Male Tetragnatha montana in defensive pose (Photo by Gail Hampshire via https://www.flickr.com/photos/gails_pictures/6056350532)

Dear Readers, on Sunday 20 of us had a great walk in Coldfall Wood with Ed Milner, spider expert and all-round naturalist par excellence. There were lots of small children on the walk, who were all delighted to be looking in leaf litter for tiny invertebrates, and a lot of the adults were fellow nature-nerds too, so it was a lot of fun. However, by the end of it I had an aching back/legs/feet, so it was good to get back and collapse for a bit.

One of the spiders that we saw was a long-jawed orbweb spider(Tetragnatha), like the chap in the photo above. These arachnids are not uncommon, and you often see them close to water – the one that we saw was on the edge of the wet woodland, and when we had a night walk a few years ago, nearly every fence post had a little web and one of these so-called ‘stretch spiders’ keeping watch. The spiders have an attractive silvery sheen, and when disturbed they adopt the posture above, with their legs stretched out – this is very effective camouflage, as the creatures look more like a piece of grass or a twig than a spider.

Tetragnatha extensa (female) Photo by By James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1669831

Long-jawed spiders spin simple, delicate webs, with a ‘hole’ in the centre, and quite widely spaced radii and spirals. Being near water, they catch all kinds of mosquitoes and midges which should make those of us who are prone to being bitten by such creatures very happy.

Tetragnatha extensa on web (Photo By James Lindsey at Ecology of Commanster, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1669832)

The male spider that we found on the walk today was off looking for a female spider – males can be identified by those ‘boxing gloves’ at the front, known as pedipalps, and used to transfer sperm into the female. The female lays her eggs in this egg sac, underneath a leaf – note how it’s disguised to look like a bird dropping, or something mouldy.

Egg Sac from Tetragnatha sp (Photo by By Phil – Egg sac from TetragnathaUploaded by Jacopo Werther, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25419878)

There are six species of Tetragnatha in the UK, but worldwide there are some 320 species, indicating what an adaptable spider this is. Everything about it appears elongated and delicate, and maybe this is why it so often goes unnoticed. But if you have a pond or stream or lake nearby, I bet you could see some long-jawed spiders, especially as it starts to get dark and the spiders move onto their webs. Let me know if you’ve ever noticed one!

The Songbird Survival Garden at Chelsea

Dear Readers, as you might remember I was at Chelsea last week, and I thought that the Songbird Survival Garden that I saw deserved a little bit more attention. It was designed by Nicola Oakey, on behalf of the charity Songbird Survival, the only UK charity dedicated solely to halting and reversing the decline in songbirds and other small birds. There were a lot of good ideas in the garden which could be translated into small spaces anywhere, so I thought I’d pass some of them along.

First up, the small tree in the garden was a hawthorn, Crataegus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’. All hawthorns provide a wealth of resources for small birds – caterpillars in the spring, berries in the autumn and winter, and lovely thorns to keep the cats and larger birds at bay. This hawthorn is a particularly thorny one, and I’m reminded of how the robin would always nest in the middle of my mother’s huge holly tree. This species comes originally from North America, so I can’t help wondering if the UK native hawthorns would encourage more biodiversity. Still, have a look at those thorns, and that autumn colour!

Holly is indeed another suggested tree, along with crab apple (which provides a bonanza of fallen fruit for thrushes in the autumn)

Crataegus prunifolia (Photo by Kew on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/kewonflickr/6189661628)

The middle layer of shrubs in the garden included elderflower and dog rose, and there was also a yew hedge – it’s important for small birds to have a high point where they can check for predators (such as the hawthorn) but also a kind of covered pathway, so that they can travel to a food source without being too exposed. Other shrubs that the charity suggest include spindle, firethorn and, interestingly, lavender – this last plant attracts ridiculous quantities of insects, which can come in handy when the birds have fledglings. For example, although house sparrows are largely grain-eating, they will hunt for flies as a source of protein when their youngsters are just out of the nest.

Spindle (Euonymus europaeus)

The climbing hydrangea in my garden has become a positive beacon for birds this year, with tits and finches and sparrows all picking off insects, but clematis and honeysuckle are also recommended, both for the shelter that they provide and for the insects that they attract. And honeysuckle has berries in the winter too!

Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum)

Perennials that are recommended include perennial cornflower, coneflower, phlomis and Bodnant verbena, both for the insects that they attract and for their seeds. But no teasel? Maybe Songbird Survival are afraid that once people plant teasel, they’ll never be without it.

Teasel with lots of baby teasels….

Suggested annuals include nasturtium, largely because of the caterpillars that it attracts, and sunflower and annual cornflower for their value as pollinator plants, and for their seeds.

Nasturtiums at OmVed Garden in Highgate

Other things that are important for birds in a garden include a water source, a wood pile, a dead hedge and, most importantly, a no-tolerance approach to biocides of all kinds. It really rams home the idea that if we look after the insects and other invertebrates in our gardens, we are likely to be helping everything else as well. And to help the insects, it’s not just about the flowers for the adults, it’s also about decent, healthy soil for the springtails and earthworms and bacteria too. Everything starts from the bottom of the pyramid.

Springtail Duetonura Monticola, Photo by Philippe Garcelon CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93328444

Have you found anything that has improved life for your small garden birds? Do share!

The Heatherwick Studio entry for the Queen Elizabeth II National Memorial

Dear Readers, as you might remember I asked for feedback on the five different designs submitted for the Queen’s National Memorial in St James’s Park. If you missed the original post, you can see the entries below:

Thomas Heatherwick Studios (pictured above)

Foster and Partners….

Foster and Partners entry

JL Gibbons…

JL Gibbons entry

Tom Stewart Smith….

Tom Stuart Smith entry

and, finally, Wilkinson Eyre

Wilkinson Eyre entry

Well, my favourite is the JL Gibbons entry – it’s the only one that seems to take the natural world seriously, with planting plans, and ideas for how the scheme will work throughout the the seasons. But a number of people (architects and city planners amongst them) really liked the Wilkinson Eyre entry, maybe because of its imaginative design of public space, and it would be my second choice too. Several people liked the Tom Stewart Smith entry, with its complete cast of an ancient oak – personally I’d much prefer a real tree, and one that wasn’t stuck in the middle of a lake to boot, but it is interesting, and the symbolism of the Queen as an oak tree – steadfast in times of trouble – isn’t altogether wide of the mark.

I think both the Foster and Heatherwick entries are gimmicky and overblown, whereas the other entries could grow into their environment over many years. But let’s see what the powers-that-be decide. I shall report back when I hear! In the meantime there’s also a monumental sculpture competition, which fills me with a measure of horror I must admit. The sculpture will only be decided upon once the overall design has been agreed, so fingers crossed we don’t get the Foster offerings, or I shall never be able to visit St James’s Park again. Not that I’m opinionated or anything.

Thank you to everyone who commented, here and on Facebook – we had some lively discussion, which is always good! Let’s see what happens next.

Balcony Garden at Chelsea Flower Show

Dear Readers, tucked away behind all the posh show gardens is a little space for container and balcony gardening, which is a recognition of the number of people coping with tiny gardens or even just a window sill. There were some spectacular examples of small-space gardening, though I couldn’t help but wonder how much the mature trees in the example above would cost.

The raised beds below had been tiled, which is a nice idea if you’re handy with the grout.

And this one, with its mismatched pots, is rather more the kind of thing that I usually have.

And look, here’s a red phone box, full to busting with hydrangeas.

Now, at this point I finally succumbed to the lure of the Purbeck ice cream stands which are all over the showground, along with a large number of Mr Whippy ice cream vans. Not to mention the Pimms and Champagne, but it was a bit early for that, even for me. So I had two scoops (one salted caramel, one ‘serious chocolate’ as you ask) and I sat on a bench under a tree and listened to the long-tailed tits and the parakeets. It suddenly occurred to me that, as it was only about 9 a.m, this was probably the earliest ice cream I’d ever eaten.

In a very British way, every tenth person who passed had a comment along the lines of ‘you look as if you’re enjoying that, and I must do the same’. And indeed I was.

Anyhow, then it was back to the fray, where I realised that even at this early hour it was practically impossible to see the show gardens, and so I turned my attention to some of the garden sculptures. You’d need quite an estate (of the country variety) for these lions, and even the turtles would overpower my garden…

And what is this, in the Saatchi garden? It looks like a pink furry pyramid. At least it has novelty value.

