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Nature Notes
from Hilltop News
Nature Notes
If you enjoy living or visiting the Chilterns you cannot fail to
be impressed with the variety of landscape, wildlife and the
particular weather it offers be it over the seasons of the year or
just on a single day. What's more on any given day, the countryside
in which the hilltop villages nestle is often characterised by
having its own micro-climate compared to the neighbouring towns and
countryside beneath it. This in turn has influenced the composition
of local habitats and the occurrence of wildlife.
No one set of eyes, ears and sense of smell can capture the
essence of the natural history of the hilltop villages. The
following nature notes first published in the Hilltop News are just
a simple attempt to reflect on the flora and fauna we enjoy through
the seasons.
These articles were previously published in "Hilltop News".
Chris Brown
January 2004
Nature Notes – August 2013
The Hidden Natural History of an English Churchyard
On a recent visit to St Lawrence's churchyard I was, once again,
reminded that graveyards, typically tucked away from the hurly-burly
of daily life, and are places for tranquil repose. However, looking
closer they are also important habitats for our local wildlife. As
places that are treasured by us, and with so much care lovingly
bestowed on them, ensuring continuity over time also provide vital
refuges for plants and animals. What's more this sympathetic approach
to the small estates around parish churches is long-standing
consequently these habitats have been protected, sometimes over many
hundreds of years, from the influences experienced beyond their
boundaries as a village community evolved. Bearing in mind that many
of the nature reserves around us, quite often reclaimed sites, have
not had the benefit over such long periods of care. Church wardens and
others who look after these oases of calm have learnt to strike a
balance between the levels of tidiness needed to be respectful, and
the informality that is inevitable and pragmatic when adjacent to the
semi-wilderness ever-encroaching from across its boundaries.
I am reminded at this point of the Old-English folk song "Who Killed
Cock Robin". It's interesting how several of the characters (including
several birds) in this melodrama are imbued with sepulchral
overtones. An owl is digging a grave with pick and shovel whilst the
thrush offered to sing the psalm. Typecast is the rook depicted as the
parson (equipped with his bell and book). It is perhaps no surprise
also that many of the early naturalists were also clergymen. We know
that Charles Darwin who, after giving up studying medicine at
Edinburgh was set to become 'a man of the cloth', spent much of his
spare time in the 1828-31 at Cambridge in the company of his
theological friends, riding and fishing and pursuing one of the fads
of the day beetle-hunting. Half a century earlier Gilbert White fits
the mold of naturalist-clergyman to perfection. He is revered for his
studies of the interaction between animals and with plants, and is
considered the first ecologist. His influential commentaries on nature
written during his time as curate at Selbourne, took the form of
letters to his friends and diaries of events: from chronologies of
year on year events to hourly observations at different times of the
day. He amassed such observations in minute detail, ranging from the
importance and activities of earthworms, to the habits and wanderings
of his pet tortoise.
I mention this as we can adopt such a similar approach today. For
instance, I made my visit on a humid summer's day, in the late
afternoon. The beginnings and ends of days are when wildlife is often
most active. Standing still a while and soon the blackbirds resumed
their methodical search across moist lawns for worms interrupted by
bouts of synchronous serenading at the top of a beech. A pair of
robins attempt to intimidate each other atop some neighbouring
headstones, the winner taking the spoils from some recently broken
ground lying between their respective 'lists'. A song thrush seeks a
slug, or perhaps a woodlouse, by methodically stirring through the
grass heaped on the compost.
Meanwhile, approaching a shaded corner I could hear the beech leaves,
rustling around me. Beneath the deep carpet of last year's leaves I
concluded there must be several small rodents, perhaps shrews or field
mice, foraging for invertebrates and seeds. I soon discovered that I
was not alone in observing this frantic activity. I heard someone
comment recently that with the wealth of television documentaries on
wildlife from all round the world one can sometimes become more
familiar with the lives and habits of a black mamba in the Amazon
Basin or a cobra in northern India than say their home grown relatives
living almost totally unnoticed in our back yards. Just a matter of a
foot or two away from me I saw some dull lime-green interspersed with
shades of grey and the unmistakable serpentine shape. Seemingly
untroubled by my presence a motionless grass snake, around 18 inches
long, was clearly alert to the disturbance beneath it a matter of
inches away. A moment later it disappeared beneath the leaves but
whether it found its prey soon after I cannot confirm.
So far what has been described is the wildlife engaged in the most
frantic of activity. Graveyards are also home to those living in the
slow lane. Lichens are a combination of a fungus and one or more
species of algae that live in symbiotic harmony with each other. The
algae provides much of the food supply through photosynthesis whilst
the fungi provides a robust means to keep secured to the substrate and
to absorb water and trace elements drawn from the gravestone. They
come in different forms. Typically on gravestones we might find the
amorphous-shaped dusty patches of leprose lichens, the rough-surfaced
crustose lichens typically found embedded in sandstone
monuments. Occasionally we might also find the rosettes of foliose
lichens usually growing proud of the surface of the headstone. Unlike
fast-living flora and fauna, such as the shrews nearby which might
live for just six-months, lichens have been dated to over 500 years
and can resist periods of extreme cold. They create their own
microclimate, within which many minute creatures make their
home. Around a millimetre long, living on the surface and within the
structures of lichens and mosses, is the group of microscopic
creatures known as tardigrades. Splash a lichen with water and capture
the run-off on a slide and even under a hand lens you can see these
'water bears' as they are also known, because they have the appearance
of a cuddly swimming teddy. There resilience enables them to survive
prolonged periods of freezing cold and can recover speedily when
conditions reverse. They float around in air-currents much like
pollen, have been recovered from the outer atmosphere, will survive
long periods of drought, and do not need to feed for years on end only
becoming active again once re-hydrated. These microscopic beasts feed
by grazing on the bacteria and detritus found on the surface of the
lichen or moss. In return for benefiting from a moist secure niche
their grazing ensures the surface of mosses and lichens remain
dust-free, thus aiding the efficient photosynthesis by their hosts.
I hope a few of you will take the opportunity to enjoy our local
Anglican churchyards in Hawridge, St Leonards and Cholesbury as well
as the small Baptist churchyard in Buckland Common.
Nature Notes – June 2013
The Beauty in Nature and The Poetry in Fibonacci's Mathematics
We have had to wait a good deal longer than usual this year for the
Spring's to burst forth with its signature display of natural
beauty. We all have the privilege of deciding what amounts to beauty
in nature. What we can share is the experience of Spring bursting
forth in the Chilterns countryside. Beauty in nature is, as in love,
'in the eye of the beholder'. For some it will be the blossoming of
bluebells, it might be the nesting of birds or the greening of beech
trees. And for others it is the sense of the whole world coming alive
once again after the dead of winter; rejuvenation and rebirth,
reawakening of the senses. Poetry has oft been used to capture the
beauty of nature as in this poem about Spring:
The air is cool, the breeze is light.
The clouds in the sky are fluffy and white.
The flowers open to show their bright faces,
as the garden snail alongside paces.
The trees unfold their bright green leaves.
The spider a silken web she weaves.
The birds sing their notes high and clear.
Cheer up! Cheer up! Spring is here!
- Teresa Underwood
Don't get me wrong I've not gone all romantic about Spring! It's just
my way of setting things up so I can introduce another way you could
start to look at the beauty of the Chilterns or any landscape for that
matter. Spring brings to the fore recurring patterns that are
commonplace throughout the natural world and are based on a formula
which is to be found in the structure of plants or animals, in the
activities and constructions of the latter, as well as in natural
phenomena. In effect what is at play here is the poetry of
mathematics contributing to the beauty of nature. Specifically there
is a pattern of numbers known as the Fibonacci Sequence. This is a
series of numbers which starts 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34... and
so on - where each successive number being the sum of the previous two
numbers. This sequence was first discovered by Indian mathematicians
in the 6th century; however it was an Italian mathematician, Leonardo
de Pisa, aka Fibonacci who, in the 11th century, first applied this
sequence to events in the natural world. He predicted that the
sequence which, only later became named after him, would be found
throughout nature and in natural phenomena such as in the structure of
My cast of characters is drawn from those referred to in the poem
above. We are all familiar with the sticky leaf buds of the horse
chestnut. The assemblage of buds on the branch is not random but is
based on the fibonacci sequence. Subsequently, as the trees unfold
their bright green leaves an order becomes apparent in their
organisation. The distance between the buds increases the further
they are from the tip of the stem and their relative position is also
orientated along a spiral drawn according to the fibonacci
sequence. As a tree grows from a single stem this simple layout
contributes towards the overall configuration of all the branches in
the mature tree. Of course no tree remains in such a pristine state
but is affected by pest attack and disease but the general symmetry
obvious in mature broad-leaved and coniferous trees which have avoided
major damage is dictated at the outset by this sequence.
Flowers open to show their bright faces and in plants such as daisies
and dandelions these flowers are in reality composite structures
called inflorescences, comprising large number of tightly-packed
florets which make up one large super-flower. The orientation of these
florets follows the line of several spirals arcing out from the centre
of the inflorescence which describe a pattern again based on this
special numerical sequence. Perhaps the best display of this is in the
seed head of a sunflower. Other examples can be found in fruit such as
the pineapple, the cones of cycads and cypress firs and when taking a
cross-section through a red cabbage.
Moving onto the animal kingdom a most pervasive of examples is the
garden snail. Alongside (your prized herbaceous border) paces this
rampant mollusc carrying on its back a conspicuous spiral shell with
annualised growth rings though varying from season to season, for
reasons of climate, has been perfectly formed in accord with the
mathematical formula. A slow motion billboard advertising it belongs
to the fibonacci brand. Another example in the animal world is the
spiral horns of sheep, goats and some deer.
An example where the fibonicci sequence comes into play is the
construction when the garden spider a silken web she weaves. The web
comprises several spirals built on radiating spokes. The mystery is
how the fibonacci spiral based on this mathematical sequence produces,
without failure, such a perfectly proportioned web structure. The plan
for the web is embedded within the ganglia of the spider. As set out
in Darwin's theory of natural selection which drives the process of
evolution there is a continuous drive to refine processes to achieve
the most efficient use of scarce materials.
To put another way, there's simplicity, complexity and, above all,
beauty in nature. So when around and about our Chiltern Hills do enjoy
its beauty, whatever is your chosen way.
Nature Notes – April 2013
A Thousand Acre Sky
Three species of snake live in the UK; as we know none can be found in
Ireland. The rarest of these is the smooth snake which is not native
to these parts, preferring the heathlands of Hampshire, in particular
the New Forest. About now both Grass snakes and Adders start to become
active. Distinguishable from the adder which in contrast has dark
zig-zag markings down the back, the grass snake has a lemon yellow
patch on the head and olive green body. In Spring and Autumn all
snakes need to bask on open ground, ideally sandy to maintain their
body heat. At the height of Summer ambient temperatures enable them to
be active all-day long. Hunting is achived by a combination of smell
and taste achieved by sampling the air with their forked
tongues. Grass snakes, in particular, are excellent swimmers and feed
on frogs or fish and anything from insects to mice on land. The male
grass snake can grow up to about a metre long. Mating takes place in
June and the female lays eggs in June and July under rotting compost
heaps. Another difference from the adder which lays it young live.
The lives of some members of our resident buglife though ever-present
remain secret, mysterious or the subject of much folk history. I could
pick out many such examples but I have happened on the story of the
woodlouse which will serve as an admirable representative of the
under-trodden class of such invertebrates. Woodlice are members of
the same family as crabs and lobsters, the crustaceans. Though living
on land they are almost as dependant on water so spend most of the
time in the damp environment under stones or in soil cavities. This
enforced obscurity just adds to the curiosity that has been generated
by every tradition that has succeeded the Anglo-Saxons, who coined the
term eselchans or ass-coloured. Other regional names assign woodlice
to facsimiles of pigs and in Bucks they have the local name
cheese-bug. 'Cheese' could either be down to the practice or grinding
up dried woodlice and adding them to milk to induce the production of
rennet or possibly derived from 'ches' meaning stones. The medicinal
qualities of woodlice might have been originated through the belief
that the capacity of some woodlice to curl up in a ball or pill hinted
that they had such powers to tackle a whole range of illness from
tummy-ache bladder problems or jaundice!
Lying as we do astride the "hilltops" of the Chilterns we are
sometimes afforded the opportunity to gaze across 'a thousand acre
sky'. As much a part of the Chiltern Hillscape as all other of the
features we take for granted. Birds of course are the main occupants
of the sky. One that stands out is the Buzzard. Aside from the Golden
Eagle it is our largest native raptor. Today it is not a surprise to
see one or, more likely, two buzzards holding station almost
motionless above the beechwood canopy. The silhouette of this bird is
distinctive. Broad wings with feather-tipped fingers support a hefty
body ensure it can hold station effortlessly. However, this is not the
only sight you might get of this bird. Recently I have also spied a
pair of birds, probably an adolescent at roost on a low-swung bough
and with an adult, swooping through woodland and patrolling a much
smaller domain. Buzzards inhabit most parts of the British Isles;
however this was not always the case. Though today across Britain
there are now estimated to be over 50,000 pairs for over 200 years
previously it was the subject of much persecution, both in the field
and surprisingly by writers who considered it a dull bird, which
spends most of the time watching from its favourite tree roost, or
lazily surveying the landscape for any carrion. Whilst true that it is
an opportunist seeking out road kill, the buzzard is also capable of
hunting rabbit or taking down pigeon or larger birds such as duck or
even crow on the wing. At other times it will excavate for earthworms
on a ploughed field. As important to the character of this bird is its
call. A constant cry, a cat-like mew will dominate the usual
Nature Notes – February 2013
Just a word or two for yew: snotty-gog
I think it was back in the Autumn Nature Notes article I said
something along the lines of "...each season has its own character."
Well, just to disprove the point the first half of winter has been
anything but distinctive: damp and dank. However, February and March
will no doubt provide the opportunity for the odd icy storm and a snow
fall or two to mark the first few months of 2013.
Our winter resident birds have had to cope with two harsh winters in a
row and there were signs following the milder winter of 2011-12 that
they had begun to recover. However, though not so fierce, the weather
conditions over the last twelve months have presented a further test
for those birds dependant on a narrow range of food supply, be it
fruit or insects. Supplies of both were dealt a severe blow by the
cool spring and the prolonged periods of torrential rain. The
consequential impact of waterlogged land and of the disrupted growing
season has produced a poor wild harvest in 2012. The consequences for
our feathered friends will shortly be revealed.
In January each year the RSPB organises its Big Birdwatch survey. Last
year, nearly 600,000 people took part in the count. Over 9 million
birds were recorded as having visited gardens during just a one hour
period. The survey has now been going since 1979 and over this period
it has generally marked massive reductions in our resident bird
population. The popularity of the survey was greatly enhanced by the
then editor of Blue Peter, Biddy Baxter, promoting the survey on
television: resulting in many children and schools taking part.
The timing of the survey might be strange but the reason is
counter-intuitive. In winter birds are more visible in trees and
shrubs and are more frequent visitors to bird feeders. In the first
survey it was typical to see, on average, up to 15 starlings
simultaneously visiting a garden. In 2012 that figure has fallen to an
average of just 3! The causes are put down to changes in the
environment and habitat quality. This is a complex picture which
includes long-term climate issues and medium term environment changes:
for example, a reduction in hedge-cover or the availability of soil
dwelling insects.
This picture is not just restricted to starlings. In 1979 the average
UK sightings for house sparrows during the one hour period was
ten. Last year it averaged four. Robin numbers have fallen by a
third. Sometimes, though, a reduction in bird numbers from one year to
the next is merely a short-term blip. For example, in 2012 there was a
fall in the long-tailed tit garden observations. The RSPB put this
down to the improved availability of woodland food supplies in 2011-12
which drew these birds temporarily away from gardens. The number of
blackbirds seen has halved. Here it was a case of waterlogged lawns
and flowerbeds which affected the supply of worms and soil-dwelling
invertebrates, such as centipedes and woodlice.
Meanwhile, over this 34 year period, some birds have bucked the trend
and increased their presence in gardens. Most significant have been
two relates species, woodpigeon and collared dove. Great tit numbers
have doubled, which is an example of a permanent population shift from
farmland to gardens: much like the robin did from pastoral woodlands
to Victorian gardens. The RSPB stats for the UK are dominated by urban
gardens and our rurally-located gardens have a different range of
Locally, two birds which we know are seen more and more frequently are
the red kite and green woodpecker. In last year's survey these were
included on my return for the first time. One more unlikely bird I had
visit during the survey period was a coot (white face: red face =
moorhen). Not a typical visitor but, with the few ponds we have around
here, it is a water bird that appears to be thriving locally at
least. I would be interested to hear from any other local Big
Birdwatch survey observers.
Stumbling through the woods in the valley between Hawridge and
Bellingdon, I came across a straggly yew sapling fighting for space
and scarce nutrients with the holly and surrounded by rotting beech
mast. It suggests there must be some mature trees nearby, though most
mature trees are sited adjacent to churches. Swotting up, I find that
the oldest yew and, according to Richard Mabey, the oldest wooden
artefact in the world, is in a churchyard in Clacton, Essex incredibly
estimated at 250,000 years old!
Such ancient yews usually predate the church, indicating a
pre-Christian era relationship with people. It has been suggested that
some settlements arose because there was already a yew tree there. It
is also supposed that where an ancient yew is associated with a
congregation of standing stones that there was deliberate intent to
locate a ceremonial site close to the tree. A separate theory for
those yews away from 'spiritual sites' suggests the tree's prominence
in the landscape acted as a signpost for travellers following an
important track way, or to mark crossroads, where they also became
associated with travellers' inns.
Those yews which are younger than their associated church were
normally planted in the middle-ages. By this time the slow- growing,
evergreen nature of the tree had become an important Christian symbol
denoting longevity. Often yews planted in churches were in pairs and
marked out the route the coffin would take from lych gate to church
entrance. A colloquial name for the yew which seems to complement the
weedy example I found is 'snotty-gog' which relates to the fleshy red
cones, which are a prominent feature on mature trees at this time of
year, and the jelly-like seed coating is a particular delicacy for
finches and waxwings, which are the principal dispersers of the
indigestible seed.
