Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – October

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Raywood ash trees in St Pancras and Islington cemetery

Dear Readers, October can be a glorious month, full of crimson and gold and rust and scarlet, or it can be a grey, drizzly month. Whichever it is, it’s important to make the most of it, before the clocks go back in the UK at the end of the month and we start to hunker down for the winter. There is a lot to see – fungi springing up, migrant birds arriving, leaves turning – but for Bugwoman it marks the last month when I’m likely to see our invertebrate friends in any numbers. Still, the season turns, and we’re none the worse for it.

Things to Do

  • 8th October marks the World Conker Championships, held annually in the grounds of the Shuckburgh Arms in Southwick, near Oundle (the closest big town is Peterborough). The event raises money for charities that work with the visually impaired (over £420k so far), and also for the local church and village hall in Southwick. It sounds like a lot of fun, but no doubt the contenders take it very seriously.
  • On 1st October, NASA will (hopefully) be launching the Psyche mission. The plan is to visit and orbit an asteroid where the metal-rich core is exposed – this may give useful information about the history of the Earth and of other planets in the Solar System. You can read more about it here, and keep an eye open for when the livestream of the launch will be shown. Arrival at the asteroid is likely to be about 100 days after launch.
  • Our old friends Rosemoor Gardens in Torrington, Devon, have courses on autumn photography and autumn gardening (on 14th and 12th October respectively). For autumn colour, many sites recommend Hyde Hall in Essex, Winkworth Arboretum in Surrey and Stourhead in Wiltshire but I’m sure there are many more, and even your local park or woodland (or cemetery) should be wonderful at this time of year.
  • The London Natural History Society are planning a Geotrail walk (provisionally scheduled for Saturday 14th October). However, if you fancy taking yourself off on a walk to discover the geology of various London areas, you can download a map and details from here.

Plants for Pollinators

  • One of the very best plants for pollinators at this time of year is flowering ivy – I’ve spent lots of time scanning the wasps and bees, and if you’re lucky you might see some ivy bees (Colletes hederae), stripey little chaps who first arrived in the UK in Dorset in 2001, and who have been moving north ever since.

Ivy bee

Other RHS – recommended plants include devil’s bit scabious, bistort, our old favourite Bowles’s Mauve perennial wallflower, Abelia x grandiflora and the strawberry tree. I am definitely planning on getting some of the first two to try in the garden, especially as bistort is said to be shade-tolerant. This is also the season for Japanese anemones which seems popular with some bees.

Abelia x grandiflora ‘Confetti’

The flowering season for wild plants is definitely coming to an end, but the Michaelmas daisies are often still going strong, and you might see holly in flower, along with yarrow, cyclamen, daisies and brambles, so there is still food around for any laggardly pollinators.

Bird Behaviour

  • Redwings and fieldfares should be starting to arrive by now, attracted by the crop of berries. If you stand outside on a cold, crisp night you might hear them calling as they migrate overhead – listening for the sounds of nocturnal migration (or nocmig as it’s called) became a very popular pastime amongst birders during the lockdown. There is something magical about hearing the flocks of birds pass overhead when you can’t see them.

Redwings have a very piercing, high-pitched call…(recording by Paul Kelly in County Meath, Ireland)

The call of the fieldfare at night is much more of a chuckle (recorded by Irish Wildlife Sounds in County Wexford, Ireland)

  • You might be lucky enough to spot a waxwing, especially if you live along the north-east coast of Scotland and England – the birds irrupt from Scandinavia and will drift west and south over the coming months
  • Starlings and other birds, all animosity dropped, will start to gather in huge flocks. If you’re lucky, you might spot a starling murmuration
  • If you are even luckier, you might see a Palla’s warbler – these tiny birds are rare but they are being seen more often in the east and south of England, and October is the prime month for them to arrive. They move from China to south east Asia for the winter, but there are about sixty records in the UK every autumn, and probably lots more that go unnoticed. It’s hypothesised that either they get blown off course during their migration, or simply that they are enlarging their range.

Pallas’s warbler (Photo By 孟宪伟 – 个人拍摄,)

  • This is also a great time of year to spot goldcrest – the resident birds are joined by birds from mainland Europe. In my experience you can often find them foraging for tiny insects in yew hedges and trees, though they’re so fast that you’ll have to be patient to get a good view. I’ve been trying to get a photo of the ones in the cemetery since I started the blog in 2014 and haven’t managed a good one yet.

Plants in Flower

  • In addition to all the pollinator plants mentioned above, keep your eyes open for all the prairie favourites who really come into their own in October – rudbeckia, helenium, single dahlias, chrysanthemums.

  • But really, October is the month for foliage and berries – Japanese acers will be at their best, smoke bushes (Cotinga) may be covered in fluff, and every plant, shrub and tree that produces fruit, from crab apples to cotoneasters, from the acorns on the oaks to beech mast, from rowan to sloe, should be bursting with energy-rich food for birds, small rodents and even foxes.

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

  • It’s the height of the deer rut, so whether you live close to the Scottish Highlands or within walking distance of Richmond Park, stags will be full of testosterone and up for a fight. Well worth observing from a respectful distance.
  • Wildfowl start to arrive from Russia – our native populations of teal, wigeon, pintail, tufted duck and pochard are all boosted by great flocks from further east. Scaup visit in the winter, as do the common and velvet scoters, though they are largely sea ducks, unlikely to turn up on a pond. A visit to the coast or to local wetlands is highly recommended at this time of year.
  • This is also a great time of year to hear tawny owls – this recording is lovely, it’s a male and female calling to one another from opposite sides of a lake. The recording is by Regina Eidner, and it was made in Brandenburg, Germany.
  • Having said earlier that there weren’t many invertebrates around, you might still see shieldbugs (the juveniles change colour from bright green to brown before overwintering as adults – the colour change means that they’re better camouflaged against the twigs and dry leaves. Some bush crickets are also around, and are attracted to light, so you might find one of these surprising insects in the house as late as November.

Hawthorn Shield Bug

Southern Bush Cricket

  • Another late-flying insect is the batman hoverfly (Myathropa florea), so named for the pattern on its thorax that looks like the bat signal in the films. What a handsome creature it is! Well worth looking out for, and often found on ivy or on sedum/hylotelephium.

Batman hoverfly

  • October is also the start of fungi season, check your local parks and wild places to see if there are any walks or ID sessions. Depending on the weather, the fungi can be spectacular – below are just a few from my local cemetery last year.

  • The October full moon is on 28th October and is known as the Hunter’s Moon or the Blood Moon

Holidays and Celebrations

  • 1st October – Harvest Home/Ingathering (Traditional)
  • 1st October – Start of Black History Month
  • 1st October – Start of English pudding season (I have no idea what this is, but it sounds worth celebrating)
  • 11th October – Old Michaelmas Day, when the devil is said to spit on the blackberries so they shouldn’t be eaten after this date
  • 21st October – Apple Day
  • 29th October – British Summertime and Irish Standard Time end, and the clocks go back one hour
  • 31st October – Halloween

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – September

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Dear Readers, September is probably my favourite month of the year – it feels much more like the start of something than January does, probably because it’s the start of the school year, and because both I and my parents got married in September. It’s that point of the year upon which everything starts to turn, as we move past the Equinox and into autumn proper. And as the clamour of spring and the relative peace of summer pass, there’s a sense of gathering in and of preparation that suits my character somehow.

