Mick and Mack, Japanese Knotweed Detector Dogs

Dear Readers, one of my splendid commentators alerted me to the fact that dogs were being trained to sniff out Japanese Knotweed when I posted my last piece, so I had to have a closer look, and in ‘Dogs Today‘ magazine there’s an article about Mick and Mack, described as ‘Fox Red Labrador Retrievers’. Who even knew that there was such a thing? Still, I have to say that  the dogs look very eager and ready to go. They can apparently detect Japanese Knotweed even when it’s dormant in the winter, and if they sniff some they will freeze and presumably glare at the offending spot of ground.

Their services are much in demand by buyers seeking to buy homes. According to Environet UK, the company who use the dogs, sellers can be very sneaky in covering up the presence of the plant in their gardens. Sellers are required to disclose if there’s Japanese Knotweed in their garden, but it’s said that some sellers will enter ‘not known’, and then cut everything back and cover it with a membrane.  Enter Mick and Mack, who will soon sniff it out. Presumably if they don’t find anything it’s reassuring for the buyer, and in either case the company has recouped some of its investment in the dogs.

I am also a bit behind the curve here, as Mick and Mack started work in 2020, and were soon joined by Buddy, a rescued black Cocker Spaniel. His great sense of smell was soon noticed by his rescuers, who wondered if he could become a drug or bomb detection dog, but probably didn’t realise immediately that he would end up sniffing out an invasive plant instead.

Buddy (from https://www.showhouse.co.uk/news/meet-buddy-the-new-japanese-knotweed-detection-dog/)

The nose of a dog is truly something of a miracle – it can sniff out tumours, detect when someone is going to have a seizure, tell the difference between urine samples in the search for particular diseases, and now it’s being used to sniff out invasive plants. What remarkable animals they are! All the more reason to treasure them, train them properly and look after them well. Who knows what else they’ll be capable of doing?

On the other hand, they haven’t yet been trained to wield a fork and spade every week for three or four years in order to dig the blessed Japanese Knotweed out, so perhaps there’s a role for human beings after all.

The Garden in December 2022

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, this time last year we were under a blanket of snow – I remember heading down to my Friends of Coldfall Wood Christmas dinner over hard-packed ice. This year, it’s rainy and blustery, but what is the same is the shortness of the days, the feeling that we no sooner get up than the light has gone.

In ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Rowan Jaines explains that the period between Samhain (on 31st October/1st November) and the start of the lambing season (Imbolc, usually at the end of January) was known as ‘the black month’ in Celtic languages. Sometimes this was further divided into ‘the Black Month (November), the Black Month before Christmas (December) and the Black Month after Christmas (January). I’m sure you get the general idea.

The Black month was seen as being the opposite of spring. Spring was personified as a noble young knight, who defeats winter and invites everything to wear his livery of green. The Black Month, on the other hand, was seen as the crone’s month. It was a period of waiting rather than doing, of hibernation rather than fecundity. It was the season for the telling of tales, rather than being productive: Jaines suggests that the ‘woman’s work’ of spinning and weaving was culturally taboo during the winter months, and that the ‘hag’ would visit punishment on those who disobeyed. Hence, telling stories was transmogrified into ‘spinning a yarn’, the only kind of yarn that could legitimately be spun.

It may seem strange to many of us, for whom Christmas is one of the busiest times of the year, that the winter has been viewed as a time for being, not doing. Tell that to the poor Mum simultaneously wrapping presents, decorating the tree and organising the Christmas dinner! But actually, my Mother always loved the gap between Christmas and New Year even more than Christmas itself – she would sit on the sofa munching  a turkey sandwich while we all watched a re-run of a James Bond movie, paper hat slightly askew and the prospect of a nap brightening her afternoon. For that strange period from 26th to 31st December, all bets were off – we would read, play Monopoly, listen to music or go for a walk without all the pressure of Christmas Day itself. It was time out of time, a liminal space when the world stood still and work and school still seemed very far away.