This provides a convenient link to what else is to be seen in February
and March. Before the spring plants take a grip and envelope the
woodland floor, colour for the year is provided by early fruiting
fungi. At this time of year there is a ready supply of nutrient in the
fallen branches from autumn storms. Chief amongst those on show is the
easily identified (and poisonous) sulphur-tuft fungus. It appears in
small groups with bright yellow caps fringed with white.
Bumble bees make their first brief forays in February: all are female!
Badger cubs will emerge for the first time at dusk. The brimstone is
the first of our over-wintering butterflies to emerge, if warmth
permits, with peacocks and small tortoiseshells staying back until
March. We already know about hares and March. March is also when the
insect predators appear and spiders abound.
Meanwhile bats emerge from hibernation. For those of you with a
passing knowledge of American TV gangster series I particularly want
to mention the most appropriately named soprano pipistrelle which, in
common with other bats, has an ongoing 'contract' out on any
unfortunate flying insect its radar senses detect. Its name was coined
only in 1999 once it was determined, by the pitch of its sonar, to be
a separate species from its near relative the common pipistrelle.
Nature Notes – December 2012
Ashes to ashes
The big news in the forestry world on late has been the confirmed
arrival in the UK of Ash Dieback disease. There have been previous
reports about disease attacking oak, chestnut and larch but these have
been seen as less catastrophic on the whole population. Unlike the
reporting in the UK of other outbreaks in trees the suddenness of this
one seems to have taken everyone in authority a complete
surprise. However, the death of ash trees had been attributed to an
unknown fungus pathogen causing dieback in Polish ash trees way back
in 1992. Thing is it was not until 2006 that the exact species of
fungus was isolated and named as Chalara fraxinea - Fraxinus being the
genus name of the ash tree. Unlike most of the flora and fauna we are
used to dealing with, fungi are known to sometimes exist in two forms
'sexual' and 'asexual' and it is not unusual for only the latter of
these two alternative forms to have been firmly identified and this
frequently presents a problem for microbiologists tasked with
isolating the offending pathogen as it is usually from studying the
sexual form that any control measure are developed. In this case it
took until 2010 before the essential information as to the offending
species was found, by which time ash trees were succumbing across
northern Europe as far as Germany. By early 2012 it had arrived in
Scandinavia and in March it first appeared in the UK, within saplings
imported from the Netherlands to a nursery in Bucks. Disease was
identified in other nursery-supplied trees across the UK soon after,
and the first wild infestation reports were in East Anglia in
October. Whilst infection may not have arrived in wild trees around
here yet as it is mainly transmitted on the wind it seems likely not
to be far off. In the UK ash supports over 100 insect species that in
turn support the woodland bird population. So the destruction of ash
stands could have a significant wider impact on the local ecology.
For information on identifying infected trees there is an excellent
video from the Forestry Commission at
Sadly, in the absence of any way of combating it on the horizon it
looks like we are in for a major catastrophe of similar proportions to
the havoc that Dutch Elm Disease caused in the 1960s and 70s. Today
there next to no mature trees in southern England. Locally, what has
survived the scourge of elm bark beetles' burrowing just below the
surface of elm tree trunks, have been small bush elms located in
hedgerows and the like. It turns out that however that whereas the
English elm succumbed to the disease this is in fact a long ago
introduced species of the tree. A whole number of so-called 'native
elms' including, ones from Cornwall, Cambridgeshire and Essex being
more resistant have largely survived the infestation. It is also
apparent that there have been several previous elm disease outbreaks
throughout both more recent and pre-historic periods which have wiped
out much of the national heritage trees for a generation or so before
more resistant stock has managed to re-supply our wild places once
again. We can only hope this is the case this time!
Most insects are fast disappearing from the scene during late
autumn. Except for the few species that are migrants to the UK all the
others need to find a way to over-winter, be it as an egg, larva, pupa
or adult, and a suitable place to hang out. Each to their own and
nature provides these in abundance, however we provide plenty of
opportunities too in dry or air conditioned, warm or cool, light or
dark. Adult lacewings can be frequently found living out the colder
months in our sheds and out houses. They are not social animals but
usually they amass in choice locations. Their normal colouration is
bright green, an essential camouflage kit to avoid predation. On
taking up their winter roost their colour changes over a period of a
few days from bright green to pale pink or cream. Opinions vary as to
the rationale. Some say it's the adoption of a more neutral hue to
avoid detection Others suggest it's the consequence of not feeding,
whilst a third theory, which seems the most plausible, suggests its
the natural process of slowing down the body clock and gradual
re-adsorption and better utilisation of valuable proteins.
One consequence the impact of unusual and unseasonal weather has had
on the fruit harvest has been the greater than normal quantities of
both in situ and windfall fruit that has started to ferment. As these
are a favourite foodstuff for both invertebrates and birds there have
been reports of wasps caught in a drunk and disorderly state and a
number of sightings of song birds such as blackbirds, song thrushes
and redwings falling off their perches at dusk or becoming
disorientated during flight and colliding with buildings.
If there was life insurance available for squirrels then premiums for
January would be sky high. During that month grey squirrels don their
best coats and go courting. This involves high-level gymnastic
displays and the leaps from bough to bough have such a high degree of
difficulty it results in many more miscalculations and accident which
accounts for the larger than normal number of observed
fatalities. Take care of low flying squirrels when out and
Nature Notes – October 2012
Some autumnal poetic licence
Each season has its own unique characteristics and feel. Autumn,
though, seems to have provided poets and bards with more inspiration
than the others. Shakespeare provides a sense of power being gradually
unleashed in one of his Sonnets (No. 73):
That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,-
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Liking a roofless church, perhaps one with those gothic arches, to the
boughs of large trees is evocative of the Chilterns. It is not
uncommon to hear a rookery full of raucous birds standing firm against
the elements.
Meanwhile John Keats recognised in his eponymous poem 'To Autumn' that
the season is the time for fulfilment of nature's annual labours,
culminating in a bountiful harvest of fruits and nuts:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
Aside from those more obvious desserts which we can enjoy such as
blackberries and hazelnuts, there are others which may be fare for
blackbirds and thrushes but which sensibly do not receive our
attention because they would do us harm. First of these is
bittersweet. Unlike its relative the potato it is a hedgerow climber
with yellow and purple flowers prefacing the traffic light fruit:
turning from green through amber to a full stop at bright red. They
might have made a delightful treat if it were not for the alkaloids
which, as the name suggests, give the berries an acerbic taste. Though
these berries (apparently) initially offer a less than enticing taste,
the essence turns sweet as it hits the back of the mouth: a
short-lived delight as it soon makes you sick. Another vine-like hedge
plant with a reputation is woodbine or honeysuckle with its dark
purple fruit favoured by birds, but not humans.
Returning to Shakespeare, he recognised how the intoxication of
maturing fruit can impact on dreams and emotions, such as in Othello
when he pens:
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
We know, all too well, what poppies can provide but what of
'mandragora' which is the Latin for mandrake, referring to the root of
what is known better to us as deadly nightshade, a relative of the
aforementioned bittersweet. Not only does it provide no warning to its
victim of its dark side but, to the contrary, it creates an initial
sense of euphoria followed by a deep sleep from which there is no
return, as Romeo and Juliet were tragically to discover:
Within the infant rind of this weak flower,
poison hath residence, and medicine power
Another noxious weed oft referred to by The Bard is hemlock, the
fruits of which are used to distil a vicious poison, favoured by
Ancient Greeks as well as medieval enchantresses, and as reflected
within the witches' chants in Macbeth:
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
There's much industry afoot in Autumn.
Whilst some invertebrates have given up the ghost, others such as
spiders are busy, snaring prey which is still in abundance. An early
morning or evening walk through meadow grass reveals a myriad of
glistening threads. A New England poet, Rose Terry Cooke, was an
observer of both humanity and nature and frequently drew comparisons
between how lives in both spheres were drawn. In her poem 'Arachne'
Rose takes one right down to ground level:
I know thy peace when all is done.
Each anchored thread, each tiny knot,
Soft shining in the autumn sun;
A sheltered, silent, tranquil lot.
The sounds of Autumn are also characteristic, and returning to Keats
in his Ode To Autumn there is recognition of the songs emanating from
fauna, with his referring to:
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
With milder winters we are seeing and hearing migrating birds much
later into the year and it is not unusual to espy a few such birds in
early October. Mind you, Keats may have engaged in some 'poetic
licence' regarding the crickets: on warm evenings they can still be
heard occasionally well beyond their usual sell-by date.
And finally, I just want to catch up on one or two recent feedbacks on
observations received. Perhaps the best spot of the year came from a
smart-eyed correspondent from Sandpit Hill who in August managed to
capture a rare shot of a newly emerged purple emperor butterfly,
sunning itself on the warm earth of the vegetable patch. They are none
too frequently seen as they spend much of their time high up in the
tree canopy. However, I am advised that, on first emerging, they
disperse and may be found away from their usual habitat. There was
also a flurry of e-mails about birds of prey. It seems sparrowhawks
have been making themselves more obvious with a number of sightings in
gardens over the late summer. They were seen either taking smaller
birds, which were distracted whilst feeding from bird tables, or
feasting off a bloated woodpigeon. Probably this greater visibility
was due to a shortage in the ready availability of prey.
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Nature Notes – August 2012
Water water everywhere...
This year, the unseasonably heavy rainfall over the past three months
or so is having some interesting, albeit temporary effects on our
local wildlife. There's just room for three of my thoughts on this...
It has been a bumper season for those pesky biting insects, Horse
flies, that often plague us at the height of summer. In Elizabethan
times they, and their relatives, were collectively known as Gad-flies
and Shakespeare borrowed the name to refer to a satirical gentleman
whose words could sting another. The most common of the three species
of horse fly that attack mammals, and often described as the most
obnoxious of all insects, also goes by the name of a 'Clegg'!
The explosion in their numbers is a consequence of the large amount of
standing water around: not just established ponds but ditches or even
waterlogged soil. Horse flies lay their eggs on leaves or stones
close to water. On hatching, the larvae fall into the water. Their
food are any suitable invertebrates; from water fleas to earthworms,
snails and slugs, on which they prey voraciously. The adult flies
emerge in the early morning ready to start flying at midday and need
to feed immediately.
Whilst male flies seek out pollen and nectar the females need to find
a source of fresh blood to get sufficient protein quickly in order to
reproduce. One large meal will suffice. The flies rest up in shady
places close to where their prey passes. With large eyes they can
identify movement of a suitable animal. Often this will be a cow,
horse or deer and, though some species only seek out birds or even
frogs or toads, the flies are not that selective and as we know to our
cost, will seek out the bare skin offered by us humans.
Unlike other insects that sting such as wasps, horse flies are able to
pierce the skin and find a blood vessel without inflicting immediate
pain for the unfortunate host. They are able to make an incision
without drawing attention to themselves by using their serrated
scimitar-like and razor sharp mouth parts. Saliva acts as an
anticoagulant and they suck up their meal through a straw-like
proboscis. Though the bites cause infections and can spread disease in
livestock; apart from an irritating itch and a small scar they are, in
this country at least, nearly always harmless to humans. On the
upside, large numbers of such flies have been a boon for the likes of
house martins, swallows and swifts, which can be seen swooping low
over meadows where such large slow flying flies are easy prey.
Other benefactors of the increased rainfall have been the animals and
plants which inhabit our ponds. The earlier extended period of drought
would have had a significant if temporary impact on the ecology and
productivity of these ponds. However, by their very nature, ponds go
through periods when the species are put under major stresses, so the
powers of recovery are all the more impressive. Amphibians such as
the common frog and toad and the palmate newt can survive in the muddy
borders of ponds or can migrate and return in better times. In dry
years few, if any, tadpoles or efts (newtpoles) will make it to
adulthood, but with water and food levels recovering this year,
populations should also recover. Many pond invertebrates can survive
drought buried in the substrate at the bottom of the pond. Meanwhile
plants are adapted to survive as seeds or rootstock.
There are all sorts of ponds. At one end of the spectrum is Pallett's
Pond (Cholesbury Road) which is rich in a wide variety of flora and
fauna and looks like a pond all year round. Roadside ditch ponds, such
as the one almost hidden under trees in Oak Lane, will provide a home
to a range of more resilient species that are able to contend with
pond levels which wax and wane over the seasons and light and oxygen
deficits which would be fatal to some of those in Palletts.
At the other end of the spectrum are the dew ponds, such as the one on
Cholesbury Common, with its ephemeral invertebrates and plant species
that thrive on the margins where other plants dare not go. Such ponds
may not look pond-like for much of the time. Rather it appears as just
a slight depression in the ground holding a small amount of water for
a few winter months. This year everything is topsy- turvy. Having been
almost dry for a year, including all last winter, it has almost filled
up this summer as the water table rises to engulf its shallow
bowl. Perhaps the most important but admittedly not very exciting
species growing there is water purslane, which is a rarity across the
Chilterns and Bucks.
For all ponds, including those in gardens, it is important to keep the
area leading away from the pond as natural as possible to provide a
habitat suitable for creatures to escape or hide nearby.
Water consumption by trees can be awe inspiring. One mature Oak may
take up over 15 gallons of water an hour in hot weather and over 300
gallons a day. On cooler days take-up can be less than 60 gallons a
day. Meanwhile Beech trees happily operate on a range between 20-60
gallons a day. Whereas hardwood trees take up next to no water during
winter months, coniferous trees need a constant supply of water year
round and can suffer from winter drought. All trees can survive for a
period on half the normal uptake but water deficit will, over time,
result in leaf and limb loss, and early seasonal leaf fall. Prolonged
periods of drought can be withstood but will shorten the life of
trees. Though surface water levels may have improved over recent
weeks, providing a welcome respite to our stands of beech trees,
unless all this water has a sustained and positive effect on the water
levels within the chalk aquifer, the decline in the health of our
beech plantations, which has become more noticeable in recent years,
will sadly continue.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this 'Rime of the Ancient Naturalist!'
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Nature Notes – June 2012
It's a jungle out there
There is much we can thank the Victorians and Edwardians for and much
perhaps we rightly choose to forget. A major preoccupation with both
Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen and indeed many ladies too, was
collecting all forms of our native wildlife.
A visit to Walter Rothschild's Museum (now part of the National
History Museum) will confirm what happens when such an obsession gets
out of hand. The museum has more stuffed birds, reptiles and mammals
than you can shake a stick at and cabinets full to the brim of pinned
and mounted arthropods (insects, arachnids etc). Within this menagerie
are species from around the world once common, some now extinct and
others at risk of the same fate.
Both the Victorian and Edwardian collectors are responsible for giving
names to much of our native animals and plants. At the time, animals
from the four corners of the British Empire and even more remote
foreign parts were being displayed in museums and zoos, such as the
then newly opened London Zoo. So it is no surprise that amateur
naturalists and collectors such as lepidopterists (butterflies and
moths), coleopterists (beetles), arachnologists (spiders), were
tempted to coin a name for newly discovered domestic species which
bore some passing resemblance or unusual characteristic feature to one
of these exotics.
Far as we might be from the African savannahs, the South American
rainforests or Indian jungles, we have a menagerie of animals living
within or visiting our gardens and native to the Chilterns. Like the
distinctive quadruped which roams the African grasslands, we have an
unusual arachnid in our gardens, patios and brick walls called the
Zebra Spider: so called because it has distinctive black and white
horizontal stripes along its body. It is one of a small group of
arachnids in the country that do not produce a web. Instead, it
relies on two very large eyes (part of a set of eight). These enlarged
ones provide binocular vision to hunt down and capture prey. Food
comes in all shapes and sizes from greenfly to small beetles. Catching
small insects which can travel at considerable speed requires more
than a sharp pair of eyes. To overcome this, the zebra spider has
evolved a set of eight powerful legs to leap over 16 times its length
and pounce on its unsuspecting meal.
It is not only appearance that suggested names to erstwhile
enthusiasts. The behavioural characteristics provided suggestions:
like the Elephant Hawk-moth, which can be found locally. Moths, like
Butterflies, have four distinct stages in their development and it is
the larval stage that the elephantine features come to light. One of
the common food-plants of this insect is willowherb. This plant
flourishes in recently disturbed ground and was a common site on bomb
sites during and after the Second World War. In Victorian Britain the
rapid construction of the railway network led to an equally rapid
spread of the crimson- flowered plant along these causeways and must
have also resulted in an explosion in the numbers of this moth
As a small caterpillar the elephant hawk-moth is susceptible to
predation by birds, so it is unsurprising that in its early stages of
development it has a fairly nondescript lime green
colouration. However, having reached a size which affords it some
protection from attack, the caterpillar's camouflage is exchanged for
more strident hues. The larva also strikes two poses. First, one
described as a 'snakes-head' shows off false eyes which mimics a small
snake when disturbed and a second, by extending the front-end of its
body, was seen as similar to an elephant's trunk. The fast-flying
moth, seen on the wing on warm evenings, is a spectacular
powdered-pink in colour.
We are familiar with dragonflies and their close relatives the
damselflies. However, although not possessing the delicate beauty of
either of these, there is a similar but unrelated large flying insect.
It is not the flying adult of this species but its larva which is of
particular interest and is responsible for the unusual name of Ant-
lion. This diminutive animal lives out this stage of its lifecycle
typically at the bottom of a sand pit of its own construction. Such is
the construction of the pit, with steep sides coming to a point at the
base, that the Ant-lion's unfortunate prey, ants, lose grip and fall
over the edge of the pit and into the grip of the predator's lethal
sickle-shaped jaws. The prey is then injected with lethal venom.
We are blessed with some interesting ponds in the Hilltop
Villages. Not just the two on Cholesbury Common but notable others are
to be found at Braziers End and on the road verges of Oak Lane and
Bottom Road. Some of these may be 'perpetual,' like the Bury Pond in
the Hill Fort, some seasonal and probably suffering to some degree to
the current drought conditions. Despite this there are interesting
flora and fauna to be found in them.
