Dear Readers, I knew that the UK was one of the most  nature-depleted countries in Europe, but I was somewhat surprised by a recent study, widely reported in the  press, which suggested that we were also towards the bottom of the nature-connectedness league too, way behind Nigeria, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and only slightly ahead of Canada, the Netherlands and Germany.

What the hecky-decky is going on? I asked myself. This seems like some kind of social science mash-up with no rhyme or reason. So I had to have a look for myself.

First up, what is nature-connectedness? There are various definitions, including a sense of oneness with nature, or the overlap between self and nature. It would certainly be true that lots of people no longer regard themselves as part of nature, but as something altogether different. This is clearly a dangerous perspective – as extreme weather events occur in larger swathes of the world, and with more frequency, it should act as a reminder that good old Mother Nature is more than capable of sweeping us away if the mood takes her, plus it wasn’t so long ago that all of our lives were upended by a tiny virus. Nature-connectedness seems to enhance how we feel, and also how we act, so for me it’s a good thing – you’re never alone with a plant, or an insect, and caring about the little things close to home can help build care for the wider world.

So far, so good. But how did the authors of the report come up with this league table of countries? Interestingly, I can’t see it in the actual paper (you can read it for free here) and it seems to have been concocted by the Guardian from one of the tables. However, the method involved taking both objective criteria for each country, such as the degree of urbanisation and the business culture, and subjective criteria, such as social behaviours and attitudes.

The objective criteria that seemed to make the most difference were the percentage of older adults (but does that suggest that younger adults have a better relationship with nature? I hope so, but I’m scratching my head a bit), the percentage of the population on the internet, and a ‘business-friendly environment’ (i.e. where regulation favoured business rather than the environment). Where a country scored high on these criteria, it was felt to show less ‘nature-connectedness’.

The subjective criteria that seemed to indicate nature-connectedness included spirituality and a belief in religion over science.

And at this point, I lost all faith in the whole thing. There are many kinds of spirituality, some of which can lead to the idea of ‘dominion’ over the natural world, and some of which can lead to wanting to protect it. Scientists are both at the forefront of climate science and biodiversity research, and are also working for fossil fuel companies. What the countries that lead the table share is that they are all developing countries, while the ones at the bottom are all industrialised. I suspect that the degree of urbanisation, ageing population and ‘business-friendly’ environments of these countries are what has put them at the bottom of the table, rather than the actual attitudes of the people who live there. The UK has the largest membership of environmental organisations of any country in Europe, which must stand for something.

I feel as if this paper is a great effort at wrestling the beast of the data of 61 countries to the ground, but I find it difficult to understand in its current state. What it might be is a great starting point for future, more focussed research.

Male White-Knuckled Wolf Spider (Aulonia albimana) Photo by By Ludivine Lamare – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/377920543, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177591874

Dear Readers, I do love a happy story, what with all the misery that’s about at the moment, and so I’m pleased to report the rediscovery of this little spider on the Isle of Wight. Last seen in 1985, and thought to be extinct, the White-knuckled Wolf Spider was so named because of those white patches on the pedipalps (the ‘boxing gloves’ at the front of the head). However, the re-discovery was also something of a white-knuckled ride – it was found in the very last minutes of a time-limited boat trip to an otherwise inaccessible part of a nature reserve. Any of us who have run to a ferry station just as the gangplank is about to be pulled up can relate, I’m sure. But here we are, and this little chap(pess) is being described as ‘one of the lost species rediscoveries of the century’ by the British Arachnological Society.

The Newtown reserve, where the spider was found, is being restored by the National Trust – over time it had become overgrown with heather, but the Trust had imported some Hebridean sheep, who restore the short-cropped, open, sunlit spots that the spider likes. And it seems to have worked. And what very fine animals these are, though I wouldn’t want  to mess with them if they were in a bad mood.

Hebridean rams (Photo By TMallinson – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125301377)

We don’t know much about the White-knuckled Wolf Spider’s life: most wolf spiders are agile hunters of other invertebrates, but this species also spins a web. But it’s great to know that it’s still around, and that the measures undertaken by the National Trust are having an effect. The entomologists (or should that be arachnologists?) who found it, Mark Telfer and Graeme Lyons, were delighted – Graeme Lyons said that he’d seen 559 species of spider in the British Isles, and this was his most exciting find. So it just goes to show that there are probably more species out there than we know, and that a little attention and knowledge can reveal the most fascinating things.