From my window I can  see the Christmas tree lights coming on up and down the road. I remember the days when by now I’d be frantically organising  wheelchairs and reclining  chairs and stairlifts for when the parents paid their annual visit. I loved having them with us for Christmas, but there’s no denying the sheer amount of work involved in keeping two frail elderly people happy and in one piece for nearly a week. How I miss it! I would have those days back in a heartbeat, for all that the festive season was the most stressful time of an average year. And yet, I have made my peace with Christmas, five years after my Mum died. I still do some of the things that she loved, but many things have dropped away. It’s more restful now, but no less meaningful. In just over a week, we’ll pass the shortest day, and the year will turn yet again. For now, though, I feel inclined to hunker down  and embrace the darkness.

Fulvous Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna bicolor)

Dear Readers, as mentioned yesterday the London Wetlands Centre has a fine selection of non-native wildfowl as well as its extensive natural wetlands. I was very taken with these Fulvous Whistling Ducks, who did indeed whistle, but mostly hung out in pairs (they mate for life). This pair were so well-bonded that they even did synchronised preening. You can find this species in the wild in Asia, Africa, North and South America – in fact anywhere except Europe. 

This pair are Orinoco Geese (Neochen jubata), from South America as the name would imply. Cheekily, the females sometimes lay their eggs in the nests of other Orinoco geese, so one female might end up with as many as 19 goslings to take care of.

And these chaps are Red-crested Pochards (Netta rufina) –  I think they look a little like a 1980s boy band, but maybe that’s just me. They are extremely handsome and are sometimes seen in the wild as escapees from wildfowl collections, though some birds do hop across from the Continent.

And what is this on one of the noticeboards? I’m pretty sure it’s a False Widow Spider (male) (Steatoda nobilis). He was very active considering it’s the middle of winter.

And then we found a pair of these rather handsome birds. These are Cape Barren Geese (Cereopsis novaehollandiae), rare in the wild and also apparently in collections, as they have a reputation for being ‘strong and aggressive to humans’. These two seemed extremely relaxed.

And then, finally, we have some Red-breasted geese (Branta ruficollis), another species that has ‘jumped the fence’ and can occasionally be seen in the wild. They always look to me as if they’ve popped straight out of an Egyptian wall painting, as in fact they have, though if you look closely you’ll see that there are subtle differences in the plumage. Scholars believe this was either down to artistic licence, or to the painting being of a kind of goose that no longer exists. I’m thinking that maybe the latter explanation is sadly closer to the truth, as the greylag goose on the right hand side of the panel is very close in all details to the living bird.

Wall Painting from the Cairo Museum, from the tomb of Nefermaat (2575-2551 B.C.E) Photo by By Djehouty – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56136838

On the way back, we encountered the Wild Walk, which involved a lot of balancing on logs and rope ladders and other unexpected stuff – great fun for little ones and the more athletic amongst us, but a bit tricky when carrying a rucksack, a camera and binoculars. Still, I survived, and was rewarded by this bench with its water voles…

And this children’s playground, which has rides in the shape of a tadpole going through metamorphosis.

Tadpole….

Tadpole with back legs…

Froglet…

Grown-up amphibian (A toad I suspect)

And finally, we got a very good view of an obliging Reed Bunting (Emeriza schoeniclus). He appeared to be gathering nesting material, but I think he was probably just after the seeds. These are not uncommon birds but are easily overlooked. They are, however, a sign of what an excellent habitat there is here at the Wetlands. 

I am so pleased to live in a city with such easy access to such a variety of habitats. Walthamstow Wetlands is a bit easier for me to get to, but it isn’t as established as the London Wetland Centre in Barnes, plus Walthamstow is still a working reservoir, with the restrictions that that sometimes imposes. I love them both! Fingers crossed for many more opportunities to explore nearby nature in 2024.

At Waterloo Station

Dear Readers, today I headed south-west for a trip to Barnes and the London Wetland Centre. The centre was established in 2000, after many years of planning, on the site of four redundant reservoirs. Today, it’s one of the best sites for bird watching and nature in general in London. Plus I’d also thought of it as being difficult to get to from here in East Finchley, but actually it takes just about an hour via Waterloo.