And the thistles (Cirsium atropurpureum if I’m not mistaken) were the main attraction for the bumblebees.

What I did find out was that the Flowers exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, which has just finished, is coming back from the end of May until the end of August. I was really sorry to have missed it, so will attempt to sneak in over the summer. It gets completely sold out at weekends, so I’m very happy that I’ve retired (did I mention that I’ve retired?)

I wandered on to admire some glass that could feature in one’s garden…

…and if you’re missing a standing stone or two, you can get them brought in (presumably by crane)…

And so, I decided to bid adieu to Chelsea Flower Show while the going was good. I was very pleased to see the Song Bird garden, and I liked the smaller gardens too, but all in all it was still a bit too busy by the end, introvert that I am. And so, I headed home. On the way back along Lower Sloane Street, I noticed a fledgling crow sitting in a very posh windowbox with a ‘nothing to see here’ expression on his/her face. Of course, I stopped to ask the bird a few questions along the lines of ‘what are you doing here?’ and ‘where is your Mummy’, but then a very loud adult crow perched opposite told me all that I needed to know. And look at the Plane trees in the square opposite! My heart is still with wild urban nature, much as I love the way that sustainability and biodiversity are becoming more and more acknowledged as important in the garden.

Photo by By Tony Atkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12502015

Dear Readers, we’ll be back to the Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow, but Thursday is poetry day, and I find ‘Timothy Winters’ running through my head a lot these days. Plus, ‘Eden Rock’ is new to me, and it has an otherworldly quality that I find mesmerising.

Causley really was both ‘the poet’s poet” (he was admired by Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin and Andrew Motion, amongst many others) and ‘a man of the people’. There is a kind of rage in ‘Timothy Winters’ that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Causley was a teacher for much of his working life, and he writes with such understanding about children. However, he wrote in the old-fashioned styles of ballads and folksongs, and so was largely ignored in his early years. I always imagined him as a Victorian writer because of this, but he was a soldier in World War II, and only died in 2003.

I recommend listening to Causley read both of his poems: Timothy Winters is here, and Eden Rock is here. Listen to the end of ‘Timothy Winters’, where Causley talks about the boy who inspired the poem.

Timothy Winters

Timothy Winters comes to school
With eyes as wide as a football pool,
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

His belly is white, his neck is dark,
And his hair is an exclamation mark.
His clothes are enough to scare a crow
And through his britches the blue winds blow.

When teacher talks he won’t hear a word
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
He licks the patterns off his plate
And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State.

Timothy Winters has bloody feet
And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor
And they say there aren’t boys like him any more.

Old man Winters likes his beer
And his missus ran off with a bombardier.
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
And Timothy’s dosed with an aspirin.

The Welfare Worker lies awake
But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
And slowly goes on growing up.

At Morning Prayers the Master helves
For children less fortunate than ourselves,
And the loudest response in the room is when
Timothy Winters roars “Amen!”

So come one angel, come on ten:
Timothy Winters says “Amen
Amen amen amen amen.”
Timothy Winters, Lord.
Amen!

Eden Rock

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden
Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress
Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,
Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.
Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight
From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw
Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out
The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
Over the drifted stream. My father spins
A stone along the water. Leisurely,
They beckon to me from the other bank.
I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!
Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

Flower Lady outside the Sloane Club (part of ‘Chelsea in Bloom’

Dear Readers, today I was at the Chelsea Flower Show for a few hours – my friend M was volunteering at the Songbird Garden (of which more later), and I’d never been, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity. But I had a few words of advice from friends who had been before, and for once I paid attention. I was outside the entrance at 7.30 a.m. (the show opens at 8.00 a.m.) and there was already a substantial queue. Plus, there are the usual bag checks, and all tickets have to be presented on a mobile phone this year, so this had the potential to slow things up. 

As I headed along Chelsea Bridge Road, I passed this rather impressive flower lady (above) – ‘Chelsea in Bloom’ is being held to coincide with Chelsea Flower Show this year, and so various shops and clubs had taken the theme to heart. There were crowds of people outside Ralph Lauren (right on the corner of King’s Road and Lower Sloane Street), taking selfies with the very handsome security guard and generally blocking the pavement. Goodness knows what it will be like later in the day.