Things to Do

  • The Open House Festival is from Wednesday 6th to Sunday 17th September 2023, and while this might not appear to have much to do with nature, it’s a chance to look at some of the most interesting buildings in London, and there are lots of examples of sustainable development, in both new buildings and old ones. Open City run tours throughout the year too, which are well worth attending if you’re interested in the architecture of London.
  • The British Science Association will be holding its festival from Thursday 7th to Sunday 10th September 2023, and is at the University of Exeter this year. It’s Europe’s longest running science festival, and sounds like a lot of fun, for science nerds and the mildly-interested alike.
  • RHS’s Rosemoor Gardens at Torrington in Devon have a course on ‘Late Summer Evening Light – Flower and Close-up Photography‘ on Friday 8th September, which sounds really interesting. It’s all happening in the West Country this year!
  • And here’s a shout-out for the London Natural History Society library, housed at the Natural History Museum, and open multiple times every month – members can browse the books, borrow them, explore the Natural History Museum’s wildlife garden, and socialise with others who are interested in natural history. If you’re in London, joining the LNHS really is a no-brainer – there’s so much knowledge, so much going on, and so much help at hand for the amateur naturalist. The library timetable for September (and the rest of the year) is here, and details of how to join are here.

Plants for Pollinators

  • For bees, the RHS is recommending salvia, especially Amistad with its velvety purple flowers – the deep tubular shape of the blooms is best suited to long-tongued bumblebees such as the garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) but many cheeky bees from other species will bite a hole in the base of the flower to get to the nectar.

Salvia ‘Amistad’ – Photo by Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz

  • Other flowers recommended for bees include our old friend Verbena bonariensis (also good for butterflies as we know), single-flowered dahlias (a bit ‘hit-and-miss’ in my garden) and Ceratostigma plumaginoides, otherwise known as blue-flowered leadwort, and a very striking plant with bright blue flowers against foliage that goes red as it matures.

Blue-flowered leadwood (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides). Photo by Wouter Hagens

  • I am a bit surprised to find no mention of sedum (or Hylotelephium as some species are now known). In my experience it’s a great plant for hoverflies, butterflies, moths and bees during September when other plants are on the wane. Those prairie specialists Rudbeckia and Echinacea are also popular with our six-legged friends right into the autumn.
  • Michaelmas daisies are also coming into flower now, and again are popular with hoverflies and all manner of other small pollinators.

  • And this is about the earliest time that you can get stuck into the bulb planting. Every year I do some, and every year I forget what on earth I’ve planted until it comes up, which is a lovely surprise.

Bird Behaviour

  • There should be a bit more activity in the garden now, as moulting adult birds start to move about again, and everyone realises that winter is on the way.
  • The first of the birds moving south may turn up in the garden – willow warblers are often seen briefly at this time of year, along with any blackcaps who have decided to migrate rather than stay put. Chiffchaffs will also be leaving, but good luck with telling the difference between them and the willow warblers, unless they call and tell you their name.
  • You may see swallows and house martins massing and chattering, getting ready to leave for Africa. By the end of the month, only the most tardy of our summer visitors will remain.
  • Robins may well be the only birds singing, as they hold territories for the whole year – a pair of robins might combine their territory during the breeding season but will knock ten bells out of one another once that truce is over.
  • September is a peak time for little rodents, and so it’s also a peak time for the birds that prey on them, such as kestrels and owls. Kestrels hold a territory for the whole year too, but young birds will be trying to find a patch for themselves, and can often be seen close to the coast.

Kestrel in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

  • Jays are beginning to gather acorns and cache them for the winter – they can be exceptionally noisy and feisty with one another at this time of year.

Jay, also in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

Plants in Flower

  • All the pollinator plants mentioned above plus canna lilies, autumn crocuses, crocosmia (or montbretia as my Dad used to call them), cyclamen, white bryony, bittersweet, our old friends Himalayan balsam and Japanese knotweed, yarrow and red, white and henbit deadnettle, hops and vervain and evening primrose.

Canna lily

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

  • Wasps! Their nests are breaking up and the workers, having provided protein for the larvae all summer are now drawn to sugar. You’ll find them all over the windfall apples and the ivy flowers in a month’s time, but for now they can be seen foraging like any normal pollinator.
  • Spiders! A healthy garden should be full of webs as the orb web spiders get big enough to notice.
  • Harvestmen and craneflies – harvestmen are likely to be minding their own business on walls everywhere, while craneflies are starting to emerge from lawns everywhere, providing a late summer bonanza for birds and bats
  • September can be surprisingly good for dragonflies too – the common darter in the photo below turned up in the middle of September 2020. The males are red, the females are golden, and they are completely unperturbed by humans – I remember one using my arm as a perch for about twenty minutes a few years ago. I have rarely felt so useful.

Common darter

  • While there are still dragonflies about, keep your eyes open for the hobby (Falco subbuteo) – it is a summer migrant but it specialises in catching dragonflies on the wing. I caught the slightest glimpse of one in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in autumn 2020, and have been watching out for them ever since.

Hobby (Falco subbuteo) Photo by Rodrigo de Almeida

  • This is probably the noisiest time for foxes, surpassing even the carry-on of the breeding season – in my garden it regularly sounds as if the young adults, just leaving their home territories and trying to establish their own, are murdering one another.
  • The first of the autumn fungi will be putting in an appearance – I have made it my personal mission to see if I can see a parrot waxcap this year. Let’s see how I get on!

Parrot waxcap (Photo by Stu’s Images)

  • The full moon is on 29th September, and is known as the Harvest Moon – this year it will also be a supermoon (i.e. appearing especially large and bright)

Holidays and Celebrations

  • 7th September – Krishna Janmashtami (Krishna’s birthday) (Hindu)
  • 15th September – Rosh Hashanah – Jewish New Year – begins at sundown
  • 18th September – Ganesh Chaturthi (Ganesh’s birthday) (Hindu)
  • 23rd September – Autumn Equinox (day and night is of equal length) and the Pagan festival of Mabon
  • 24th September – Yom Kippur – Day of Atonement (Jewish) begins at sundown
  • 27th September – Prophet Muhammad’s birthday begins on sighting of the crescent moon
  • 29th September – Michaelmas Day (Christian/Pagan). It’s one of the quarter days of the Christian church, and also the day when harvest needed by tradition to be completed. Old Michaelmas Day isn’t until October, but traditionally that’s the day when the devil spits on the blackberries, making them inedible. You have been warned.

Blackberries at Walthamstow Wetlands

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – August

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Common toadflax

Dear Readers, first a belated Happy New Year – I hope that 2023 brings everything that you need most, with a good helping of joy along the way. Thank you for reading along and for your support and appreciation over the years, I value it more than I can possibly say.

But now, August. This can feel like the tipping point of the year – some plants are still in flower, while berries are already appearing on many more. The birds will mostly have done their breeding for the year, and the garden may seem strangely silent. There should still be lots of insects about though, and maybe even the first orb spider webs – the spiders have been in the garden for ages, but this is the first time that they’ve grown big enough to be noticed. Let’s see what else is in store for us….

Things to Do

  • As we get into the second half of 2023, a lot of organisations haven’t yet posted any events. However, I did discover that the Royal Parks have a selection of self-guided walks for you to download – some, such as ‘Music for Trees’ (which has pieces of music to be listened to under particular trees) have an app to download, while others, such as the ‘More Than Bugs’ trail and the St James’s Park Tree Walk have maps for you to follow. Just the thing if it isn’t too hot.
  • The London Natural History Society has two interesting walks. The first, ‘Looking at trees around St Paul’s Cathedral‘ could not be more central, and I know from my street tree walk in the area that there are a lot of very interesting specimen trees to be examined. The walk takes place on Saturday 12th August from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • The second LNHS walk is at Richmond Park, and will be looking at the ecology and entomology of this very interesting area.