There are a number of carnivorous beasties, but to keep to the theme
of this piece I have opted for the Water Scorpion. Like the Ant-Lion
this is a quirky-looking insect. Swimming is not one of its strengths
and without gills it needs to surface periodically to take on air
through a thin whip-like siphon tube at the base of its
abdomen. Although it might crawl out of the water and, like other
water-bugs, has wings, it cannot fly: instead it uses them to trap
oxygen-rich air. To aid movement, both through water and through the
tangle of weeds, it has a much flattened body shape and looks like a
dead leaf, which affords some disguise and protection from predator
fish or ducks. It spends most of its time crawling along within the
muddy zone at the bottom of ponds or ditches. Its front legs have been
adapted to catch, with a scissor-like action, other insects and also
tadpoles as well as any invertebrates.
Recently, examples of tropical scorpions have also been found in this
country. Like other alien species they were first found near
dockland. Able to survive very cold temperatures, they arrived onboard
vessels carrying fruit and vegetables and escaped into the often wild
hinterland around docks and harbours. As far as I am aware there are
no zebras, elephants or lions currently roaming wild in the UK!
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Nature Notes – April 2012
Pimping reaches the Hilltop Villages!
Needed something along the lines of a tabloid heading to get your
attention this time! Not of course what it sounds like. However, the
more frequent occurrence of red kites over us these days is starting
to create some competition for territories. As numbers increase each
year the younger birds need to move further and further afield to find
suitable roosts.
Pimping is the characteristic behaviour of some raptors whereby the
two birds do acrobatic tricks in mid air, often interlocking their
talons and spinning around or passing on food scraps or roost
materials. The gymnastics are normally accompanied by a cacophony of
"wee-ooh" sounds. March and April are the two months when this nest
refurbishment activity is at its height. Apparently later inspections
of nests reveal all sorts of plundered material including flags, toys
and clothes including gloves and underpants!
Aside from my father and David Attenborough, who coincidentally bought
all his blue shirts and safari slacks from him, my other inspiration
for an interest in natural history was a much more obscure one. I can
first recall seeing David Bellamy appearing on a programme in 1972
called Bellamy on Botany. For those who remember him, his approach
involved much gesticulation, usually whilst bouncing up and down on
peat bogs and much, largely unintelligible, grunting and guffawing,
interspaced with gems in natural history. It was his expression "the
importance of Hacid Eths" of which I was reminded the other day when
coming across a report by the Chilterns Conservation Board about how
rare acid heathland habitats are in England and that they remain under
threat in this part of the Chilterns.
We are lucky enough to have such an example on Hawridge and Cholesbury
Commons. With grateful acknowledgement of the Heritage Study I note
the key indicator species for such habitats, in this area at least,
are: heather, pill sedge and rushes. In times not so long past,
commons such as ours would have been grazed by domesticated animals:
cattle and in particular sheep. Until even more recent times, periodic
burning by Commoners also managed the habitat in a less sustainable
way. Gorse, which is another indicator species, is interesting in that
it would have been carefully managed by Commoners to avoid it becoming
a weed on the heathland.
One of its older and colloquial names is furze, which was harvested by
furze-cutters and used for making fires for baking bread. I recall
Winnie the Pooh also had a tangle with gorse when looking for honey,
but this was not in Cholesbury or Hawridge! However, in the absence of
these ruminants (I'm excluding the Commoners from the definition here)
heather, in particular, is quickly suffocated out by bracken, which
flourishes when not beaten out by animal activity. Mechanical crushing
of the bracken fronds achieves this end today. The benefit of
protecting the heather and other heathland plants spreads far wider
than just protecting a desirable habitat. It also helps conserve other
species which depend more exclusively on these landscapes. Go back 75
years and above the heather and gorse by day might be seen hen
harriers and at night might be heard nightjars and
nightingales. Probably neither seen nor heard but still there amongst
the thickets would have been the odd woodcock. Last seen in 1973 and
now extinct in the UK, was the red-backed shrike.
Many invertebrates occupy this habitat. Some are partly and some
exclusively dependent on it, such as the lesser yellow underwing,
which may not have been seen since 1990. Other moths such as the
metallic coleophora feed on a wide variety of herbs but rely on the
rushes to make neat little cases in which the larvae pupate. The
trickle down effect of sensible conservation is the real value and
bonus rewarding hard work. Whether or not the Commons are your usual
stalking grounds, it is worth taking a closer look next time you go
for a stride or two.
Are foxes bigger these days? This was the gist of the news report on
the BBC website the other day. Turns out it related to a 38lb male fox
killed for attacking sheep in Aberdeenshire. Typical male rural foxes
might weigh up to a max 16lbs whilst those living in the smart
sophisticated urban areas come in at a svelte 13lbs. But then there
are also plenty of bijoux animals around too: in all habitats at 9lbs
it seems.
The helping hand of man leaving out scraps, or hobby farmers laying on
ready-made chicken dinners in the foxes' territory has an effect. But
the main reason for the weight difference is the abundance or
otherwise of earthworms from year to year in July when the young are
out foraging. A wet summer brings out a plentiful supply of the fox's
favourite meal, which come to the surface in these conditions. By
October foxes have put on their maximum weight for the season. So a
dry summer followed by a harsh winter produces slightly smaller foxes
which may fail to survive to the next year. Meanwhile, a wet summer
and mild winter provides the conditions for heavier foxes to make it
through to the following year with an advantage over other males with
which they ferociously compete for territories.
That's all this time. Comments and questions welcome
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Nature Notes – February 2012
Elementary my dear...
Mercurial is a word not oft used these days so I decided it needed
dusting off and given an outing here. It is one of those words which
has enticing meanings derived from a variety of sources: be it the
Shakespearian character Mercutio, the Roman God, the planet and of
course the element Mercury, both named after the deity. For this
reason it has a wide variety of meanings; including eloquence,
shrewdness, swiftness, and thievishness.
These words describe a few of our local wildlife active at this time
of the year. The Stoat, known for its swiftness in pursuing its prey,
might be seen prancing as it hunts for voles or rabbits. The Jackdaw,
with its predilection for coveting brightly-coloured objects, can be
identified by its distinctive Prussian blue wing flashes in the still
bare tree branches. In early spring the tawny owl hangs out during the
day in the crook of a tree waiting for dusk when the shrewdness of its
hunting prowess comes to the fore. As I write this I can hear our
resident cock Pheasant delineate its territory as it struts around
showing off the elegance of its courting colours.
Before moving on from mercury to some other elements, I relate to two
local woodland plants appearing in the Spring: Good King Henry, an
edible herb also known as Good Mercury on account of the similarity of
its leaves to Dogs (or bad) Mercury which is highly poisonous. Like
many such plants it conveniently provides a health warning in the form
of a fetid smell which ensures animals avoid it.
Continuing the theme revolving around the periodic table, my next
element is Silver. Top of the list of local trees is the Silver
Birch. Not a feature tree in our neck of the woods but rather an
opportunist. Whilst it was one of the first species to re- colonise
the Chilterns after the last Ice Age, having laid down a carpet of
rich soil from leaf litter, it was disrespectfully forced out by the
much more successful oak woodland. Although nowhere as productive as
beech during the last two centuries it could still be commercial,
turned into household products, notably the besom, earning a few pence
for the bodgers and Chesham-based workshops.
Amongst invertebrates there are several that have a moniker
incorporating 'silver'. The Silver-Y moth, for example, is named
after the shape and colour of its marking. The moth is a common
visitor to our gardens and one that is attracted to light, so can be
found resting around the house during the day. Despite being
ubiquitous and producing two broods during the year, this moth cannot
survive our harsh winters and each year there are large numbers of
migrants from both Scandinavia and, later in the year, from central
The Silverfish, I guess, is not amongst the favourite creatures which
share your house! When the light goes on in the kitchen and bathroom
there is usually just enough time to see these most primitive of
insects, more correctly called bristletails. Whilst a creature of the
dark regions under the leaf litter, they have been associated with
humans for as long as we have been domesticated. There's no surprise
then they are at home with us given the warm conditions and supply of
ample food. In the kitchen anything with starch is well-received
although they also enjoy processed fat. In the bathroom, their
alternative residence, where food morsels are at a premium they are
just as happy with soap or shampoo.
Thoughts turn to Copper. Two insects come to mind: first the Small
Copper. In the 18th century, when originally catalogued, it was known
as 'the copper butterfly'. However, soon after a much larger copper
butterfly was identified: hence the qualifying of the species by
size. Sadly, no sooner had the Large Copper butterfly been found it
was hunted into extinction, and despite attempts to reintroduce, it
has not been native in this country for 150 years. The surviving
copper makes up for its size with its most distinctive dark orange
upper wings. Never prolific, you are likely to see them in June and
July in just ones or twos flitting low down on open grassland and
sunny woodland clearings.
The other burnished insect is the Copper Underwing. Relatively large
as moths go, it is one of those varieties that are not for the
squeamish. It can startle you when the curtains are drawn in the
morning as it darts out and presents a flash of orange accompanied by
a distinctly unnerving rustle of wings.
Setting out on this endeavour I at first stumbled when it came to the
element Gold. Then I managed to see through the fug and thankfully
came up with some examples. The first was staring me in the face as I
espied a pair of Goldfinches on our birdfeeder. It is one of our more
colourful garden birds with yellow, red and black plumage. If I were
to assign it an anthropomorphic character I would suggest it is
assertive, somewhat aloof which chooses not to associate with the
other garden birds, who in turn keep their distance. Its name does
not, as one might expect, derive from their colouration but can be
traced back to the Greeks who considered the bird a fertility symbol
and a sign of good fortune and was duly assigned the most precious of
all metals to its name.
The other bird that came to mind was the Goldcrest. Weighing no more
than a 5p piece it is Britain's smallest bird but one we can delight
in, as it is common in these parts. Its distinctive feature, if one
were required, is its bright orange (gold) stripe on its head. Despite
the size, tens of thousands make it across from Scandinavia to winter
in this country.
I conclude this little journey across the periodic table with a brief
stop of one further element, Lead. Sadly I could not find an
indigenous species associated with lead but recall a garden plant:
Plumbago Europaea, known in this country as Common Leadwort. The
association with lead takes us back again to the time of the Greeks
when it was believed by botanists that the lead blue colour of the
flowers and the lead coloured staining of the sap on the skin
indicated that preparations of the plant were a cure for lead
I am sure there are other elements to draw on but my grey matter has
admitted defeat and I will sign off by encouraging as always your
comments and observations. firstname.lastname@example.com (758890)
Nature Notes – December 2011
Reading the right signs and navigating Nature's unmapped highways
In this age of GPS or SatNav, as well as digital maps, and
internet-based gadgets be it Streetview or social networking we
perhaps take for granted our ancient, inherent but lost or hidden
abilities to determine how to find our way from 'a to b' or decide
when it might be unwise to travel at all.
You may have seen this same theme taken up by a recent TV programme
with Alison Steadman and others - All Roads Lead Home - trying to
navigate only using nature's signs. Sadly, TV has a habit of
trivializing an otherwise interesting subject. Technology can rule
our lives. We all know stories about following a SatNav route and
ending down a blind alley when simple observation of the signs around
us would have avoided the error of landing up stuck in the mud along
Hawridge Lane. In April this year having briefed a team of census
collectors on their tasks I was out the next day in Old Hemel High
Street with one of the younger crew. Half way through our task I
noticed the sky suddenly darken with the arrival of a threatening grey
cloud. Pointing at it I ask my colleague if he thought a heavy shower
was imminent and should we look for a suitable hostelry to dash for
shelter if necessary. He missed my gesticulation towards the sky and
instead groped for his iPhone and was checking on the local weather
forecast. Having done this he then checked out the pubs in Hemel for a
recommendation for one near to us despite there being at least half a
dozen within eyeshot. By the time he had finished the heavens had
I'm no Luddite probably a bit of a techno nerd but I'm also struck by
the thought that we humans might be suffering a dulling of our natural
senses with the inclination to first and always rush to technology to
solve our questions rather than also look for the signs around us.
Autumn and Spring are the most significant times of change occurring
in the tree-canopy around us. In October and November there is much
variation each year in the timing of leaves turning from green to
yellow or orange and then brown or red before falling. This is
dictated by a combination of max and min temperatures, and day-length
or more correctly night-length which changes most rapidly around the
equinox and the least amount at the solstice. The tipping-point
determining leaf-fall is when there is insufficient light at a given
temperature to sustain the production of sugars. The speed of change
is always determined by temperature and its change. Thus a longer
warmer September and October inevitably followed by a rapid
temperature fall in November provided the golden-russet vistas this
year. We have all see coastal trees that have been grotesquely
sculptured into a distorted shape due to the harsh prevailing
winds. However, most trees facing much more modest winds will display
more minor distortions to their trunk and branches which are only
become visible when the tree is cut down. Observe the tree rings in
cross-section and you will sometimes see that one side of the tree
will have wider gaps between the rings than the other which can be due
to prevailing winds and climatic conditions. Ash seed pods are one of
the few fruits of summer's bounty to remain in situ during the
winter. I read that due to prevailing winds these single-winged seeds
can oft be seen clearly orientated, pointing towards the south-west,
the result of the prevailing north-easterly winds. Following on,
mosses and lichens are said to only grow on particular sides of
walls. North for mosses and south for lichens. However this is not
demonstrating any preference for a particular compass orientation
rather the natural consequence of prevailing weather conditions. In
the southern hemisphere mosses are found on the south side and mosses
on the north side. Furthermore in coastal areas lichens are found in
all orientations and ditto for mosses growing in damp woodland and
wooded ravines. So be aware they are not always the most reliable of
Unlike less developed societies such as the Inuit, we no longer need
to read the signs of migrations in order to survive. With the possible
exception of the fishing fleets we no longer depend for our
livelihoods on knowledge of the impact of the sun, the moon, the stars
and earth's magnetic field on the influx and outflow across the
seasons of animals and birds. Changes to the landscape over much
shorter periods, including many examples of more frequent or even
daily navigations pass us by unnoticed and as a consequence
Much debate and speculation persists in the scientific world as to the
methods by which migration and homing is achieved. Some birds such as
Starlings that migrate at night surprisingly utilize the sun to
navigate. It is suggested that as the sun sets they orientate
themselves and can store a series of readings enabling them to set
their course before darkness falls. An alternative method used by
other birds travelling by day such as Swallows, utilize the
polarization of light coming from the sun. Other birds travelling at
night including the Mallard duck and varieties of the Bunting have
been found to use star constellations or even individual stars, such
as the star Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion.
Many of our larger butterflies are migrants from the Continent or
North Africa. As they are day-flying they use their orientation to the
sun and use of polarized light. Moths on the other hand use moon and,
remarkably, starlight.
Animals, such as bats use magnetic fields to make longer distance
journeys. It is thought that within their brains are small particles
of a magnetic mineral called magnetite which react to the magnetic
field of the Earth and activate nerves which impact on movements of
the limbs. The Common eel which is capable of travelling short
distance across land from one river to another will use what we would
call scent to identify other sources of water. Fish which live in sea
and fresh water e.g. Trout or in estuarine conditions e.g. Eels are
driven by changes in salinity when migrating to spawning grounds.
Plants can migrate too, and not only Triffids! Some populations may
take hundreds or thousands of years to relocate as climate change
impacts. Meanwhile much of pond life is made up of plant life and the
vast majority of it is microscopic. On a daily basis these single
celled plants migrate towards the top from well-below the surface. As
the early day's light and heat penetrates the deeper areas this kicks
off photosynthesis and the oxygen so generated buoys up the organism
and it rises towards the surface. Reflecting the daily ritual involved
this is known as 'Diel vertical migration'. Small animals which feed
off the plant life will follow the movement of the plant
microorganisms and are part of this Diel migration system. Towards
dusk as light and temperature falls photosynthesis stalls the
organisms return migrating to their lower night-time level. If
temperatures or UV light increases to dangerous levels a safety
mechanism is triggered and the algae can sink to safer levels. Water
plants, such as the insectivorous bladderwort, can move to the surface
during the day by inflating their bladders which also are used to
capture microscopic animals that live at the surface levels.
Tristan Gooley, who was the mastermind behind the natural science, but
not the facile drama, of the television programme mentioned above, has
published a book; 'The Natural Navigator Pocket Guide'. Having just
scratched the surface here, I have ordered a copy and hope to return
to the subject in the future! Anyhow in the meantime I hope to have
stimulated a few readers to take a second look at their surroundings
when out and about over the next few months. That's all this
time. Keep your comments coming. firstname.lastname@example.com tel:-758890
Nature Notes – October 2011
The View from the other end of the telescope
By the time you are reading this Supernova PTF11kly will be no
more. At the time of writing these Notes I had just returned inside,
telescope and binoculars in hand, having convinced myself that I had
seen the last throws in the life of a star on the edge of the Pinwheel
Galaxy some 21 million light years away. In other words I had been
focussing in to view an event which had occurred a little over 21
million years ago. Although akin to using the BBC iPlayer to view a
never before seen version of a black and white Test Card it
nevertheless brings home to one how immense the universe is in both
space and time, maybe or maybe not how unique amongst all the
galaxies, stars and the planets which interact with them is the Earth
The View from the other end of the telescope is the vista of our
villages set cheek by jowl with fields and woodland and set within the
more diverse but distinctive landscape of the Chilterns which, in turn
forms but one of so many and very variable landscapes in the British
Another way of reflecting on the richness of our local landscape and
the wildlife we are lucky enough to be close to is to view it from
afar. This summer this opportunity arose when I spent a bit of time in
Barcelona. Not only was the climate a complete contrast (34°C) but
walking around a cityscape, with its own distinctive sounds and pace
of life, was as far away as you could get from the tranquillity of the
Hilltop Villages. Despite this, I was rewarded with some interesting
examples of what has recently been coined as synurbia. This is where
animals adapt to living with humans. At an unusually late-night
football match the resident bats were disturbed from their roots high
in the stands and spent the whole game flying from end to end. I
realised after a while they were gorging themselves on the moths and
other flying insects attracted into the stadium by the floodlights and
that these bats had identified this as an ideal location to ensure a
regular food supply. Locally, barn owls exemplify this adaptation
choosing to live near human habitation and benefiting from the small
mammal prey that is also attracted to this habitat. Another example
that has adapted to city life was the Monk Parakeet. They congregate
in large numbers, producing a cacophony of high- pitched sound in
morning and evening in the trees of the many parks. Although they
appear oblivious to the people in the street below, much like our
garden birds they are opportunists, all too well aware of the benefit
a close association with humans brings can bring. I saw them
frequently swoop down to secure morsels of fruit or the like left by
the careless picnicker. Similarly, in the countryside around here
their nearest equivalent could be the thrushes and starlings bolstered
by the seasonal arrival of redwings and fieldfares that gorge
themselves from this month on orchard apples ripening soft fruit and
the man-managed hedgerow hawthorn.
