Dear Readers, as you know I am usually enchanted by the squirrels that visit the garden, but this year they are slightly ‘taking the Mickey’ as my Dad would have said. There are at least two adults and two youngsters who visit the garden as soon as the seed feeders are put out and sit there until they have eaten so many sunflower hearts that they can no longer move. Then, they sometimes move over to the suet feeders. I had no idea that squirrels had a taste for animal products, but I should have guessed following a squirrel’s interest in the prey of a sparrowhawk a few years ago. At one point, all four feeders had a squirrel attached.

So I have come to the conclusion that while I am happy for the squirrels to have some of the food that I put out for the birds (after all, when you make a wildlife garden you can’t necessarily be that fussed about who turns up), I don’t want them gobbling it all up. This morning there were three varieties of tit (coal, blue and great), some sparrows, a dunnock and some chaffinches who were all unable to feed because of the squirrels, and that’s without the collared doves who looked as if they were gathering en masse to at least attempt a take over.

So I have turned my mind to ‘squirrel-proof feeders’. If I had one or two of these at least the birds would get a look in. But which type to buy? There are so many different kinds, and I know that not all of them actually foil the furry foe (a quick burst of alliteration there). Have you had a similar problem? What has worked for you? Before anyone points out that attaching a seed tray to one of the feeders probably helps the squirrels, I need to tell you that I put this there for the woodpigeons/collared doves so that they could feed.

So, looking at Vine House Farm (my favourite bird food provider), it appears that the choice is: cage…

Photo by Vince at https://www.flickr.com/photos/vince2012/5254073092

…baffles….

Photo by Jim Winstead at https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimwinstead/78308502

or the ‘Squirrel Buster’ (the weight of a squirrel or large bird closes up the ports of the feeder, though clearly I’d have to be careful about where it was located). I haven’t found any photos of squirrels ‘busting’ the squirrel buster feeders, so maybe this design really does foil them. Shame it’s the most expensive, but there we go.

Photo from https://www.reallywildbirdfood.co.uk/hanging-feeders/squirrel-buster-classic/sb-c

Over to you, Readers! Squirrels and bird food – your thoughts. I will report back soon.

Dear Readers, today we went for a fungi foray in Coldfall Wood. We were all a little dizzy with excitement, as I had been trying to find someone to lead a walk for weeks, and then, like a blessing, Mario arrived. The walk only had 20 places, but it was subscribed twice over. I had no idea that there was such interest in these ephemeral organisms, but soon we were ‘getting our eye in’ and spotting them all over the place. We saw more than 30 species in an hour and a half, and I will do a longer post soon describing what we saw.

If you have a wood nearby, and haven’t had a chance to explore it for a while, do go. This seems like a particularly splendid year for fungi, who are maybe recovering after all the period during Covid when it seemed as if everyone in the world had descended on any woodland that they could find, in a kind of desperation to be outdoors. Their variety and abundance is astonishing at the moment, but not probably for much longer – once the rain and the frost get going, it will be mostly over until next year.

For now, though, I wanted to share their beauty with you, and also this poem: I love the way that the poet weaves the life of the forest together, from what we can see above ground to the intricate weaving of mycelial threads underground. The poem is by Paige Quiñones, a poet that I hadn’t come across before. She is writing about foraging for mushrooms probably in the US where she’s based, and by the size of the spiders I’d say maybe the south west of the country, but still, there is much that is familiar here. See what you think.

Mushrooms by Paige Quiñones

Pulling my first from its place in the forest floor
felt like slipping a key from its partnered, well-oiled lock.
Broken so cleanly at the stem it appeared scalpel-sliced.

You assured me this was a good find, a Boletus from its reddened bruise
and lack of gills. But chanterelles proved easiest to forage;
their penny-bright caps glinted between dead leaves, ripe for the taking.