Plants for Pollinators

The RHS guide to Plants for Bees (in January’s RHS magazine) suggests Field Scabious as the ideal plant for the month – it provides food for two specialised species (the small scabious mining bee (Andrena marginata) and the large scabious mining bee (Andrena hattorfiana), plus many other species, including the beautiful red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarious) and a whole host of hoverflies and beetles.

Field scabious (Knautia arvensis)

Large scabious mining bee (Andrena hattorfiana) (Photo By Hectonichus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14540871)

Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) Photo Image credit: Tom Ings

Other suggested plants include greater knapweed, globe thistle, catmint (though not if you have feline visitors to the garden as it will most likely get squashed), fuchsia (so good for hawkmoths of various kinds) and my favourite, wild carrot.

Bird Behaviour

  • As I’ve noted before, August can be a very quiet time in the garden – many adult birds are moulting and so are keeping a low profile, and there is starting to be plenty of food in parks and woodland and hedgerows, from acorns and beech mast to berries and rosehips. This is the start of the big autumn feed-up, both for birds who stay in the UK and need to endure the lean months, and for those who are planning to migrate.
  • Juvenile birds may well be forming mixed flocks – tits and finches in particular do this, and it can be fun to see if there’s anyone unusual in amongst the ‘usual suspects’. You might get a brief glimpse of an unexpected young nuthatch or even a lesser spotted woodpecker that has been ‘caught up’ in a flock. There’s strength in numbers, and more eyes means more chances to spot food and avoid predators, plus the pressure to form territories and find partners is off until the spring.
  • The swifts, the last to arrive in the UK in May, are also the first to leave, and you will be lucky to spot any after the end of this month.
  • You might find that your local house sparrows have disappeared, too – they often ‘take a holiday’ in August, if there are seeding plants around. They won’t usually go more than a mile, and will be back by September, homebodies that they usually are.
  • And this is the prime month to see goldfinches feeding on thistles and teasel. The males have slightly longer beaks, and so are more able to cope with the long spines that protect the teasel seeds, leaving the females to eat the thistles.

Juvenile goldfinch on a seedhead at the Olympic Park, Stratford

Plants in Flower

Judging by my posts from previous years, Japanese anemones are putting in an appearance now, along with agapanthus, the small hardy geraniums (such as hedge cranesbill), common toadflax (as in the first photo), bristly oxtongue and nipplewort, and Japanese knotweed (ahem). Buddleia might still be in flower, and so will the more showy hydrangeas. Hemp agrimony and purple loosestrife are both resplendent alongside the pond.

What is really noticeable though is the amount of fruit – everything from elderberries, brambles and rosehips on the dog roses to conkers and acorns, through sea buckthorn and pyracantha. No wonder all the birds have gone AWOL. By the end of the month, most of the haws on my hawthorn tree will be gone.

Hawthorn berries

Other Things to Look/Listen Out For

  • If you’re on a seaside holiday, spend some time watching the gulls and their antics. Many a café owner will be patrolling the seafront with a water pistol to try to deter some of the herring gulls. Good luck with that!
  • Six of the nine species of British blue butterfly will be on the wing.

Holly blue butterfly sunning itself

  • The larger bumblebees will be a bit less in evidence, but the common carders will be out and about for a few months yet. In my garden they are late to appear, but are also the last bumbles to be on the wing.

Common carder on Michaelmas daisies in October!

  • Keep an eye open for the sycamore moth caterpillar, a very flamboyant creature. As the name suggests, you’ll find it on sycamore trees, maples and horse chestnuts.

  • Juvenile green woodpeckers might be independent, but they might also be being ‘shown the ropes’ by their parents, as was the case with the one below. The adult was hammering into an ants’ nest when it was ‘seen off’ by a magpie. What outrageously cheeky opportunists they are.

Adult green woodpecker being ‘seen off’ by magpie

Juvenile green woodpecker

  • Keep your eyes open for clouded yellow butterflies – these are migratory, and if conditions are right, you might see them in some numbers in high summer. The last big ‘Clouded Yellow Summer’ was in 2006, so we are well due for another one.

Clouded yellow (Colias croceus) Photo By Charles J. Sharp

  • Generally a quiet month for foxes, but make the most of it – as autumn approaches it can sound like all hell has broken loose in the garden.
  • There are two full moons this month. The first, on 1st August, is known as the Grain Moon or Lynx Moon. The second, on 31st August, is the Wine Moon or Song Moon. When two full moons appear in the same month, the second one is known as a Blue Moon.

Holidays and Celebrations

  • 1st August – Lammas (Christian)/Lughnasa (Gaelic/Pagan) – first harvest festival
  • 7th August – Summer Bank Holiday, Scotland and Ireland
  • 20th August – Women’s World Cup Final in Sydney, Australia
  • 26th to 28th August – Notting Hill Carnival
  • 28th August – Summer Bank Holiday, England, Wales and Northern Ireland

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – July

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Green woodpecker in East Finchley Cemetery July 2021

Dear Readers, July seems very far away from my current position, sitting in my office as the rain pours down and the sky is a uniform grey colour, but looking at these photos reminds me that it will arrive, eventually. It’s a month when many birds and other animals are leaving home for the first time, when bees and butterflies are on the wing and when flowering plants have reached a visual crescendo. And, just as many humans and their offspring go on holiday, so many living things are getting ready to slow down.

Things to Do

  • Well, lovely Readers, what could be nicer on a hot summer afternoon than to find a shady spot and get stuck into a good book? On 28th July the shortlist for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize is announced – the longlist comes out on 23rd June, but as that includes 12 Nature Writing titles, 12 Conservation Writing titles and 12 Children’s Nature/Conservation Writing titles that might be a big ask for even the most dedicated reader. I have discovered some fantastic books in previous years: last year I was especially impressed by Dan Saladino’s ‘Eating to Extinction’ and Dave Goulson’s ‘Insect Apocalypse’ in the Conservation section, and ‘Shadowlands’ by Matthew Green and ‘Otherlands’ by Thomas Halliday in the Nature Writing section. ‘Nature Writing’ is a broad school, but it’s great to see the sheer variety of titles and diversity of people who are writing about the natural world these days, and who care so passionately about it.
  • The RHS Hampton Court Flower Show is on from 4th to 9th July – lots of people who know about such things say that it’s a much more pleasant experience than Chelsea Flower Show which can be extremely crowded and difficult to get around. And I do believe that there’s the chance to get lots of plants very cheaply on the last day of the show. Just saying :-). If you live a bit further north there’s the Tatton Park Flower Show in Knutsford, Cheshire, from 19th to 23rd July.
  • If you live in the West Country, Rosemoor Gardens (another RHS Garden based in Torrington, Devon) is holding two bat walks, one on Friday 7th July from 8.30 to 11 p.m, and one on Friday 21st July (same times), and very interesting they sound too.

Plants for Pollinators

The RHS suggests roses as their key plant for July, but as we know, not all roses are created equal. The single-flowered varieties can be abuzz all summer, and birds love the rosehips on some of the more ornamental varieties, such as Rosa rugosa. However, a big attraction of roses is that their leaves are used by leaf-cutter bees – the first time I realised that the UK has seven species of these bees I was stunned to think that we could have anything so exotic. Leaf-cutter bees have also taken a shine to some stray enchanter’s nightshade in my garden, though, as you can see…

Look at those nice neat semi-circles!