One feature that does bring these two distinctly different places
together is the trees. Barcelona was laid out at the start of the
20th Century in a grid system of roads with wide straight
boulevards. It was planted with large numbers of trees, much like
fifty years later when, the 'Barcelona of the North'- Milton Keynes -
was first laid out. It was surprising to see in Catalunya's capital
city, throughout the criss-cross of byways, some familiar trees. Both
oak and chestnut are familiar friends, though in both cases they were
Mediterranean varieties with distinctive waxy leaves. Along most
avenues though, the most predominant tree is a relation of the
sycamore, the Oriental plane tree. It is closely related to the London
plane which is a cross between the Oriental plane and the American
sycamore. Despite the abundance of trees both, in Barcelona and in the
surrounding countryside, by August the predominant colours are not the
magnificent greens of the Chilterns, but dull oranges and dark
yellows. The million shades of green we are so familiar with in the
Chilterns are not to be seen in southern Europe, something I found you
can appreciate from afar. Spend just a few days in the dry heat of
northern Spain and as soon as the aeroplane starts its descent over
middle England its like switching from black and white to colour
television. Walking around each day one of the most unexpected sights
was to see an army of street sweepers in orange jumpsuits (possibly a
Spanish version of community service) all over the main streets in the
city with brooms gathering up the leaves. No sooner had a section been
swept clean was it smothered in more leaves. I would judge by mid
September all the foliage would be gone. What a contrast with the
glorious autumn kaleidoscope of colour emanating from our beechwoods
just about now. Perhaps one of the most unusual experience I had was
on a visit to the zoo. If you are ever there it's well-worth
seeing. Much like London Zoo collected animals from the British Empire
it was built up on species obtained from the Spanish- speaking world
and includes many interesting exhibits we do not see in this
country. I came all of a sudden to one well-appointed enclosure of
animals from what was one the Spanish East Indies and there, just a
few feet in front of me, was as described on the label: - 'Muntíaco de
Reeves - Filipinas'. It took a few moments to realise I was staring at
a very tame deer which was calmly staring right back at me before
lowering its head to browse unconcerned about my presence. We may see
muntjac most days of the year, but try to approach one and after a few
steps their white tail goes up like a flag and they skip into the
distance. Seeing a well-fed domesticated one who was not concerned
about my presence was quite an experience.
This autumn has all the signs of being one of the very damp ones and
no doubt although this will be well suited for the fungal flora to
'fruit' they also need some of those sparkling days with a light
breeze to spread their spores. The wet ground also brings to the
surface this year's crop of earthworms, woodlice and beetles. Already,
there seems to be more than the normal crop of ground beetles. In
particular, the bloody-nosed beetle also known as the blood spewing
beetle. This is a very black shiny beetle about the size of a five
penny coin. Totally harmless, but if you disturb or pick one up it is
likely to disgorge a gob of nasty red liquid. I've never tested it out
but gather it is foul-tasting which is sufficient for any sensible
bird to spit it out. I'm not sure if it is hedgehog proof, though. A
call awhile back from one of my regular 'field-correspondents' was to
report seeing a 'furze-pig' as they were called until the 15th
century. Now hedgehogs are not encountered frequenting our gardens as
much as they are in the back yards of towns. In discussion we thought
in part this is because, unlike an urban environment, they do not need
to rely on garden habitats for food. Also I think there has been a
slow decline in numbers over many years due to shifts in agricultural
use from pasture to arable which reduces the opportunity for foraging
for invertebrates. I would be interested to hear of any
sightings. They should be very active at this time of year building up
the fat reserves before they head for the log pile to hibernate as the
temperatures fall in November.
As always look forward to any interesting sightings or
questions. firstname.lastname@example.com tell 758890. Chris Brown
Nature Notes – August 2011
Here Be Dragons or Excuse Me, Madam But There's A Newt In Your Fruit
'Here be dragons' was a warning illustrated on the corners of old maps
indicating you were leaving the known world for lands where
frightening monsters lurked.
Hedgerows are at their most bountiful at this time of year. Trees,
shrubs and herb plants are flowering and fruiting and in turn provide
a rich source of food for caterpillars, beetles and fellow
insects. For the next three months there are more birds on the wing
than any other time of the year and those partial to invertebrates
will be doing their best to hunt them down. Over the millennia those
insects with marginally better camouflage have outwitted those birds
marginally better at spotting their insect prey. The net result is
some very hard to spot insects have evolved.
I spent a fair amount of time as a youngster collecting and breeding
moths. - Sad I know! – Well, because of this evolution thing, finding
mainly green moth caterpillars that feed on mainly green leaves or
twig-like caterpillars that rest on twigs was particularly
tricky. Then I came across a helping hand. There are a whole lot of
small predatory insects that go by the name of Ichneumon wasps.
Ichneumon means 'a tracker' in Greek, and in medieval times an
ichneumon was the name of a mystical creature that hunted and
destroyed dragons. These wasps spend their time hunting down much
smaller 'dragons', caterpillars. These wasps do not eat them but lay
an egg in each which hatches and lives parasitically off the
caterpillar but not killing it or destroying any vital organs so the
host continues to eat and grow. Once the wasp larvae is full grown it
burrows a whole in the body of the caterpillar crawls out and pupates
next to the caterpillar which spins a web around the pupae to protect
it. Sometimes an even smaller ichneumon wasp tries to parasitize the
other wasp larvae however, the now zombie-like caterpillar protects
its incumbent by swiping away this, would be intruder. Eventually, a
new wasp emerges and flies off to continue the cycle. Now what I found
is if you follow them along the hedgerow they will find the
caterpillars for you.
I had an email in June about a grass snake that had been sighted in
the churchyard in Cholesbury. It's just the places to hang out if you
are after mice and the like and with a pond nearby, plenty of frogs
and newts. It made me think that though there must be hundreds of such
reptiles around us for most of the year its just summer time that we
stand a good chance to see them when they come out. Not that they hang
out in some kind of ecological closet for the rest of the time, it
just that they appear more brazen between June and August when the
ambient temperature is warm enough for them to move around in search
of food. Earlier and later in the year they may struggle in the weaker
sun to push their internal temperatures up to 27°C and then they
only move around sluggishly. So the few reptiles that we have in this
country are more likely to be out basking on open ground like sandy
banks, stones and baked earth paths etc. Although elsewhere in the
world, reptiles maybe ubiquitous in the not so sunny Britain we have
just six, three snakes and three lizards. So apart from the
aforementioned grass snake which tends to get the good press there is
the adder or viper which undeservedly gets all the bad press because
they have evil looking zigzag markings down the back and are
venomous. As a youngster I learned, erroneously as it turned out from
seeing all those 'Westerns' at Saturday morning pictures, that the
best way to deal with a snake bite is to make an incisions with a
knife and suck out the poison. Seriously if you ever got bitten keep
the limb stationary and send for help, nasty still but you should
survive. Mind you if you're a mouse or vole having been bitten you
will have about two minutes to live! The third snake is the smooth
snake which does not get any press being neither venomous nor common
being restricted to a few south coast counties from Dorset to Sussex.
The distant relative of our lizards is the Komodo dragon. Our three
'dragons' of which only two can be found in these parts, are the
common lizard and the slow worm. Meanwhile the third, the sand lizard
hangs out only in the same places as the smooth snake which is a bit
of a problem as the lizard is one of the favourite preys of the snake!
Lizards are insectivores (contrarily referring to eating any
invertebrates, not just insects), using their tongue to catch their
live food. Slow worms though limbless are no more related to snakes
than other lizards its just parallel evolution at work allowing for
more rapid movement through dense undergrowth than four legs would
afford. Unlike snakes they have eye-lids and like other lizards can
shed their tail if caught. They are excellent harvesters of slugs and
snails. Actually, it is not strictly true that there are only four
reptiles in the area. To these we should add the odd family tortoise
which occasionally makes a 'run' for it from local gardens. I know of
one from Bellingdon which has headed our way in the past!
I was about eight and my father and I were returning home on the
London Underground late afternoon one summer Sunday. We had been
visiting some large ponds in Rickmansworth purpose being to stock up
our brand new small pond in our garden. My father had procured a
couple of large sweet jars, the kind with black screw-top lids that
used to adorn the shelves of newsagents. One of the jars contained a
variety of water beetles, water boatmen, dragonfly and caddis fly
larvae, the latter secreted in their cases of sticks or minute snail
shells, sticklebacks and minnows and probably a few of the more exotic
beasties such as a water scorpions. Inside the other jar were our two
prize finds of the day. The jars were each carefully housed in their
own duffel bag. As the train trundled on towards London it became
quite full of passengers and our jars ended up on the overhead luggage
racks opposite. It turned out our return trip coincided with revellers
travelling to the Proms at the Albert Hall. Not long before we were
due to get off my Father drew attention to the lady opposite who was
wearing a most colourful hat after the style of Carmen
Miranda. However, my Father was not so much interested in the
colourful fruit and exotic looking flowers as he was the intruder that
was to be seen exploring the cherries and grapes. It was a dark olive
green above with a black spotted orange underbelly. Unmistakably, it
was a male great-crested newts and future partner of a female that had
been our most prized catches of the afternoon. These newts are part of
the Salamander family and were in ancient times thought to be the
young of dragons. The screw lid, loosened to ensure there was an ample
supply of oxygen, had come adrift and one brave amphibian had gone
exploring. Our station where we were getting off was approaching fast
and I it looked as though we were going to abandon the newt to enjoy
itself at an evening of serious music. Fear not as we got up and my
Father grabbed our duffel bags and I heard him exclaim "Excuse me,
Madam but there is a newt in your fruit Salad!" With this he leant
over and extricated the beast from the hat and all three of us
alighted from the train leaving one very bemused Promenader. From
those two Great Created Newts a whole dynasty spread out from our back
garden and then spread out to populate all the local garden ponds.
Hope you have enjoyed reading this article. Comments and questions to
firstname.lastname@example.com Tel 758890
Nature Notes – June 2011
The Untamed Shrew, the Acrobatic Mouse and the Gardening Vole
All around us an almost hidden community of small mammals live out
their brief lives at a frenetic pace. Despite their diminutive size
shrews, harvest mice and voles are as much a part of the natural
history of the Chilterns today as their larger and more obvious
cousins. They were also among the first mammals to occupy this ancient
Although abundant, shrews remain almost invisible even though they are
often but a few yards away from us in our gardens, in hedgerows,
fields and woodland. Meanwhile, harvest mice may have a high-rise
lifestyle but remain largely unseen camouflaged within the hedgerow or
arable field. Voles engineer their concealment travelling through
meadows and hedgerows within well-trodden high-speed grass
tunnels. The high energy lifestyle of all three demands round the
clock foraging and, though hard to hear, it is the sounds of their
high-pitched calls which might betray them. By remaining silent and
still, we have the best opportunity to locate and observe them.
We have three species of shrew in our midst: common, pigmy and
water. All are identified by their long pointed nose, small ears,
pinhead eyes, red teeth and dense velvety fur with distinctive dark
and light brown patches and whitish underneath. Shrews are the most
short-lived of the small mammals, living maybe only for three
months. Common and pigmy shrews live amongst leaf litter in hedgerows
or woodland. Water shrews enjoy a semi-aquatic lifestyle near clean
water streams and ponds.
It is estimated there are over 41 million common shrews in England
but, unlike the Victorian ideal of small children, their piercing cry
ensures they are rarely seen but more likely heard. Occupying small
burrows deserted by larger mammals, they scurry beneath the leaf
litter, along well-trodden paths. Diet comprises insects, earthworms,
slugs and snails. Water shrews favour shrimps, frogs, newts and even
small fish. Shrews mate in April and, being promiscuous, females give
birth in September to a brood sired by several males. If very lucky
the young may be seen keeping line astern to their mother forming a
'caravan', each youngster grasping in their teeth the tail of their
The shrew is an important source of food for kestrels, tawny and barn
owls, weasels, foxes and stoats. Water shrews also have to contend
with pike. Domestic cats will catch but not eat shrews: instead they
present their prize to their owners, not as a gift but because of the
unpleasant taste.
In contrast to the shrew's athletic speed, the harvest mouse is the
acrobat of the small mammal community. Weighing in at just four grams,
it is the smallest rodent in Britain. The prehensile tail – the only
one outside 'New World' mammals - provides anchorage and balance and
is essential given its aerial lifestyle. Harvest mice may live up to
three feet off the ground in a nest of hay suspended precariously
across a cleft stem or stout reed stalk.
Uniquely, outside the primates, they have opposable toes on their
broadened hind feet which allow them to climb up narrow stalks and
forage upside down using their forelegs to gather food. They are
adorned in yellow and russet coats to match their surroundings, with
blunt faces and largely hairless ears and tips to their tails. These
mice are slightly longer-lived than shrews: spanning two seasons. With
up to three litters of around six young a year between late Spring and
Autumn, harvest mice don't have time to offer much parental care. The
young are born blind and hairless and grow very quickly, exploring
outside the nest within two weeks, and are abandoned to fend for
themselves by the end of the third week. As with shrews, their pace
of life comes at a cost, demanding total commitment to foraging for
high energy food: from nectar to berries, as well as grain, moss,
fungi, roots and even insects.
Bank, field and water voles have made something of a comeback in the
Chilterns. Voles are prolific breeders with four or five broods a
year and their population fluctuates across the seasons, rising
tenfold over short periods. However, they remain sensitive to the
extremes of weather, the seasonal scarcity of food and, in the longer
term, pollution and landscape change. In contrast to shrews and
harvest mice, voles have rounded faces and spiky fur. In an identity
parade the ones with furry ears are voles.
Voles use their large eyes to forage for food but deploy their smart
scent detection to identify friend from foe. Though mainly consuming
berries and seeds, soft fleshy fruits and the leaves of herbs, shrubs
and trees, they are opportunists and will not refuse snails or
insects. If we see a vole in our garden it will most likely be a bank
vole. The field vole likes meadow grasses, specialising on the bents
and fescues. The water vole prefers the chalk streams to our hilltops.
Some events in nature remain unchanged it seems. Like the Swiss clock
with its eponymous name the first cuckoo started calling here again
this year on 17 April. Meanwhile, for the first time in several years,
the rabbit population seems to be on the rise again. Returning late at
night I've started to see them, frozen in the headlights. They are
also appearing brazenly in some gardens during daylight.
Another unwanted invasion which might be steadily gaining hold at the
moment is from Japanese knotweed, which has established itself in a
few places around the villages, possibly where there has been recent
ground clearance or perhaps where garden waste has been dumped on the
roadside. The crossroads at Heath End and behind the Hill Fort close
to the site of the old brickfields are two such examples. Once it
takes hold it will quickly advance, suffocating any other plants in
its reach and eradication can become complex and expensive. It's as
well to strike back sooner rather than later while one has a chance to
conquer it.
I would be interested to hear if you come across any other outbreaks
and if you have any other comments do get in touch via
firstname.lastname@example.com or phone 758890.
Nature Notes – April 2011
Some musings on nature
This being a sort of landmark for my Nature Notes articles, (number
50) I have chosen four of my favourite naturalists who I have enjoyed
reading over the years and have provided some of the inspiration for
my contributions in Hilltop News over the past eight years.
The Reverend Gilbert White (1720-93), who happened also to be
the subject of a biography by Richard Mabey (see later), was arguably
one of the first natural historians to commit his thoughts to writing,
and these writings had the capacity to reflect with refreshing
simplicity and honesty the sights and sounds he came across on his
daily walks from the Wakes in Selbourne. He recorded these
'religiously' in his exchanges with other men of the clergy who, as
was the vogue, were also like-minded naturalists. I find it
fascinating that, at a time when relatively little was understood
about the life histories of animals and plants, he made almost daily
insights. His conversational style of prose is a delight, such as in
this observation on swallows...
'When I used to rise in the morning last autumn, and see the
swallows and martins clustering on the chimnies (sic) and thatch of
neighbouring cottages, I could not help being touched with a secret
delight, mixed with some degree of mortification: with delight, to
observe with how much ardour and punctuality those poor little birds
observed the strong impulse towards migration or hiding..... and with
some degree of mortification when I reflected that, after all our
pains and inquiries, we are still not quite certain to what regions
they migrate, and are still farther (sic) embarrassed to find that
some do not actually migrate at all.' (The Natural History and
Antiquities of Selbourne, 1789)
Charles Darwin's (1809-82) writings have been so influential in
every walk of life, not just biology, that it is impossible to find
just one example to reflect his life's work. Rather than seek the
most notable, the most controversial, or the most beautiful, I have
chosen an extract from one of his least known works. He spent much
time studying earthworms. Employing his children to collect them from
his garden at Down House in Kent, he turned the billiard room into a
giant wormarium. He calculated that for every acre of pasture more
than ten tons of dry earth passes through the bodies of worms annually
and that every few years, therefore, the whole of the topsoil has been
so transported. He concluded in a monograph...
'When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse, we should remember
that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly
due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It
is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould
over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years
through the bodies of worms..... It may be doubted whether there are
many other animals that have played so important a part in the history
of the world as have these lowly organised creatures.' (The
Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Actions of Worms, 1871)
Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005) who, like her uncle Walter who
founded the natural history museum in Tring, was a zoologist and
almost as eccentric. Her major area of research was the diminutive
flea: however, her writings covered the whole range of the animal
kingdom, incorporating philosophy and history into her zoological
treatises. One of her observations I came across was about the
'The cuckoo was thought by the ancient Hebrews to be a hawk and for
this reason along with nightjars and owls they excluded it from their
She goes on to speculate that this assumption, which persisted until
the 18th century, was down to the bird's habit of:-
'beating along hedgerows or gliding out of a thicket or copse much
like a sparrow-hawk or like bird of prey.'