Spiders were the largest animals we saw that day: orb weavers
bigger than a man’s fist, sharp-legged seamstresses whose webs
like neural networks transgressed each clearing. Without hair

they weren’t so frightening, as if each spider had disrobed herself
to display a less menacing skeleton. Still, we kept our distance.
And suddenly what I had never paid attention to was flourishing:

oysters in bursts around a rotting stump, Amanitas with their white
burial shroud, indigo milk caps as fluted and blue as
a ballerina’s tulle skirt. You told me the wildness

might not be as feral as we think. That the fungi’s filaments
weave a pattern, a conscious fabric, engaging the nearest tree with
its opposite furthest tree to say entwine your roots with my mycelia

and I will tell you my secrets. We followed their invisible cartography
by whatever heads peered up from autumn’s detritus.
And though we were strangers there, unmooring

each mushroom that seemed least dangerous, we could feel
the vast organism underfoot. Silent but for the sounds
of insects, unwitting and soon to be caught.

Attenborough’s Long-Beaked Echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi) Photo from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/10/attenborough-long-beaked-echidna-seen-first-time-cyclops-mountain-photos-footage

Dear Readers, there was much rejoicing in the Bugwoman household this morning when news broke that Attenborough’s Long-Beaked Echidna (otherwise known as Sir David’s Echidna) has been found in Indonesia – the last time it was seen by Western scientists was in 1961. However, the animal is an integral part of the culture of the local Yongsu Sapori tribe, who helped the scientists in their seach for the creature. In Yongsu Sapori tradition, if there is a falling-out between members of the tribe, both sides have to find, and capture, an echidna and a marlin, a very energetic oceanic fish. Both creatures are so rare that by the time they’ve been found, the heat has gone out of the argument and people are more able to come together and reconcile. In recent years, the Yongsu Sapori people have decided that this process doesn’t have to involve actually killing the echidna as it is so rare. How the marlin fares is not recorded.

You can see film of the echidna here as it goes about its business. I can only imagine how excited the scientists were when they saw it.

An echidna is a most unusual animal – it’s a monotreme, which means that it lays eggs and produced milk from special glands on its chest rather than having actual breasts. The only other living monotreme is that rather better-known Duck-Billed Platypus.

There are five species of Echidna in total, but the rest live in Australia and Papua New Guinea. They are nocturnal and shy, and can burrow into the ground with remarkable speed if interrupted in their nightly hunt for ants and termites. The appearance of the animal looks rather similar to a hedgehog, an excellent example of convergent evolution – the two animals are not closely related, but have both developed spines, nocturnal  behaviour and a taste for invertebrates. What our hedgehogs don’t have, however, is sharp spur on their hind legs – in Platypuses this contains venom, but in Echidnas the spur is innocent  of poison. These are very long-lived animals, at least in captivity, where the oldest recorded animal reached 50 years of age.

The Western Lond-Beaked Echidna (Zaglossus brunii), found in Papua New Guinea. Photo by By User:Jaganath – Transferred from English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1004068

Whilst Echidnas have not made that much of a dent in popular culture, I can heartily recommend the  Platypus books by illustrator Chris Riddell. My favourite is ‘Platypus and the Birthday Party‘, in which Platypus arranges a party, complete with balloons. The consequences of inviting Echidna, an animal with sharp pointy spines, to such an event can be imagined, I’m sure, but (spoiler alert) in a very Australian fashion Platypus and his friends top each spine with a cork, so that the festivities can go ahead with everyone included. I also love that Platypus has a toy platypus called Bruce. Of course s/he does. There is something really appealing about the Platypus books, and do have a look if you haven’t come across them before and have some young people (especially animal-lovers)  who might be in need of a Christmas present. After all, the earlier in life you learn about platypuses and echidnas, the more likely you are to care about them (and to be a whizz if the subject ever comes up in a pub quiz.

A foggy day in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery

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

Dear Readers, ‘Fog, Drizzle and Mist’ sounds rather like a Dickensian solicitors’ firm, but as Rowan Jaines points out in her piece on the subject in ‘Nature’s Calendar’ November really is the time for all three of these atmospheric conditions. Now that the smogs of my childhood no longer happen, it’s actually quite pleasant to walk about and see how familiar things are changed when they’re not quite clear. I always notice how  my footsteps and my breathing sounds louder because everything else is so muffled. And then there’s the way that the dampness seems to concentrate the smell of the soil. The last roses on a bush, or the whiteness of mushrooms amongst the trees seem to glow. It’s all rather satisfying, provided you’re well wrapped up and have the prospect of hot tea and maybe a bun when you get home.

