Dear Readers, usually it’s the starlings who are the juvenile delinquents on our road here in East Finchley, but this year has been a great year for house sparrows, and goodness knows they could do with some luck, as their numbers have been going down and down over the past fifty years, for reasons that are still not clear.  Anyhow, I was delighted to see them zipping about in both the front and back gardens. Has anyone else noticed how fast they are for such small birds? They can disappear into a hedge or tangle of honeysuckle faster than any other bird I know – sometimes I almost expect them to rebound straight back out again.

Anyhow, this gang seems to consist of several pairs of parents plus their hungry offspring, who follow the adults about as if attached by a length of elastic. Occasionally they’ll wait in the undergrowth waiting for food to arrive, usually with one eye on the sky.

Sometimes the adults take a sneaky breather, like this adult male, parked up beside a young starling. Usually I’m mobbed with fledgling starlings, but it’s been very quiet this year, I suspect because the wet spring led to a mismatch between the emergence of insects and the breeding of the starlings (who need invertebrate food for their youngsters).

Eventually the young sparrows start to peck tentatively at the plants around them while they wait for the adults to arrive. The one below was definitely looking for caterpillars or something similar when s/he wasn’t watching the sky.

I’ve been watching the little flock zipping around at the front of the house too – they often perch in the buddleia, which is having a tough year this year, but which is fortuitously home to all manner of small bugs.

And so, although house sparrows are the quintessential ‘little brown jobs’, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching their breeding success this year. And, as sparrows rarely travel more than a mile from the place that they were born, maybe the fledglings of these birds will visit next year.

I haven’t yet worked out where they’re breeding – certainly not in my sparrow ‘terrace’ which has been a resounding failure so far – but there are a number of dense hedges at the corner of the road, and some houses have little gaps in their Victorian eaves that the sparrows can use. House sparrows aren’t called Passer domesticus for nothing – they aren’t found very far away from human habitation, and they seem to rely on our kindess for housing, and our gardens for food. Fingers crossed that their numbers will soon be going up again. London wouldn’t be the same without its ‘cockney sparrers’.

Dear Readers, it’s been less than 24 hours since I finished my exam, and already I have signed up for my module for next year – it looks as it it will be seriously science-y (as opposed to ‘multidisciplinary’) so I am getting in the swing of it by doing a bit of citizen science this weekend. Yay!

The Natural History Museum, in collaboration with Natural England and several other bodies, is doing research into the biodiversity in urban ponds in London, Bristol, Cambridge, Plymouth, Manchester and Newcastle, and they’ve offered anyone with a pond, however small, in those cities to contribute to a survey that they’re running. The project is now closed for this year, but my pack arrived last week, and it’s very full of syringes and sampling bags and various ways to check pH, water ‘hardness’, nitrate content and phosphorous content. Most excitingly, though, the water that I sample will be tested for eDNA.

A pond skater approaching a water snail in a rather menacing fashion.

eDNA (otherwise known as environmental DNA) is the genetic material found in water, soil, or the air. It includes the DNA from bacteria and other microorganisms, but also trace DNA from larger animals that live in, or visit, the pond. When the water sample is analysed and combined with results from other London ponds, it should give an overall idea of what’s living in the capital. It will be interesting to see how London ponds compare with those in other regions, and I’m hoping that they might also look at things like the overall communities of organisms in a pond.

The great thing about eDNA is that it can find tiny organisms, ones that are difficult to identify (especially when two species look very similar) and, even if the organism isn’t present when the sample is done it will indicate that it was present at some point. In this way it’s a bit like a scent lingering after the cause of it has gone, and gives us a picture of the pond inhabitants over time.

Smooth newt in the pond!

The Natural History Museum will also freeze some of the samples, for analysis in the future – in this way we can compare ponds over time, to see the ebb and flow of species.

Garden ponds have become vitally important sources of biodiversity, especially as so many country ponds have disappeared or degraded, and as many gardens have been turned into patios or car parking spaces. I won’t get the results of my sampling back until spring 2025, but I am really looking forward to taking part. Hopefully neither my husband nor I will end up falling into the pond, but if we do it will all add to the comedy value. I’ll keep you posted.

New Zealand’s Tree of the Year – The Walking Tree (from https://www.treeoftheyear.co.nz/) Photo by Gareth Edwards

Well Readers, we’re all done for another year – notebooks are put away, textbooks are stowed, the scientific calculator is in a drawer, and my mind maps are on the shelf, becoming less and less understandable with every passing hour. However I could have tightened up my essay conclusion or  found a more apposite example for my discussion, it’s too blooming late now! It was a very fair exam, with nothing that we couldn’t have anticipated, and it will give everyone a chance to shine rather than trying to catch them out. I think I’ve done ok, but how well is now entirely up to the examiner, so I shall forget about it until mid July when the results are out. And I’ve already signed up for my very science-y biology module for next year. I’m four years through the six year study period – how did that happen? And it’s fair to say that I’ve enjoyed pretty much every moment.

And so, I turn my attention to my latest passion, this remarkable tree that has just won New Zealand’s Tree of the Year 2024. Look at it strutting about ent-fashion, and wearing high-heels to boot. It’s an arboreal supermodel, for sure.

