A Golden Oldie

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Jonathan the world’s oldest living tortoise (Photo by By Xben911 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=103468313)

Dear Readers, I have always had a great fondness for tortoises. When my grandmother was growing up she had a pet tortoise that was very fond of strawberries. If he thought that they were on the menu he would scurry (in a rather undignified manner) up the garden path, and if the kitchen door was shut he would bang on it with his shell until someone opened the door. In those days, no one thought about how many tortoises were being ‘harvested’ from places like Greece, and how few of them actually survived their journey to the pet shop. These days, the pet trade is rather more strictly controlled, and, given how slowly tortoises grow to maturity, this can only be a good thing.

And back in 2000, when I was fifty, we made a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Galapagos Islands, home to many, many giant tortoises. We visited the scientific research station where some of the subspecies of giant tortoises are bred, and watched as the youngsters were introduced to the tricky volcanic terrain of their home islands in a series of compounds of increasing difficulty. It was important that they built up their balancing skills, and their muscles, so that they could cope with whatever nature throws at them. I will never forget their determined, plucky attitude as they climbed and clambered over rocks and undergrowth. You could imagine them gritting their teeth and getting on with it.

And so, given my love for all things tortoise-related, I was particularly pleased to see that today, Sunday 4th December, is the (official) 190th birthday of Jonathan the Seychelles Giant Tortoise. He was gifted to the governor of Saint Helena, a small island in the middle of the Atlantic in 1882, and he was pretty large then, giving him an estimated birth date of 1832. Although he has cataracts and seems to have lost his sense of smell, he still has very acute hearing, and a few years ago he was given a new diet, which seems to have included such items as tasty watermelon and grapes, guava and banana.

Back in the 1990s, Jonathan was introduced to Frederica, another Seychelles Giant Tortoise, and, as The Guardian coyly puts it, they ‘developed an intimate relationship’. However, the patter of tiny tortoise feet never happened and it wasn’t until 26 years later, when Frederica was examined by a vet, that it was discovered that Frederica was probably a male. Nonetheless, the two tortoises are devoted to one another – the vet noted that Jonathan toddled over during the examination and wouldn’t leave his mate’s side. Love is love, after all.

Jonathan and another giant tortoise (Photo from 1886)

Jonathan and the other tortoises still live in the grounds of Plantation House on St Helena, and there are three days of celebration planned for his birthday, including a tortoise-friendly birthday cake, an animated film about his life, and some special stamps. He currently features on the back of the Saint Helena 5 pence coin.

Although Jonathan is probably the world’s longest living land animal, another giant tortoise, Adwaita, was rumoured to be 255 years old when he died in Kolkata Zoo in 2006. He was said to have been gifted to Clive of India after the Battle of Plassey in 1757, and arrived at the Zoo in 1875. Sadly, the record has never been verified, so Jonathan currently holds the record. It is astonishing to think that he has lived through the Victorian and Elizabethan ages, with all the changes that they’ve wrought. What a venerable being he is! I hope he enjoys his birthday celebrations.

 

Back From the Brink – Lesser Butterfly Orchid

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Lesser Butterfly orchid (Platanthera bifolia) (Photo by Bjorn S)

Dear Readers, the Lesser Butterfly Orchid is a delicately-beautiful plant, with a flowering spike that can grow to 30 cms high and contain up to 25 individual greenish cream flowers. At night, the blooms are heavily scented, and are pollinated by hawk moths.

It is a remarkably tolerant plant. In some places, it lives in acidic bogs, yet you can also find it forests and grassland. What is certain is that the plant has disappeared from 75% of its former range, and that there are a variety of causes. Drainage and an excess of nutrients from agricultural run-off seem to damage the plant, and as grassland reverts to scrub, bracken and brambles overshadow it. Furthermore, the orchid has a close relationship with a symbiotic fungus, especially in its early years, and the fungus can be destroyed by fungicides or by too much nitrogen and phosphate. Like many orchids, the Lesser Butterfly Orchid grows and reproduces slowly, and simply can’t compete with many of the more vigorous plants. Finally, although the plant can survive some light grazing, it can’t cope with being heavily munched upon every year.

