If you are close to any woodland,  it’s a great time to get out for a walk, guided or otherwise – the leaf colour seems to pop so beautifully against the grey skies.  And the nights are drawing in, so let’s make the most of these autumn days.

Coldfall Wood

Dear Readers, when I was a child my Dad used to swear by something called Pepper Dust to keep the cats away from whatever it was that he’d just planted. You can still buy it, but what on earth is in it isn’t quite clear – I suspect cayenne pepper or something equally pungent. But does it work? Clearly, all those people investing in ultrasonic cat scarers and other devices think not.

I always love James Wong’s columns in New Scientist, for their good sense and scientific accuracy. First, he asks, why did capsaicin (the ‘hot’ part of chilli peppers) evolve in the first place? After all, chillies in their natural state are bright red and very attractive looking, so why would they want to deter the things that come to eat them? Well, chillies don’t ‘want’ just anything to eat them. Birds don’t have receptors for capsaicin, so they don’t get ‘burnt’, and when they eat the chilli peppers, the seeds pass through their bodies unharmed, and get transported elsewhere to germinate and create new chilli plants. Mammals, however, do have capsaicin receptors, and so dogs, cats, mice and deer learn to avoid the plants – the seeds are destroyed in the stomachs of these animals, so it’s of no benefit to the plant for them to be eaten.

Sayaca Tanager eating chillis (Photo By Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil – Flickr: Sayaca Tanager feeding on malagueta peppers, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17854806)

Should we be showering the garden with chilli, then? Wong points out that capsaicin is such a good deterrent for mice and rats that it’s often used in bird feed, poultry feed, and to protect the nests of rare ground-nesting birds. However, with larger mammals, the jury is out: badgers prefer food without chilli, but will eat it if there’s nothing else. Tough animals, badgers – they’ll dig up a bumblebee or wasp nest to get at the honey, so if they can tolerate being stung a bit of chilli-burn must be a walk in the park.

Wong points out, however, that chilli powder biodegrades, losing its ‘heat’ quickly. Also, just like humans, other animals can increase their tolerance for ‘the burn’. Wong recommends using the hottest chilli powder you can find, rotating it around the garden, replenishing it often, and keeping an eye on whether or not it’s effective.

You can read the whole article here. And in the meantime, Readers, do you use any kind of cat/fox/deer deterrent, and if so, what works for you?

Dear Readers, the squirrels in our garden are definitely living their best lives: last week they got the last of the squishy raspberries and strawberries, and today they got the last few grapes that were a bit on the mushy side. And what a splendid example of the species this one is! Look at that magnificent tail, not to mention the rusty patches of fur.

Not everyone is delighted to see grey squirrels, however, so it was good to see that an important step has been reached in the creation of a squirrel contraceptive – apparently an oral contraceptive has been developed which can render both male and female rats infertile, and it’s hoped that this could be delivered via a specially-weighted feeding station in areas where grey squirrels are causing problems for woodlands, or for red squirrels. I do wonder if the removal of grey squirrels won’t cause a change in other aspects of the woodland ecology, but it’s preferable to shooting and trapping them, surely.

In the meantime, here’s a grey squirrel chomping some grapes. Make the most of it :-).

Tawny Frogmouth (Podargus strigoides) Photo By Cabrils – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=106346441

Dear Readers, I do love a good competition – we’ve had Tree of the Year and Fat Bear of the Year and even Insect of the Year. However, the winner of this year’s Australian Bird of the Year has been described as the most Instagrammable bird on the planet, and looking at the face above, you can see why. I once saw three of them at London Zoo, and couldn’t believe that they were actually alive – they look like demonic glove puppets. Bless them. However, they are remarkable birds – their closest relatives include nightjars and potoos, but they are evolutionarily very distinct. They only occur in Australia, and their camouflage makes them very hard to find, even more so when they imitate a dry branch when alarmed. 

Family of four Tawny Frogmouths pretending to be sticks (Photo By Garrytre – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115428337)

Until this year, the Tawny Frogmouth had been runner up three times (in 2019, 2021 and 2023), but in 2025 it trounced the opposition, beating the Baudin’s Black Cockatoo into second place….

Baudin’s Black Cockatoo (Photo by By Photo by: Ganatron – paulweberphoto.com – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=164597203)

and the Gang-gang Cockatoo into third place.

Two young Gang-gang Cockatoos (male on the left, female on the right) Photo by By David Cook Wildlife Photography – originally posted to Flickr as Gang-gang Cockatoos (Callocephalon fimbriatum), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6025730

The Gang-gang Cockatoo is said to have a call that sounds like a rusty gate hinge….see what you think. It certainly woke up my foster cats!