Female White-knuckled Spider (Photo  By Emanuele Santarelli – https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/129316865, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=177591975)

Dear Readers, the main article in my RHS magazine this month is about botanical tattoos. What a journey tattoos have had! They are an important part of many cultures (the Maori people spring immediately to mind,) and there are many other places where tattoos are markers of status, or personal history. Plant dyes have been the main way of creating the tattoos, with everything from the sap of the bloodwood tree to pigments derived from black nightshade being used. But when I was growing up, the only people you’d see with tattoos were sailors, dodgy characters of different kinds (one of the guys in the night shelter that I worked in had ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattooed on each knuckle) or people from alternative cultures, especially Goths who had a great love for black rose tattoos. It was certainly a way of announcing your individuality, but you had to brave.

Nowadays, there’s nothing unusual about having a tattoo, though people will still sometimes be surprised by them. The people in the RHS article had tattoos for a variety of reasons. One person had chosen the birth flowers for herself and her sister. Some had chosen the favourite flowers of family or friends who had died. Some were embracing the spirituality of plants, especially their resilience. Some chose flowers that reflected where they were from – I loved that one woman had chosen a tattoo of ‘apples and pears, and oranges and lemons,’ to reflect cockney rhyming slang and her family history as an East Londoner. And some just chose designs because they were beautiful.

So it got me thinking about what I would have as a tattoo. After my mother died, my brother had a Buddhist mantra tattooed on his arm (he’s Buddhist), and I think that the pain of the process, coupled with his loss, was a way of healing. I might have had a freesia, as my mother’s favourite flower. If it was just about me, I would definitely have a jumping spider, and to my astonishment it appears that I would be in good company.

But I suppose the problem is choosing something that you know is going to be a constant throughout the rest of your life. I see people who have tattooed the name of their partner, only to get divorced, or who impetuously tattoo something that means a lot to them in their youth, only to ‘go off it’ as they get older.

I do remember an unfortunate Masterchef candidate who had had Gregg Wallace tattooed on his arm. I imagine he’s trying to work out how to turn the face into Marcus Wareing.

Also, I imagine that tattoos change shape as you get older and more wrinkly/saggy. But then, if it’s something that represents what you care about, I’m sure it doesn’t matter. But I am curious. Who has tattoos? Are you planning to get more? Do you love them, or is there anything that you regret? Any advice?

Dear Readers, every so often I read something that shows me a whole world that I didn’t know  about, and so it was in an article in this month’s British Birds magazine. The author, Sula Brookes, explains that many common bird species do not have a specific sign in British Sign Language, the language used by many deaf people. Brookes, who is a trained BSL interpreter, realised that this made it much more difficult for people who go on nature walks, or who want to communicate what they’ve seen – so often, the only way to explain is to laboriously spell out the name of the species letter by letter. And so, working with the British Birds Charitable Trust(BBCT), and the Scottish Sensory Centre (SSC), Brookes set out to see if signs for some of our commonest species couldn’t be agreed. She feels that it’s more difficult for deaf children and adults to communicate about nature if there isn’t a way of explaining what they’ve seen, and that this is key to an appreciation of the natural world.

There are signs and descriptions for some birds: the Robin, for example, is ‘the Christmas Bird’, the Snowy Owl usually involves a reference to Harry Potter, and the Magpie is the bird of Newcastle United. There are generic signs for ‘owls’ (‘big eyes’), eagles (‘hooked beak’) and duck (‘flat beaks’) but a dedicated birder is going to want to know if we’re ‘talking’ about a mallard or a tufted duck. And so, Brookes documented the signs that already existed, but, as a hearing person who had BSL as a second language, she turned the design of the signs over to the SSC BSL glossary team, who will work collaboratively to come up with ideas for the new signs – there will be 20 new signs on the SSC website shortly.

The new vocabulary will need to represent the birds visually, so that they’re easy to remember and learn – Brookes describes how the sign for flamingo includes a representation of a bird standing on one leg, and that for the peacock involves a tail fanning out. It will be interesting to see what birds have been chosen, and how BSL reflects their individuality. But already, Brookes has found that the people that she interviewed are excited at the prospect of being able to describe what they see easily, and becoming part of a wider community of bird watchers and nature-lovers.