All of these factors will also affect other grassland plants, so helping the orchid to survive will also benefit many other specialist species.

So, what to do? The charity Plantlife joined forces with the Cornwall and Devon Wildlife Trusts, to cut back bracken and to survey sites for where the orchid was already present. To help any endangered organism, people have to first recognise it, and then appreciate it, and so a number of plant walks were held and an art event, where people were encouraged to paint and write about the plant. I loved this image by Alex Hyde.

Lesser Butterfly Orchid by Alex Hyde

Local landowners were also invited to collaborate on land management techniques to encourage the orchid, and it sounds as if many were happy to oblige.

Orchids always seem so exotic and otherworldly, but there are 52 wild orchid species in the UK. Whenever I go to Austria, I am amazed to see many species of orchid not only growing on grass verges and in fields but growing in profusion. Clearly they are doing something right, as there is an abundance of plant and invertebrate life that we have lost. Maybe one day we’ll be better able to look after our fields, not just for whatever is feeding on them or growing in them for our consumption, but for the whole of the community of plants and animals that surround us. Until then, these projects are helping to educate a whole new generation of landowners and members of the public about plants and animals that might not have noticed before. Knowing that something is there, and starting to understand it, is key to caring about it.

By © Hans Hillewaert

 

A Beautiful Day in Milborne St Andrew

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Dear Readers, today I went to Milborne St Andrew to tidy up Mum and Dad’s grave, and the weather was way more beautiful than I had any right to expect at the beginning of December. The mist was just clearing, and the view over the fields behind the graveyard was serene.

There’s a little crab apple tree behind the gravestone, and a cherry tree overhead, so there’s always something lovely to keep them company.

I’d brought a couple of winter hellebores and some cyclamen, but the rosemary and Achillea that I brought last time were still doing well, in spite of the flowering being finished. As usual, I tidied up a bit and then sat next to the grave for a while with my back against the tree. Fortunately I’d brought a ‘bag-for-life’ with me to sit on, as it was a bit on the damp side.

It is so peaceful. I am always sad when I’m here, but it’s tinged with gratitude that Mum and Dad are no longer in pain, and that they are in such a lovely spot. The church dates back to Norman times, so probably people have been being buried here for a thousand years or more, and there’s something about that long history that keeps me company and makes me aware of how universal my experience is.

As I sit, I hear the heavy drone of a bumblebee, who makes a ‘bee-line’ for the hellebore. Something else to be grateful for.

The blue tits and great tits are busy working the shrubs and trees for food, and the jackdaws clack away as they fly over.

The trees here have become as familiar as old friends. The Scots Pine looks particularly magnificent.

The avenue of yew trees frames the view of the fields.

 

And the beech trees are magnificent this year. I have never seen such colour.

But I can’t leave without saying hello to my favourite Cedar of Lebanon. It towers over the Rectory, which is a very impressive building, though no longer inhabited by the Rector who lives in a much more modest home.

And finally, here’s the stump of the lime tree that came down in the storms earlier this year, but which is clearly determined to survive and even thrive.

As I turn for home, I pass a blackbird looking for worms. Usually they fly off when I get too close, but this one just carried on regardless. I love the way that they just throw the leaves around.

I love Milborne St Andrew. It’s a working village rather than one that would feature on a calendar, or the top of a biscuit box, and it’s all the better for it. Mum and Dad had excellent medical care here, and good friends who would run out in the middle of the night if Mum fell out of bed, and who helped me sort out Mum and Dad’s bungalow when I needed to sell it to pay for Dad’s care. There are painful memories here, but they are outweighed by the happy ones. Coming here keeps me in touch with Mum and Dad and the place they loved. I always feel calmer when I leave, more integrated somehow. Mum and Dad were never ones for grave visiting, but it works for me.

