Dear Readers, this week I’ve started reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville, inspired by one of the other participants on my Azores trip. And what an astonishing read it is! It’s a beefy book and I’m only about 15 per cent of the way through if my Kindle is to be believed, but already it’s had me roaring with laughter, scratching my head and holding my breath.

And this got me thinking about what other books are out there that I’ve never tackled. I studied English for my first degree, so I’ve read a lot of ‘the classics’ – the whole of Austen, Dickens, most of George Eliot, a lot of European fiction. But here, off the top of my head, are some of the books that I’ve never read and would like to have a go at at some point.

• The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
• Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
• Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achuebe)
• In Search of Things Past (Marcel Proust)
• Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)
• The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
• The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)

And I’m sure there are hundreds more, but one has to start somewhere. However, I also have a pile of non-fiction books nearly as tall as me waiting to be read. I think that now I’m retired I can justify popping a ‘reading hour’ into the day’s activities somewhere – I read before I go to sleep, but sadly these days sometimes that’s about 20 minutes before I’m dropping my book on the poor unsuspecting dozing cat, who curls up on my stomach and complains if I’m not in bed by 9 o’clock.

So, Readers, over to you. Do you have books that you feel you’d love to read, but have never managed (so far) to find the time? Have you read any of the ones on my list, and if so, do you have thoughts about them? Which of the books that you’ve read do you wish you’d never bothered with? Let me know in the comments if you are of a literary persuasion.

Mother and calf sperm whales (Photo by Gabriel Barathieu, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Dear Readers, after my sperm whale adventures a few weeks ago I was very excited to read an article in New Scientist which suggested that the language of sperm whales could be the closest yet found to human language. But how so?

Sperm whales are long-lived, social animals, who communicate with one another using clicks. They also use these clicks to echolocate, much as bats do – they dive down into the blackness of the deep abyss (up to 2 km down) to hunt their prey, the giant squid. However, until recently scientists were bemused as to how the clicks were used. A study by Daniela Rus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology recorded over 9000 calls from a population of sperm whales in the Eastern Caribbean (small devices were attached to the whales using suction cups).

Here is the sound of a sperm whale hunting for prey. Note the regularity of the clicks.

And here is a sperm whale homing in on its prey – note how the clicks merge together to form what’s known as a ‘creak’.

Incidentally, the clicks of a sperm whale can be up to 230 decibels, making the sperm whale the loudest animal in the world. Some people believe that sperm whales might stun their squid prey, just as some bats ‘shout’ at moths in order to knock them out. There seems to be no truth to the idea that a sperm whale ‘shout’ has ever damaged a human diver, however, in spite of some stories about such things.

The scientists, however, are interested in the social calls that sperm whales make. These are called ‘codas’ – there are 18 of them, each comprising a particular click pattern.

What fascinated the scientists was that these basic codas can be amended by adding an extra click to the beginning or end – this seemed to be a signal to the listening whale that it was time to ‘speak’. The codas can be combined and recombined in different ways, and can also be sped up or slowed down. The  scientists have actually drawn up a ‘sperm whale phonetic alphabet’, though we are a long way from understanding exactly what a particular combination of codas means.

It’s clear that there is much yet to be discovered about sperm whale communication, but this is a fascinating insight into the sheer complexity of the sounds that they make, and the possible meanings that might be encoded. What conversations are they having, I wonder? I cannot begin to imagine how different the undersea world of the sperm whale is, but learning about their language makes me think that there are dimensions that we haven’t even begun to contemplate.

Sperm Whale off the coast of the Azores, Portugal (Photo by Szecska at https://www.flickr.com/photos/szecska/8986104296)

Some very healthy looking seedlings courtesy of Jill

Dear Readers, I wanted to give you an update on our  ‘Flowers for Fran‘ project. For those of you who aren’t regulars here, Fran was a regular commentator on the blog, a wonderful lady who died of cancer far too young, and who was a real friend to wildlife of all kinds. When her son contacted me to say that he had Fran’s seeds, we hatched the plan of offering them  to anyone who wanted to plant them in remembrance of her. And last week, Jill contacted me to show me how her seeds were getting on. She says that the echiums, malopes and dahlias are all up and running. I’m so pleased – some of the seeds were fairly elderly, so it’s good to see such a happy result.