Anyhoo, what’s lovely about this Australian competition is that, this year, over 300,000 people voted – it means that, for a brief period at least, 300,000 Australians thought about birds long enough to decide which one to vote for. Furthermore, all the birds in the top three are endangered or critically endangered, so it gives all of them a bit of much-needed publicity. So what’s not to like? Maybe we should try something similar here.

And have a look at this cartoon on the subject of Bird of the Year  – if you haven’t come across it before, ‘First Dog on the Moon’ is a most excellent cartoon strip.In fact, there’s another Bird of the Year cartoon here too. And as someone with a great love of trees, I also appreciated this one. See what you think!

Photo by Mario Maculan

Well, Readers, we have our Coldfall Wood fungi walk on Sunday, so here are my two favourite fungi-related poems. The first, by Sylvia Plath, seems to me to sum up the slow nature of the mushroom, as it grows beneath the earth before popping up its little head and also the slow growth of all kinds of movements, good and bad.  The second, by Derek Mahon, is about so many things….image after image pours out of the man. See what you think.

Mushrooms (1959) by Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot’s in the door.

A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford

By Derek Mahon
Let them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels.
—Seferis, Mythistorema

(for J. G. Farrell)

Even now there are places where a thought might grow —
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped for ever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft,
Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence,
Lime crevices behind rippling rain barrels,
Dog corners for bone burials;
And in a disused shed in Co. Wexford,

Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.
This is the one star in their firmament
Or frames a star within a star.
What should they do there but desire?
So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud,
They have learnt patience and silence
Listening to the rooks querulous in the high wood.

They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.
He never came back, and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain.
Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew
And once a day, perhaps, they have heard something —
A trickle of masonry, a shout from the blue
Or a lorry changing gear at the end of the lane.

There have been deaths, the pale flesh flaking
Into the earth that nourished it;
And nightmares, born of these and the grim
Dominion of stale air and rank moisture.
Those nearest the door grow strong —
‘Elbow room! Elbow room!’
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling
Utensils and broken pitchers, groaning
For their deliverance, have been so long
Expectant that there is left only the posture.

A half century, without visitors, in the dark —
Poor preparation for the cracking lock
And creak of hinges; magi, moonmen,
Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
At the flash-bulb firing-squad we wake them with
Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.

They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
‘Save us, save us,’ they seem to say,
‘Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naive labours have been in vain!’

Dear Readers, as we shuffle ever closer to Halloween it seemed like a good moment to resurrect (yet again) one of my favourite posts, wherein I try to love the turnip, and fail. Also, I am rushing to get my first Open University Assignment done, and it will have to be done early as I am soon off on a mysterious adventure (more soon). In the meantime, here we go…first up are a few words from 2023, and then we zip back in time to 2020. 

Dear Readers, as those of you in the UK will have noticed we are having a bit of a problem getting our usual fruit and veg, and our illustrious Secretary of State for Enviroment, Food and Rural Affairs has suggested that as we can’t lay our hands on tomatoes and cucumber we might like to turn to the humble turnip instead. So, this seems like a good moment to resurrect this piece which I did a few years ago. I still don’t like these knobbly little chunks of nastiness, but maybe you have a turnip recipe to convince me that they have some redeeming features. We might all need to get onboard the root vegetable train very soon. 

So now, let’s shuttle back to 2020…

Dear Readers, when I got these turnips in my vegetable box last week, I admit to being stumped, because of all the roots in the world, this is the one I like least. In Scotland, a ‘neep’ is a completely different animal – in England we’d call it a swede, in the US it’s a rutabaga, and whatever it’s called I’m  rather fond it, especially when mashed and served with ‘stovies’, a delicious mix of leftover meat, potatoes, onions and gravy. In fact, swedes probably merit a blogpost all to themselves, so I shall move on (with regret) for now.

A swede or a neep, depending on where you live (or indeed a rutabaga) (Photo One)

I have a long and unhappy history with turnips, however. Back when I was a young thing and was working in Dundee, I had a blond Adonis of a boyfriend who was very into self-sufficiency. One of the things he grew was turnips, and when they were in season that is basically what we ate. There were turnips and broccoli for lunch (with additional earwigs which we where meant to pick out and put to one side). There was turnip and blackberry jam, following a war-time recipe. There was turnip and blackberry pie with custard made with wholemeal bread flour (don’t ask). There was turnip curry (which at least disguised the taste). Suffice it to say that turnips became my nemesis and I have never willingly or knowingly eaten one since. But here they are, and I am not going to waste the poor darlings.

Anyhow, what is a turnip anyway? Its Latin name is Brassica rapa subspecies rapa, and the wild plant is another of those mustardy cabbage plants with yellow flowers that are so confusing to the amateur botanist.