Red List 2022 – Number Six – Woodcock

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Eurasian Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) Photo by Imran Shah from Islamabad, Pakistan

Dear Readers, I have never seen this little bird, and when you look at its extraordinary camouflage, you can see why – look at that combination of rusts and ochres, beiges and chocolates, against the dead grass. The woodcock has long been thought of as a magical bird – although some stay in the UK all year round, the population is bolstered in the winter by migrants from Scandinavia and Russia, and the first full moon in November is known as a ‘woodcock moon’. It used to be believed that woodcock flew to the moon during the time when they were not apparent, and that they generously carried other, smaller birds that couldn’t make the trip on their own on their backs – the goldcrest, the UK’s smallest bird, was considered to be the usual ‘passenger’. One vernacular name for the goldcrest is ‘the woodcock pilot’.

Woodcock in flight – Photo by Craig Nash at https://www.flickr.com/photos/peregrinebirdphoto/5290007239

In the spring, the male performs a display flight at dusk called ‘roding’, which is described as ‘bat-like’ – they call as they fly, and you can watch them here. The call always reminds me a bit of a frog. The females have been known to carry their young on their backs, or in their claws, when threatened. Alas, this secretive little bird has also been hunted, although (or perhaps because) it is extremely difficult to shoot, being small, fast and shy. There is some concern about the hunting of over-wintering birds in France and in the UK. When shot, the birds are cooked whole without being gutted. They sound like one of those delicacies that would take a lot of getting used to though they were apparently a favourite of Edwardian gentlemen. Fortunately these days if you see ‘Scotch Woodcock’ on a menu, you’re likely to get scrambled eggs on toast with anchovy paste, though as anchovies are also endangered it might not be that much of an improvement. The pin feathers of the woodcock were used for painting miniatures, removing the proverbial ‘mote in someone’s eye’, and drawing the gold stripe down the side of a Rolls Royce motorcar.

The woodcock is red-listed in the UK because of a severe decline in breeding range, of over 30%. The main cause seems to be our old favourite, fragmentation of habitat – the birds need large forests and these are increasingly rare, plus over-grazing by deer and over-management of forests makes the habitat less suitable for breeding. Studies in the New Forest have also shown that although the bird spends its days in the forest, at night it can travel for many miles to find the right sort of pasture so it can suck up a few worms. There is much more to be discovered about these cryptic birds, for sure.

Woodcock eating earthworm (Photo By Ronald Slabke – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5703078)

This is such a characterful bird – feisty, round, well-camouflaged and even Shakespearian (In Hamlet, Polonius describes his plot to put Ophelia in Hamlet’s way so that he can observe their conversation as a ‘springe (trap) to catch woodcocks’). Let’s hope that, with good forest management, their decline can be halted.

 

 

Wednesday Weed – Shepherd’s Purse Revisited

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Shepherd’s purse – photo by João Domingues Almeida athttps://flora-on.pt/?q=Capsella

Dear Readers, Shepherd’s Purse is one of the smallest, most inoffensive plants that you’re likely to see growing at the edge of a wall or next to a bollard. I first wrote about in 2014 when I was just starting to blog, and at the time it didn’t seem odd to me that this isn’t considered a native plant – as described below, it’s technically an archaeophyte, thought to have arrived in the UK before 1500. And yet, other small ‘weedy’ plants such as chickweed are accorded full native status. It’s all very puzzling, but greater botanical brains than mine have come to their own conclusions.

What is in no doubt is that Shepherd’s Purse is a very widespread ‘weed’ indeed. In Stace and Crawley’s ‘Alien Plants’, Shepherd’s Purse appears on the top 30 alien plants in London, suburban Bedfordshire and rural East Sutherland, one of only 5 plants to appear in all three lists (the others, in case you’re interested, are Buddleia, Sycamore, American Willowherb and Ground Elder). One reason is that it is an annual that will happily inbreed, giving rise to a whole range of microspecies (30 are listed in Druce’s Plant List of 1998, for example). This is important as the flowers of Shepherd’s Purse don’t attract a whole lot of pollinators, so sometimes the seeds for next year have been self-pollinated. No wonder the plant is so successful.