This week, Jill updated me to say that the seedlings have now been planted out. Let’s hope that they survive our molluscan friends, the weather, and everything else that the British ‘summer’ can throw at them. The bees and other pollinators will be delighted, I’m sure.

Feel free to send me any photos of how Fran’s seeds are doing – I’m sure not all of them will have been as successful as these, but never mind, we all gave it a go! I’ll share any news, good or bad, here. Fran was a very pragmatic person, and understood very well the strange vagaries of gardening. I think she’d even forgive the slugs and snails. And in the summer, it will be good to see the bees and butterflies and other critters enjoying whatever makes it to flowering.

Thanks again to all of you who gave it a go. I still have some seeds left if anyone wants to go for autumn planting (or very late spring planting), just leave me a note in the comments and I’ll get back to you (you’ll need to include your email address when you make the comment – it won’t be shown here, but I’ll be able to contact you).

More of Jill’s seedlings!

Gypsywort(Lycopus europaeus) Photo Kristian Peters — Fabelfroh 11:32, 3 December 2005 (UTC), CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Readers, having written several hundred ‘Wednesday Weeds’ it’s always a delight when I find a new wild plant, as I did on Sunday in Coldfall Wood, North London. Gypsywort is a plant in the dead-nettle family, and at first glance you might well think that it’s our old favourite white dead-nettle. Look again, however! The leaves are deeply serated, the flowers grow in tight bunches around the stem, and the flowers are marked in red, thought to be a way of guiding pollinators to the rich nectar of the plant. Also, while white dead-nettle is largely a plant of disturbed soil, gypsywort favours damp conditions, like the wet woodland in Coldfall Wood.

The plant is also known as water horehound, and in North America (where it’s an introduced plant) you might know it as bugleweed. it certainly has a very upright, almost martial appearance. I could imagine one of the plants producing a trumpet and giving it a quick blow.

The leaves of gypsywort

What puzzles me a bit is that, although this is a common plant throughout the UK, I’ve never noticed it before. I was a bit worried that our wet woodland was losing its biodiversity (we’ve had a massive growth of stinging nettles this year, probably due to nitrates in the run-off that feeds the stream), but the yellow flag, bulrushes and marsh marigold have all done very well, and now this new plant. Fingers crossed for a revival!

Gypsywort flowers (Photo by Tico Bassie at https://www.flickr.com/photos/tico_bassie/2806141943/

Why gypsywort, though? The plant gives a black dye, and it was believed that it was used by travelling peoples, Romany and otherwise,  to darken their skin. Why they would do this is unclear, though one interpretation, from 1727, was that African people were thought to be the best fortune-tellers, and so darkening the skin would improve the credibility of people doing palm-reading or other prophetic activities. It shows that prejudice against this section of society has a long history.  However, gipsywort was also gathered and sold by travellers as a dye plant – it’s one of the few plants that produces a durable black dye, and as such was in great demand for dyeing mourning clothes.

Photo by Teunspaans in the Netherlands.

Medicinally, gypsywort has been used to treat anxiety, breast pain and overactive thyroid. Interestingly, it isn’t mentioned in Culpeper’s Herbal, but Mrs Grieve describes its uses as ‘astringent and sedative’.

As far as edibility goes, the root of the plant is described in numerous sources as a ‘famine food of last resort’. Nobody seems to be munching on those serrated leaves, not even caterpillars.

And now I am thinking that maybe I should look for some gypsywort for the side of my pond – I know that it grows locally, and that’s often the best indication of what will thrive. As I’ve said before, there’s little point (in my view anyway) in trying to grow plants that will only be lacklustre and unhappy in a damp, dark, heavy-soiled garden. My next problem will be where on earth to put it, as the hemp agrimony and meadowsweet do battle with the greater willowherb and purple loosestrife. Clearly I should be trying to re-wild a country estate rather than a North London back garden, but there we go! Let me know if you’ve come across this plant – I’m especially interested in how much of a pollinator-magnet it is (the RHS have it in their ‘perfect for pollinators’ section). And I will soon be back in Coldfall to have a closer look at those intriguing flowers.