This is all rather different from the fogs when I was growing up, before the Clean Air Acts in London put paid to the ‘peasoupers’. To be fair, the worst of the fogs were over and done with by the 1960s but I still remember wandering home from school and not being able to see more than a few feet in front of me. From memory, we used to be sent home early from school if there was a bad fog, presumably to stop us having to contend with the failing light as well (it’s dark here by 5 p.m. in November) but it still strikes me as a bit strange to throw several hundred small children out onto the street without letting their parents know.

For fog and mist at any time of year I recommend a walk in the mountains of Obergurgl (though any relatively high ground will do). Every year when we go to Austria we have what I describe as a ‘Panoramaweg’ moment, when we look out over a splendid view to see precisely nothing. If we’re lucky, the clouds lift suddenly and the beauty of the vista is exposed, but sometimes we just trudge on, trying to avoid tripping over tree roots and being menaced by distant floppy-eared sheep, who just know that we have sandwiches in our rucksacks even if they can’t see us.

Menacing Italian Sheep.

But why is November so good for all this foggy, misty, drizzly stuff? Jaines explains as follows:

‘During November the conditions are perfect for this process of condensation: the nights are lengthening, the temperatures are falling and the air is moist. The ground still retains some of the warmth of the summer sun, and the heat that it radiates is rapidly cooled by the frigid air; liquid water begins to condense on the surface of things, such as blades of grass and particles of air in the atmosphere. Light reflects off the airborne droplets in all directions, forming the whitish haze that we associate with fog, drizzle and mist. On days when the sun is strong it heats up the air after dawn, increasing its capacity to hold moisture, and the air clears. As autumn gives way to winter, the sun’s rays grow weaker and the moisture is no longer ‘burned off’ with the coming of day’ (Page 291)

Konigstal waterfall, Hochgurgl, Austria

But how beautiful the mist can be when it comes into contact with something as delicate and yet strong as a spider’s web! I remember seeing the hedges in Milborne St Andrew, where Mum and Dad used to live, being absolutely covered in thousands of tiny webs that were only visible when there had been mist or fog, their makers long since dead, their offspring waiting as eggs for the spring. There aren’t quite so many hedges here in East Finchley, but there are still some fine webs that are picked out on a damp day. It’s these tiny moments of unexpected miniature beauty that bring me such joy.

And finally, here’s a little, little poem, by American poet Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967). It isn’t in the form of a haiku, but it has something of the same quality. See what you think!

Fog
BY CARL SANDBURG
The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Dear Readers, I have mused about scaffolding and its role as a new habitat before, but today I was surprised to look out of my bathroom window and see not one but two squirrels, tucked in between the climbing hydrangea and the scaffold poles. I looked at them, they looked at me, and clearly they were horrified because they separated and ran. One went vertically up onto the flat roof, and the other escaped in the general direction of Durham Road.

For a while there was a bit of twitching in the leaves, but then the second squirrel bolted vertically downwards in an impressive display of acrobatic activity. And I hope that they enjoy their climbing frame because, at least in theory, the scaffolding is coming down in a few days. I will be glad to have a bit more light back in my dining room, but it has been interesting to see how various animals have been using it.

You might remember all the spiders’ webs that appeared in the autumn.

Well, last week I watched a little flock of blue tits systematically working their way around the poles, sometimes disappearing into them in search of spiders and other insects. I wonder if this is a much overlooked temporary addition to the habitat of many creatures? I might have mentioned that the first sparrowhawk that I ever saw in our garden was sitting on the scaffolding at the back of my house, surveying the scene with great equanimity while the sparrows went berserk.  If you’ve ever seen scaffolding being used in an unusual way, do tell! One reason that city foxes are so successful is that they seem to have a very developed 3D map of their territories, and are great climbers as we know. The photo below, from the Natural History Museum, shows a young fox exploring recently-installed scaffolding.