Today, we who live in this part of the Chilterns would be very lucky
to see such a sight. Instead we know there are cuckoos around because
of the onomatopoeic calls of the males. Miriam, in her unique writing
style, describes the female's song as like:-
'a soft burbling call rather like a sudden rush of water through a
narrow-necked bottle.' (Fleas Flukes and Cuckoos, 1952)
Richard Mabey (1941- ) attended school in Berkhamsted and spent
30 years observing and recording nature's happenings around him. He
wrote the following in 2010, having recently moved to a remote cottage
in Norfolk:-
'Beetles sidle in under ill-fitting doors. Crickets hang out in
lamp lit corners of the living room. Goodness knows what's going on
in the thatch. But I also have the sense of the house being a kind of
squatters' encampment on anciently occupied territory.'
Much of Mabey's writing has been about flora rather than fauna. His
book 'Food For Free' was a landmark publication in the 1970s
foretelling the resurgence of allotments, self sufficiency and TVs
'The Good Life.' His 'Flora Britannica' broke new ground by combining,
through vibrant writing, plant taxonomy with social history and
folklore. However, it is his observations about insects and the like
that I enjoy the most. One of the easiest traps for the nature writer
to fall into is anthropomorphism. I came across the following words
from Mabey...
'How does one write about creatures whose states of consciousness
are so remote from ours, whose lives are so brief and mercurial and
full of what we see as the horrors of cannibalism and slavery and
living parasitism? Not, certainly, by trying to interpret insects'
behaviour in terms of human institutions, as in so much embarrassing
writings about social bees and ants'. (On the anger of hornets in
Nature's Cures, 2010)
All the examples of animal behaviour in the extracts above are ones we
can enjoy, or in Mabey's house endure, but above all appreciate still
today in this part of the Chilterns. So, in anticipation of the
arrival of Spring, it's a great time to get out there to see our local
wildlife in the raw.
Nature Notes – February 2011
Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber!*
With the mercury in the thermometer at last registering temperatures
above zero degrees Celsius after a record breaking average of minus
one for December, wildlife has once again resumed its normal
order. However, darkness still takes hold in the late afternoon and so
the nocturnal habits of creatures are all the more noticeable at this
time of year.
"Then nightly sings the staring owl - tu-who, tu-whit, tu-who"
As children we learn that owls make a tu-whit tu-who sound. In fact
this is a corruption of the actual exchange from a pair of tawny owls
calling to each other. The origin of this phonetic variation can be
traced back to Shakespeare who coined it in Love's Labours Lost. In
fact the Bard slightly corrupted the phonetic spelling to fit
witticisms within his prose! In reality the female typically
sounds-off with a kee-wick and the other responding with a whu-whu.
In January, as dusk falls, last year's tawny owls start to search out
a new territory, having half-slept through the daylight hours
typically wedged in the crutch of two boughs of a mature tree. They
are, seemingly, content to be in full sight during the daytime and
assert their presence as dusk descends. Come across an owl in such a
position and it will rarely budge: instead will look straight at you
with an unstinting stare. Their favourite roost is a clue to their
alternative and older name of wood owl. Two birds in the same vicinity
may be heard to engage in a rapid exchange of calls, trying to
out-call each other with one eventually asserting its dominance and
gaining or retaining territory. The tawny owl is the most catholic of
owls when it comes to its prey and there is plenty of variety around
at this time of year: worms, mice, voles, stoats, rabbits and small
If you stray outside on calm evenings around dusk, the muffled sounds
of dry leaves rustling and small twigs snapping can set the hairs
erect on the back of your neck. More often than not, stepping through
the undergrowth is a muntjac nonchalantly nibbling on green shoots.
Startle one that turns out to be a male and you may be rewarded with a
sudden bark as it retreats to a thicket. As we know only too well,
once the barking has started it seems unable to know when to stop and
we are treated to a serenade of increasingly indignant rasping shouts
every 30 seconds or so.
Another mammal that makes its presence felt at night around this time
is the fox. The male bark is a repetitive raff-raff-raff as it does
the rounds reinforcing the extent of its considerable territory.
Meanwhile the female may respond with one of those ear-piercing
screams which are, in effect, a come hither signal to the males that
they are in season.
In February, badger cubs will be born and the mothers become
increasingly active making efforts to forage for the additional food
needed to support their offspring. The testosterone levels of male
badgers increase during the late winter as they seek to add to their
dynasty. Together they are frequent visitors to our garden and often
the first indication of their arrival is the hoarse grunting and
growling as they skirmish and scrap for food along the hedgerow.
There are very few species of insect that thrive during the months of
December, January and February. Moths almost exclusively require a
much higher ambient temperature. One of the rare exceptions is the
winter moth, which is on the wing for the next month or so - or to be
accurate only the male flies as the female is wingless. The females
stay put, emitting a powerful pheromone which can attract male moths
from over a mile or so away. After mating the female lays large
numbers of eggs in the deeper crevices of bark or on the scale leaves
of leaf buds and remain dormant until the early spring when
temperatures reach 13°C. The caterpillars, known as 'loopers'
because they can move rapidly by pulling their rear end towards their
heads with the middle section forming a vertical loop, feed on the
leaves of most trees. They are so numerous that they provide a major
source of food for insectivorous birds such as blue tits when they
build nests and rear chicks.
Frogs and toads awake from their stupor or semi-hibernated state and
use the cover of darkness to return to their favourite pond or ditch
to mate. During the nocturnal hours of February they can create quite
a stir across the water surface as males clamber for position in their
pursuit of females.
Finally, I heard on the radio the other day an old farmer who
recalled, in the pre-warfarin days when hayricks were in vogue,
describing how armies of brown rats moved from field to field at
night. Apparently if the wind was in the right (or is it wrong)
direction, there was a distinctive pungent odour as a mischief of over
200 rats rolled past you. Today, while the number of city rats has
remained stable, the quantum of rurally-based rats has declined
considerably. Still I guess this is not a sight or smell for the
So take an opportunity to appreciate the darkness and the wildlife
that inhabits it at this time of year.
(* The quote used as the title is from Lord Byron.)
That's all this time. As always your observations and questions are
welcome. firstname.lastname@example.com 758890
Nature Notes – December 2010
Four legs bad and two legs good
(with apologies to George Orwell!)
A telephone call about a certain flying mammal and an interesting
email I saw about pond weed a few weeks ago got me thinking about our
sometimes schizophrenic relationship with the plants and animals that
we live amongst.
A roadside verge with a splash of daisies can be a welcome site in
late Spring. Meanwhile a golf green awash with bellis perennis, to
give the flower its official name, is a greenkeeper's
nightmare. Similarly, New Zealand pygmyweed and Japanese knotweed,
despite the suggestion in their moniker, may be part of the natural
habitat in their country of origin: but here they are unwanted,
invasive weeds found in Pallet's Pond in Cholesbury or in the scrub
woodland adjacent to the Hill Fort. Both are on Defra's invasive
non-native species list and need to be eradicated asap. The botanical
maxim that sums up this duplicity neatly goes along the lines of: - 'A
weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place.'
A while back I wrote about the insects that share our houses. Though
generally we would prefer to rid our properties of most of them,
humanely or otherwise, from time to time we may tolerate the odd one
and occasionally even proudly cherish them (I'm thinking particularly
of those gregarious ladybirds, huddling in crevices over winter). Can
we apply a similar principle to plants and weeds and the larger
members of the animal kingdom that become uninvited guests in our
Exhibit 1 - The birds we today know as house martins had for eons been
building their nests on seaside cliffs. Some time later, perhaps 5
-10,000 years ago, when our ancestors quarried for building materials,
the martins moved inland to exploit these newly created habitats. At
the same time, the use of quarried stone and timber in building
construction encouraged the more opportunist martins to choose to make
their home close to human habitation.
These birds are summer visitors and feed on the wing, entirely off
insects and with the increasing domestication of animals, the ample
supply of insects on farms would have made the associated buildings a
good choice of location. It was much the same story with Barn Owls,
which must have also moved in on discovering the surfeit of rodents
around farmsteads. Like the Dutch and residents of north Germany, who
each year welcome back the storks and even provide wagon wheels on
their roofs on which the birds build their precarious nests, house
owners in Blighty have traditionally thought themselves blessed to
have been chosen by house martins to make their home 'chez-nous'.
Exhibit 2 - Bats tend not to be one of those animals which readily
make it onto people's Top Ten favourite cuddly creatures list. Most of
us only experience bats when they appear flying just above our heads,
which for some is disconcerting. Added to this are gothic
superstitions which still persist, subconsciously at least. Visiting a
zoo recently and standing in the walk- through bat enclosure, I was
interested to observe a general change to the public's perception of
bats. With an opportunity to view them up close they come across as
more endearing creatures.
There are 17 resident species of bat in the UK. All feed on insects
and spiders, consuming up to 3,000 in a single night. Back in
September I was told about a long-eared bat (which has a wingspan of
12 inches) that had surreptitiously found a temporary home in a spare
room. Too early for it to hibernate, it may have come in on a chilly
night to find a warm roost for the night and then could not find its
way out. It was carefully relocated into a sheltered position
outside, leaving the following night.
Bats pair up and mate in September and October and spend the rest of
the month building up their fat reserves. In November, as temperatures
fall and the volume of insects on the wing diminishes, bats seek out a
suitable over-wintering site to hibernate anywhere dry and cool, and
may happen upon an opening under the eaves and into the roof
space. Most of the older houses in the area will at some time have
provided a home for bats. Apart from a few droppings they cause no
damage (unlike the other rodents we have to contend with: rats, mice
and our not so dear ol' friend the glis glis.)
Although some bats do hibernate in groups, many will roost on their
own to see the winter out. Hibernation implies they sleep through,
which is a bit misleading as it's more like a shallow torpor than a
long sleep and they do stir from time to time on the warmer winter
nights and take to flying to look for food or water or even to
relocate to a new site. If you discover your roof space is a favourite
summertime roost for bats, there is no need to disturb them. If you
need to do building work and think you may have bats in residence,
there are ways of working round them without having to disturb them
greatly. For this reason, bat roosts are protected by law and you are
required to take and follow advice on how to proceed. There is a very
helpful guide available on the Bat Conservancy Trust website at
Exhibit 3 – Rats and mice are classed as vermin and would readily
overrun our houses or outbuildings and contaminate our food larders if
we did not take steps to deter or remove them. To these two in this
locality we need to add the so-called edible dormouse. However
endearing glis glis may look running along the branches of beech trees
or on the infra red closed circuit cameras on Autumnwatch, their
destructive nature and the risk of disease they harbour when they
invade our homes, outweighs any small level of sentimentality for
So from these three exhibits it would seem appropriate to twist around
a quote from George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' and adopt the maxim 'Four
legs bad, two legs good.'
Whether the pyracantha in our garden still has any of this year's
bumper crop of scarlet fruits on it by the time this article appears
is uncertain. As I write there are blackbirds currently enjoying
hawthorn berries but no doubt also eyeing up the 'Fire Bush' for the
dessert course. Fieldfares and redwings will flock in by December.
Two years ago I wrote about the infrequent visitors, waxwings,
arriving from Scandinavia and reports from the RSPB indicate that it
could be another 'waxwing winter' this year. These are unmistakable
birds with, as I described last time: sleek beige coats overlain with
russet brown and with black, yellow and white highlights. They may
also be seen in the large car parks of supermarket stores, known for
their fruit-laden bushes.
That's all this time. As always your observations and questions are
welcome. firstname.lastname@example.com 758890.
Nature Notes – October 2010
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl
Perhaps one of the scarcer trees we encounter along the hedgerow or in
oak woodland is the crab apple. This autumn we appear to have a bumper
crop of fruit locally, with apples ranging in colour from yellow
through orange to crimson and brightest pink. The name, 'crab' is said
to be derived either from the Norse word skrab, which means 'scrubby'
or from the Viking word scogs, meaning 'fruit'. Because of their
white blossom they were distinctive long-living features in the
landscape. In Anglo-Saxon charters they are found frequently recorded
as boundary and way marks.
As apples need to be cross-pollinated, crab apples may also be found
as the pollinator amongst more recent varieties in old
orchards. Through cultivation, this tree is the precursor of many of
the 6,000 or so varieties of 'eaters' and 'cookers', of which but a
fraction survive for us to enjoy today. With their distinctive tart
flavour, crab apples also make excellent pickle, jelly and jam; or in
an Elizabethan dish they can be roasted with meat until they
sizzle. Historically, a most valued wine (or more correctly cider)
called verjuice was fermented from the apple. Verjuice is from the
Medieval French - verjus - referring to the green colour of both grape
wine and raw cider and is still referred to in modern-day recipes.
Medicinally, it has apparently long been used to treat scalds and
Some readers may be familiar with the writings of Richard Mabey: a
naturalist and author who used to live nearby in Hertfordshire. He
relates the story of walking on Cholesbury and Hawridge Commons and
noticing the number of apple wildings which had sprung up. Wildings
result from those discarded apple cores. As nearly all apples are
combinations of rootstock and cultivars, the resultant fruit may be a
throwback to an early known variety more like a crab apple or maybe an
unknown and tasty find. There is one apple variety, first found in
1883 and unique to this area, known as the Bazely Apple - thought to
be a corruption of By- or Best-of-Lee, which can still be found in one
or two gardens locally.
In October, over the past 21 years, there has been a celebration of
our heritage of English apple varieties. This year 'Apple Day' is on
21 October and a number of pubs in the Chesham area are participating
in the celebration, including our own Rose and Crown, by putting on
real cider and apple dishes and raising a glass to celebrate the
Swifts are one of only a very few birds that never purposely alight on
the ground. By now the swifts are on their migration to tropical
Africa. On this journey they sleep and feed on the wing, collecting
flying insects in cheek pouches. Temperatures above the Sahara
overnight fall to well below zero. Whilst larger migrating birds such
as geese can tuck their legs into their down-filled rumps, swifts are
built for speed and agility so there is no facility to insulate their
legs. Instead, unlike their cousins the swallows and martins, swifts
have uniquely evolved legs with their own downy feathers for
protecting their legs from the cold.
After a wretched winter, and what some would say an indifferent
summer, we are experiencing a few warm sunny, if showery, late summer
and early autumn days. Not ideal for most insects, but one of the more
prominent late summer visitors to the garden, the dragonfly, does well
in such humid conditions: and does a great job for the gardener
hunting down pests.
From our back garden over the last three months there has been a near
daily plaintive outcry of a juvenile buzzard mewing and competing with
a couple of guffawing adolescent great-spotted woodpeckers. At first
the youngster was atop a tall tree and the parents were spiralling
above, encouraging their reluctant ward to fledge. More recently the
parents have not been seen so frequently and are probably travelling
further afield. Buzzards favour wooded valleys and in the Chilterns
their numbers have been steadily increasing over the last 30 years.
Aside from the odd crab apple there are several other autumn fruits on
show. The elderberries are almost ripe as I write and each day the
wood pigeons that keep noisy company with us dive bomb nearby bushes
to quality-check the produce. In medieval times elder was believed to
have magical powers. Grown near the house it acts as a deterrent to
vermin, the devil and warts. The superstition continued well into the
nineteenth century as it was also used to make horse whips to scare
off evil spirits. Elder was commonly used in hedgerows as it was seen
as a cheap and quick growing stock barrier.
There is a heavy crop of ripened haw fruit already weighing down the
slender hawthorn boughs. This bounty of fruit is a consequence of last
winter's extreme harshness. In turn this will support the anticipated
large flocks of redwings and fieldfares we should see this winter.
I read the other day that the latest threat to our bumble bees comes
from inbreeding due to the risk from population isolation, which makes
them increasingly susceptible to disease and pests such as the
parasitic mite. There are several bumble bee species that particularly
populate upland parts of Britain such as the Chiltern Hills. I don't
suggest they are particularly in peril but we can do our little bit to
encourage them. Rather than throw out those old bean bamboo canes, cut
them into six inch lengths, bundle together with some old twine, and
lay on some old bricks to provide a winter refuge - much cheaper than
those sold in garden centres! Instead, use the money saved to buy
some lavender bushes, hollyhocks and foxgloves to encourage more bees
to your garden.
I have several books on mushrooms and other fungi, and I studiously
trailed around with Clive Carey pointing out which are safe to eat and
which to avoid on his annual fungal forays across the Commons. Despite
this and the bumper crop of fungi, I do not feel confident to try any
out with bacon and egg yet. However, it's still fun to play I-spy and
see how many different colours and interesting shapes and distinctive
odours there are around this autumn.
The quote in the title above is from Love's Labour's Lost by the
Bard. That's all this time. As always, your observations and questions
are welcome. chrisbrown@ rayshill.com 758890.
Nature Notes – August 2010
A song, a smell, the colour purple, and an ailing conker
If the spring is the best time of year to appreciate our beech trees
then the summer and early autumn are when to pay attention to another
of our locally iconic trees, the horse chestnut. There are an
estimated 470,000 horse chestnuts in the UK and we have some
magnificent examples of mature trees.
There were once many Elm trees in the area but as we know, in the
1970s, most of these were destroyed by Dutch elm disease. Then, the
source of the downfall of the elm was a tiny wood boring beetle which
carried a deadly fungus. Sadly, a not dissimilar fate could also
befall the chestnut which is being attacked by a disease known as
"bleeding canker". In this case the carrier is not a beetle but a
small moth called the leaf miner. The moth only attacks the
white-flowered variety of horse chestnut. The red-flowered as well as
the pink hybrid are not affected. The first instance of infected
trees was in Wimbledon in 2002. Since this time, although concentrated
in the South East, it has spread to most parts of England. Trees
infected by the leaf miner have leaves with transparent sections which
soon die off, leaving a mottled appearance. Meanwhile the canker
infection takes hold over several seasons, eventually causing the tree
to lose boughs and die back. If you see evidence of the disease it
should be reported to Defra.