The Walking Tree is a northern rātā (Metrosideros robusta). What a cheeky tree it is! It starts life as an epiphyte, high up in the branches of a mature tree. Then it sends roots down to the ground, and over centuries it forms a shell around the original tree, with the roots forming a kind of pseudotrunk (or two, in the case of the walking tree). The rātā has been  described as a ‘strangler’, but it appears to favour mainly trees that are already in decline. This is a patient plant that can live for up to a thousand years.

A less eccentric ‘walking tree’ (Photo By Callum O’Hagan – originally posted to Flickr as Kaitoke Tree, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4178957)

The main enemy of the northern rātā is the common brushtail possum which, though adorable, is not native to New Zealand, and eats the leaves, shoots and buds of the tree.

Common brushtail possum (Photo By JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5992634)

At any rate, the Walking Tree is a very fine tree indeed, and a most deserved winner of New Zealand’s Tree of the Year. I wonder if someone will turn it into a children’s book? It looks as if it’s already two-thirds of the way to becoming a character.

…my exam will be open on the Open University website though as this page goes live at 5 a.m. in the UK I’m pretty sure I won’t have started it yet! This year I’m studying Environmental Science (I’m combining it with Biology in an Open degree), and my exam is 40% data analysis (which will hopefully be a cinch, as I love that stuff) and 60% an essay, choosing one question from three. Now, I know I do a lot of writing, but coming up with 1500 words can be tricky – I’ve loved the module, but there are so many concepts/theories/paradigms etc that choosing the right ones, and making a coherent argument, will be the challenge.

Last year, I had two exams of three hours each – once you opened the exam paper you had 180 minutes to get everything done, plus an hour’s grace for uploading everything in case of technical problems. This year, the paper is meant to be doable in 3 hours, but we actually have 24 hours to submit it. I find that a little bit the worst of both worlds – I don’t really want the blooming thing hanging over me until 23.59 tomorrow night, but equally I don’t want to submit substandard work. And it’s open book. Really, it’s all about putting a coherent argument/discussion together, covering as many of the elements of the course as are strictly relevant, and illustrating it with some lovely examples. Simple!

Still, I wouldn’t want it all to be easy, because then what’s the point? If I’m not scratching my head and feeling my brain getting bigger, I might as well not bother. It does occur to me, though, how much we undervalue the things that come easily to us (as I have done with the data analysis bit of the paper). Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating the joy of doing something well that is entirely within our comfort zone, be it knitting a jumper, or making a cake, or being a good partner or a good friend. And it’s also about recognising that things that seem easy often aren’t. On the subject of which, I love this. See what you think.

The Exam
BY JOYCE SUTPHEN

It is mid-October. The trees are in
their autumnal glory (red, yellow-green,

orange) outside the classroom where students
take the mid-term, sniffling softly as if

identifying lines from Blake or Keats
was such sweet sorrow, summoned up in words

they never saw before. I am thinking
of my parents, of the six decades they’ve

been together, of the thirty thousand
meals they’ve eaten in the kitchen, of the

more than twenty thousand nights they’ve slept
under the same roof. I am wondering

who could have fashioned the test that would have
predicted this success? Who could have known?

Long-wattled Umbrella bird (Cephalopterus penduliger) Photo By Hectonichus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22003026 

Dear Readers, Ecuador is a very interesting country from a conservation point of view. Although the agricultural sector has been involved in decimating vast areas of rainforest, some of the poorest farmers are now realising that the forests, and in particular the birds that live in them, may have a greater value than the scratch-living that they might be able to achieve through cutting the trees down.

Ecuador has 1600 species of bird, more than the whole of Europe combined. I spent a very short period of time in the rainforest close to Quito many years ago, and I was stunned by the sheer variety of hummingbirds. There are many other fascinating species too – diminutive ant pittas (not an invertebrate-filled flatbread, in case you were about to ask), the bright orange cock-of-the-rock, and the enigmatic and  rare umbrella bird (pictured above). Birdwatchers flood to Ecuador to see them, and the locals are providing lodges, turning their farms into reserves, replanting trees and often finding themselves fascinated by the bird life that they were previously too busy trying to survive to appreciate. It’s a real win-win situation – the money from tourists can go directly to some of the poorest people in South America, and the tourists can see and photograph birds that we can only dream about here in the UK.

Andean Cock-of-the-rock (Photo By Devin Morris – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110542923)

Chestnut-naped Antpitta (Photo By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136415915)

The Andean Emerald Hummingbird is endemic to one tiny corner of Ecuador, and can be found on the Mashpi Amagusa reserve. It’s worth clicking through to read the story of just one of the many reserves that are springing up.

Andean Emerald Hummingbird (Photo By Michael Woodruff from Spokane, Washington, USA – Andean Emerald, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5185236 )

The Rose-faced parrot is another Ecuadorian endemic that can be found in the reserves.