Pigeons and doves are fond of making their nests on scaffolding, and this can lead to problems – although it’s illegal to disturb nesting birds (even common ones) it’s a rare scaffolder who won’t put business over nature when it’s time for the scaffolding to come down. But birds can be very adaptable – have a read of this article by Paul Evans in The Guardian for a happy ending.

The rescued wood pigeon squab in a cardboard box. Photograph: Maria Nunzia Calderone

So, over to you Readers! Any scaffolding anecdotes to recount? Or any other tales of animals or plants using temporary structures? It always cheers me up to see how adaptable some animals are, and how quickly they will make use of, and reclaim, human-made structures. 

Shops on Fortis Green Road

Dear Readers, we are lucky in East Finchley to be an easy walk away from the Edwardian suburb of Muswell Hill, and in particular the area to the north-west known as Fortis Green. Fortis Green Road is a splendid example of Edwardian architecture, and it feels like a miracle to me that the shops have been mostly preserved and the flats above retain their plasterwork and the other little details that make them so splendid. I often wonder what the circular room at the top of the building to the left in the photo above is like, and whether it’s actually possible to sit out on the balcony below, though I guess your main view would be of traffic heading to the crossroads below.

This side of the road was developed by James Edmondson (1857 to 1931), who bought two large estates in Muswell Hill and proceeded to build most of Muswell Hill, including this impressive parade. Edmondson was a keen naturalist and a rider of a penny-farthing bike, but was also clearly a canny property developer. His shopping parades cover the whole of central Muswell Hill, and although the signage often leaves something to be desired, the buildings themselves have a touch of turn-of-the-century gentility about them. The buildings in the photo above form part of Queen’s Mansions, but further down the road are several other parades, including St James’s Parade, built in 1900.

Further down the road is the site of the Athenaeum, built by Edmondson in 1905 as a venue for concerts, dances and meetings, and for the meetings of a society known as ‘The Muswell Hill Parliament’. In 1918 it was converted into a cinema, but in 1935 a rival cinema was constructed opposite it (this building is itself described as one of the best Expressionist cinemas in the UK). Sadly, the Athenaeum was demolished and replaced by a typical 1960s apartment block in 1966, with a Sainsburys supermarket on the ground level. This really does stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

The Athenaeum in 1905 (Photo from https://hornseyhistorical.org.uk/athenaeum-muswell-hill/)

The site of the Athenaeum now (Photo by Janet Owen from https://hornseyhistorical.org.uk/athenaeum-muswell-hill/)

At the end of Fortis Green Road stands St James’s church. It was built between 1902 and 1910 and is in the Perpendicular style. My old friend Wikipedia tells me that this is the third and final stage of English Gothic church building, characterised by:

‘.… large windows, four-centred arches, straight vertical and horizontal lines in the tracery, and regular arch-topped rectangular panelling ‘.

It is a very imposing building – the spire reaches to 179 feet, and as the church is already 337 feet above sea level (it’s not called Muswell Hill for nothing) it sometimes seems as if it’s the highest point for miles.

St James’s Church, Muswell Hill

If I now turn on my tail and head back down the road, we pass the side of the street that was developed by a different man, William. B. Collins. This side of Fortis Green Road houses The Children’s Bookshop which has a fine collection not only of books for young people, but also graphic novels (which as we know are now very popular with people of all ages). There’s also Cheeses of Muswell Hill, a teeny-tiny shop where the queue for stilton at Christmas can stretch all the way to that Expressionist cinema. I note that they do mail-order now, which might take some away some of the strain.

What’s noticeable about this side of the road is that there are a number of half-shops with curved windows. As with the semi-circular windows on the other side of the road, these can cost a small fortune to replace. I note that a group of drunken youths managed to crack several windows in Muswell Hill a few weeks ago, and then moved on to crack a few in East Finchley as well. As if times weren’t hard enough for local shops.