You really are spoilt for choice in July, but here are some things that work for me.

Buddleia. Yes I know we’re not supposed to plant it, but mine planted themselves. I have dwarf buddleia in the back garden (which grows to about 9 feet all ahem) and the normal stuff in the front, which grows to about 15 feet tall and is most unruly and badly behaved, but is also forgiving of whatever pruning I attempt. Here is a selection of visitors.

Bumblebee. Just look at all that pollen!

Red admiral

Painted Lady

Teasel. They say that once you’ve planted it, you’ll never be without it. But why would you want to be, when it’s this popular? And hopefully the finches will come in the winter.

Hemp agrimony. Another messy plant, but my oh my is it popular with pollinators, not just bees and butterflies but hoverflies and spiders too.

Gatekeeper butterfly on hemp agrimony

The RHS also recommends lavender (not the ‘bunny-ears’ French variety in my experience), angelica (indeed), marjoram (easy the most popular plant in my windowboxes), sea holly (which I’ve never tried but looks as if it should work very well) and purple toadflax (which I’m trying this year, having seen how popular it was as a ‘weed’ in Dorset.

Bird Behaviour

In his book ‘The Secret Lives of Garden Birds’, Dominic Couzens says that July is the ‘month of goodbyes’, and for so many birds the breeding season is coming to an end, and they will soon be, literally, ’empty nesters’. This is the most challenging period for newly fledged birds, as they fend for themselves for the first time. Still, some parents are still diligently looking after their youngsters, as was the case with this family of sparrows in the garden in July 2021.

And these crows, seen from the dogwalkers’ café on Hampstead Heath.

 

Some birds are already pretty independent, like the young green woodpecker below.

Interestingly, Couzens mentions that in birds that have more than one brood in the year, such as blackbirds and robins, the parents often split the parental care after the young have been out in the world for a few days, with one parent taking sole charge of a particular number of youngsters. This means that the female has more time to feed up and prepare for her second brood, while not entirely neglecting the ones that have already left the nest.

This fledgling blackbird was being fed by his father…

And it’s impossible to say who was feeding this young robin, as the adults can’t be sexed by appearance. I was very glad to see him/her in July 2020, right in the middle of lockdown.

Plants in Flower

Too many to list, but here are a few favourites…

Wild carrot is gradually replacing the hogweed in the open places in the cemetery in July. It’s probably my favourite umbellifer (though I also love angelica. Decisions, decisions!)

The creamy smell of privet is coming from hedges everywhere, and very popular it is with hoverflies

All over the cemetery, the plants are in flower.  There’s  catsear…

ribwort plantain…

lesser knapweed…

and St John’s wort…

yarrow…

spear thistle…

self-heal

and, on some of the sunnier graves, there’s reflexed stonecrop..

and on others there’s white stonecrop…

and on yet others, there’s Caucasian stonecrop.

What a cornucopia! Truly, July is a wonderful time for a wander.

Other Things to Look/Listen Out For

  • Moths and butterflies of all kinds – in London we had lots of hummingbird hawk moths and also a positive outbreak of Jersey Tigers.

Jersey Tiger

  • This is the time of year when you might first see young foxes in the garden or, more likely, hear them wrestling and fighting with that characteristic ‘gekkering’ sound. The poor exhausted adults will often have had enough at this time of year, and will start being more reluctant to feed their youngsters. They may even start to drive them away. This is the time of year when you are most likely to encounter dead foxes, most of whom will have been run down by cars, easily the biggest threat to the animals in the city.
  • Make the most of the swifts circling and screaming in the skies this month, as they will soon be making the return journey to Africa.
  • The full moon this month is on 3rd July, and is known as the Wyrt Moon (from Wort, meaning herb) or the Mead Moon. It’s the first of four supermoons in 2023, which means it should be noticeably bigger and brighter than other moons.

Holidays and Celebrations

  • 8th and 9th July are the days for the Women’s and Men’s Singles Finals at Wimbledon, for you tennis lovers out there
  • 15th July is St Swithuns Day – if it rains on St Swithun’s Bridge in Winchester today (Swithun was Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester), it is supposed to rain for the next forty days and nights so fingers crossed (although if last year’s drought conditions in some parts of the country were anything to go by, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing)
  • 18th July is Islamic New Year (Al Hijra) which starts at the sighting of the crescent moon
  • 23rd July is the birthday of Haile Selassie, and is one of the holiest days of the Rastafarian calendar
  • 26th July is Tisha B’Av, the Jewish day of mourning, which commences at sundown

 

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – June

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Fox and Cubs in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, June 2021

Ah June. It’s hard to imagine the abundance of flowers and insects and birds from the viewpoint of a dull, rainy day in late December when there’s barely a blossom to be seen. But before we know it, June will be here. This is the highpoint of the year for many creatures – if birds have been successful in breeding, their youngsters will be leaving the nest. Our gardens should be abuzz with bees, and soon it will be the longest day, before the year tilts back to a time of rest. Let’s see what it may have in store for us.

Things to Do

  • A lovely thing to do if you’re in London is to visit some of the ‘Open Gardens’ – these are normally private gardens that are open to the public on the weekend of 10th-11th June 2023. They include the garden at British Medical Association, which concentrates on different medicinal plants, and the Jamyang Buddhist Centre garden, which includes a café (always a splendid thing). There’s everything here from allotments to formal gardens and you can find a list of the gardens that are currently expected to be open here. Tickets (which give entrance to all the gardens) here.
  • It appears that Superbloom at the Tower of London will be back, and the team at Historic Royal Palaces are also working with schools to create mini superblooms in their own communities. Not many details yet, but watch this space.
  • On June 13th, the London Natural History Society is organising a ‘Pot Luck in the East End’ botany walk from 18.30 to 21.30. John Swindells is leading the walk, and he really knows his stuff! The East End has some extraordinary and unusual ‘weeds’ due to its diverse history, and you never know what you’re going to find. Details here.

Plants for Pollinators

It really does feel as if we’re spoilt for choice in June. The RHS’s featured plant is Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantina), largely because wool carder bees use the hairs on the leaves to make their nests. Male wool carder bees will patrol the plants, head-butting much bigger bees out of the way but welcoming any females. I think I will definitely grow a clump of the stuff this year.

Lambs-ears (Stachy byzantina)

Wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum) on lavender

The RHS also suggest Alliums (in full sun – I have some in my front-garden pots, let’s see how they get on), foxgloves, thyme (and indeed marjoram and oregano), cardoons (so glorious if you have room!) and good old-fashioned brambles.

Bird Behaviour

In my garden, May is actually the peak month for fledglings, but June is also pretty crazy. In the past I’ve spotted young wrens, blue tits, collared doves, woodpigeons and house sparrows during June, and their parents are wearing themselves ragged. By the end of June, though, a lot of youngsters are fending for themselves and are even being booted out of their parents’ territories. You might notice a gradual tailing off of birdsong in the garden, but so much depends on the weather, and as we know, this is extremely unpredictable these days. Let’s hope that the caterpillars, the nestlings and the weather all contribute to a successful month.

Young blue tit in the garden

All those vulnerable young creatures mean that you may well spot more birds of prey, including buzzards riding the early summer thermals, kestrels and sparrowhawks. Jays and magpies will be showing rather too much interest in any naive youngsters too. And great spotted woodpeckers are notorious robbers of nest boxes, hammering in through the side and pulling out the chicks. Nature can be hard to watch sometimes.