Perhaps because birdsong is such a normal part of our daily
experience, both in our gardens and in the surrounding countryside, we
tend to take for granted both the immense range of the sounds
different birds produce as well as the complex "lyrics" of songbirds
such as blackbirds and song thrushes. Many birds produce a variety of
sounds under different circumstances. Birds produce these sounds or
songs for different reasons; such as attracting a mate, warning off
other birds from their territory, or as an alarm when threatened by a
predator. The clue to how birds are capable of producing this vast
array of sounds is a unique device called a syrinx. It is similar to
our larynx or voice box but, despite the latter enabling us to speak,
the syrinx is even more sophisticated.
The syrinx is located at the point where the birds' airways branch to
the lungs. This enables the bird to make two distinct sounds
simultaneously. Hence, the tawny owl uses a variety of calls to
communicate with its mate or its fledglings, the starling mimics a
mobile phone ringtone or, for that matter, the African Grey Parrot
"talks" to its owner. One thing we do share with birds is the way in
which our respective babies learn to communicate from interaction with
their parents. Through imitation, listening and practising young birds
and children learn the complex grammar and rules of
communication. Apparently, according to researchers, birds also share
with humans the sound of their own voices and sing "for the joy of
In the last Nature Notes I referred to the associations between some
animals and plants either because of the similarity of certain
features or because of a link for medicinal purposes. In a similar
vein the names of some butterflies have an interesting origin. Many of
the names came about during the 18th and 19th centuries when
collecting butterflies, moths and beetles was a "sport" of
gentlemen. This accounts for some of the more curious or exotic
names. The gatekeeper was so named because the male defends a
territory, chasing off any rival males who dare approach too
close. The marbled white was, during the Victorian period, known as
the "half-mourner" on account of the fashion of women in mourning to
wear a mixture of black and white clothing.
Some members of the fritillary family of butterflies have interesting
names. The family are so-named because of the chequered markings which
resemble the snakes head fritillary flower. The Queen of Spain
fritillary was so called by a collector in the 1700s because of the
large number of silver markings which were seen akin to the vast
riches of the Spanish monarchy. A related butterfly was named after an
eccentric female collector, Eleanor Glanville. Sadly, after her death
her notoriety as a fanatical collector was used to contest the
validity of the will she had made on grounds of her clear insanity - a
woman who collected butterflies! One quite rare butterfly which has
been sighted in the local area is the purple emperor. This is one of
the most spectacular of butterflies. It was given its name by a 19th
century entomologist because he was struck by the similarity of the
purple to robes containing Tyrian purple, a rare and expensive dye
also known as imperial purple extracted from marine snails and only
worn by royalty and such like.
Late August and September brings one distinctive smell to those who
walk the footpaths and woodlands. The musty odour of the stinkhorn is
not one that you can readily warm to, however often one comes across
it. The sole purpose of the essence is to attract flies and beetles to
spread its sticky spores in the neighbouring area.
That's all this time. As always your observations and questions are
welcome. email@example.com 758890
Nature Notes – June 2010
After a winter whitewash, whither the wildlife; a wilderness of
flowers and a whirring of insects?
Several months on from the exceptional winter weather, the impact on
the rural scene and the bashing the wildlife has taken are becoming
clearer. The most visible signs in spring include delays in leaf-burst
and blossom from trees, perhaps by two to three weeks. In these
elevated Chiltern parts hawthorn, normally seen as a weathervane of
the season and for many hundreds of years known as May, will be seen
at its best this year in early June.
While the emergence of winter flowers such as - ironically - snowdrops
were much later, some spring flowers, such as violets, were unaffected
by the prolonged cold snap and appeared on cue. Bluebells are normally
racing to appear in late April, just in advance of the overshadowing
limegreen beechwood canopy. This year both were delayed by almost
equal measure.
The Cuckoos' arrival did not disappoint. Over-wintering in North
Africa or the Mediterranean, they were blissfully ignorant of the
harsh winter suffered by the birds they rely on to bring up their
offspring. The first reported arrival in these parts was on 17
April. However, assuming the host birds (warblers, meadow pipits and
dunnocks) have delayed nest making etc, the cuckoos will have had to
wait for their foster parents to be in place.
Each year, on the last Sunday of January, the RSPB carry out their
"Big Bird Watch" survey. The RSPB reports that results clearly show
how devastating the effect of a prolonged period of harsh weather has
on the bird population. Unsurprisingly, there is a disproportionately
heavy impact on our smaller garden birds. In 2009 the long-tailed tit,
which has been increasing in numbers in recent years, broke into the
RSPB "top ten" list. This was explained by the feeding behaviour of
these "bumbarrels" or "flying lollipops", adapting to the increased
availability of garden feeders. This year it was relegated to
thirteenth and other miniature favourites, such as the wren, coal tit
and our smallest native species, the goldcrest, fared even worse.
In Bucks, the population of the house sparrow, once our most numerous
bird and already in decline, took a sharp nose-dive in 2010. Although
still the highest scoring of the smaller birds, the sparrow is now
third. The robin has also been knocked off its high perch, coming in
at number 8. The top ten in the county therefore included several
medium and larger-sized birds, such as blackbird (1), starling (2),
and wood pigeon (6).
Meanwhile, it was interesting to note that a number of more
characteristically rural birds cropped up on the lists for town
gardens; reflecting the unfavourable conditions in the surrounding
countryside. In particular, elevated to the suburban garden bird
premier league were fieldfare, redwing, bullfinch and yellow hammer.
Next January, if you would like to participate, or at least compare
what birds visit your garden, look out for publicity on the BBC Nature
and RSPB websites, or in the newspapers.
Anyone familiar with the task of keeping children amused on a long car
journey will have turned, perhaps in desperation, to the pub sign
cricket game where legs and arms score runs. A variation for anyone
out on a country walk is to spot which plants and trees include
animals in their names. Starting with domestic animals, there are
plenty of dogs around. There is the poisonous woodland plant dog's
mercury, where "dog" in medieval English means "worthless or just
plain bad". It was believed by herbalists that the roots of the dog
rose and tongue-shaped leaves of the herb hound's tongue could cure
someone bitten by a mad dog. Another common canine-related example is
dogwood. Cats do not figure so frequently. The most likely in these
parts is cat's-ear, a dandelion lookalike with small cat-shaped leaves
on the flower stalk.
More profuse than cows in these parts are cow parsley and cowslip,
both plants sharing pastures with their animal namesakes. There are
several horses: horse chestnut, the name deriving from the
horseshoe-shaped scar left on the leaf stalk and horsetail, a
primitive plant more ancient than its animal namesake. Porcine-related
"monikers" that come to mind include pignut: the root was, in medieval
times, a valued food which pigs were capable of detecting, much as
they do with truffles. Meanwhile hogweed, (not of the giant kind) was
collected as fodder for pigs.
Unsurprisingly there are several grasses with sheep in the name;
however sheep's-bit is so-called after the custom of sheep to bite off
the flower heads. Goatsbeard needs no explanation. For ducks we have
duckweed. For chickens we have both fat hen and several types of
chickweed, the seeds of which are enjoyed by domestic fowl. Geese are
fed cleavers, hence the alternative name goose grass. Whereas meadow
foxtail has a clear derivation, foxglove is a misnomer; the origin
being "folk's musical instrument". The fly, the rat and the hare are
also represented and there are many more.
Out and about in June and July will be this season's crop of whirring
insects. A measure of how severe the winter has been will be the
number of butterflies on the wing, comprising the second generation of
over-wintered adults and those who migrate. Other prominent insects
will be bees, able to recover lost ground quickly despite the death of
over-wintering queens and the late emergence of spring
flowers. Dragonfly nymphs should have been insulated from the cold
after three years underwater and will crawl up a stem to transform
into adults. To survive, the larger invertebrates use habitat
dominance: strength, speed, camouflage and sensory perception. Smaller
insects, vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, predation and food
shortage rely on the capacity to reproduce in higher numbers. In the
air, flies and midges predominate; in the soil and detritus it's
beetles while in ponds, water fleas proliferate. Without this annual
explosion of the invertebrate biomass most of our mammals, birds,
reptiles, fishes and amphibians would not survive.
Nature Notes – April 2010
The Taste of Spring
I happened across the following short extract from a letter written by
one of the most famous novelists of the early 20th Century.
"Do you remember that autumn afternoon on Cholesbury Common, when we
were picking blackberries...?"
For an author whose experiences while living in this area provided the
inspiration to write such controversial (for the time at least) novels
as The Rainbow and Women in Love, it's interesting that one lasting
memory for DH Lawrence of Cholesbury was the innocent enjoyment of
collecting some wild fruit.
Aside from the obvious contrast between the freshness of a punnet of
blackberries with those straight from the hedgerow, the real
distinction is in enjoying the taste and texture of fruit where some
peril is involved, and maybe discomfort suffered in the pursuit of the
most ripe and therefore most inaccessible examples of the bramble
fruit. A word of warning though: according to folklore the berries
should not be eaten after Michaelmas Day, 29 September as they will
have been cursed by the devil's spit! How good this autumn's
crop of fruit will be largely depends on the good start to the growing
season offered in April and May. In effect the pleasure derived from
their ripeness in autumn is 'the taste of spring'.
The popularity of the TV programme The Good Life may have rekindled an
interest in homemade wines however, these were oft based on age old
recipes which had also experienced a renaissance in Tudor
England. Henry VIII, having fallen out with the Church of Rome,
popularised these 'Hedge Wines', as he called them, as a
political statement that his court and his people would only taste the
wines made from the fruits of his own Empire. The tartness of these
fruit wines or cordials was preferred to the often insipid and heady
condition of grape wines. Hedges of that time which survive to this
day still display the richness and diversity of food plants. They
were never a haphazard assortment of trees, shrubs, climbers and herb
plants but a carefully husbanded assembly, providing all year round
food supplies, flowers, hips, haws, berries as well as fragrances and
potpourri, medicines and poisons(!), protection and fodder for
animals, building materials and firewood.
Although around this part of the Chilterns most woodland comprises
mainly hardwood trees, we are blessed with some impressive stands of
conifers, such as the narrow plantation that runs up the valley side
to Oak Lane near Widowcroft Wood. In Scotland, crossbills make a
handsome living using their eponymous tool to wheedle out the flanged
pine fruits from their cones. In the otherwise silence of a highland
forest, the rasping sound of these birds betrays their presence. We
cannot boast this colourful finch but its cousin, the greenfinch,
might be found this time of year seeking out maturing cones and doing
a passable imitation of its Hibernian relative. A close inspection of
their conical bill reveals it too has a scissor-tipped beak enabling
it to 'turn a hand' to extracting the tasty morsel. The ability
of birds to taste or smell is extremely limited in enabling them to
cope with the nasty stuff they come across when foraging or consuming,
but sufficiently developed to ensure they reject poisonous insects or
plant items.
There are some plants in bloom we admire for their colour and others
for their perfume. It is easy, when talking of April, to wax lyrical
about the waxy blue bloom on the woodland floor of the bluebell. In
doing so, one can overlook the delicate inflorescences of wood
anemone, white above and a thin pale pink stripe beneath: a perfect
flower for an artist's still-life study. The Greeks called them
windflowers on account of their requiring a spring breeze to bring
them into flower. Like many woodland flowers at this time of the year
they rely on early emerging insects. Beetles and flies taste their
spicy nectar and pollinate them. Their bitter perfume does nothing to
complement their beauty and provides them with their alternative Old
English name of 'smell foxes'. Standing proud and firm amongst
the bluebells as well as in its own 'plantations' is another
white flower; the fivestarred wild garlic. Again its traditional name
gives a clue to its main feature. 'Ramsoms' derives from rans
meaning 'rank' which reflects the unmistakable odour when it is
encountered. Such an all-pervading smell can truly be tasted as we
walk amongst it and its essence from bruised stems carried back home
with us.
I have commented previously on noticing a year-on-year reduction in
cockchafers in May. I doubt the maybugs around here could have somehow
evolved to ignore the appeal of security lights. In towns where garden
lawns provided a likely habitat, increased manicuring and replacement
may have taken their toll, but here with a more varied habitat the
causes are less clear. On agricultural land their demise could still
be man-made as they are rabid feeders on cereal roots. Changes in
weather patterns might play a part, or changes in soil temperature and
water-table levels. Another possible cause may also be the increase
in populations of corvids (crows, magpies and jackdaws) which scavenge
for the tasty creamy-white C-shaped grubs of the beetles known also as
'white worms'. The adults hatch in October but hang around
underground until May when they swarm around trees, such as oak, on
which they feed. It will be interesting to see if this year bucks the
trend or not, reports from eye or ear-witnesses would be welcome.
Three other signature species for April and May: the Cuckoo, last year
heard early (17 April): this year perhaps it may be late? Then there
are Orange Tip butterflies busying themselves, tasting the nectar of
the bank-side flowers, careering back and forth giving the false
impression of a mass invasion. Thirdly swallows, tasting this
year's crop of insects while on the wing. So in conclusion, and
like Lawrence, why not also enjoy a perambulation on, and in
moderation, the fruits of the Commons.
That's all for this time. Comments and questions welcomed as usual,
phone 758890 or email email@example.com
Nature Notes – February 2010
Patrolling in a dignified procession of one
It's the second weekend of January when I'm penning this. The snow is
still lying deep in many places. Over the lawn where the powdery snow
has drifted and accumulated in places it provides some clues as to
what has been out and about.
If one can suspend total disbelief that animal behaviour is not
radically altered by weather conditions, animal tracks provide one
insight into their nocturnal or otherwise unseen habits. There are
tracks, some straight and purposeful; from A to B, meanwhile others
meander, crisscrossing or even backtracking. Closer examination
provides more insights. For example, a fox whose signature track with
paw imprints aligned front-to-back had taken the same route to
traverse the garden on more than one occasion, but this just one small
segment of their very large territory. In one or two places en route,
the powdery snow had been scattered when the fox pounced and scraped
away to reveal part of a sod beneath. Perhaps the fox had sensed there
was food beneath to scavenge.
Very small mammals, too small to hibernate, find it warm enough
beneath the snow blanket to forage for food. In contrast, a muntjac
disclosed, a hesitant personality, if such is an apposite description,
with tracks that describe several shallow arcs, stopping, inspecting
and starting frequently. The single track suggests that sadly the
there not much to sustain deer here at the moment. The most
interesting track is one that does not start on one edge and end on
another side of the lawn. A largish bird had emerged from under a
hedge which clearly can cope well with powder-snow, not a woodpigeon
but a solitary cock pheasant whose presence is betrayed by the
frequent but obviously nervous warning croaks largely ineffective but
loud enough to draw one to the window to see the bird somewhat
pathetically foot-scraping. Later inspection reveals both bold
beak-marks and distinctive solid footprints in the snow.
Assuming no repeat of the winters of 1947 or 1963 or even the slightly
less severe weather conditions of 1979 or 1982, by the time you read
this, lawns will have re-emerged from their arctic blankets. A
naturalist's focus in the garden naturally tends to be drawn to the
tree and plants and away from the largely monoculture patch of
grass. For a change, focusing on the lawn provides some new insights
into garden wildlife. I am reminded of that film of the 1980s "Honey,
I Shrunk the Kids" where a scientist's invention shrinks his children
to the size of small insects who then find themselves having to
traverse the length of their garden lawn which has become a
hazard-strewn environment comprising fierce beasts and triffid-sized
plants. In other words as the lyrics go: 'It's a jungle out there',
every bit as dangerous, for those that inhabit it, as the full-size
In its natural habitats grass is the ultimate survivor, despite being
heavily grazed, cut to the ground, trodden on, frozen solid or burnt
to a crisp it has evolved the supreme ability to overcome devastating
injury because of its capacity to regenerate from the base of the
plant or its roots, to grow faster than and therefore drive out less
vigorous plants. Created as lawns swards of grass are surviving on the
edge and under stress for increasing periods of the year as our
climate becomes more 'Mediterranean' in nature.
An interesting consequence of this artificial habitat is the
occurrence of 'fairy rings'. Here the spread of the mushroom mycelia
(the equivalent of roots in the fungal world) first results in a
diminishment of nutrients by strangling the grass roots. Whilst this
first stimulates the grass to grow faster and luxuriantly, ultimately
it starves the growth of the grass, turning it brown and killing it
off. This is followed by the fungi 'fruiting' throwing up a ring of
mushrooms. Having used up all the scarce nutrients in situ, the
mycelia seeks further nutrient by spreading outwards, equally on all
sides and repeating the process with the fairy ring slightly
enlarged. Some such rings can easily be as much as 50 or 100 years
Cock pheasants visiting gardens in their territories do so more
frequently and more confidently in March. Later in spring the male
pheasant may be seen escorting one or more female birds but even on
their own this escorting behaviour seems embedded in their
behaviour. I read somewhere that the way a pheasant promenades across
one's lawn was as PG Wodehouse once described a butler's habit of
'patrolling in a dignified procession of one'. Sums the
pheasant up very neatly.
One of the more indiscreet visitors to our lawns in February and March
is the Green Woodpecker. A distant relative of the Kookaburra it
shares with its cousin the desire to announce its presence with a
somewhat raucous cackle. A short reconnoitre on a tree is followed by
a confident landing on the lawn. Standing uncomfortably upright but
with head bowed at an acute angle it starts its search, probing as it
goes. Later in March it might tackle one of those small ant nests that
appear in the grass, but earlier its prey are any invertebrate which
is disturbed by its prodding. Woodpeckers have extremely long and
sticky tongues which can articulate and are capable of precise
movement which is excellent for dislodging and extracting insects.
Four more birds which flourish on lawns which have been subject to
less manicuring are blackbirds, thrushes, starlings and dunnocks all
of which will be attracted to the invertebrates a grass sward which
also contains a variety of low growing wild flora such as Dog violet,
red clover bugle and dare I say plantain, buttercup and
dandelion. Unlike suburban gardens we hardly need to introduce these,
just manage them so they don't overwhelm your lawn.