The curved window at Cheeses of Muswell Hill

And finally, here is my absolute favourite apartment building in Muswell Hill (and possibly anywhere). This is a perfect Arts and Crafts building, with more than a whiff of William Morris about it, and I would love to see what the flats themselves are like. The complex, built by Collins, is called Birchwood Mansions. It’s Grade II listed, and the last flat that sold there went for £700k, just in case you have any loose change rattling about :-).

And so, on a sunny afternoon it’s always fun to walk and do some people-watching in Fortis Green. It’s even more fun if you can get hold of Ken Gay’s excellent guide to Muswell Hill, which has a guided walk at the end. At any rate, you’re never short of a coffee stop in Muswell Hill, so there are plenty of places to rest your tired feet and at the end of the walk, the 234 or 102 buses will take you back to East Finchley tube station for the journey home.

Crab Apple Tree on Huntingdon Road

Dear Readers, it was a lovely sunny day on Sunday and so in spite of having my first assignment for my latest Open University module hanging over my head we decided to go for a quick walk and see what we could see. First up here’s this splendid crab apple tree. Most of the apples have fallen off now (what with the three storms we’ve had already this season) so there’s less chance of turning an ankle. And look how all the other trees are glowing! So splendid.

Incidentally, there’s rather lovely resource for us Londoners called Tree Talk – you can pop in your post code and it will generate a tree walk for you. Have a go and see what you think!

The one below is, I think, a cherry but feel free to correct me.

And this is a very lovely Japanese Maple. They are never more beautiful than at this time of year.

This is, I think, a Serviceberry (Amelanchior canadensis) – this has become a very popular tree on our road, though at least one has fallen over. I love the autumn colour.

And here are some privet berries. I tend to forget that privet not only flowers but has fruit, though it’s obvious when you think about it.

And here are a couple more serviceberries, on Durham Road. As I said, they’re the street tree du jour. Presumably Barnet got a job lot. I’m not complaining though.

Serviceberry

And just look at this wonderful maple on Twyford Avenue!

The tree below is marked as a hawthorn on my London Tree Map: the berries look right, but the leaves are very different from your common-or-garden hawthorn. Any thoughts, gardeners?

And then, finally, how about this? Is there any tree yellower than a ginkgo in autumn? It’s a remarkable tree, and I love how its ancestors would have co-existed with dinosaurs in the Middle Jurassic. These days, it’s just as happy with the shoppers outside Planet Organic it seems. What a great way to end a walk, and tomorrow I’ll share a little bit about Muswell Hill with you – it’s the posher neighbourhood just up the road from East Finchley, and it has some rather fine features. And now, it’s back to climate change and interdisciplinarity. Wish me luck!

Ginkgo

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

“Well, Bug Woman”, I hear my East Finchley readers saying, “You must be living in a different ecological niche from the rest of us, because where I live it hasn’t stopped raining for a week”. And you would be 100% correct – the photo above is from a cold snap in December last year. But nothing illustrates the difference between the north and south of the British Isles better than the dates of the first frosts: the average first frost in Aviemore happens between 1st and 10th October, Edinburgh has to wait until between 21st and 31st October, and Barnet (where I live) usually doesn’t get frost until the early new year, between 1st and 10th January. I am more than amused to discover that frost is rare in  Westminster. My head tells me that it’s probably because of the urban heat island effect (whereby cities retain heat in all that concrete and brick) but my heart wonders if it’s all the hot air. You can find out the dates for your area in the UK in this very useful map here.

It isn’t just a matter of north or south though: frost is quite a temperamental animal. If you have a look at the map, you’ll see that early first frosts occur most often well inland, away from cities (that heat island effect that I mentioned above) and come later on the west side of the country than the east side. The west of the UK is traditionally warmer than the east side anyhow (all those Scandinavian breezes blow in not only waxwings (hopefully, it looks like a very good year for these occasional migrants) but cold winds. Of course, everything is up for grabs with climate change, so it will be interesting to see how this winter plays out. Already we’ve seen three storms, with major flooding impacts in the north and east of England, many parts of Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland. But as yet, in East Finchley at least, no frost.