So, let’s see what I said about the plant eight whole years ago.

Shepherd's Purse

Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris)

Shepherd’s Purse is one of those straggly  white-flowered weeds that grow at the bottom of walls, or in amongst the roots of city trees. It gets its name from its seed-pods, which are shaped like the leather pouches carried in medieval times, hung by draw-strings from the belt. The name also gives a clue to the length of time that it has been in the UK, for this little plant is a long way from home. It originated in Eastern Europe and Asia minor, but has been with us for a long time – it is considered to be an archaeophyte in the UK, which means that it came here prior to 1492. Plants which came along after this date are known as neophytes.

Like many so-called ‘weeds’, Shepherd’s Purse is an annual, and flowers almost all year round, the seed scattering far and wide from those heart-shaped seed pouches.

Shepherd's Purse Seedhead

Shepherd’s Purse Seedhead

There can be several generations of Shepherd’s Purse in a year, and the seeds can also survive for a long time in the soil, making it an ideal plant for an urban environment. When conditions are right, it will proliferate. When times are hard, the seeds will wait for better times to arrive. Once you have noticed Shepherd’s Purse, you will see it everywhere, going about its modest business without any ostentation. Yet, it has been used in a variety of ways all over the world.

Shepherd's Purse (the long straggly plant with the white flowers)

Shepherd’s Purse (the long straggly plant with the white flowers)

Shepherd’s Purse is a member of the cabbage family, and in many parts of the world it is actively grown as a food plant. It is increasing in popularity in this country as a foraged addition to salads, and in Japan is part of a ceremonial barley and rice gruel that is eaten on January 7th (for more details, have a look here). Although in cities it rarely reaches more than a few inches high, in rich soil, or when cultivated, it can grow into a more substantial plant, up to two feet high, with bigger, juicier leaves.

Shepherd’s Purse has also been used medicinally – a tea made from the plant is described as a ‘sovereign remedy’ against haemorrhage, especially of the kidneys. In Germany, the plant has been approved for use against nose-bleeds, pre-menstrual syndrome, wounds and burns. During the First World War, the herb was used in Germany to stop bleeding after other, more conventional remedies became unavailable.

Finally, the seeds of the plant are much loved by small birds, and I have watched sparrows hopping along the wall at the end of my street, pecking up the little ‘purses’.

This inoffensive, useful little plant is all around us, and yet, we have no respect whatsoever for it. This is the scene that greeted me a few days ago when I wandered up to the High Street:

Dying Shepherd's Purse

Dying Shepherd’s Purse and other ‘weeds’

Someone had decided to spray all the little weeds growing at the foot of the wall beside Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m not sure whether it’s the council, or the staff from KFC. I suspect the former – Barnet Council ‘gardeners’ have a zero-tolerance policy towards anything that isn’t a rose bush or a petunia. All these micro-habitats gone. All those seeds poisoned. I just hope that the sparrows have the sense not to eat them.

My one consolation is that I doubt it will be long before the Shepherd’s Purse is back. There will be seeds in the soil, just waiting for the toxins to die down. In the battle between man and plant, my money is always on the plant.

 

 

 

The London Tree Map

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Dear Readers, I hope that you’ll forgive a very London-centric post today, but I’ve been playing a bit with the London Street Tree online map, and I thought I’d share it with you so you can play too. You can find it at

https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-and-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/parks-green-spaces-and-biodiversity/trees-and-woodlands/london-tree-map

And this should take you to the screen above. Now you probably need to zoom in a bit to avoid all the trees just being blobs.