First up though, what on earth was this object at Waterloo Station? It was completely wrapped in black plastic when I travelled through en route to Dorset last week, but this week it’s revealed as an enormous advert for Kate Spade, an American fashion designer. A little train whizzes around the bottom, bearing a miniature pile of parcels. I confess myself underwhelmed. I rather like the red and green lights on the iconic Waterloo clock though.

Downstairs a whole new shopping centre is appearing in what used to be the Eurostar terminal, before it was moved to St Pancras. Alas, the toilets upstairs have been closed for refurbishment so us ladies are directed downstairs where there are about half the number of cubicles. Be warned! Though there is a very golden Christmas tree down here, so it’s not a completely wasted detour.

And up at the top level there’s a statue dedicated to the people who arrived on the Windrush. They were invited here to work on the railways and in the National Health Service and received a mixed greeting to say the least. What a cold place London must have seemed.

Anyhow, half an hour later I’m striding up to the entrance of the Wetlands Centre, pausing only to admire the statue of Sir Peter Scott, who did so much for the birds of the UK. What an astonishing man he was! He founded the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, which has nine reserves, including this one and Slimbridge, which was where Scott started to document the differences between the Bewick’s Swans who appeared every winter.  He was the founder of the World Wildlife Fund, and the originator of the Red Data Books on endangered species in 1962. Truly, he was ahead of his time. He also managed to save the Hawaiian NeNe goose from extinction.

Statue of Sir Peter Scott with his beloved swans

A Hawaiian Nene Goose

Anyhow, I was at the Wetlands Centre to meet my god daughter, who is a vet. I am as proud as punch! She has a great fondness for otters, so we went to see the Asian Short-Clawed otters being fed. The centre is mostly comprised of wetland habitat for wild birds, but they also have a fine collection of waterfowl and these two mammals.

I wasn’t that surprised when, at 5 minutes to feeding time, a heron turned up.

They seem to have a good sense of time – the otter feeder wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Did the bird notice that the people had gathered, I wonder? I wouldn’t put anything past them.

Anyhow, the keeper came out with what looked like some very nicely filleted trout (I’ve been watching Masterchef The Professionals so I know it’s All About the Detail). The otters seemed less than impressed, but were eventually persuaded to get stuck in.

The heron kept a discreet distance, but missed nothing, and eventually got some fish that the otters had missed.

Mostly, though, it stood around looking elegant, only moving when the otters came within nipping distance.

And then we wandered off to see the rest of the wildfowl. There is one pond completely surrounded by swamp cypress and at this time of year it’s losing its leaves. Just look at the colours!

And here are some goldeneye and some smew, looking very handsome. This is a great time of year to look at ducks, they’re all in tip-top plumage.

Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula)

Smew with mallard

And what, you may ask, is that Smew doing in a wire basket? This is a very handy way of feeding the diving ducks without the herons/mallards/gulls being able to get at it. The diving ducks just pop underneath and pop up in the feeding area, and then pop up outside again. The poor old mallards can only eat what they can reach with their beaks.The next lake over had some buffleheads and some hooded merganser.

Buffleheads

Bufflehead

Plus some shoveller ducks who may or may not be wild.

Shoveller Ducks

We passed two chaps on our way out of the wildfowl collection and into the ‘wild’ part of the centre. They had been eagerly looking for a bearded tit who had been spotted, but in all these acres of reeds you’d have to be lucky to find one, for sure. How beautiful it is in this low winter light, though!

It was very quiet in the hide, and we spotted wigeon…

Wigeon

Gadwall….

Gadwall

There were great rafts of teal, their rust and green heads shining in the sunshine.

Teal

You really get the sense that something magical could appear around the corner at any point here, or, more often, that  you’ve just missed something. If I lived a bit closer, I would definitely pop in regularly to see who was about. There are water voles here too, but usually the most you can spot is the ‘plop’ as they jump into the water and head off to safety. After all, with all these reeds, why would you make yourself too visible?