Once in, I grabbed a coffee and a muffin. £9!!! Holy moly. And then I advanced off in search of the Songbird garden, along the main ‘avenue’. Just look at those London Plane trees, they must be some of the tallest in London.

I found the Songbird garden quickly, and hallelujah it wasn’t too busy. It’s a small garden, and I loved that it looks as if anyone could create a corner like this. It features hedging plants such as yew, to provide cover for nesting and moving through the garden, a pond, and bird-friendly plants such as hawthorn and teasel. Plus, it looks good! And the logpiles will provide a home for insects who could also serve as food. It’s not a big, flashy garden, but it I loved it.

Right opposite was the Karoo Succulent Garden, and someone was already eyeing up the bigger plants in the hope that they’d be sold off on the last day of the show. This is something of a tradition – the display plants are offered for sale, and Sloane Square tube station becomes a forest of exotic plants, as people try to manhandle their shrubs and climbers onto the train.

And then I got distracted by the Main Pavilion, which was blissfully empty. All of the nurseries who specialise in particular kinds of plant were here, so there were plenty of roses…

Incidentally, the stripey rose (second from the bottom) is a Rosa Mundi, and it was the only rose that I saw that actually attracted a bee.

Then there was the hosta display, where the grower was trying to persuade someone that the plants don’t necessarily get eaten by slugs…

And there was a fine display of astroemerias…

Then I was distracted by a very nice pollinator garden, which, unusually, didn’t just talk about bees and butterflies but had spaces for beetles and hoverflies and even springtails (not pollinators but most excellent detritivores_.

Then I was sidetracked by this display of narcissi…

..and this vegetable garden…

There were displays of plants from various countries and regions, including this magnificent garden featuring flowers from the Cape in South Africa.

And there was a salvia nursery…

and some truly beautiful peonies…

and finally, the more modest beauty of Japanese Maples…

Well, Readers, by now it was all getting a bit more crowded, so I decided to find myself an ice cream (of which there is no shortage at Chelsea) and decide what to see to make the most of my remaining energy. The bigger show gardens were already three or four people deep, and I’d seen the one that I really wanted to see. So, I decided to go and have a look at the balcony and container gardens – so many people only have a tiny space for plants, so I was intrigued to see what could be done. But for that, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow….

Ah yes, Readers, it’s that time of year when the garden is suddenly full of babies – starlings and sparrows in this case. I’d have loved to have sat and watched them, but sadly the Genetic Basis of Adaptation calls (Topic 3 in my biology course). Still, the fledglings are adorable, with the way that they just sit around waiting for their parents to stuff their beaks full of caterpillars or at least suet pellets.

I particularly liked the very fluffy dude on the left. It looks as if he’s got his head wet trying to drink from the pond.

And here’s poor, hard-working Dad….

And a less-than-patient starling, waiting for breakfast….

But at least so far the youngsters appear to be intact – the cat that prowls around has the disadvantage of being white, so s/he’s easily spotted, the sparrowhawk hasn’t been around, and although there were two jays doing laps of the garden yesterday they seemed to be more interested in one another than in murdering anything. Long may it continue! After all, sparrows and starlings are both Red List species, so they need all the help they can get.

The Heatherwick Studio entry for the Queen Elizabeth II National Memorial

Dear Readers, I have been hard at work slogging away on the cause of biological variation and the nature of genetic mutation today, but I did manage to raise my head long enough to read about the current competition for a national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II, which is to be built in St James’s Park in central London. The list has been whittled down to 5 entrants, including the Heatherwick Studios offering above – you might remember Thomas Heatherwick for the aborted Garden Bridge, the exploding Routemasters, and the cauldron at the 2012 Olympics, although I do rather like the roof of the Coal Drops Yard complex, even though it looks a little like a droopy moustache.

Coal Drops Yard

The other four entries are by Foster and Partners….

Foster and Partners entry

JL Gibbons…

JL Gibbons entry

Tom Stewart Smith….