That's all for this time comments and questions welcomed as usual. Tel:
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Nature Notes – December 2009
Otherwise obscured or easily overlooked
"Having wandered through woods for several miles, the lane suddenly
came to the open, and I found myself on an open escarpment of the
Chilterns, a country so familiar..." J.H.B. Peel (1970)
The Chiltern scene at this time of the year confirms that the
familiarity with which Peel talks about is not just a singular
experience to be enjoyed only in spring or midsummer, such as one
might experience in an equatorial rainforest where the seasons are
unchanging. The Chilterns may be described for the tourist as verdant
woodland and pasture but the winter season affords contrasting views
of beige through to brown and at times provides the only chance to see
the flora and fauna around us which may be otherwise obscured or
easily overlooked.
Take the simple example of birds' nests. Built to survive the rigours
of the weather and to avoid being discovered, they remain largely
undisturbed hidden by leaves. With hedges and trees stripped bare this
is the only time of the year when the intricacies of design,
construction and disguise can be seen. Low down in a bush maybe a
wren's nest, a woven tapestry of leaves, moss and sedge or
grass. Higher up, a long-tailed tit's bottle-shaped dome remains
entwined in the blackthorn thicket, held in form by the tension of
slender twigs and spiders silk. In contrast, swaying in the highest
boughs of the stand of beech trees, are the tatty remains of more
haphazard nest-building by rooks and crows. The latter will already be
hard at work rebuilding theirs, the former soon to follow their
Mammals of all sizes need to steal some of the shortened daylight
hours to forage for food or trap prey and are more likely to break
cover and be seen and disinclined to seek cover if disturbed when
There may be over 900 species of moss in the UK. Perhaps we have over
100 in this part of the Chilterns: all on north-facing
surfaces. Somehow overshadowed by the tree canopy they remain all but
invisible to our senses for most of the year. Now unhindered by leafy
boughs the woodland floor is flooded with bright direct sunlight in
December and January. Taking advantage of this, mosses make the most
of the next two months with vigorous growth, and replenishing their
stores of energy. Within a few days they will transform from the
dullest to the brightest shades of green, for this short period the
most distinctive feature in an otherwise almost monochromatic wood.
You may not have spotted them straightaway but once encountered,
others may come into sight, tucked away in a crevice, maybe a door or
window jamb. It seems to be one of those winters when the bumper crop
of late-season ladybirds are set on making our houses their temporary
quarters. Regardless of the willingness of some of us, their hosts, to
tolerate and accommodate them, our centrally-heated homes do not
provide the right conditions for these beetles to survive the cold
season. In their natural environment they would hibernate right on
until at least April, unless spring comes earlier in late March.
Inside, the artificial climate will stir them into activity too soon,
perhaps as early as mid-January before there is any prey, typically
aphids, for them to eat. As a consequence they will starve to
death. So for the kinder-hearted amongst you, the best advice is to
evict the ladybirds, thereby encouraging them to find an alternative
My reference book advises on the use of a pooter, a peculiar device: a
Victorian invention still used today by entomologists who suck up
small insects via a tube into a specimen jar. I suspect this is not a
device you have to hand, in which case a tickling stick in the form of
a small brush or cottonbud will disturb the beetles sufficiently to
encourage them to relocate to suitable place. A superior hotel for
insects can be made from a bundle of foot long, hollowended bamboo
sticks. In true "Blue Peter" tradition a wholly satisfactory
alternative motel-standard home can be constructed from a plastic
lemonade bottle cut top and bottom and the cylinder filled by a length
of corrugated cardboard, rolled up and stuffed loose enough for the
insects to come and go freely. Ensure that the cardboard is sitting
well inside the bottle with none left hanging out. If it gets damp the
insects won't use it. Having encouraged your visitors inside, mount
the bottle in a tree or tuck into a south-facing wall, pointing
slightly downwards to allow any moisture to drain out.
I end on something off-beat though entirely in keeping with the
theme. For a seasonal topic I thought what, at this time of year,
might one all too frequently stumble over on a walk around these
parts? What frequently lies beneath our feet in some quantity at this
time of year? I mean all that glorious mud which reliably confronts us
wherever we choose to stroll and, despite our best efforts, returns
homeward with us. I am assured that wherever it occurs it is of a
unique composition and true reflection of the place in which it lies,
comprising not just inorganic minerals but the organic remains of the
particular plants that grow nearby and the animals that pass over or
through or fall into and get trapped.
It's the sort of stuff that TV forensic scientist Grissom could pin
down within a few metres. So as elsewhere, in this part of the world
there is a peculiarly Chiltern ooze within which there will be a high
proportion of tree leaves; particularly beech, shards of bracken
frond, fruits such as hawthorn and sloe at some stage of
disintegration. On top there will be the tracks of muntjac, badger,
fox, pheasant, horse or human. However, it is also a living habitat
for local invertebrates; worms, beetles and centipedes as well as
fungi and bacteria. Now while some of the detritus will have
disintegrated or dissolved beyond recognition, it will also contain,
trapped in the uppermost layer, this year's deposits yet to be
consumed by those invertebrates or dissolved by fungi. A contemporary
fossil if you like. Mud is what Peel describes as a 'chiaroscuro' of
colours and textures and just another reflection of the Chiltern
country so familiar.
As always I welcome comments and questions.
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Nature Notes – October 2009
A thousand shades of ochre, silver, emerald, smoky brass
Sometimes, when I get stuck for a few words to start these Notes I
turn to one of the various emails and articles that come my way, to
gain some inspiration, or see what is topical at that moment. So this
being one of those times, my attention was grabbed by one email, in
particular, which seemed to be a good place to start this
month. Spiders! Now the first thing the article said was that when
spiders are mentioned you lose half your readers. So, to the 50% of
you who are still reading, thanks for staying at least this
far. Apparently, one thing you may have in common with fellow readers
at this stage is a preference for reading less about 'the fluffy or
cute members of the animal kingdom, bunnies and dolphins', preferring
'nature in the raw'.
Anyway, back to the spiders, and in particular the house occupying
ones which will have started to make their presence known scurrying
along the skirting or emerging cautiously from the fireplace. About
now, and like clockwork, London Zoo starts getting calls each year
from troubled house-owners who are desperate for advice to rid
themselves of extremely hairy, long-legged arachnids which, thanks to
David Attenborough or the late Steve Irwin documentaries, they
readily, but mistakenly, identify as the deadly tunnel spider: no
doubt imported on some exotic Australasian fruit.
It's not just the hairiness which is exaggerated, the going rate for
size is around four inches long! It may feel like some kind of
invasion, but this generation of house spiders will have been unseen,
uninvited houseguests since they hatched out at the start of the
year. They remain discretely out of sight until their last moult is
done and, now they are ready to find a mate, are at their most
active. Such is their delight in living alongside you, if you manage
to corral them into a tumbler and drop them out through the window
they have a strong homing instinct and will find their way back in
very quickly. On the upside, house spiders are efficient pest
controllers ravenously devouring flies, mites and other small insects,
equally though they can survive a famine for several months between
As I write this, swallows are tumbling high above frantically feeding
on the wing, making the most of the bloom of energy-rich invertebrates
and storing up the food reserves for the journey to southern Africa.
The aerobatic spectacle is the result of the annual explosion of
flying insects and those microscopic cousins of the aforementioned
spiders who, despite not having wings, spin silk strands on which they
ride the air currents. Periodically, and in ever more increasing
numbers, the birds rest up in ordered lines along any convenient
wires, conversing loudly. Before electricity and telegraphs what did
they use instead? On past years' evidence, by October they will be on
their way. However, more and more sightings of these birds have been
reported in southern England during November and even December
suggesting a small, but increasing number do not make the marathon
6000 mile journey. This change in habit results from a milder autumn
period, which in turn is extending the period during which a larger
than previous supply of winged insects is available. It is doubtful
though that those which remain behind survive through the winter, but
in time we may find our swallows become winter companions.
On the path leading to St Laurence's Church I came across a newly
established patch of liverworts where the holly had been cut back. In
the wild they must be one of the most overlooked groups of plants,
while in our gardens they are frequently the subject of complete
annihilation. In past times these very primitive organisms would have
been collected, dried and used, as their name suggests, as a cure for
a range of diseases attributed to the liver. This is because the
simple, flat emerald green 'thallus', which comprises the whole plant,
is liver-shaped. The Chilterns may not be one of their prime habitats
but they are still prolific and enjoy any damp, dappled shaded
woodland edge or perhaps a newly created clearing where a tree may
have fallen. Their success lies in being able to invade quickly virgin
territory, creating an overlapping, scaly green carpet across the
unoccupied bark, which then develops its own moist microclimate: the
perfect habitat for centipedes, beetles and mites. I know greenkeepers
and nurserymen consider them a nuisance and will eradicate them, but
in your garden they will provide an important part of your local
ecosystem, a source of invertebrates for small mammals and birds, like
wrens, goldcrests and treecreepers.
I always enjoy exploring the interconnections between natural and
local history. Once such example links our autumn hedgerows with the
Second World War, which started sixty years ago last September. At the
outbreak of war, there were food shortages. The impact of rationing on
diets and the Nation's health resulted in cases of rickets and
scurvy. A campaign initiated right here in Buckland Common by Claire
Loewenfeld, a nutritionist, to promote the collection and processing
of hedgerow fruits into syrups and preserves to supplement the diets
of children with Vitamin C was enthusiastically taken up by the
Government of the day, who distributed instructions and recipes to
hospitals and schools. Top of the list of beneficial fruit were
rosehips, which had the highest concentration of Vitamin C. I am sure
many can recall, both during and after the War, children being given
the bright red sweet rosehip syrup on rice pudding or semolina. Claire
also encouraged the use of other hedgerow fruit including
blackberries, elderberries and crab apples. While our diets may not
need supplementing in such a vital way we can still enjoy the tastes
of the hedges, as well as their autumn colours. Others waiting to
enjoy the low hanging fruit will be badgers and this year's new foxes
set free from the security of the vixen, while redwings and thrushes,
incoming from the north, will gorge on haws and sloes.
I conclude with a few words from a poem written some 170 years ago,
which could describe our autumn scene.
"Leaves of all textures that a leaf
could be: palm, fluff, prickle, matte and plume;
bobbled; shaggy plush. A thousand shades
of ochre, silver, emerald, smoky brass..."
They appear in a new book, "Darwin: A Life in Poems", written by the
naturalist, both aboard the Beagle and later. This new book coincides
with the 150 anniversary, in November this year, of Darwin's On the
Origin of the Species, and might make a worthy Christmas present for
someone interested in natural history and poetry.
That's all this time. As always your observations and questions are
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Nature Notes – August 2009
September sights and sounds; spangling, semaphore, sheaves, shucks and
The weather conditions in North Africa are not my usual starting point
I admit. However, the wet winter season in Morocco has provided us
with a 'once in a decade' display of spangling colour. Painted Lady
butterflies are not a resident species in the UK; well at least
they're not for the present anyway. Each year we rely on the northern
migration of this distinctive butterfly. It is one of the most
widespread and well-travelled butterfly tribes around the globe and is
related to another migrant, the Red Admiral. Both belong to a genus
called Vanessa, the girl's name which had been coined by Jonathan
Swift around 1700.
Anyway, the unusually heavy rainfall in February caused a verdant
covering of food-plant in the Atlas Mountains which in turn supported
an abnormally large herd of rapacious caterpillars. Emerging a month
later from bejewelled chrysalises, the adults departed northwards to
France, Spain and Portugal. A second generation left from there
northwards. This year, rather than just tens-of-thousands, up to a
million or more arrived across the UK. They have been reported as far
north as the remoter Scottish Islands and although they prefer open
ground they have been plentiful in the more secluded parts of the
In July these generally non-gregarious caterpillars - which are
black/grey spiky with a pale cream stripe along each flank (Peacock
butterfly larva is a glossy black) - could be found feeding on thistle
and nettle. By the time this imago edition of HTN emerges through your
letterbox, the British-born generation of Moorish imagoes should also
be about to emerge too. So keep an eye out for this large showy
butterfly with its characteristic speedy corkscrew flight pattern.
This UK-born generation do not breed here but disappear and there is
debate as to their next destination. Although it has been suggested
they head southwards again, there's no confirmation of the theory that
they actually return safely back in North Africa. Lepidopterists are
hoping to crack this mystery later this year.
This mystery has a parallel with one which puzzled naturalists over
200 years ago. Then there was a theory about where swallows went in
winter. The collective view was that they buried themselves in muddy
banks until the spring. Today there is no doubt where swallows go in
winter. On warm September evenings they can be seen feeding up on the
clouds of insects drifting on the thermals and at dusk congressing as
they masse together on overhead wires ahead of their synchronised
departure for southern Africa.
A year or so back I commented on the absence of lapwings from our
fields in more recent times. This year there have been sightings in an
arable field in Heath End and I was also lucky enough, while walking
the parish boundary, to see a pair performing a haphazard display,
from which they get their name, and aimed at distracting would-be
predators from finding their chick(s). Their black and white wings
seemingly using a unique semaphore to beat out their message. These
were a welcome sight as the lapwing is one indicator of how well or
otherwise the local wildlife is faring.
We tend to associate owls with the hours between twilight and dawn and
conversely not birds 'of the day'. Tawny owls break this
rule. Fledgling tawnies leave the nest early, after five weeks and far
too early perhaps, as they then hang around perched on branches in
nearby trees for up to three months, relying on their parents to feed
them. I think this is akin to serving a kind of apprenticeship whereby
the youngsters supposedly are learning how to lay up motionless and
unnoticed during the day. However, like all young children, they
crave attention and are given to break cover with spontaneous
outbursts along the lines of "Keewik" in the middle of the day. Once
heard, look out for a gawky-looking fluff ball trying feebly to appear
To be honest, being a scientist, my appreciation of our English poets
had until now sadly not stretched as far as John Drinkwater, whose
works were influenced both by his childhood in the Warwickshire
countryside and the later horrors of the First World War. I happened
across the following poem, called September, which not only reflects
these influences and the time of year but is of particular relevance
for another unexpected reason. The verses are believed to have been
inspired by the countryside around here, experienced during a short
visit in 1915/6. But that's a story I will save for another time,
wearing my local rather than natural history hat on!
Wind and the robin's note to-day
Have heard of autumn and betray
The green long reign of summer.
The rust is falling on the leaves,
September stands beside the sheaves,
The new, the happy comer.
Not sad my season of the red
And russet orchards gaily spread
From Cholesbury to Cooming,
Nor sad when twilit valley trees
Are ships becalmed on misty seas,
And beetles go abooming.
Now soon shall come the morning crowds
Of starlings, soon the coloured clouds
From oak and ash and willow,
And soon the thorn and briar shall be
Rich in their crimson livery,
In scarlet and in yellow.
Almost 100 years on, many of these September sights (and sounds)
around our villages have changed. There are but a few remnants of
those 'russet orchards' and the image of sheaves is an even more
distant memory. Although these elements of Drinkwater's rural idyll
may have disappeared, the autumnal woodland vista and hedgerows
described in his third verse still remain very much part of our
September scene today, except where they have been replaced by a
monoculture of sterile trees.
So perhaps while out one late September day you'll catch that first
glimpse of this year's 'clouds' and realise the timelessness of that
view. Meanwhile, there's also that distinctive crunch underfoot as you
walk on the remains of nutshells, beneath a hazelnut tree. Those
discarded by squirrels have been splintered in their jaws. Others more
intact have a circular hole and teethmarks, having been gnawed through
by wood or yellow-necked mice. Amongst the discarded shucks may also
be some shells with a tiny circular hole bored in them. This is the
work of a third consumer, the nut weevil. One egg is laid by the adult
beetle when the shell was small and soft. The larva feeds on the
growing nut and, having drilled its way out, continues the journey to
adulthood over-wintering under an insulated blanket of leaves.
Thinking of entering a photo in this year's Hort Soc Show? Some
well-positioned over-ripe fruit, such as bananas or plums is an
excellent way to attract those large butterflies to the garden and get
them to keep still while you photograph them. Happy snapping!
Thanks for the questions and sightings since last time, keep them
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Nature Notes – June 2009
Socialising - 'Whilst many a mingled swarthy
crowd – rook, crow, and jackdaw – noising loud'
Weathewise, June is the month by which we judge how good our
summers are. The rare occurrence of a 'flaming June' somehow dictates
our impression of the season as a whole. Take 1976, which we oft quote
as the benchmark on which all summers are to be judged. It was
characterised by an all but perfect June. True, July and August were
also sunny but that is not so unusual. My conclusion is that it's the
length of the summer season that stands out in our memories not the
occurrence of scorching hot days. So what about this year? Although
the Met Office has announced it will be a 'good summer', folklore
contradicts this with the first cuckoo late announcing its arrival
this year (25 April). The only other prediction I will make is that
rain will not interrupt play on Centre Court this year!
I was the witness at a wedding a month or two back. Not a wedding
I had been invited to and not one involving just a single couple but
one with many, many participants. It was a noisy affair but there were
no humans involved. It was a 'crows' wedding' but there were no crows
involved. Instead, each day from late January for several weeks, there
were normally over a hundred rooks flying in tight formation, stalling
and stumbling. Why is a conflagration of rooks assigned to crows?
Rooks and crows are closely related of course and at a short distance
both birds look black but rooks have shiny feathers which in sunlight
have an 'oil-on-water sheen' of blues, bronzes, purples and mauves. So
what is going on at such 'weddings'? Rooks are the most intelligent
and sociable birds of the 'corvid' family (rooks and crows, etc) while
crows lead a mainly solitary existence.