Rose-faced parrot (Photo By Bärbel Miemietz – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121265417)

There have been government-run schemes to encourage subsistence farmers to preserve their rainforest, but it was somewhat hampered by paperwork and red tape. Instead, the ever-entrepreneurial farmers have been cutting out the middleman, clubbing together to find enough money to develop facilities for birdwatchers without destroying the very thing that they’ve come to see – the forest, and the birds that live there. Sounds like an encouraging win-win to me.

You can read the whole story (by Stephen Moss) here.

Beryl-spangled tanager (Photo By Charles J. Sharp – Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography.co.uk, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=137150897)

Dear Readers, East Finchley Festival is happening on 23rd June, and for the first time in ages the community group that I belong to, Friends of Coldfall Wood and Muswell Hill Playing Fields, is taking a stall. But what to do? We have lots of exciting ideas, but I am planning to do a plant identification quiz on these two window boxes, which feature meadow plants for clay soil – this is what we’ve planted in the meadow on Muswell Hill Playing Fields. We’re also planning to raffle the mini-meadows to raise funds so that we can do more walks, and activities.

To be honest for an introvert like me, being at a huge community event  can feel a bit overwhelming, but I’m looking forward to the chance to meet and chat with people, and to hang out with other nature-inspired folk. This is the Festival’s 50th Anniversary, so fingers crossed for dry weather!

And in other news, I was planting up the mini-meadows when I heard the magpies going absolutely berserk.

They’re at that stage when the nestlings are just about to leave the nest, so they’re on very high alert, and one of the things that they hate most is a cat, however innocent. So I went to see what was going on, and found this little beauty, though when I saw her/him they were perched precipitously  above my garden side-gate, which means that they were a good ten feet off the floor. It didn’t stop the cat from doing that funny rattling call that they do when they see a bird, but I think that a magpie is a bit big for a light snack.

Still, this one has obviously not forgotten its wild origins. S/he stalked off after a few minutes, as if to indicate that the magpie hadn’t actually scared the bejassus out of them, and everything was absolutely cool. Off s/he went, tail in the air, to torment some other feathered creature. Or to find a sunny spot to doze in, which ever is easier.

Dear Readers, how can it be June already? I used to laugh at my poor old Mum when she said that the days go more quickly as you get older, but she was absolutely right. Sorry Mum. But now that it’s June, why do I still have the heating on, albeit occasionally, and why am I still wearing my bedsocks? The time is out of joint, for sure.

I am about two-thirds of the way through my revision, and have just whooshed through my block on the carbon cycle. There’s a module on geoengineering – goodness, all the wacky ideas that people have had, from seeding the oceans to artificial trees to sticking a reflector up at Lagrange Point 1 to catch some of the solar radiation. We could definitely plant more trees, but on the other hand I rather think we should try to preserve the venerable giants that we have.

Just a few more days and I’ll be done, and the rest of the summer will spread out before me (though I do notice that June is looking particularly busy, what with all the friends I haven’t met for a few weeks and the East Finchley Festival (where Friends of Coldfall Wood (aka me and five other devoted wood-lovers) will be raffling off a couple of mini-meadows with any luck)). There are rather too many nested brackets in that sentence, but tbh my head is too full of the history of OPEC and the sustainable  endeavours of the community of Eigg to sort it out at the moment.

Anyhow, here’s something for a little peace and harmony, and also for my dear friend A, who suffered a loss this week. I know that she loves Edward Thomas, as do I, so here is Adlestrop. Can’t you just feel the quiet of the train station, the heat of the day, and the hear the birds singing?

Adlestrop, by Edward Thomas

Yes, I remember Adlestrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

The River Frome in Dorchester

Dear Readers, I am powering on with my revision, and I now have numerous mind-maps that are becoming more and more complicated as I think of new connections and new colours and new linkages. I feel as if I’m making good progress, but I’ve also discovered that, unlike days of yore when I could study for hours, two hours at a time is about my limit. Still, I’m sure that two concentrated hours is better than four hours of ‘messing about’ (technical term) so hopefully it will be enough.

Currently I’m revising the block of the course that dealt with water, with all its many complications. For one thing, water has that annoying habit of moving, so who owns it is often contentious, even more so when it’s the Nile or the Danube and moves through many countries on its way to the sea. Then there’s the historical context to consider – when the British were in charge of Egypt, for example, they forbade any of the other countries along the route to take any water from the Nile, even though the Blue Nile arises as far away as Ethiopia. Then there are people damming rivers and diverting them and polluting them and overfishing them. And then there’s the whole issue of sanitation, which is intrinsically linked to water supply and pollution and health.

No wonder two hours concentrated study is enough, though it’s fascinating stuff. And there’s so much I didn’t know. Sanitation is actually a bigger problem than water supply, because lots of people are prepared to donate for a water pump, but not so many are happy to put their names to a compostable toilet. And so, girls in many developing countries have to risk being raped when they have to go out into the countryside at night to spend a penny. Environmental issues are so often complicated, interrelated and subject to cultural and social factors.

I have really loved this course, with its interdisciplinary focus and wide range of things to think about. But from October it will be back to hard science. I am loving the variety of this Open degree. Two more years to go! And then what? I can’t imagine not studying something. Let’s see where we get to.