Wood Avens

Dear Readers, on Sunday a group of us went for a walk in Coldfall Wood, led by local photographer Mike Segal. The aim of the walk was really to get us all to look more closely at the trees, plants and animals that surround us, and to think about how to look at things from a different angle. Well, it certainly worked for me, and what a treat it was to wander in the wood without any preconceptions. I love this time of year, when everything has just greened up and the trees are full of song thrushes and nuthatches.

Anyhow, here are a few of my shots.

I love the way this elderflower is half bud and half bloom.

Bumblebee on green alkanet!

The scribbly traces of leaf miners on this sow thistle.

I really liked the delicate tracery of this elder…

And how about these hornbeam leaves from below?

Some areas in the wood have been fenced off to allow them to regenerate, and I love the way that the biodiversity is coming back.

And I have never seen the yellow flag looking so good as this year.

And finally, the crows are about, as usual. They are the real royalty of the wood, shiny-feathered and boisterous.

Although this squirrel might argue that they’re actually in charge.

You know, I haven’t seen the woods looking this good for a long, long time – after the pandemic they seemed to be beaten up so badly that I wondered if they’d ever recover. But now they are, and it’s so heartening. Let’s hope that it continues.

Dear Readers, having been away in Canada and the Azores this spring the garden has burst into full leaf/flower without me noticing the transition. Gordon Bennett! The place is like a jungle, and today we did a little bit of judicious cutting back, in particular of the green alkanet which, lovely as it is, was completely blocking the path. And then, after a bit of duckweed removal, we got the chance to sit back and see what was going on, to the continuous chorus of baby blue tits in the high-rise nest box. We tried to avoid looking at the adult blue tits, as they won’t return directly to the nest if they think they’re being watched. I just hope that everyone fledges successfully. We’ll keep you posted.

Anyhow, just have a look at what else is going on.

Sicilian honey garlic

The Sicilian honey garlic is one of my favourite bulbs, and as soon as the flowers are fully developed they’ll be mobbed by bumblebees.

Honeysuckle

The honeysuckle has scrambled up through next door’s cherry tree, and  I have never seen it better. It’s tangled up with some clematis, and I would dearly love the bittersweet to come back too, it was such a favourite with buzz-pollinating carder bumblebees.

Herb Robert and Red Valerian

Every year this patch of ‘weeds’ grows around the water butt, and every year my husband tries to dissuade them. This year, he’s given up.

We’ve had a good skim of the duckweed, so it’s a bit better now. This frog obviously doesn’t mind….

…and there are lots of happy tadpoles.

Large red damselfly

The Large Red Damselflies are back. What a pleasure they are, as they fly around like fluorescent red sparks! One was flying around next door’s garden, and landed on the arm of the child who lives there – she was delighted, and so was her mother. It’s so important to teach small children how to behave with animals, and how to treat them respectfully.

And finally, here was a visitor that I half expected to see yesterday – an ashy mining bee, the third species of mining bee in two days. It didn’t stay long so the photos aren’t the best, but I was just glad to see the little chap/pess. My neighbour said that she thought my garden was like a nature reserve, and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

In the autumn I will get the whitebeam and the hawthorn trimmed back, and the hedge (which is fast turning into a linear forest) tidied up, but for now I just need to do a bit at a time, and to remember that the garden is for enjoyment, not perfection.

Orange-tailed/Early Mining Bee (Andrena haemorrhoea)

Dear Readers, my magnificent climbing hydrangea is a magnet for all kinds of mining bees during the few weeks when it’s in flower, and on a warm day it fills the sheltered side of the house with a sweet floral scent. Plus it’s absolutely busting with pollen! No wonder it’s so popular with the bees, and in particular the little mining bees that we normally don’t notice. iThese bees belong to the genus Andrena, and can be tricky to identify to the species level, so feel free to correct me, bee experts! All are hairy-legged (for collecting pollen) which you can see clearly in the photo above, The bees make tunnels in light soils or in the mortar in old walls or buildings, and in the spring the males emerge first. In some species they’ll hang around and wait for the females to emerge, whilst in others they’ll lurk around flowering shrubs that they know the females will visit in a ‘lek’, waiting to grab a mate if she shows any inclination. In some species the males are much bigger than the females, an indication that they’ll fight to mate with as many females as possible. 