You can enter your postcode in the search box at the top left-hand corner, or you can zoom in yourself…

And once you’re in, hovering over a tree will tell you what it is  – as you can see, the tree on Huntingdon Road below is a Rowan, looked after by Barnet council

What, though, if you’re trying to find a particular species of tree, as I was earlier this week?

First, click on the ‘Hide’ button to get rid of all the trees.

 

Then, click on the tree that you’re interested in. You might remember a while back that I discovered that one of the ‘County Roads’ here in East Finchley was unlike the others, because it had lots of lime trees. And here is the proof, in case I needed any….

So, you can use the map to identify trees, or to find a particular kind of tree. There are a few drawbacks – a lot of the more recently planted trees are classified as ‘other’, which doesn’t give one a whole lot to go by. On the other hand, there is a Google View photo of each tree, at least in theory, so we probably shouldn’t quibble too much.

Anyway, I foresee hours of innocent fun exploring my local street trees with this, and I find myself wondering if other councils have done the same? Let me know readers! A street tree map of the UK, or indeed of every city in the world, would be a very fine thing.

 

 

My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican

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Dear Readers, we were very, very lucky to get tickets for this play, which apparently sold out even faster than Benedict Cumberbatch’s ‘Hamlet’ which was at the Barbican a few years ago. And what a delight it was! The audience was full of children of all ages, most of them under 12 but a good few of them in their 60s (ahem).

I had always loved the Studio Ghibli film of the story. It tells of a father and his two daughters, one about four years old and one about eight, who move to the country to be closer to their mother, who is in hospital, suffering from an unspecified disease. I love that, at the end of the story, it’s no clearer if there’s going to be a happy ending, and the play also avoids any Disney-fied tying-up of all the loose ends. There are big themes in the story – not only sickness and loss, but the anxiety of moving house, the fear of change, the difference between urban and rural living (the family were previously living in a flat in Tokyo). I love that the whole story of Totoro doesn’t pretend that these things happen, but shows how they can be dealt with. I imagine that there could be quite a lot of conversations between adults and children on the way home from the play.

When the family move into their new house, they realise that they are sharing it, and the forests around it, with a variety of sprites and forest guardians, including the eponymous Totoro. I was looking forward to seeing how these creatures were brought to life, and wasn’t disappointed. Suffice it to say that the puppeteers who ‘wrangle’ the creatures must be extremely fit. There are various versions of Totoro, one of which practically takes up the whole of the stage. There is also a magic bus in the form of a cat that puts in several appearances.

‘Magical’ is a very overused word, but that’s exactly what it was. There is one part, where the forest creatures work together to make the seeds that the girls have planted grow, that had me wiping away surreptitious tear, old softie that I am.

Totoro and the girls from the Studio Ghibli film

I had forgotten, too, that the film has a strong eco message, probably because it’s so interwoven into the story that it doesn’t feel like preaching. A grandmother explains that the forest guardians used to be visible to everyone, but that these days they’re afraid of humans and hide away. The teacher at the local school tells the oldest daughter that there used to be bears and wolves in the forest, but not anymore.

Although there are themes of sickness and loss threaded throughout the story, it is also extremely funny in places – the youngest girl, Mei, has all the fearlessness of the very young, and although she gets into scrapes, her friendship with the forest guardians and with the local people always see her through. Her older sister is indomitable. The father is an academic, kind but a bit witless when it comes to things like discipline or getting the breakfast done. There is a boy who finds it hard to speak to girls, but who eventually comes to the rescue. It’s a story about human beings as well as one about huge furry creatures.

The cast are excellent, the music is wonderful (it was composed by Joe Hisaishi, who wrote the score for the animated film), and although there’s a lot of ‘action’, there are also peaceful moments, when we have time to gather our breath.

You can tell a lot about how good a play was by the buzz when people leave the auditorium – on Saturday, the place was uproarious, and complete strangers were talking to one another in the queue for the ladies toilet, which is always a good sign. I hope that ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ gets another run, or tours, or that it’s filmed for the cinema so that lots more people can see it. Do take the chance if you’re able.