As we know, frost wilts and kills plants, and freezes water so that it’s inaccessible to birds and other animals. Most insects and invertebrates are either hibernating, hiding or dead. It’s a time to remember to supply water and protein and fat-rich food for birds. But there are also benefits to frost – it kills off many pest species of insect, which keeps their numbers under some sort of control, and it’s said to make all the difference to the flavour of parsnips.

In her piece on frosts, Lulah Ellender mentions that frost makes rosehips and hawthorn berries more palatable to birds. She also mentions that some plants need cold  in order to germinate – the freezing temperatures break down the husk of the seed so that the plant can germinate. This is known as cold stratification, and lots of plants need it: Alys Fowler has an interesting article about it in The Guardian here. The list of plants that apparently rely on cold stratification has me scratching my head a bit, though – lavender is a Mediterranean plant, but apparently needs a dose of frost for the seeds to get going. Help me out here, readers! Have you had stick your seeds in the freezer to get them going? Reveal all!

Acorns, apparently requiring cold stratification

And do let me know your thoughts on frost. Have you had any yet? Do you live somewhere where frost is rarer than hen’s teeth? Are you in the process of getting your geraniums in for the winter? Share all. I’d love to know.

Margaret Bradshaw botanising in Teesdale (Photo from the Guardian article (link below)

Dear Readers, every so often I read about someone so inspirational that I have to share the details with you all, and so it was today when I read this story in The Guardian by Phoebe Weston.  Margaret Bradshaw was born in 1926 and has been studying the flora of Teesdale since an initial visit in the 1950s. The mix of southern European and arctic-alpine plants here are unique in the UK and are known as the ‘Teesdale Assemblage’. 28 of the species are threatened with extinction. Bradshaw conducted surveys in 1968-77, and again in 2002-2010, during which time there was an average drop of 54% in plant abundance. Without these surveys, we would have no idea how much of this unique community of plants was being lost.

Bradshaw has just published a book on the subject (at 97 years old) – ‘Teesdale’s Special Flora – Plants, Places and People‘. ‘Everything about Teesdale is special’, she says.

Interestingly, although overgrazing has been blamed for a fall in biodiversity in many areas, in Teesdale the problem is not enough grazing – the alpine plants here need lots of light and are easily overshadowed by faster growing species. As a result of Bradshaw’s studies, farmers are working with Natural England (which manages the land) to increase the number of sheep and control when and where they graze. Sadly, increases in nutrients from farming, rabbits (which graze the land differently from sheep) and climate change are all also having an effect. The last words of her book are heart-rending:

“This is our heritage, this unique assemblage of plant species, mine and yours,” she writes. “In spite of trying, I have failed to prevent its decline, now it is up to you.”

Margaret Bradshaw in Teesdale (Photo from The Guardian, see link above)

But what is so inspiring to me is not only Bradshaw’s mission to document and protect the plants of Teesdale, but her character. She reminds me of my Aunt Hilary, who was famously described as ‘a force of nature’ which in plain English can mean ‘a blooming difficult woman’. I notice that Bradshaw doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and tells the poor journalist a) that she’s driving too fast, b) to ‘read the book’ if she wants answers to some of her questions, and c) ‘curtly shushes’ the journalist when she doesn’t give Bradshaw time to think. But then, if you can’t speak your mind at 97, when can you speak your mind? And also, sometimes being direct and single-minded is the only way to get things done.

Bradshaw’s advice when asked how she manages to do so much even though she’s into her 90s is very telling, and worth remembering.

“Just keep going,” she says. “Keep at it. Don’t sit down and just watch the telly.”

And I think there’s so much truth in this (much as I love watching the telly). I’m sure that the way to be able to do things is to keep doing them if you possibly can. And, as Bradshaw rides off into the damp Teesdale morning, I for one will be considering her as one of my natural history icons, up there with David Attenborough, although I imagine she would pooh-pooh the idea. We need more people like Bradshaw to champion our nature-depleted countryside.

Hoary Whitlow-grass (Draba incarna) Photo by Mike Pennington. Reduced by nearly 100% in Teesdale to just one plant.

Dwarf Milkwort (Polygala amarella) Photo by By Algirdas – Latvian wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2451211. Reduced by 98% on Teesdale from its abundance in the 1960s.