Buzzard over St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

Plants in Flower

Lots! You might notice that hogweed is starting to take over from cow parsley in the woods and lanes, and lots of meadow flowers, such as meadow vetchling and meadow cranesbill are in flower now. Plus keep your eyes open for fox and cubs (first photo) – it is stunning, and one of my favourite wild plants.

Meadow Vetchling

Meadow Cranesbill

Hogweed

In the garden the high spots are roses of all  kinds, lavender, many of the hardy geraniums, borage, lilies and fuchsia. It really is a lovely month, before everything starts to look a bit tired. My most successful plant of recent years was my angelica, aka the triffid. If I don’t see any seedlings I might plant another one to flower in 2024.

My dear departed angelica.

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

  • Tadpoles may be developing legs, and some intrepid individuals may even be leaving the pond.
  • Have a look at any hogweed that you pass – this plant is a magnet for all kinds of beetles, including the thick-legged flower beetle, which looks like it’s been doing rather too many squats, and various kinds of long-horned beetle, plus a whole panoply of hoverflies. June is insect heaven!

Thick-legged flower beetle

Long-horned beetle to the left, thick-legged flower beetle to the right….

  • Young foxes are still being fed close to their den, and the adults will be looking exhausted. The days are long, the nights are short, and so foxes have to take more chances. There’s more opportunity to see them during daylight than at most times of year, especially if you’re up very early in the morning. My local greengrocer said that he would watch the vixens patrolling the streets at 4 a.m. when the food waste recycling caddies had been put out. He said they’d become very adept at opening the caddies to get at the food.
  • The full moon is on 4th June, and is known as the Rose Moon or Dyad Moon

Holidays and Celebrations

  • 1st June is the start of Pride month, and also the start of Gipsy, Roma and Traveller History Month
  • 18th June is Father’s Day
  • 21st June is Summer Solstice, which technically starts at 15.57. It’s the longest day of the year – in Northumberland, the sun rises at 4.30 a.m and doesn’t set until 9.30 pm. Further north, there’s barely any night at all.
  • 24th June is Midsummer/the Feast of St John the Baptist. It’s traditionally the day for cutting and drying herbs such as rosemary and thyme, and for hanging them up to dry.

 

 

 

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – May

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Fledgling starling

Dear Readers, there is so much going on in May that it’s positively dizzying – all that preparation during March and April should, in a good year, have led to the emergence of fledglings all over the country during May, when insect numbers should be at their height. In my garden there’s the familiar wheezing of starling fledglings, and the first shrieks of swifts overhead. The pond will hopefully be full of tadpoles, and the hedgerows will be bursting with cow parsley. It’s a great month for the naturalist and the flaneur, and it seems to me to be the most hopeful month of the year.

Cow parsley in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

Things to Do

  • This is a great month for exploring parks and local green spaces – there’s something going on wherever you look. And if you have the time to survey an area for bumblebees for about an hour every month (and May is a great month to start) you could contribute to the research for Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s Beewalk project. I am seriously thinking about doing this this year.  Ideally this should start in March, so I might include it in the March Almanac post that will appear at the end of February.
  • For those of us who don’t have a garden, Chelsea Physic Garden is hosting a talk on ‘The Indoor Garden’ with Jade Murray. Lots of people began to realise how wonderful house plants were during lockdown, but this sounds like a great course on how to really understand how to look after these organisms with their complex and varied requirements.
  • The London Natural History Society has a botanical expedition to Kensal Green Cemetery on Saturday 27th May – I imagine that this will be a great opportunity to examine the plants in this unique location.
  • The free virtual talk offered by the LNHS in May is on the restoration of Hainault Forest – I used to live quite close to this area, so I shall probably watch this one. All talks are recorded if you can’t make the actual date(19.00 on Thursday 11th May), and are available on the LNHS’s Youtube channel.

Plants for Pollinators

The RHS is suggesting nettle-leaved bellflower for this month, which surprised me a little until I realised that this species has two bees of its own – the bellflower blunthorn bee (Melitta haemorrhoidalis) and the small scissor bee (Chelostoma campanularum). Goodness! Both these species will apparently shelter inside the flowers of this plant, and the small scissor bee actually mates in there as well. Who knew?

The plant looks extremely pretty, and it’s a native, so it will be no hardship to grow it if I can find some somewhere. The name ‘trachelium’ comes from a belief that the plant could be used to cure a sore throat.

Nettle-leaved bellflower (Campanula trachelium)

The bee itself is one of those inconspicuous little solitary bees that goes about pollinating our flowers without being noticed. Apparently it will also visit other kinds of bellflowers, but the nettle-leaved species is the one that it loves the best.

Small scissor bee (Photo by Lukas Large at https://www.flickr.com/photos/99278910@N00/50065628713)

Other valuable plants in flower now include bird’s foot trefoil, Californian Lilac (Ceanothus), Comfrey, Rosemary, Hawthorn and, for hoverflies, the ubiquitous cow parsley.

Bird Behaviour

  • Well, it’s all going on in May! As already noted, the swifts should have arrived by mid-May, the starling fledglings are out by the end of the month and all sorts of other young birds will be putting in an appearance, including blackbirds, robins and many young finches and tits.
  • Swallows and house martins (and swifts) will be returning to the nests that they occupied last year, so long as some anti-social householder hasn’t taken them down because they are ‘too messy’ (don’t get me started). If you’re very lucky, you might see house martins gathering beakfuls of mud to patch up their existing homes, or to start new ones if it’s their first time breeding.
  • Long-tailed tits will have finished making those beautiful nests that we talked about in a previous post, but they do have a habit of making them in places that are too conspicuous – I found one nest low down in a shrub in a well-used Islington Square, full of dogs and squirrels and ever-watchful magpies. Interestingly, if a nest fails, the couple may assist another couple in provisioning their youngsters – often all the birds in an area are related, so it makes sense to help out Mum and Dad, or your siblings. The ‘helper’ birds will then join the flock in the winter, which is a great advantage when it comes to finding food. Long-tailed tits are the only British birds that cooperate in this way, and it makes me love them even more than I already did, if such a thing is possible.
    • Fledgling long-tailed tits in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery
    • Plants in Flower
    • It might be easier to list what isn’t in flower in May, but just to add to the list above, the lilac should be in flower, tulips should be busting forth along with the purple Sputnik flowers of alliums, the first foxgloves will be full of bumblebees, sweet woodruff and bluebells are amongst the last of the spring ephemerals to flower, elderflowers are just asking to be made into cordial, marigolds are adding a welcome touch of orange, and the air is heavy with the feral smell of hawthorn (or May blossom if you prefer). In the cemetery the new arrivals for May include red campion and germander speedwell, red clover and wood avens, and the mysterious salsify flowers that pop up every year, having come from goodness only knows where.
    • Horse chestnut trees should be in flower, always an impressive sight with their ‘candles’ of blossom.

Germander speedwell

 

Salsify

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

    • This is prime cuckoo time. I grew up hearing these birds in Wanstead Park every single year, but these days I’m most likely to hear them in Austria.
    • The fox cubs are a lot noisier and more boisterous in May, though they are still unlikely to move far from the earth unless they’re disturbed and their mother moves them.
    • In the pond, the large red damselflies will be emerging, followed by the azure damselflies a few weeks later. If we’re lucky, we might get a visit from a ‘proper’ dragonfly, such as a broad-bodied chaser.