Thoughts on Mum’s Birthday

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Mum at the Royal Oak pub in 2012

Dear Readers, Mum would have been 87 years old this Saturday, 26th November. It’s strange how even when I’m not consciously remembering, there’s a sad heaviness about this time of year. Sometimes I wonder why I’m feeling so bereft only to glance at the calendar and realise what’s coming. The shortening of the days, the turning of the leaves all remind me that a few years ago Mum and Dad went into a nursing home, and that a few months later Mum died.

The pang is not so sharp, now, but I still miss her, especially as we head into Christmas, her favourite time of the year. When people at work talk about the family getting together, playing games, I remember how Mum was always up for charades, and what a good actress she was. She had a party piece in which she imitated me sorting out my contact lenses which was so accurate that it had us crying with laughter. Give Mum a glass of wine and she was unleashed. I was always sorry that she didn’t find an Amateur Dramatics society, she would have stolen the show every time.

I want to tell people to appreciate their loved ones, to relish these moments because things change. On the other hand, I don’t want to be the party pooper. Would I have really listened if someone had said that to me before Mum and Dad were gone? I think I might have just brushed it aside as being too morbid for the season. And so I keep my mouth shut except with those I know the best. I think the message is valid, regardless. The good memories are worth making, and sometimes the arguments that flare when people are stuck together with too much rich food and too much to drink are not worth having.

I am sending love out to everyone who finds this season painful. There will be people reading this who have lost someone close to them this year, and for whom this will be the first Christmas without their loved one. Be gentle with yourself. Do what you need to do. Don’t strive for perfection, there’s no such thing under the sun. Follow the old family traditions where they bring comfort, but be prepared to ditch them if they no longer make sense, or are too painful. Grief is a process that never truly ends, and there is no right way to feel or not to feel, and don’t let anybody tell you anything different.

And finally, I rediscovered this piece from 2019. I think it captures some of how Mum was, and what her legacy was, to me and to everyone who knew her. I hope you enjoy it.

Dear Readers, 26th November would have been my Mum’s 84th birthday, had she not died in December last year. These firsts are hard, as people who have trodden this path before warned me: on Tuesday I went into work, did fancy things with spreadsheets, cried in the toilets intermittently and went home. And then, when I started to prepare the cabbage for dinner, I heard her voice in my head.

‘Look!’ it said.

And so I did. If Mum had still been alive, she would have called to me from the kitchen, and wouldn’t have given up until I came to see what was interesting. I can remember her in the days when she could still walk, hunched over with scoliosis and poised over a chopping board.

Maybe she’d found a carrot shaped like a pair of crossed legs, or something ruder.

Maybe she was entranced by the glistening magenta seeds inside a pomegranate.

Maybe there was a five-pointed star in the middle of a potato.

Or maybe it was the way that water drops form pure, translucent pearls amongst the indentations and veins of a Savoy cabbage.

She would have gestured at the vegetable with her (always blunt) knife.

‘Can you see it?’ she’d ask.

‘Can I see what?’ I’d say, with a greater or lesser degree of exasperation.

She’d smile enigmatically and wait for me to get it.

And then, like one of those optical-illusion puzzles that change suddenly, I’d see what she saw.

‘There’s a tormented demon in your cabbage’, I’d say, and she’d laugh. She saw characters everywhere – in wallpaper, in the grain of wood, in clouds, in the upturned faces of the pansies in the garden. She would have loved the fuse box that I spotted at Walthamstow Wetlands the other week.

For Mum, the world was full of people that went unnoticed, both in terms of images, and in terms of real folk who are often passed by. It was not unusual for me to meet her somewhere, only to find her sharing a cigarette with a homeless person that she’d made friends with outside the tube station, or ‘chatting’ with a lost tourist who spoke not a word of English. She reached beyond speech to find the common language that we all share:  a need for connection, empathy, and beauty. She would compliment a complete stranger if she liked their dress, and once told a very well-dressed young man that the newspaper he was carrying had left a big print smudge on his face.