The Orange-tailed Mining Bee in the photo above is no surprise as a visitor – it tolerates clay soils as a nesting substrate, and is often found in urban areas. In fact, it was one of the first colonisers of my garden – you can read about it here.

Grey-patched Mining Bee (Andrena nitida) ???

I’m a little less sure about this bee – if it is a Grey-patched Mining Bee it’s one of the commonest mining bees in southern Britain, and I’m surprised I haven’t noticed it before. Again it likes spring-flowering shrubs, but it builds its nests singly, rather than in aggregations like the Orange-tailed Mining Bee. This bee likes formal lawns and sheep-grazed pasture, if you happen to have any handy. 

While I was skipping amongst the hydrangea blossom I noticed the blue tits making a couple of trips to the nest box. Fingers crossed for baby blue tits! I heard my first fledgling starlings and sparrows today too. Spring is peaking!

And finally, here’s a little video of a mining bee enjoying the pollen. It’s so worth spending ten minutes to have a look at who is coming and going in the garden – some of these bees have a very short flying season, so blink and you’ll miss them. And if you’re not sure what they are (and goodness knows I’m often confused) the people over at the UK Bees, Wasps and Ants Facebook ID group are very helpful. Have fun!

Dear Readers, I have always been fascinated by snails – back in 2019 I wrote this piece after observing all the molluscs popping out into the front garden on a wet day.  And so I was very interested to read about the phenomenon of ‘snail tapping’.

What in the okey-dokey is ‘snail tapping’, I hear you ask? The theory goes that if you suddenly pick up a snail in order to, say, move it off of the pavement  so that it doesn’t get trodden on, the snail feels pain as it is ripped away from the ground. However, if you give the shell a gentle tap first, the snail will withdraw, and you can pick the snail up without causing it any discomfort and move it to a more suitable location (say, your neighbour’s garden 🙂 )

Well, I regret to say that I have long been a ‘snail-ripper’, as there are few things sadder than the gentle ‘pop’ of a snail shell bursting underfoot as you run out through the rain to put the wheelie bins out. But since reading this, I have turned into a ‘snail-tapper’, and it certainly makes lifting the little chaps/chapesses easier when they aren’t clinging on for grim death. How long it takes them to recover from the trauma of thinking that they’ve just been grabbed by a song thrush is anybody’s guess.

Incidentally, if you regularly ‘tap’  a particular snail, s/he will eventually stop withdrawing  because s/he has worked out that you aren’t a predator, and it takes a lot of energy to fling yourself back into your shell on a regular basis. This implies to me that snails can learn, and is yet another example of even ‘primitive’ animals being a lot more complicated than we give them credit for.

Do snails feel pain, though? Does being ‘ripped’ from the pavement cause them discomfort? There has been a lot of work done on pain perception in invertebrates over the past twenty years, and it’s always a bit problematic – even amongst humans it’s impossible to know how much pain someone is in, as one person’s excruciating might be someone else’s just about tolerable. What’s generally recognised is that in sentient animals there are two components to pain – the actual physical effect, and the ‘suffering’ that can be brought on by anticipation/past experience/fear etc etc. Do snails feel a moment of angst as they feel themselves grabbed from above? Or is the pain purely that of having their ‘foot’ suddenly torn away without any chance to withdraw?

Well, who knows, but I prefer not to cause gratuitous suffering if at all possible, so I shall be tapping away in future. And here is a short and slightly-out-of-focus video of a snail as it ambles around the edge of a tray before being returned to the garden. Enjoy!

And finally, here’s Fleur Adcock’s poem ‘For a Five-Year-Old’. Much to think about, here…

For a Five-Year-Old

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor; we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.

Dear Readers, I have a great fondness for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner‘. For one thing, I always see myself in the Ancient Mariner as he stops the wedding guest and insists that he listen to his story: I am forever stopping people and insisting that they look at the moon/a bunch of waxwings/a particularly fat caterpillar etc. No one has called me a ‘grey-beard loon’ yet but it’s only a matter of time.