And here are some of the existing signs for birds. I love the ingenuity and creativity involved in capturing the essence of the creature in a few gestures. I can’t wait to see the new ones! And having once been chased by an ostrich ( I was in a jeep I should add), I find the sign for that creature particularly apt.

All Hallows Eve (PhotoBy Daniel Colquitt – Imported from 500px (archived version) by the Archive Team. (detail page), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71284960)

Dear Readers, once upon a time Samhain/All Hallows Eve was about rather more than pumpkins and spooky silliness. It was seen as the time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thin enough for spirits to cross over into our world. On farms, animals were driven into barns between fires, to protect them from the evil eye. It was the time when our beloved dead were closest to us, and there was a tradition of setting a place at table for them. It occurs to me that, these days, I would need a rather bigger table than the one that I have to make room for all those who have passed in the last few years.

But here are two poems that I like. First up is ‘The Witch’ by Elizabeth Willis. It’s worth reading slowly, to allow each image to sink in before you move on to the next.

The Witch

By Elizabeth Willis

A witch can charm milk from an ax handle.

A witch bewitches a man’s shoe.

A witch sleeps naked.

“Witch ointment” on the back will allow you to fly through the air.

A witch carries the four of clubs in her sleeve.

A witch may be sickened at the scent of roasting meat.

A witch will neither sink nor swim.

When crushed, a witch’s bones will make a fine glue.

A witch will pretend not to be looking at her own image in a window.

A witch will gaze wistfully at the glitter of a clear night.

A witch may take the form of a cat in order to sneak into a good man’s
chamber.

A witch’s breasts will be pointed rather than round, as discovered in
the trials of the 1950s.

A powerful witch may cause a storm at sea.

With a glance, she will make rancid the fresh butter of her righteous
neighbor.

Even our fastest dogs cannot catch a witch-hare.

A witch has been known to cry out while her husband places inside her
the image of a child.

A witch may be burned for tying knots in a marriage bed.

A witch may produce no child for years at a time.

A witch may speak a foreign language to no one in particular.

She may appear to frown when she believes she is smiling.

If her husband dies unexpectedly, she may refuse to marry his brother.

A witch has been known to weep at the sight of her own child.

She may appear to be acting in a silent film whose placards are
missing

In Hollywood the sky is made of tin.

A witch makes her world of air, then fire, then the planets. Of
cardboard, then ink, then a compass.

A witch desires to walk rather than be carried or pushed in a cart.

When walking a witch will turn suddenly and pretend to look at
something very small.

The happiness of an entire house maybe ruined by witch hair
touching a metal cross.

The devil does not speak to a witch. He only moves his tongue.

An executioner may find the body of a witch insensitive to an iron spike.

An unrepentant witch may be converted with a little lead in the eye.

Enchanting witchpowder may be hidden in a girl’s hair.

When a witch is hungry, she can make a soup by stirring water with
her hand.

I have heard of a poor woman changing herself into a pigeon.

At times a witch will seem to struggle against an unknown force
stronger than herself.

She will know things she has not seen with her eyes. She will have
opinions about distant cities.

A witch may cry out sharply at the sight of a known criminal dying of
thirst.

She finds it difficult to overcome the sadness of the last war.

A nightmare is witchwork.

The witch elm is sometimes referred to as “all heart.” As in, “she was
thrown into a common chest of witch elm.”

When a witch desires something that is not hers, she will slip it into her glove.

An overwhelming power compels her to take something from a rich
man’s shelf.

I have personally known a nervous young woman who often walked in
her sleep.

Isn’t there something witchlike about a sleepwalker who wanders
through the house with matches?

The skin of a real witch makes a delicate binding for a book of common prayer.

When all the witches in your town have been set on fire, their smoke
will fill your mouth. It will teach you new words. It will tell you what
you’ve done.

And this one, by Louise Glück, is deeply mysterious. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’m sure it’s not good. See what you think….