Large red damselflies mating

  • If the last few years are anything to go by, the buddleia will be smothered in greenfly, and the ladybird larvae and even some of the birds (goldfinches, sparrows and blue tits in particular) will be feasting on them. The honeydew will be raining down so much that it glues the lid of the wheelie bin shut. Sigh.
  • The full moon will be on the 5th May, and is known as the Mother’s Moon or the Bright Moon.

Holidays and Celebrations

  • 1st May is Beltane, and International Workers Day, so there are plenty of excuses for having fun
  • 7th May is International Dawn Chorus day, keep your eyes open for crack-of-dawn walks in your local woodland (or sit in the garden with a cup of tea as it’s getting light and drink it all in)
  • 14th May is Rogation Sunday, and also the day for ‘Beating the Bounds’ – we did this around Coldfall Wood last year, and great fun it was too!
  • In the UK the first and last Mondays in May are Bank Holidays, but this year the 8th May is also a Bank Holiday in honour of King Charles III’s coronation. Bank Holidays are like buses just lately, you wait for five months for one and then three come along at once (not that I’m complaining).

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – April

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Two April nuthatches in Coldfall Wood

Dear Readers, April is when everything really kicks off in the natural world – birds are singing and nestbuilding and raising their youngsters, the woods are full of spring ephemerals, the nights are shorter and even us oldies have a surprising bounce in our step. So let’s see what the month should have in store for us here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Things to Do

  • An exhibition by Slovak artist Maria Bartuszová runs at Tate Modern until 16th April – she is inspired by the natural world and produces delicate plaster sculptures inspired by everything from seeds to raindrops. Well worth a look.
  • Camley Street Natural Park is running two family weekends in April, on Sunday 9th and Sunday 23rd April from 1.00 p.m to 4 p.m. Both are free, and you don’t need to book. Pond-dipping seems to be involved! Camley Street punches well above its weight in terms of biodiversity and interest, and there’s a splendid café, which also helps
  • A walk in any of the Royal Parks should be rewarding in April, as the trees come into blossom and the bulbs put on a show.
  • Kew is spectacular at any time, but spring is really something. Plus, they are running a one-day course called ‘Right Plant, Right Place’ on 4th April which sounds very interesting.
  • Bluebells! There are several places around London to spot them, including the Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park, Wanstead Park in East London, Eltham Palace Gardens and good old Highgate Wood, which is just around the corner from me. I just hope that the bulbs survived the Covid trampling.
  • The London Natural History free virtual talk this month is on ‘The Marine World’ by expert Dr Francis Dipper, and you can book here.

Plants for Pollinators

Apple blossom is the RHS’s suggested key plant for pollinators this month, and the bee to watch out for is the red mason bee, a small bee that nests in crumbling masonry and holes in bricks, along with bee hotels. This species is very important for the pollination of orchard fruit.

Red mason bee (Osmia bicornis/rufa)

Other suggested plants for April include Phacelia, Aquilegia (Granny’s Bonnet), Bugle, Wood spurge, Berberis and Cherry.

Bird Behaviour

  • The dawn chorus (and indeed, singing throughout the day) is in full swing now – it’s been estimated that for many species, such as blackbirds, a break in this territorial singing of more than a day will result in another as yet unpaired blackbird taking over the territory. I was a bit rude about the male wren yesterday, but of course losing the territory holder can be disastrous for females already with eggs or chicks, as in some species the youngsters will be killed by any incoming males, and in others the female relies on the male to provision her during incubation and chick rearing.
  • Many hole-nesting birds, such as stock doves, the nuthatches in the photo at the top of the post and ring-necked parakeets will be competing for hollow trees, often with a lot of shrieking and general carry-on.
  • Great Spotted Woodpeckers will be drumming – this isn’t about excavating a nest, it’s all about announcing territory.
  • Listen out for the chiffchaff. These inconspicuous little warblers are amongst the first migrants to arrive, probably because it’s only travelling from the Mediterranean rather than Africa, and soon the countryside will be ringing with their repetitive songs.
  • The first swallows should arrive early in April, with the House Martins appearing towards the end of the month.
  • Blackcaps, whitethroats, yellow wagtails and cuckoos can all be seen towards the end of the month if the weather is favourable. Of course, some blackcaps are now choosing to stay put (there are a pair in my garden as I write this), so they won’t all have travelled a long way, but their song is always such a joy.

Just in case you’re missing April birdsong, here are a few to listen out for later in the year.

First up, the chiffchaff (Recording by Michel Veldt in the Netherlands)

Next up, the blackcap. What a lovely song this is! The recording is by Ulf Elman in Sweden.

And finally, here’s a common whitethroat, again recorded by Michel Veldt.

I wish I had a better ear for birdsong – I find the warblers generally very tricky to tell apart, except for the simple song of the chiffchaff. Do let me know how you do it, if you are able to differentiate between the different species in the field! For me, it’s a kind of superpower.

Plants in Flower

All the spring ephemerals should be out by now – crocuses, lesser celandine, wood anemone, bluebells (which will continue until May in a good year) and primroses and oxlips. Cow parsley, garlic mustard, blackthorn, wayfaring tree, three-cornered garlic and ramsons, alexanders and hawthorn, stinking iris and grape hyacinth, forget-me-not and marsh marigold should all be in flower, if previous years are any guide.

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

  • Tadpoles should be numerous by now, and if you are lucky enough to have newts in your pond you may see them courting, the males whipping their tails backwards and forwards
  • Brimstone and orange-tip butterflies are around, plus speckled woods and peacock butterflies emerging from hibernation
  • Fox cubs are just emerging from their den, so if you are extremely lucky and know where an earth is, you might catch sight of them sunning themselves or playing.
  • Full moon is on 6th April, and is known as the Seed Moon, the Budding Moon or the New Shoots Moon. It’s also known as the Paschal Moon, and in the Christian calendar, Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the Paschal Moon. So, in 2023, Easter Sunday will be Sunday 9th April.

Holidays and Celebrations

  • Passover begins at sundown on April 5th
  • 9th April is Christian Easter Sunday
  • 14th April is St Tiburtius’s Day, and is officially when cuckoos start singing, so keep your ears open!
  • 16th April – Orthodox Easter Sunday
  • 21st April – Eid al-Fitr (Islamic celebration of the end of Ramadan) starts on the first sighting of the crescent moon.
  • 23rd April – the start of the English asparagus season. Hooray!

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – March

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Loddon Lily aka Summer Snowflake(Leucojum aestivum)

Dear Readers, March is an inbetween month – it can be mild, it can be windy, it can pour with rain, it can even snow. But underneath the earth, all kinds of things are stirring, including these lovely Loddon lilies, which look superficially like giant snowdrops. I spotted these in our local cemetery in mid March a few years ago, so clearly the designation ‘summer’ doesn’t apply in the milder parts of the country.

March is also when you might first notice that the nights really are getting shorter – the first time that I used to leave work at 5 p.m. to find that it was still daylight was normally in early March, even before the clocks go forward by an hour on 26th March.

But what else should be going on? Let’s see.

Things to Do

  • The Orchid Festival at Kew Gardens this year features the orchids of Cameroon, and it actually starts on 4th February, so make a note if this is something that you fancy – the last date is 5th March.
  • On Sunday 12th March, the Centre for Wildlife Gardening in Peckham (part of the London Wildlife Trust) is holding a Toad Day, which looks as if it’s lots of fun for all the family.
  • On Thursday 9th March, the London Natural History Society is holding a free virtual talk on ‘Bees and Garden Plants’ by Rosi Rollings – these talks have been of a consistently high quality, and certainly kept me from getting bored during lockdown. Rosi Rollings runs the nursery from which I get all my bee-friendly plants, Rosybee, and has been studying bees for six years. Well worth a look, and a good date for the diary.