After all this excitement we were hungry, so we headed back to the cafe for a sandwich, and tomorrow I’ll tell you about the second part of our trip. I was very excited to see this giant dragonfly though 🙂

Dear Readers, because one day’s worth of Benjamin Zephaniah isn’t enough, I thought that today I’d share one of his (many) nature poems. More widely known as an activist, commentator and all-round wonderful human, in 2021 he published a book called ‘Nature Trail‘, which begs to be read aloud, preferably to a group of small children. But somehow, he manages to sneak a more profound message into even to the lightest of poems. Have a look at the last lines of this one. I couldn’t agree more.

Nature Trail

At the bottom of my garden
There’s a hedgehog and a frog
And a lot of creepy-crawlies
Living underneath a log,
There’s a baby daddy long legs
And an easy-going snail
And a family of woodlice,
All are on my nature trail.

There are caterpillars waiting
For their time to come to fly,
There are worms turning the earth over
As ladybirds fly by,
Birds will visit, cats will visit
But they always chose their time
And I’ve even seen a fox visit
This wild garden of mine.

Squirrels come to nick my nuts
And busy bees come buzzing
And when the night time comes
Sometimes some dragonflies come humming,
My garden mice are very shy
And I’ve seen bats that growl
And in my garden I have seen
A very wise old owl.

My garden is a lively place
There’s always something happening,
There’s this constant search for food
And then there’s all that flowering,
When you have a garden
You will never be alone
And I believe we all deserve
A garden of our own.

Benjamin Zephaniah Friday, January 3, 2003

Benjamin Zephaniah in 2018 (Photo by By Edwardx – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74944196)

Oh, I was so sorry to hear about the death of Benjamin Zephaniah this week, aged only 65. When I was first getting interested in poetry, it was him who introduced me to a whole new rhythm and style of rhyme. Have a listen to him reading here – I love all of these, but ‘City River Blues’ is probably my favourite. In his all-too-short 65 years he wrote political poems, poems for children, poems full of rage, poems full of fun, and he found the time to appear in 14 episodes of ‘Peaky Blinders’.

I rather like this take on Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’, and if you’ve listened to him reading at the link above, you can here it in your head.

What If (2009)
If you can keep your money when governments about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust your neighbour when they trust not you
And they be very nosy too;
If you can await the warm delights of summer
Then summer comes and goes with sun not seen,
And pay so much for drinking water
Knowing that the water is unclean.

If you seek peace in times of war creation,
And you can see that oil merchants are to blame,
If you can meet a pimp or politician,
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you cannot bear dis-united nations
And you think this new world order is a trick,
If you’ve ever tried to build good race relations,
And watch bad policing mess your work up quick.

If you can make one heap of all your savings
And risk buying a small house and plot,
Then sit back and watch the economy inflating
Then have to deal with the negative equity you’ve got;
If you can force your mind and body to continue
When all the social services have gone,
If you struggle on when there is nothing in you,
Except the knowledge that justice can be wrong.

If you can speak the truth to common people
Or walk with Kings and Queens and live no lie,
If you can see how power can be evil
And know that every censor is a spy;
If you can fill an unforgiving lifetime
With years of working hard to make ends meet,
You may not be wealthy but I am sure you will find
That you can hold your head high as you walk the streets.

Not many people know that Zephaniah was a vegan, and an environmentalist. I rather love this festive offering.

Talking Turkeys

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don’t eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.

Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
“I cannot wait for de chop”,
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.

I once knew a turkey called … Turkey
He said “Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?”,
I said “I am not too sure turkey
But it’s nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash”.

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends “FOR LIFE”.

And finally, this one, very close to my heart. RIP Benjamin. You were, and are, a bright star.

We Refugees

I come from a musical place
Where they shoot me for my song
And my brother has been tortured
By my brother in my land.

I come from a beautiful place
Where they hate my shade of skin
They don’t like the way I pray
And they ban free poetry.

I come from a beautiful place
Where girls cannot go to school
There you are told what to believe
And even young boys must grow beards.

I come from a great old forest
I think it is now a field
And the people I once knew
Are not there now.

We can all be refugees
Nobody is safe,
All it takes is a mad leader
Or no rain to bring forth food,
We can all be refugees
We can all be told to go,
We can be hated by someone
For being someone.

I come from a beautiful place
Where the valley floods each year
And each year the hurricane tells us
That we must keep moving on.
I come from an ancient place
All my family were born there
And I would like to go there
But I really want to live.