‘I could tell that he was going to an interview because he looked very nervous and kept checking his A to Z’, she said, ‘and he was very grateful when I told him. And I was right, he was going to an interview!’

Once, in Finsbury Square, Mum noticed a pigeon with its feet wrapped in string much like the one at Waterloo Station above. She had a pair of scissors in her bag, and, with some trepidation, approached a besuited chap at the next bench.

‘Excuse me’, she said, ‘but if you could just get hold of that poor pigeon, I’m sure I could cut it free’.

The guy looked at her with complete incredulity.

‘Madam’, he said, ‘you must be completely mad’.

And so the pigeon remained entangled, and Mum went back to work, sad and exasperated.

‘All he had to do was grab it!’ she told me that evening.

I should add that Mum also brought home many of the house plants from work that the company who looked after them deemed too tatty to grace the office. She would nurse them back to health with great satisfaction.

‘All they needed was a bit of TLC’, she’d say. People, animals and plants flourished under her kind attention, and she taught me that no living thing should ever be treated without respect, or written off. Her passion for the underdog was the thing that I loved most about her, and it was that that propelled me into so many of my own choices in life. She believed that that a community is only strong when there is room for everyone, and so do I.

But truly, Mum saw beauty everywhere. She loved the night sky, and I remember us standing at the back of the bungalow one night, not long before she died. It is very dark in the village, and we stood there, holding hands and looking up. Suddenly, there was a shooting star.

‘Quick, Mum, make a wish!’ I said, and she closed her eyes, and so did I. I wished for her to have better health, and to find peace, and one of those wishes was granted, though not in the way I wanted.

And so, I go on, as we do. But I often find myself trying to get complete strangers to pay attention to what’s around them. I point out a red moon, a flock of waxwings, a pied wagtail trying to find food outside Kentucky Fried Chicken, a robin singing at first light, and when I do I know it’s Mum speaking through me, still.

‘Look’.

Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus)

 

 

Next to Nature – A Lifetime in the English Countryside by Ronald Blythe

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Dear Readers, I have been very much enjoying this book by Ronald Blythe, who is 100 years old this year. His most famous book, Akenfield, told the story of the village of Debach and the town of Charlsfield, 10 miles from Ipswich. The conversations with the people who lived in both places were real, but the details of the characters were slightly fictionalised. The book was loved so much that it was turned into a film by Peter Hall.

This latest book is a collection of pieces collected from Blythe’s columns for the Church Times. They are arranged by month, with each month being introduced by what feels like a pantheon of other nature writers, Richard Mabey, Olivia Laing and Mark Cocker amongst them. I am finding it the perfect bedtime reading – gentle enough not to cause nightmares, closely observed, often wry, and never sentimental. Although some of the Biblical references pass me by (Blythe is a Christian and has been a lay-reader for many years), they bother me not a jot, and indeed pique my curiosity, as I suspect that there’s a whole other layer of meaning here that I’m missing.

I spotted the book in Waterstones in Islington, and picked it up out of curiosity. By the time I’d read this passage I knew I had to bring it home. Blythe describes the May Bank Holiday downpour, and then wanders into the larder.

“Whether the bees and hornets in the larder were taking shelter it was hard to say, but a furious murmur met me when I entered it in search of marmalade. It is a long brick-floored room in which the tall fridge-freezer is in constant battle with the iciness of the larder itself. It was as I thought, a poor fat bee was glassily imprisoned on the washed jam jars shelf, and I set it free by means of the classic postcard and glass method. When I returned the buzzing was still there, only now there was a great choir of it coming from all directions, a kind of orchestrated sibilance in which rage was being expressed symphonically. Thus, sic times did I set both bees and hornets free, carrying them one by one into the garden, displaying immense courage. Meanwhile Henry our vicar was innocently laying a hand on an unseen hornet in the church, with dreadful result. Mercifully all he suffered was agony. Hornets provide a kind of first strike in the Pentateuch when God sends them before the Israeli forces to scare the enemy. They dwell peacefully in my vine, sunning themselves in the garden-lamp. No one knows a time when they were not there. But how could they not fly from a lidless jam-jar? Why did they come so near to death in their glass gaol when the door was wide open?” (Page 183)