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’

He holds him with his skinny hand,
‘There was a ship,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

In case you don’t know the story, the Ancient  Mariner shoots an albatross on a whim, bringing destruction to his ship and his shipmates, who all die of thirst. The Mariner is left with the albatross hanging around his neck as a sign of his sin, and the ship is left stranded, without a breath of a breeze. The most famous words of the poem came to me several times while we were wallowing around in the North Atlantic waiting for a whale to turn up, although of course we had plenty of water, and were only a few miles offshore.

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”

Then a moment of hope – a ship is sighted! Sadly this is not a good thing:

“Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman’s mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”

At this, everyone else on the ship drops dead, leaving only the Ancient Mariner.

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.”

But in the most moving part of the poem, the Ancient Mariner sees the sea snakes in the water, and his heart softens.

“Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”

I find this pivotal moment so touching. I suspect many of us have been touched to the quick by something that we’ve seen in nature, whether it be the glimpse of a fox or a deer, or sparrows feeding their fledglings. In that moment there can be a sense of fellow-feeling, a wish that the animal will be happy and healthy. I certainly felt it with the whales and dolphins in the Azores, but I often feel it with the animals and even plants that I see regularly in my garden or around my home. Is this love what will save us, and them, and maybe everything? Coleridge seemed to think so.

Sperm whale diving on our last day

After many more ghastly adventures, the Ancient Mariner returns to his ‘own countree’, but every so often the fit comes upon him to grab some poor unfortunate and tell his tale. But what is the moral of it?

“Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”

What an extraordinary poem this is. I recommend sitting down with it and reading it when you have the time – there is such imagination in it. And what a story! Let me know what you think, Readers, if you’ve studied it or read it, or if it’s new to you.

Black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) nesting on the Farne Islands (Photo By MPF – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59782)

Dear Readers, I haven’t featured a gull in the Red List posts for a while, and having just returned from the Azores it seems fitting to look at a seabird. Kittiwakes spend most of their lives at sea, returning to land only to breed. Probably the most famous colony in the UK is on the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, where they nest further inland than any other colony of kittiwakes in the world – normally these birds favour sea cliffs, but they are clearly very adaptable. Another colony nests on the battlements of Fort George in Inverness. These are gentle-looking gulls who are rarely seen inland – they haven’t taken to parks like black-headed gulls, or to landfill like so many other species. Hence, summer is the only time that you’re likely to see them, and to hear the distinctive call that  gave them their name. Here’s a recording by Irish Wildlife Sounds, from Wicklow in Ireland.

But why are kittiwakes on the Red List? There has been a substantial decline in the breeding population of the birds, and research suggests that this is largely due to the decline in their main food, the sand eel. These tiny fish are harvested for their oils and flesh, which are used in a variety of foods for human and animal consumption, and recent legislation has  banned fishing for them in the North Sea, a rare example of policy actually changing to protect a habitat rather than bowing to commercial interests.

However, the fish are very reliant on a smooth sandy seabed for their habitat (they burrow into it), and so dredging can disrupt this. Sand eels are also very sensitive to temperature changes, and so the warming seas might present another problem for them. Furthermore, a lot of birds that feed close to the surface, where the sand eels swim (including that perennial favourite, the puffin) are also affected by the lack of sand eels – often they have to fly much further to get the food to feed their nestlings. Everything is interconnected, and the loss of the habitat of one fish can have devastating knock-on effects.

Puffin with a beak full of sand eels (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=106949394)

One threat that the kittiwakes no longer have to face, thank goodness, is being killed so that their wings can be used to decorate lady’s hats. At one point birds were being ‘harvested’ in their thousands, especially the young birds with their interesting markings, and, much as is done with sharks who are used for shark’s fin soup, the wingless birds would often be thrown over the side of the boat, to drown at their leisure. So horrified was Victorian activist Emily Williamson by this wanton slaughter (along with similar massacres of great-crested grebes) that she founded the forerunner of the RSPB, the Plumage League. Members promised :

“That Members shall discourage the wanton destruction of Birds, and interest themselves generally in their protection 

That Lady-Members shall refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for purposes of food, the ostrich only excepted.’ (1889)

Poor old ostrich, but still it was a step in the right direction – you can read the whole story of the Victorians and their hats at The Victorianist blog here.

Hats with birds on them. Ugh.

And so, it will be interesting to see how kittiwakes get on over the next few years. Our cliffs would be quieter without their elegant presence.

First winter kittiwake