I come from a sunny, sandy place
Where tourists go to darken skin
And dealers like to sell guns there
I just can’t tell you what’s the price.

I am told I have no country now
I am told I am a lie
I am told that modern history books
May forget my name.

We can all be refugees
Sometimes it only takes a day,
Sometimes it only takes a handshake
Or a paper that is signed.
We all came from refugees
Nobody simply just appeared,
Nobody’s here without a struggle,
And why should we live in fear
Of the weather or the troubles?
We all came here from somewhere.

African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) Photo by Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Dear Readers, I don’t know quite why I find penguins so endearing. Is it that they walk upright, like us? Is it the way that they bustle along with such purpose, or is it maybe their determination when faced by obstacles like finding their mate in an enormous colony of thousands of individuals? Scientists have been studying African/Cape Penguins (Spheniscus demersus) to find  out what they can about the species’ breeding behaviour – this is one of the rarest penguins in the world, with an estimated total population of less than 21,000 birds in 2019. A combination of a fall in the numbers of sardines and anchovies available for the birds to feed on, oil spills and pollution, avian flu and human persecution have led to the African penguin being on the IUCN Red List. One possible point in its favour is that it doesn’t require the very low temperatures of some other penguin species, and that it seems to breed easily in captivity – zoos are cooperating in establishing a captive breeding population in case the wild birds reach a point of no return.

Which brings us back to mate recognition. How do penguins recognise one another? African penguins form lifelong pair bonds. It’s been known for a while that they can pick out their partner’s call from all the other birds in a colony, but scientist Luigi Baciadonna, of the University of Turin, wondered if the penguins could also recognise one another visually.

If you look at the photo above, you’ll see that the penguin has a very distinctive pattern of spots on its chest. These spots remain in the same position after every moult, so Baciadonna wondered if they had a special significance. To find out, they tested 12 birds at a zoo near Rome.

First up, they made life-sized images of the penguins, showed them to the live birds, and recorded their responses. Individual birds spent more time gazing (lovingly, I’m tempted to add) at the photos of their partners than they did of any of the other familiar penguins. This was true even when the heads of the images of the penguins were obscured, so clearly our obsession with the face of our beloved isn’t replicated in the African penguin.

Then they showed the penguins two images of their partner, one with spots, one with the spots removed. The penguins preferred their ‘spotty’ partner. But when the birds were shown their partner with the spots removed and another unspotted bird, all preferences disappeared. Baciadonna and his team believe that this shows that the spots are critical to mate identification.

African Penguin at the Western Cape (Photo by Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

It’s estimated that there has been a 95% drop in the number of African penguins during the past century. Anything that helps us to understand these extraordinary birds, and to help them to survive, has to be useful information.

Mistletoe (Viscum album) in Somerset

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, I can’t think about mistletoe without remembering the tree in the photo above. It grew in the garden of the Shrubbery Hotel in Ilminster, where we stayed both for happy occasions, such as my Aunt Hilary’s 90th birthday celebrations, and for sad ones, such as her Memorial Service. There are very few trees close to my home that have mistletoe (though one in East Finchley Cemetery comes to mind) but I often see them when I’m travelling by train to Dorset.

I’ve written about mistletoe before, so thought I’d share this (updated) article from my Wednesday Weed series a few years ago. This is a fascinating plant, and, as Lulah Ellender says in Nature’s Calendar, it makes us think about the whole nature of parasitism.

“Hung from ceilings and doorways this season, mistletoe does not just invite us for a seasonal kiss. It also challenges us to think about our perceptions around individualism, agency and autonomy in the natural world. Should we view parasitic plants as ecological freeloaders, sapping strength from an unwitting host? Or, by looking aslant at the notion of parasites, should we remember that interdependence is actually the essence of all living things?”

Indeed. There’s way too much ‘rugged individualism’ about in my opinion. None of us could survive without other people, especially these days when we outsource so many of the things that we need. We are all interconnected, and what harms one of us harms us all.

Rant over, and now back to the mistletoe!