All Hallows

By Louise Glück

Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

Dear Readers, I think of starlings as being fairly opportunistic birds, but when a whole flock of them zoomed past my office window yesterday, I was surprised to see them feeding on the seeds on the cabbage palm next door. I have written about this plant and its attraction to pollinators before, but I have never seen birds feeding on it. However, in a way I’m not surprised – I’ve had goldfinches and sparrows feeding on my Buddleia, so it’s clear that birds are learning to take advantage of a whole range of non-native plants. Funnily enough, I’ve never seen birds feeding on my teasel, which are meant to be the crème de la crème of bird food, but then again, birds, like people, are individuals, with their own preferences and culture.

A little digging about on the interwebs turned up this Youtube video, of starlings feeding in a cabbage palm, presumably in Kensington Gardens, so it seems that plenty of other starlings have realised that this is tasty food.

It’s a short post today, as I’m shortly heading off for my big adventure. At the moment I’m not sure what I’m going to do about blogging while I’m away: there will be a lot of travelling around, and I’m not planning to take my laptop. There might be a chance to post a few photos and notes on what’s going on, but that will depend on wifi availability. So, I might just post some of my greatest hits, or I might put up the equivalent of a ‘gone fishing’ sign. Watch this space!

Witches Brooms on Hornbeam

Dear Readers, as Halloween approaches, it seems like just the right moment to talk about something that often goes unnoticed, or is mistaken for the work of a particularly industrious squirrel – witches’ brooms. The tree in the photo is a hornbeam, but unlike the trees around it, it’s covered in dozens of masses of tangled short twigs – the Royal Horticultural Society describes them as ‘disorganised’, which is putting it mildly. The lateral buds of the tree, which make the side stems, suddenly go berserk, creating this ‘birds nest’.

Although they look impressive, witches brooms are thought not to harm the tree – although the leaves in the ‘brooms’ are often misshapen, and so don’t photosynthesise very well, there will be other areas of the tree that are perfectly normal. But what causes them in the first place? One culprit, particularly in birch trees, is the fungus Taphrina betulina, and in Hornbeams it’s a close relative, Taphrina carpini. Technically, witches’ brooms are galls – the plant itself produces the twigs as a result of the fungal infection, and the fungus probably benefits as its spores are spread by the wind, so being higher up probably provides an advantage.

However, fungi are not the only reason that trees and other plants might develop this particular growth pattern: viruses, other pathogens and even genetic mutations can also cause this particular kind of chaotic growth. In fact, in some spruce trees the genetic mutation is stable, allowing the development of cultivars with a particular growth pattern. One such is the Little Gem cultivar of the Norway Spruce, which grows low to the ground and is often seen in rock gardens.

Norway spruce (Picea abies var Little Gem) Photo By Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118095457

Now that I’ve seen these witches’ brooms, I’m sure I’ll be noticing them everywhere – it’s unusual to see a tree with such an impressive crop, but there are lots of trees with just one or two, which are very easily missed. I’m always intrigued by the way that a pathogen can ‘persuade’ a plant to provide a shelter, or a way of reproducing, by hijacking the plant’s own biology. Now, that is really quite a trick.

Oak Tree in Cherry Tree Wood

Dear Readers, I have already mentioned that this year is a mast year for acorns, but you couldn’t really miss it if you’ve been out in the woods of North London in the past few weeks. We are positively crunching through the acorns, and it has not gone unnoticed by the animals that feed on them. Certainly the grey squirrels are in for a nice feed during the winter, but you might have also seen one of our most spectacular birds, the Eurasian Jay.

Eurasian jay in the garden

These birds have a very distinctive, bounding flight, and the white flash above their tails also gives them away as they disappear through the trees. They are also not the most musical of birds (ahem) as you can tell from this recording by Arjun Dutta. I bet most people in the UK have heard this, but it’s sometimes hard to work out what the hell is making all the racket. It’s no surprise that in Wales the bird is known as ‘the shrieker of the woods’.

Overall, the abundance of food this year is likely to mean that more jay fledglings survive the coming winter, with a knock-on effect on the creatures that jays eat – they are omnivorous but have a particular taste for the invertebrates that live on oak trees and feed on acorns, which will also be superabundant next year. These invertebrates will feed not just jays, but lots of other woodland birds as well. Jays sometimes rob nests and kill young birds – I well remember one hammering its beak into a fledgling starling on the shed roof opposite a few years ago – but come next winter there are likely to be far fewer acorns about, and so the numbers of jays will probably fall again. The relationship between the different levels of the food pyramid is constantly changing and rebalancing.