Plants for Pollinators

The RHS’s featured plant for March is lungwort, or Pulmonaria, and very popular with the bees it is too – you might spot an Early bumblebee (Bombus praetorum) which is one of the first bumblebees to set up its nest and start to produce workers. Early bumblebees have two yellow stripes, one on the thorax and one on the top of the abdomen, and a rusty tail. However, in my garden the first bees to really appear in any numbers are the hairy-footed flower bees – the females are jet black, the males gingery with a yellow face, and both are very, very speedy. I would really recommend flowering currant for these guys, they don’t seem to be able to get enough of it. The other plants mentioned include hellebores (though not the fancy double-flowered ones) and good old-fashioned dandelion, which I always tolerate because it’s such a good source of nectar.

Male hairy-footed flower bee on flowering currant

Bird Behaviour

  • March is the kick-off month for many birds to start breeding in earnest. In most populations, the older, more experienced birds will already be paired and will have sorted out a territory, but the timing of producing youngsters is a tricky one – there will need to be food available, otherwise the whole thing will have been in vain. The advantage of early breeding is that if it fails, there will be time for a second brood.
  • Birds that may be laying eggs and starting to incubate in March include tawny owls (as many small rodents are becoming more active now), mistle thrushes (the theory is that by starting early they avoid predation by crows, sparrowhawks etc who might be busy elsewhere and have not yet gotten into nest and fledgling robbing) and rooks. Rooks feed their young mostly on earthworms, and by later in the year the earth will (in a ‘normal’ year) be too hard for them to find them, so rookeries will be abuzz with excitement.

A Somerset rookery in spring, close to my late Aunt Hilary’s house

  • Long-tailed tits, who have been seen in little gangs all through the winter, pair up in March and build their beautiful nests, constructed of moss and spiders’ webs, lichen and feathers. In his book ‘The Secret Life of Garden Birds’, Dominic Couzens points out that those feathers are often taken from chicken coops or even from the carcasses of roadkill, so it’s worth keeping an eye open for long-tailed tits doing peculiar things.
  • Wrens will be singing their heads off – the males build a number of ‘starter homes’ in their territories, and hope that they can entice females to come along, mate with them, finish off the nests and then do all of the chick-rearing. I guess that after all that loud singing, the males haven’t got much energy left for domestic duties.

Long-tailed tit building its nest (Photo by Alan Shearman)

Plants in Flower

In my garden, the first of the fritillaries and grape hyacinths, some shy daffodils, wallflowers, and possibly some scillas. Elsewhere, magnolias spread their magnificence for a few days, the green flowers of stinking hellebore are out, and there might even be some cherry blossom.

Stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus)

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

  • Frogs should be mating by now, and you might hear them singing in earnest in the evening (though you have to sneak up on them because the frogs in my garden are very shy). With any luck, there will be the first frogspawn and even the first tadpoles if it’s mild enough. The first pondskaters will be floating on the surface, hoping to spear a stray tadpole before it gets too big. Plants will be growing and insect life will be resurrecting itself. Yay!
  • Fox cubs are usually born in mid-March – as they are born blind and helpless, the vixen won’t leave them, and will be provisioned by the dog fox and any ‘helpers’ that the couple might have (sometimes a son or daughter who hasn’t found a territory of their own).
  • Full moon is on 7th March, and is known as the Chaste Moon, Plough Moon or Lenten Moon.

Holidays and Celebrations

6th March – the Hindu festival of Holi starts at sundown

8th March – International Women’s Day

19th March – Mothering Sunday

20th March – Vernal Equinox – at 21.24, days and nights are exactly the same length, wherever you are in the world, in a rare moment of balance. Moments after this, days in Norway will start to lengthen towards the ‘white nights’ of high summer, while the days in New Zealand will shrink towards autumn and winter. The pagan festival of Ostara, also on 20th March, marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. You can almost feel nature breathing a sigh of relief, as those who have survived realise that they’ve come through winter, and are still here.

 

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – February

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Dear Readers, February can feel like a very bleak month, but actually spring is stirring all over the place. Here are a few suggestions to warm the cockles…

Things to Do

  • The snowdrops should be in full swing by the early part of February, and there are several places in London where you can really enjoy them. They really raise my spirits, and I hope they will do the same for you.
    • Chelsea Physic Garden normally has a snowdrop trail from when they re-open at the end of January, and you can buy many, many varieties in their shop. In my experience, the only way to get the little darlings established is to plant them in the green, after many, many attempts to grow them from bulbs, so this might be a good way to enlarge your stock. The bees much prefer the simpler single-flowered varieties, by the way….
    • Myddleton House Gardens in Enfield usually have a fine show of snowdrops in their Alpine Meadow, if you live in North London, or Eltham Palace is another excellent choice if you live South of the River.
    • If you’d rather not pay out to see these plants in all their glory, I’d head off for your nearest not-too-well-manicured cemetery. My local, St Pancras and Islington Cemetery, has a glorious selection of naturalised snowdrops in some of the wilder areas, and Tower Hamlets Cemetery is said to be a great spot too.
  • If it’s too blooming cold to be out and about (and goodness knows this is often the case), February is usually a relatively quiet month at the Natural History Museum (though if you aren’t taking the children I’d avoid half term, when the queues outside can be most alarming). The museum itself is free, but I love the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which has apparently been re-staged this year (I shall report back when I’ve been). I always find it inspirational.

Plants for Pollinators

For February, the RHS is suggesting goat willow (Salix caprea) and I can see why –  a tree at Crossbones Graveyard in South London that I visited a few years ago was absolutely abuzz with feeding queen bumblebees and honeybees. One of my big regrets is that I had a self-sown goat willow next to my pond, but took it out because I have so many trees in my small garden. Maybe I should have left it.

A few of the earlier solitary bees will also be out and about now, including several of the mining bee species.

Honeybee and goat willow

However, there is hope, as my front garden containers are full of early-flowering crocuses, another favourite. In my experience these bulbs are happiest in full sun – they are always a bit sad in my north-facing back garden, where the woodland bulbs such as fritillaries and wood anemones seem fine. Other plants suggested by the RHS are snowdrops (hooray!), the cherry plum, and Erica x darleyensis (also known as Darley Dale heather), another plant for full sun.

Bird Behaviour

Spring comes to the birds much earlier than it does to us mere humans, and although birds are unlikely to be actually breeding yet, they will certainly be pairing up and trying to stake out a territory. Woodpigeons will be singing their breathy songs, and collared doves will be chasing one another around, tooting like miniature trumpeters. One of my lasting memories of being a child in bed is waking up to the sound of the pigeons cooing on the chimney pot, their songs echoing down the chimney.

Collared doves and a furry visitor in the background

It’s worth watching out for breeding displays, too.  A male chaffinch performs a fluttering, moth-like flight beside a female that he’s hoping to impress, and then perches beside her and leans over to show her his belly. At this point the female can either stay for some more shenanigans, or leave to find someone with a more attractive abdomen.

Blue tits also perform a little display flight, usually from one perch to another – a male might flap his wings a little more quickly than seems strictly necessary, or even glide, quite a feat for such a small bird. These displays are so easily missed, but once seen they’re an obvious show of prowess.

And it’s worth keeping an eye open for the male dunnock’s ‘armpit’ display as well, plus all the general goings on with the females mating with multiple males and the males beating one another up.