There have been some fine pieces written on Blythe and his centenary, such as this one in The Guardian  by Patrick Barkham (a very fine nature-writer himself). It made me sad to read that Blythe has now been diagnosed with dementia, and yet I hope that his still living in the place that has been his home, surrounded by friends who support him, and the nature that has provided his inspiration will soften his situation. I read this piece, on ‘The Death of Miss Helen Booth’, and thought of Blythe, his acceptance and his generosity. One of his heroes is John Clare, the poet of the countryside from an earlier century, I think of Blythe as carrying on his tradition.

“I am walking to Helen’s funeral. The afternoon air is moist and still. Birds sing loudly. Where the lane twists the hedge grows invisible under a mat of wild rose and traveller’s joy. Fine stands of agrimony and mallow rear on its banks. Cars whisper by. Helen’s cars, beginning with a Bullnose Morris and continuing with various Estates, make ghostly journeys. She ceased counting after the very public centenary and withdrew to her slip of a bedroom, and was comfortable enough. Her mind revisited where she had been, who she had been. We visited her, being careful not to harp on about her age, for the worst thing about being over a hundred is being told how wonderful it is. It is not wonderful at all – just the persisting heartbeat and life not knowing when to stop. Just another day announcing itself through the thin curtain and jumping into one’s consciousness like a jack-in-the-box.” (Page  208)

This is a wonderful book, full of things to ponder and descriptions to marvel at. It’s available at our old friends the Natural History Bookshop, and in all the other usual places.

 

Good News from Dartmoor

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Blue Ground Beetle (Carabus intricatus) (Photo by Bernard Dupont at https://www.flickr.com/photos/berniedup/13537624634)

Dear Readers, the world is so full of gloom and doom these days that on Friday I plan to post something a little more optimistic. One thing that really cheers me up is the number of people involved in small scale projects, be it monitoring the wildlife on a local ‘patch’, making their gardens more friendly for wildlife, or working to preserve or renovate habitats that have become damaged or overgrown.

The Blue Ground Beetle (Carabus intricatus) is Britain’s largest ground beetle (up to 38 mm long), and very splendid it is too. There are other, smaller, commoner ground beetles which have a more violet sheen to their elytra (wing cases), but as its name suggests, this species is very definitely blue. It is largely nocturnal and makes its home in damp deciduous ancient woodlands, where it lives by eating slugs – it grabs them with its fearsome jaws and injects them with digestive juices, before sucking out their insides.

It was previously known from only 13 sites in Cornwall, Devon and South Wales, and is most often spotted at night as it runs up and down a mossy tree trunk, looking for prey. But staff at Buglife (the invertebrate conservation charity), local naturalists and local volunteers have been searching possible sites for the beetle at night, quite often in the rain, and have found them at two new sites on Dartmoor.

While this might not sound very exciting, it means that the beetle is more widespread than was thought. Plus, once a site is known, it can be protected. Knowledge is so important, and invertebrates are a very understudied group, plus the taxonomic knowledge to identify species is becoming rarer and rarer – you could argue that taxonomists themselves are becoming an endangered species. But if we don’t know what is living at a site, it becomes very difficult to advocate for it, and we will have no idea about the distribution or rarity of particular species. This is an argument for better natural history education, for citizen science, and for funding, particularly of small, specialist charities like Buglife and the Bumblebee Conservation Society who are both doing such useful work on such tight budgets. I look forward to the launch of the new Natural History GCSE course that’s being launched in 2025 – hopefully, it will inspire a whole new generation of naturalists, ecologists and taxonomists.