Dear Readers, as Christmas is just around the corner I thought I’d share a few thoughts about mistletoe. What a strange plant this is! It’s associated with Christmas because it stays fresh and green even after the trees lose their leaves, but it has a longer association with fertility: the branches, foliage and seeds are said to resemble various sexual organs, though I must admit that I am having to squint to see much of a likeness, innocent soul that I am. Update – Lulah Ellender points out that the fertility link with mistletoe is because of its resemblance to sperm (see Photo Two below). The Celts believed that it was the semen of Taranis, the god of the sun and thunder, and the ancient Greek name for it was ‘oak sperm’. Clearly I need to get out (or stay in) more. 

Mistletoe fruit (Photo One)

Nonetheless, mistletoe has been used as a ‘cure’ for infertility (though as it’s toxic one would have to be very careful), as a charm for young women seeking to find husbands, and, of course, as an excuse for kissing. My latest issue of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) magazine has an article on mistletoe, which mentions that the kissing business probably started in the southwest Midlands, which is where mistletoe is commonest, and spread out from there, probably as a commercial enterprise, with the plant being taken to other parts of the country by the rapidly-growing railway network.

What intrigued me most in this article, however, was the story of how the mistletoe is spread. Mistletoe is a hemiparasite, which means that it derives its water and nutrients from its hosts, although it can photosynthesise itself. The plant seems to prefer hawthorn, apple, poplar and linden trees, though it has been found on hundreds of other species. The name ‘mistle’ comes from the plant’s association with thrushes, in particular the mistle thrush, which loves the fruit. It was long believed that mistletoe was spread by the birds wiping their beaks on twigs to get rid of the sticky substance that coats the seeds. However, it seems that mistle thrushes don’t do this, but simply excrete the seeds, only some of which will fall onto the correct type of branch and stick.

Sticky mistletoe seed (Photo Two)

Mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) (Photo Three)

However, over the past few decades there has been a large increase in the range of mistletoe in the UK, and the reason cited in the RHS article (by Graham Rice) is the blackcap. These little warblers used to migrate in winter, but an increasing number are staying in the UK all year round. Not only do they love mistletoe, but they do wipe their beaks after eating the fruit.

Although mistletoe feeds from its host trees, it’s not generally seen as dangerous to them. Indeed, there is advice in the RHS article on how to persuade mistletoe to colonise your trees. So this seems like quite a happy partnership between the mistletoe and the blackcap.

Male blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) (Photo Four)

Female blackcap (Photo Five)

Mistletoes belong to the sandalwood family (Santalaceae), and I’d never really given any thought to whether there were other species. And of course, there are. In Southern Spain there’s the red-berried Viscum cruciatum or red-berried mistletoe.

Red-berried mistletoe (Viscum cruciatum) (Photo Six)

In central and southern Europe there’s the yellow-berried mistletoe (Loranthus europaeus) which favours oak trees. The plants in the Loranthanceae family are known as ‘showy mistletoes’. I can see why.

Yellow-berried mistletoe (Loranthus europaeus) (Photo Seven)

Another ‘showy mistletoe’ is the Western Australian Christmas Tree (Nuytsia floribunda). This is a hemiparastic tree, of all things – it draws nutrients from the roots of any nearby plants that it can reach. Almost all species are susceptible to attack, but normally the tree only takes a small amount from each individual plant. It will even infiltrate underground cables. This is an extraordinary tree, revered by some of the Aboriginal peoples of the country, who used the bark for shields and harvested small amounts of the sticky gum that it exuded. The flowers, which can grow to up to a metre long, are favourites with pollinators

Western Australian Christmas Trees (Nuytsia floribunda) (Photo Eight)

Nuytsia floribunda flowers abuzz with bees (Photo Nine)

And finally, there are the dwarf mistletoes, which are more closely related to ‘our’ mistletoe than the showy mistletoes above. These can be more serious pests of trees because they are considered to be disease-vectors. They don’t rely on birds to spread their seeds, but can shoot them at up to fifty miles an hour after building up thermostatic pressure within the plant. The species below, Arceuthobium oxycedri, grows on juniper, and can cause problems where the shrubs are being grown commercially (for example, for their berries to flavour gin).

Dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium oxycedri) growing on juniper in Lebanon (Photo Ten)

So there is a lot more to mistletoes than just our species, but of course, the plain old white-berried one is closest to my heart. And of course, it needs a poem. So how about this one, which is actually a song – the words are by Barry Cornwall, and the poem itself comes from a book called ‘Christmas with the Poets’ by Henry Vizetelly, published in 1851. It’s rather a rambunctious way to finish this post, but as winter comes we need to ‘banish melancholy’ in any way that we can, I find. I hope you enjoy it!

The Mistletoe

Words: Barry Cornwall

Source: Henry Vizetelly, Christmas With The Poets (London: David Bogue, 1851).

When winter nights grow long,
And winds without blow cold,
We sit in a ring round the warm wood fire,
And listen to stories old!
And we try to look grave (as maids should be),
When the men bring in boughs of the laurel tree.
O, the laurel, the evergreen tree!
The poets have laurels, and why not we!

How pleasant, when night falls down,
And hides the wintry sun,
To see them come in to the blazing fire,
And know that their work is done;
Whilst many bring in, with a laugh or rhyme,
Green branches of holly for Christmas time.
O, the holly, the bright green holly!
It tells (like a tongue) that the times are jolly!

Sometimes — (in our grave house
Observe, this happeneth not;)
But at times the evergreen laurel boughs,
And the holly are all forgot;
And then — what then? why, the men laugh low,
And hang up a branch of —— the mistletoe!
Oh, brave is the laurel! and brave is the holly,
But the mistletoe banisheth melancholy!
Ah, nobody knows, nor ever shall know,
What is done under the mistletoe.

Photo Credits

Photo One By Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=752332

Photo Two by By Fir0002 (talk) (Uploads) – Fir0002 (talk) (Uploads), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32885953

Photo Three By Yuriy75 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8897596

Photo Four 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=104326583

Photo Five By Vogelartinfo – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13276336

Photo Six By Nbauers – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77809079

Photo Seven by Stefan.lefnaer, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo Eight  By enjosmith – Flickr: WA Christmas Trees, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30325757

Photo Nine  By Photographs by JarrahTree…commons.wikimedia.org, CC BY 2.5 au, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29752289

Photo Ten by By Elie plus – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27859735

Tachystola mulliganae (Photo by David Lees/Trustees of the Natural History Museum) from Ealing: New species of moth discovered in west London park – BBC News

Dear Readers, I sometimes dream of how exciting it would be to find a species new to science in my back garden, but this week there was news that lifelong moth enthusiast Barbara Mulligan had done just that. Mulligan had been fascinated by moths since she was ten years old, and had recently retired from her job as a housing finance officer when she found a moth in her moth trap (in Ealing, West London) that she didn’t recognise.

She sent the moth to her local moth recorder, who was also stumped, so the moth ended up at the Natural History Museum, where it was recognised as being similar to a specimen of an Australian moth that had been in the collection since 1885. Genetic tests proved that although the moth was similar to the one in the collection, it was distinct, and was, in fact, a moth new to science. It was named Tachystola mulliganae in Mulligan’s honour, and she couldn’t be more pleased.

Since then, she’s found 25 moths in several other locations in Ealing, but how it arrived in the UK is a mystery. It’s likely that the moth larvae or eggs were brought in with some plants from Australia, but it probably happened fairly recently as the moth is only known from a limited geographical range. Though the question is, would we know? There are not that many dedicated and regular observers of moths, though maybe the thought of finding a moth new to science could be an encouragement.

And let’s not forget the amazing Jennifer Owens, who monitored the wildlife in her suburban Leicestershire garden and discovered six species of parasitic wasp that were new to science, and 20 species of insect that hadn’t been reported in the UK before. Her book ‘Wildlife of a Garden – a Thirty-Year Study'(currently out of print)  is a fascinating insight into what can appear in a garden that wasn’t designed just for wildlife, but also for fruit, veg and flowers for the humans who enjoyed it. And who knows what’s going on even in a modest urban patch? Eyes peeled, people! You could be the next person to have a plant or critter named after you.