Tom Stuart Smith entry

and, finally, Wilkinson Eyre

Wilkinson Eyre entry

You can have a look at all five entries here  and I would love to know what you think if you have a minute. I already have a firm favourite, which I suspect won’t win, but you never know! You can see some more photos of the plans, and each finalist has a little 90 second video, some of which contain truly cringe-worthy prose. And if you have even more time, you can actually feedback to the powers that be. How could you resist?

I am muchly reminded of the Princess Diana memorial fountain in Hyde Park that turned out to be a health hazard and had to be shut down. Can we do it right this time? I am no great fan of the monarchy (as you might have guessed) but I am a Londoner, and this massive project will impact on a great chunk of London green space.

I will come clean with my favourite once I’ve heard back from you lovely lot. Fire away!

Corn Crake (Crex crex) Photo by By Alpo Roikola – Own work by the original uploader, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132715911

Dear Readers, you might remember my featuring the Corn Crake in one of my Red List posts a while back, so I thought I’d share this happy tale of people coming together to preserve this increasingly-rare bird. In 2014, the first male Corn Crake for 17 years was heard calling on Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland, which looks like an extraordinarily beautiful place.

Rathlin Island (Northern Ireland) Photo by Brian O’Neill

By 2024 there were about four calling males visiting the island. And if you haven’t heard what a calling male sounds like, here you go….it always sounds to me like someone vigorously running a thumb nail over the teeth of a comb.

Now, Corn Crakes are surprisingly particular birds – they need cover both for when they’re calling at the start of the season, and for their little ones when they breed. The vegetation needs to be about 20 cms tall, and to have an ‘open’ structure (so no brambles or, heaven forbid, Japanese Knotweed). Trouble is, when the birds fly in from Africa there aren’t enough plants that are sufficiently tall so early in the season, so the RSPB, with help from volunteers and farmers from all over Norther Ireland, are helping out.

It turns out that stinging nettles are the ideal plants to provide what the Corn Crakes need, and so they are dug up at various sites across Northern Ireland, pressure-washed to remove soil, seeds and invertebrates that might cause trouble on the island, and then transported to where they’re needed. The nettles are then planted around the margins of the fields that the birds favour, so that they have somewhere to hide until the grass in the meadow grows. In 2024, the RSPB created 250 square metres of cover, from about 14 tonnes of nettle root gathered by volunteers.

By Richard Crossley – The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29446896

Clearly the approach seems to be working – the first male Corn Crake was heard on Rathlin Island on 17th April this year. There’s a nice BBC article about the whole endeavour here.

The RSPB have also worked hard to eradicate ferrets and rats from the island, which hosts not only Corn Crakes but Puffins, Fulmar, Kittiwakes and Guillemots, plus many species of ground-nesting birds. No ferrets have been recorded on the island for a year, so fingers crossed that they’re gone.I’m as fond of ferrets and rats as anyone, but humans, as usual, have upset the balance of the ecosystem by bringing in animals to a habitat where they have no natural predators, and the birds in particular are completely defenceless against them. Let’s hope that some kind of equilibrium can be restored.

Plants for the East Finchley Festival

Dear Readers, it’s all getting a bit frantic here at Schloss Bug Woman – I have my Open University exam on 5th June, so there’s a whole lot of revision going on. But on 22nd June it’s the East Finchley Festival, and Friends of Coldfall Wood have taken a stall. My contribution is to create some wildflower pots/containers for the raffle, so here are the plants, waiting for me to clear out a few pots and plant them up. It’s a lovely selection this year – we have betony and harebells, agrimony and knapweed, a couple of primroses and some meadow cranesbill. I bought them from Naturescape, highly recommended for UK native plants.

For a mix of native and garden plants which are grown without pesticides (unlike many of those that you can buy at garden centres), I recommend Rosybee – I’ve just bought some betony and some annual echium for my pots in the front garden.

But what’s this drama that I’m going on about? Well, I had a break this afternoon, and was idly watching the hoverflies. One settled on the nice new fence, so I decided to take a photo because I rather liked the shadow.

Oh dear. Spiders are so, so fast….

….but hoverflies are faster. Not today!

So many dramas! If you sit in a garden with a cup of tea for ten minutes, you’re sure to see something interesting going on. And it’s a good reminder for why I’m doing a science degree – it adds a whole new dimension to what I see every day. Bring on that revision!