A most excellent photo of a jay making off with a peanut.

Whenever I’ve put out peanuts, I’ve had visits from jays, but they don’t seem interested in anything else. How do they know that I’ve put the peanuts out? Are they watching, like something from Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds?’ I think we underestimate the patience of birds, and their ability to discern what we’re up to with the most minimal of cues. Fortunately, this year the jays will be fine without any intervention from me, so I can make sure that the little birds have a bit of extra sustenance without having to buy peanuts as well, which no one else seems interested in.

Seeing all the acorns on the ground in our local North London woodlands also reminds me of a magical visit to the New Forest many years ago. We were sitting outside our tent when we suddenly heard a grunting, squealing noise.  A spotted sow and no less than twelve tiny piglets scurried through the camp, poking their noses through the leaf litter and munching on the acorns. The owners of the pig were exercising their right of pannage, which goes back to the Middle Ages and allows ‘commoners’ to turn out their animals to feed in the forest. As we watched, the owner wandered over, whistled to the mother pig, and the whole family started to follow him – the pigs and piglets go back to their sties overnight, to keep warm and to avoid being run over by one of the more careless drivers who race through the roads of the New Forest. Pigs seem to be immune to the effects of eating too many acorns – green acorns have a very high tannin content, and ponies are sometimes poisoned following a storm which blows down the unripe acorns. How wonderful to see pigs roaming free and doing their part to keep the forest fertile and biodiverse – their rooting around loosens up the soil, and their dung fertilises it. Plus, we should probably remember that ‘the gardener’s friend’, the robin, was likely to have been following wild boar around long before we came on the scene on our forks and spades.

Pigs in the New Forest (Photo By Pete Birkinshaw – https://www.flickr.com/photos/binaryape/2945238172/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134923907)

Hedwigia ciliata var leucophaea Growing on a church roof in Monmouthshire (Photo by Mark White from https://www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/learning/species-finder/hedwigia-ciliata/)

Dear Readers, in this month’s copy of British Wildlife there’s a wonderful tale of creativity and sustainability which brought a smile to my face, and I hope it will do the same for you. The sandstone roof tiles of churches in the Welsh Marches are home to some of the UK’s rarest mosses, and in particular St James church in Llangua has the UK’s largest population of the Nationally Rare Fringed Hoar-moss (Hedwigia ciliata var leucophaea), along with the Nationally Scarce Hoary Grimmia (Grimmia laevigata) and Flat-Rock Grimmia (Grimmia ovalis).

Hedwigia ciliata var. leucophaea (Photo by Clare Halpin from https://www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/learning/species-finder/hedwigia-ciliata/)

Grimmia laevigata (Photo by Sharon Pilkington from https://www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/learning/species-finder/grimmia-laevigata/)

Grimmia ovalis (Photo by Sharon Pilkington at https://www.britishbryologicalsociety.org.uk/learning/species-finder/grimmia-ovalis/)

The church was purchased by Friends of Friendless Churches, who restore closed historic places of worship in England and Wales. I imagine they were delighted to learn that their conservation work was going to be impacted by a bunch of mosses, but to their eternal credit they worked together with local ecologists, Monmouthshire County Council, the conservation architect Andrew Faulkner, and the conservation builders Jones and Fraser to preserve the mosses.

The church needed to be re-roofed, and during this period it would be covered with a large tent. The rare mosses need direct sunlight, and in its absence all sorts of other plants would grow up in the damp, dark atmosphere, and the mosses would be overwhelmed. After a bit of head-scratching, it was decided to build a wooden frame for 200 of the moss-covered tiles, which would be positioned at the same slope and aspect as the original roof.

The mosses thrived in their new ‘home’ – they are drought-resistant so they were basically allowed to just get on with their lives. Then, when the roof was ready to be retiled, mossy tiles were positioned at various places. As the mosses reproduce vegetatively, in a few years the whole roof should be mossy again.

The whole story of the restoration of St James, Llangua, can be found here, (and do look at the Repair Scrapbook) and it was a truly fascinating story of conservation, both of a building and of its ecosystem. Our churches and graveyards are often havens for the natural world, and places of great peace. It’s wonderful to see them being restored and looked after in such a considered way.