Wild turnip (Brassica rapa) (Photo Two)

The name ‘turnip’ rather charmingly comes from the word ‘turn’ (as in ‘turn on a lathe/make round) and ‘neep’ from napus, the Latin word for vegetable – so, ’round vegetable’. The poet Sappho apparently called one of her lovers Gongýla, which means ‘turnip’, and I have to admit that when I was arranging the vegetables for the photo they reminded me so much of a pair of breasts that I had to turn one of them at an angle to avoid offending anyone’s modesty. Clearly, this lockdown is affecting my brain.

Turnips actually have a double whammy when it comes to food – the green tops can be eaten as a substitute for spinach or chard, although they have a punchier, more mustardy flavour. In fact, some varieties of turnip are grown solely for their greens, and I’m sure that they’re all the better for it – broccoli rabe, bok choy and Chinese cabbage are all actually turnips. The root is apparently milder when cooked (but still, I would argue, not mild enough), but turnips are also often used as animal feed.  In 1700 Viscount Townsend, a Whig statesman, retired to his country house and became involved in agriculture, no doubt to the delight of the local yeomanry. He did, however,  invent a four-year crop rotation system featuring turnips, barley, wheat and clover, and became an enthusiastic proponent of using turnips as a year-round animal feed. Such was his association with the vegetable that he became know as Charles ‘Turnip’ Townsend.

Charles ‘Turnip’ Townsend (18 April 1674 – 21 June 1738), probably not wearing his gardening clothes (Photo Three)

While turnip greens are high in Vitamins K, A and C. the root is hardly a nutritional powerhouse, containing 14% of an adult’s daily requirement of Vitamin C and rather a lot of water and carbohydrate. Nonetheless, some people have leapt into the fray and tried to make something of it. Its radish-y qualities mean that it is sometimes grated and used in salads. I note that the Good Food recipe site has turnips in marmalade, turnips with duck, crispy salmon with turnip, mandarin and noodle salad and turnip tartiflette . I am going to put my turnips into a red lentil and turnip chilli from one of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s books, but as my husband’s stomach can’t tolerate chilli I shall be splashing on the pepper sauce after cooking. If you have any failsafe turnip recipes that don’t taste too much of turnip, do let me know.

Marmalade glazed turnips (Photo Four)

There seems to be something essentially comedic about the poor old turnip. For example, in an attempt to puncture what’s perceived as the po-faced nature of the Turner Prize ( the UK’s chief prize for ‘modern’ art of all kinds), some wag dreamed up the Turnip Prize. The prize is given to exhibits that display a lack of effort, and which are rubbish, though I also detect a very British love of puns. Some of its winners have included a builder’s hard hat with elf’s pointy ears attached (‘Elfin Safety’), a lump of dough with toy children embedded in it (‘Children in Knead’) and a pole painted black (‘Pole Dark’). The prize is, of course, a lump of wood with a turnip nailed to it.

Nonetheless, the turnip has also played a more serious role in history. During the winter of 1916-17, the German populace were close to starvation. The harvest of the potato, a staple food in the country, failed and this, combined with the Allied blockade, the seizure of farm horses for the army, the diversion of nitrogen fertilizers to make explosives and the lack of agricultural manpower as people were drafted into the army made for a perfect storm. The government attempted to substitute turnips, normally used for animal feed, for the lost potatoes, but turnips have a much lower nutritional value, and mortality, particularly among women, increased by 30% in 1917. Furthermore, it’s believed that the malnutrition also had a lasting effect on the immune systems of those who survived, making them more vulnerable to the so-called Spanish flu pandemic which ravaged the world right after the war. The Germans call this period ‘The Turnip Winter’, and a loathing of turnips lingers to this day amongst the older population.

Strangely enough though, just across the border in Austria, the municipality of Keutsch am Zee features a very splendid turnip on its coat of arms, probably a nod to the agriculture which was the chief source of income for the area until tourism came along.

The Coat of Arms of Keutsch am Zee (Photo Five)

And finally, did you ever wonder what people made Halloween lanterns out of before pumpkins arrived from the New World? Well, again it’s our old friend the humble turnip, though I suspect the larger swede is more often involved. Apparently these lanterns are still made out of turnips on the Isle of Man, and in Ireland and Scotland (so do let me know if the pumpkin has made inroads into lantern-making in your neck of the woods – I do suspect that pumpkins are much easier to carve).

A traditional Cornish Jack-O-Lantern carved, as I suspected, from a swede (Photo Six)

And so, a poem. How delighted I was to find that Seamus Heaney had written a poem about a turnip snedder, a machine used to slice up the turnips to make feed for the animals. Here is one from Sentry Hill in County Antrim, from an excellent blog by Anne Hailes – well worth a look.

Wesley Bonar, Museums and Heritage Officer at Sentry Hill with a turnip-snedder (Photo Seven)