And finally, crows might already be flying about with twigs in their mouths. They might not actually get down to egg-laying yet, but that nest isn’t going to build itself. You might also be witness to confrontations between crows and magpies over nest sites and building materials. There is a lot of drama going on in February, and it’s worth tuning into.

Plants in Flower

In addition to the plants mentioned above, keep a nose attuned for the sweet smell of Daphne, one of the most gorgeous of winter-scented flowers in my opinion. Some camellias will be coming into flower, but the rain damages the blossom, so if you see a pristine one it’s something to celebrate. Hyacinths will be bursting forth too, and sweet violets, and primroses. And the first shy white flowers of blackthorn will be putting in an appearance.

Other Things to Watch/Listen Out For

  • By now, most female foxes are pregnant, and there might be a brief break from the shrieks and carrying-on of January. Vixens will be looking to find a safe place to have their cubs, and will also be very hungry. If you have foxes visiting your garden, keep an eye open for them looking a little thicker around the middle than usual. Males will also be beginning to look for food for the vixen, and later for the cubs, who are mostly born in mid March.
  • Towards the end of February the first frogs will emerge if the weather isn’t too cold – the males arrive first (they’ve usually been hibernating at the bottom of the pond) followed by the females, who tend to overwinter in other places in the garden (probably to avoid being drowned by all the amorous males). You might even hear the first faint sound of frog-music in the evening.#
  • Full moon is on the 5th February, and is known as the snow moon, the ice moon or the storm moon.

Holidays/Celebrations

    • 20th February is known as Collop Monday, Peasen Monday or Nickanan Night in various parts of the UK – it’s the Monday before Lent. In Cornwall, it was a night for mischief, with local boys knocking on doors and running away (though this was also a common practice all year round in the East End when I was growing up). On one occasion, Dad and his mates tied a piece of string to all the door knockers on the road so that they could all be knocked simultaneously, and very amused Dad was too. This was known as ‘Knock Down Ginger’ for some reason lost in the midst of time. Anyhow, in many parts of the country, pea soup was eaten on ‘peasen Monday’, along with foods such as eggs and bacon which would not be allowed during Lent.
    • Lent falls on February 22nd this year. Traditionally, this is a period of fasting and self-denial, and I find it interesting that it often coincides with the time of the year when there would be little food available – the autumn stores would be used up, and the spring crops wouldn’t yet be ready. Anything that reminds us that being hungry is not a choice for everybody is likely to be a good thing, I think.

Old Bugwoman’s Almanac – January

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Dear Readers, when I was growing up (not in 1875 I hasten to add) we usually got a copy of ‘Old Moore’s Almanac’ every year. Inside it was everything from the tide tables (very useful for us in Stratford, East London), the phases of the moon, predictions for the next year and all manner of other miscellanea and trivia. My grandmother, in particular, was insistent that we buy a copy – she was capable of charming warts and performing faith healing, but was also extremely superstitious (no new shoes on the table (not that we had a table), green was an unlucky colour, no lilacs in the house because they would cause the annihilation of every living creature within the walls etc etc). Old Moore’s Almanac gave us the delusion that, because it predicted the future, it somehow gave us some sort of control. Hah! If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the only control we have over many events is how we react to them.

But I digress, as usual.

This year, I thought that I’d look at various things related to the natural world throughout the months: things that we can get involved in, plants to look out for, animal behaviours that we might witness, and, in general, things that will link us to the cycle of the seasons. Let’s see how we get on.

January

Things to Do

  • From 31st December to January 3rd, the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland asks if we would spend a few hours (maximum) recording plants that are in flower – this has been invaluable in tracking the earlier flowering times of many plants due to climate change. You can download the app from here . I will probably do it this year for the first time, so let’s share any experiences! Apparently you can see the results on the website as they come in, so it could be quite exciting. You can also join an organised Plant Hunt if there is one in your area (again, details on the website).
  • The Great Garden Bird Watch will be from 27th to 29th January this year. What a great opportunity to watch all the rare and unusual birds disappear from your garden for the hour that you’re recording, only to return as soon as you’ve sent in your data (at least that’s usually my experience :-)). This data is useful for measuring the rise and fall of species, and as we know from my Red List posts, a lot of what we think of as common birds are actually in trouble. You can find out all about it here.

Plants for Pollinators

  • My RHS magazine this week has a very helpful list of possible plants for bees for each month of the year. For January, it’s suggesting winter-flowering heather, winter aconite, Clematis cirrhosa (otherwise known as ‘Freckles’ and various other varieties), Viburnum tinus and good old fashioned hazel, as its pollen is collected by bees. At this time of year, bees will be limited to the odd honeybee and an occasional queen bumblebee, but it’s still good to have something for them to eat if they do pop out. Let me know if you’ve spotted any bee activity in this most unlikely of months

Bird Behaviour

  • As January progresses, you can sense a speeding-up of bird activity – at the moment the only bird regularly singing is the robin, but as the days grow longer, the thoughts of most birds will turn to reproduction, especially on milder days when the higher temperatures reinforce the message that spring is on the way. In particular, birds such as great tits, dunnocks, wrens and song thrushes will be singing before the month is over.
  • The residents in the garden may well be joined by lots of visitors from Scandinavia, and the usual highly territorial squabbles may be put to one side if there’s a spell of bad weather, though not as the end of the month approaches, as blackbirds are some of the earliest birds to breed.
  • It appears to be a very good year for waxwings, which have been spotted all over the east coast of the UK as they irrupt from Scandinavia, so keep your eyes peeled, they certainly seem to be heading south and west (though I note that when some waxwings turned up in East Finchley it was in April, so you might need to keep them peeled for a while :-)). They are particularly fond of berries from plants like pyracantha, so they are sometimes known as the ‘supermarket car park’ bird.

Waxwing on the County Roads in East Finchley in 2017

Plants in Flower

  • Well, as recent studies have shown, a lot more plants are in flower in January than there were a few decades ago, but the old reliables, such as snowdrops and winter aconites should be putting in an appearance by the end of the month. There are already catkins on my hazel bushes, plus the earliest crocuses, witch hazel, sweet box, mahonia and winter clematis. There may, by some miracle, still be berries on pyracantha and cotoneaster, if the birds haven’t stripped them (see above)

Other Things to Listen/Watch Out For

  • Foxes – it’s peak breeding season, and you might hear the screams of vixens and, my personal favourite, those little barks that foxes make to keep in touch with one another. There’s a fine selection of different calls here.
  • This is the best time of the year for star-gazers to see Mars, which should be high in the southern sky (if you’re in the northern hemisphere) early this month. You might even be able to see that it’s red.
  • Full moon will be on the 6th January, and is called the Wolf Moon or the Stay at Home Moon.

Holidays/Celebrations

  • January 9th – Plough Monday. Traditionally, this was when the farmer workers went back to the fields following the Christmas celebrations. In The Almanac, compiled by Lia Leendertz, it’s explained that during the 15th century a plough would be pulled through the streets to raise funds for the parish – this would pay for ‘parish lights’, candles that were kept burning in church to bless those working in the fields, upon whom so much of the subsequent year’s abundance would depend.
  • January 22nd – Chinese New Year. This is the year of the Black Water Rabbit, and it is apparently going to be a peaceful and relaxing year for all of us, but particularly if we are Goats, Pigs or Dogs. I am a Pig (no comments please) and so the world is clearly my oyster in 2023. If you’re unsure what sign you are, and would like to check, there’s a handy calculator here (scroll down a bit :-))