Maintaining good relations in a crowded community necessitates
order, customs and conventions. Rooks achieve this by having rules
reinforced by a complex vocabulary; some say up to 30 distinct
calls. Younger birds joined in to learn the ropes and practise these
elaborate flights ultimately aimed at establishing pairings and
hierarchies in the rookery. As the days went by many couples cemented
a relationship by synchronising their displays. Victorian writers did
not try and distinguish rooks from crows, both of which were imbued
with age old affiliations with death and disease and were equally
blamed for their destructive abilities and scourge of arable
land. Rooks in particular outnumbered crows by a hundred to one, so it
remains a bit of a mystery why we have 'scare crows' and not 'scare
rooks'. We may describe distances in terms of 'as the crow flies' yet
it is the rooks in their hundreds, rather than crows, that are known
for long, straight flights up to 25 miles returning to their
roosts. Much like a rook in a ploughed field, I unearthed this tasty
morsel, part of a longer poem about the month of January by the 18th
Century poet John Clare, which paints for us a still relevant
Whilst many a mingled swarthy crowd –
rook, crow, and jackdaw – noising loud,
Fly to and fro to dreary fen,
Dull winter's weary flight again;
They flop on heavy wings away
As soon as morning wakens grey,
And, when the sun sets round and red,
Return to naked woods and bed.
One interesting find, summing up the love-hate relationship with
the rook, was an account of how colonists to New Zealand in 1874 took
rooks with them. Some writers, somewhat romantically, have said this
was to remind the émigrés of the 'Old Country'. Not at all, despite
their lessthan- harmonious relationship with man, they were seen as
ideal pest controllers to deal with insect infestations prevalent in
the South Island. Rook populations may have fallen in the UK but are
on the increase down under and there are serious concerns they will
become a major pest in their own right in the North Island. Another
reminder of animals living in an unusual association with humans came
from a recent conversation about the arrival on someone's doorstep of
some wild but highly sociable bees, living happily in the crevices
beneath the brickwork - a source of neither damage nor danger. Bees
are the most highly developed of all insects. Although the colonies
of honey bees may seem to be the 'bee's knees', these housesitter bees
are in fact the top of the beepyramid. These bees have developed a
specialised trade, wood-boring or leaf-cutting for example. Many of
them have consequently sacrificed their ability to bite or sting. So
to insure their progeny are protected against predation, they live as
individuals but in a loose, but sociable community preserving their
individuality but adopting a level of give and take with their
neighbours. These bees are in fact the most 'socialised' of all bee
societies, proving the motto 'Good fences make good neighbours'. The
next group of bees and the largest of all are in fact strictly
solitary, shunning publicity. Some are even aggressive towards their
own kind and prime candidates for a bee ASBO for their persistent
unsociability. Honey bees represent the third way.
A highly ordered, sociable community sacrificing individuality for
an impressive organisation of labour, comprising foragers, defenders
and egg producers (queens and drones) all locked together by an
advanced form of communication. Man has harnessed this community
living to his own ends, exploiting their industry as pollinators and
harvesting the fruit of their labours. A few thousand years of
intensive bee husbandry may be having disastrous consequences. Colony
Collapse Disorder is the name coined for the yet-to-be- determined
cause for rapid decline in bee communities right around the
world. Some of the possible reasons for the declining numbers could be
a bee plague, pesticides, or malnutrition. If the commercial bee
community were to collapse totally within as little as three seasons,
fruit and vegetable food production could have all but ceased. The
consequences for food production would be devastating on the human
population. I don't normally recommend a walk amongst the nettles but
if the harsh winter has not taken too heavy a toll a third brief
example of sociability to look out for are the colonies of small
tortoiseshell, peacock or red admiral caterpillars clustered tightly
on the freshest leaves. Safety in numbers and co-ordinated reactions
to predatory wasps protect the vulnerable larvae and ensure a healthy
population of butterflies to socialise in your garden or up and down
the hedgerow.
Comments and questions as usual to chrisbrown@ rayshill.com,
Nature Notes – April 2009
In celebration of the beech!
If the Chiltern Hills has but one signature feature it is the
beechwoods. The topography, height and overall poorer fertility of
the Chiltern soil has set apart this upland area from other similar
ones in southern Britain, such as the Cotswolds, with their rich
sheep pastures, or the Oxfordshire and Wiltshire Downs with their
sheep folds.
The history of the Chiltern beechwoods is a long one but is cut
short here. The last Ice Age sculptured the Chilterns as we see
them today. It took until around 8000 years ago, 2000 more years
than oak, for mature beech forests to emerge, spawned from pollen
blown across the joined-up continental land mass soon to be split
by the English Channel. Since then, there have been successive
clearance and envelopment by the ancient Wildwoods before being
finally 'tamed' by axe-wielding Stone Age man around 2-3000 years
ago. Without continuous human intervention, these hills would not
have the patchwork of managed woodlands, open pasture or arable
land we have inherited today. Instead, a mixture of wildwood or
impenetrable scrub would have persisted until probably the 16th
century and the typical Chiltern villages we live in today would
either never have emerged or would not have uniquely developed
around or along open common land as they have.
Unlike today, in medieval times a stand of beeches would not
have stretched half way to the sky. Instead, trees may have been
pollarded or coppiced and if allowed to grow upwards at all would
certainly not have been left intact into late middle age or allowed
to grow lanky trunks topped out by a broad tree canopy. If oak
provided the early settlers to this hilltop region with building
materials, beech supplied the energy source domestically and
industrially (for smelting iron). From the 16th century, beech's
value as firewood was such that it could be felled and profitably
transported from the Chilterns by barge to London.
The next dramatic change came in the 17th century when the first
plantations of beech appeared in the Chilterns to support the
demand for wooden furniture. Writers of the time, such as Gilbert
White, were able to describe both the gnarled and unblemished
barked versions of beech growing alongside each other, debating in
letters to each other their preferences either for 'smooth rind' or
'knobbed and studded' versions.
Wood pasture, an almost forgotten farming method these days, was
an essential part of this overall woodland management, right
through from the early middle-ages, with animals let loose to graze
in the autumn off the beech mast. A wood was valued and taxed
according to its 'hidage' which equated to the number of swine or
other domesticated animals that could be supported therein. Look
out for clues remaining today of this historic woodland use, such
as banks and ditches on wood edges: some still with the remains of
coppice and hedging which was once regularly maintained to pen in
the grazing animals.
Stepping back and thinking how a woodland was (and is) used also
unlocks the key to the wildlife that has been attracted and
sustained historically. For example, the robin has always been an
opportunist bird. The use of woodland to turn out pigs or forests
to sustain wild boar for hunting led to the robin following the
swine around, even perching on its back whilst the animal turned
the soil in search of roots and bulbs but also unearthing worms and
insects for the bird. Fallow deer were introduced by the Romans for
hunting and would have been penned in certain areas. Pheasants have
been introduced to our woodlands several times and eventually led
to the elimination of polecat and martens. Beaver were commonplace
until the middle ages when their activities came fatally into
conflict with man. Even red squirrels were introduced to hardwoods
in the middle ages and were prized for their fur. Their natural
habitat were the coniferous forests where they have since
retreated: following introduction of the grey squirrel from America
in the 19th century, which in turn severely damages the bark of
beech trees. Both Muntjac and Glis glis have similar dark
The demise of oak trees and coppiced beech woods, replaced by
plantations of smooth-barked beech, has also eliminated many
species of moss, liverwort and lichen from the beech woodland
scene. The close canopy has starved the woodland floor of light but
this has provided an ideal habitat for the early flowering
bluebells which so uplifts the spirit each Spring.
With the timber industry no longer supporting the management of
woodland resources, protection of beechwoods as Chiltern heritage
is important. Conservation organsations (eg the NT) and local
people purchasing a woodland at risk from exploitation, are vital
for the protection of local woodlands. But there are other risks
too. In an ancient woodland, a healthy beech tree might live up to
250 years. Plantation stands of beech now well over 100 years of
age are already well past their 'fell-by' dates. Hitherto, the
trees would have been cleared and replanted after 40 to 50 years.
Grown close together on shallow, well drained soils or on
hillsides, many are unlikely to survive into old age. On a walk in
the woods today you are quite likely to come across an upended
tree. The clues to its demise are the overstretched shank (trunk)
which has grown fast and spindly as it struggled against its
neighbours for light. A second clue is the huge haunches or plates
which the tree has been forced to enlarge to buttress the trunk at
ground level. Eventually, either unable to support its own weight
or, as average annual temperatures increase and the water table
falls, becoming 'stressed' through not being able to draw
sufficient nutrient, it will all the more likely succumb to a gale.
In their lingering death and afterwards they provide more
sustenance to flora (fungi and bacteria) and fauna (beetles, wood
lice and millipedes) than perhaps they ever did in life.
The latest threat to our oaks and beeches, reported in the last
12 months, is from a fungal disease spread via rhododendrons, which
are frequent escapees into woodland from parks and estates,
including our own local invasion in Drayton Woods. There are plans
being prepared nationally to remove rhododendrons in such locations
to stem the increase in sudden death of wood and parkland beech and
Victorians viewed beeches as elegant landscape trees: ornaments
to show off an estate's features across open countryside. Elegant
tree cathedrals sprang up. Beeches were planted to adorn ancient
landmarks such as our own Cholesbury Hillfort. Sadly, as all these
trees were planted at once, there is no succession and a walk
around the ramparts will reveal time is already taking its toll. A
visitor returning in less than 30 years will no doubt do so to a
very different scene. So get out there and enjoy the beechwoods and
the wildlife therein while you can. They may not be around for much
No weather notes this time by the way. There was just far too
much of it in February: making no further mention seems the decent
thing to do! Look forward to questions and comments as always.
Nature Notes – February 2009
Darwin's legacy – if eaten, beetles can leave a bitter taste
in the mouth
A cold start to the year with Chesham and Benson in Oxfordshire
sharing the National honours on the night of 6th January. With snow
on the ground, temperatures fell to minus 11°C. Locally, I recorded
–11.8°C that night. The outlook for the rest of the winter season
is for slightly warmer and dryer conditions than typical for this
time of year.
February 12th marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's
birth. He was one of the foremost scientists of the 19th century,
who demonstrated how all species of life evolved from common
ancestors by the process he called natural selection: a discovery
that continues to have a profound impact on scientific thinking to
this day. Although this is what he is principally remembered for,
his inquisitive mind not only addressed this fundamental question
but he also resolved, or at least laid the groundwork for, answers
to many other big questions of the day.
So this Nature Notes picks up on just a few of the less
celebrated of Darwin's discoveries as an observer of nature and his
largely unrecognised contribution to agriculture, market gardening
and animal husbandry. His nature writing is descriptive, at times
poetic, and elsewhere highly amusing. One or two quotes are picked
out and included below but his complete works are available online
at www.darwin-online.org.uk.
Charles Darwin initially trained to be a Doctor in Edinburgh but
found himself not suited to following his father as a country GP,
having observed the gruesome autopsy of young girl. This experience
also conditioned his lifelong thinking as an anti-vivisectionist
who resisted the new fashion of experimenting with live animals. In
desperation, his father encouraged him to resume his studies at
Cambridge with the aim of becoming a parson. However, instead of
theological studies he soon became distracted by his exploits in
riding, shooting and fishing.
Luckily for science, this extra-curricular activity led to him
submitting letters of his discoveries to learned journals which
brought him into contact with, and to the notice of, the most
renowned naturalists of the day. This led to an invitation to be
the 'gentleman naturalist' to accompany Captain Fitzroy on board
the survey ship Beagle in 1831. After a five-year voyage of
exploration and discovery to South America, including the Galapagos
Islands, Australia and South Africa, Darwin returned with thousands
of specimens and many new ideas. He took over 20 years to summon up
the courage to publish "On the Origin of the Species". The book
immediately met with hostility from the established church, however
his ideas survived this onslaught and were reinforced by the work
of the scientists who followed him. Although his travels provided
numerous exotic species, he equally relied upon numerous
observations and studies of everyday British wildlife. Here are
just a few.
On the earthworm, Darwin elegantly remarked "... it may be
doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an
important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized
creatures". He carried out experiments (in the billiard room of his
family home in Downe, Kent), and calculated how materials strewn on
the surface found their way deep down in the topsoil. He calculated
that, over 10 years, the top two inches would have all been through
the gut of worms. We take this subterranean activity for granted
today but until Darwin investigated this most essential aspect of
soil fertility, it was not understood.
Ever wondered how plants attach themselves to and climb up
almost anything so effectively? So did Darwin. Although several had
studied this plant behaviour previously, there was no clear
understanding of how this occurred and, more importantly, how the
different methods of climbing evolved. Darwin studied over a
hundred different species grown from seed (including growing hops
in his bedroom). His research enabled horticulturalists and market
gardeners to develop new varieties of climbing plants: be they
clematis, hops or runner beans.
There were many occasions when Darwin was challenged to explain
the variety and wonder of the natural world. One such related to
wild orchids and how species such as the bee and fly orchids mimic
insects in the design of their flowers or as Darwin described them
"... the wonderful contrivances of the orchid". During a visit to
Torquay in 1861 he noticed how wild orchids were distributed on the
cliff side. Consequently, he had an orchid house built and
demonstrated how only cross-pollinated orchids produced fertile
seeds and the more successful an orchid at attracting insects, the
more likely its inherited characteristics would survive. Darwin
predicted this effect was down to the transference of genetic
material, although it took another 50 years for Darwin's theory to
be proved and the principles of genetics to be developed. Unlike
today, breeding of both domestic and exotic fowl and game birds
were of popular interest. So it was typical of Darwin's curiosity
with nature in general that he experimented with the breeding of a
wide range of varieties. He examined the features of racing pigeons
and the colouration of male birds. At times the whole house stank
of boiling bones as Darwin sought to determine differences in bone
structure of birds bred for racing.
In his latter years Darwin turned his mind to the mysteries of
plant movement. He was able to demonstrate that it was not a single
entity that controlled plant movement but rather the reaction of a
small number of cells just behind the growing tip of the shoot or
root which reacted in one way to gravity and in the direct opposite
to light. In relation to the root or 'radicle' Darwin, in
dismissing many of the previous speculations, was close to
resolving the mystery when he commented, "It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle - having the power
of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the
brain of one of the lower animals". Once again it took until the
1930s for the final solution to emerge, but it was Darwin's
pioneering work that laid the groundwork for today's market
gardening industry.
To finish, an anecdote from his student days at Cambridge.
Darwin describes the perils of being swept along by a
beetlecollecting craze, which was fashionable at the time among
young gentlemen. "No pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly
so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting
beetles. It was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not
dissect them and rarely compared their external characters with
published descriptions, but got them named anyhow. I will give a
proof of my zeal: one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two
rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and
new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one
which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some
intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced
to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one."
Itself, an evolutionary tale of sorts, I guess.
Nature Notes – December 2008
Three of a kind
So an unexpected cold easterly wind unusually brought freezing
rain and snow at the end of October. For any self-respecting
wildlife, which was hoping for a prolonged warm spell, that snap
has signalled winter is on the way. For migrating birds such as
geese and swans, which had been reported delaying their journeys
from Scandinavia and beyond, this was sufficient to trigger the
packing of bags for the flight south. Last winter was much wetter,
warmer and generally unsettled than normal. This year there is
expected to be a return to cooler, but slightly dryer conditions.
With the water table remaining high, footpaths and bridleways will
remain 'claggy' and waterlogged.
Three birds which make their presence known, even in the heart
of winter, are thrush, great tit and robin. Song thrushes are, in
January, one of the few to provide a musical tune at either end of
bleaker days. Silent since the summer, Mavis (as it is colloquially
known) has a distinctive and mellifluous sound, heard as night
turns to day and day to night, singing for up to an hour. Each
stanza starts with a sound not unlike "January joy". Listen out for
a particular bird's unique signature notes which typically will be
repeated three times during its repertoire of resonant reprises.
Their smaller relative, the mistle thrush, has an altogether more
random song, a kind of improvised jazz but more persistent when the
weather is inclement for which they have gained the name 'storm
cocks'. Meanwhile, during the short days, great tits launch into
song, a triplet of "teacher, teacher, teacher" high up in a
barebranched tree. Ironically, during the season of good will, the
iconic robin is at its most fierce, defending its territory and
chasing off every red-breasted opportunist that dares to make an
appearance with an equally strident vibrato call.
Three things to look out for! First, during October/November,
this part of the Chilterns has been host to a festival of kites
displaying over the open fields at Braziers End and St Leonards.
Several sightings have been made, indicating this may continue to
be a regular feature in this area. Such mass sightings signify that
the birds are supplementing their scavenging with food specially
provided for them. Second, winter parasites. How do you get rid of
those irritating fleas, ticks and mites from your feathers? In a
dry summer, a dust bath can do the trick but in winter what options
do you have? Well try out what crows can be seen doing this time of
year by using the smoke from chimneys. It can make the eyes water
but you should be able to stick it out longer than your unwelcome
Third, one of the earliest signs that the season is on the turn
are the catkins of hazel, in clusters of three, slender and brown
at first but early January sees them lighten and turn from pale to
brimstone yellow.
Every three years or so we are invaded by a third and most
colourful Scandinavian visitor whose sole purpose in visiting seems
to be food shopping. Waxwings, with their sleek beige coats
overlain with russet brown and with black, yellow and white
highlights, are particularly partial to the red and orange berries
of cotoneaster, pyracantha and vibernum bushes that adorn
supermarket car parks. They start with the north-east coastal
outlets but as the weather hardens they move south and west so a
cold snap could bring them to a local Tesco, Waitrose or Sainsbury
(with the obvious bonus of nectar points!) or to your garden.
A triplet of trees to look up to: Sycamores with the most
ungainly arrangement of branches of all our local trees hold the
key. The last bunches of bedraggled, winged fruit (keys) hang
waiting to be wrenched away and assisted on their journey by just
one more gust. Later on, the first pale green buds of the new
season are visible, having shed their waxy scales. Also making a
show; the more subdued spear-shaped beech buds remain tightly shut
but have turned a dark purple and now stand out aside the rusty
leaves retained on the tree to protect these more delicate buds.
Oak leaves may remain into December in more sheltered spots, if the
weather permits. On bright days the leaves appear pink. This is
partly due to the remaining pigments gradually being milked of
their remaining goodness as the tree withdraws vital elements into
its sap. However, the colour is sometimes augmented by disc-shaped
protuberances, containing the larval stage of the spangled gall
wasp. The tree produces these structures in an attempt to isolate
itself from the invader, but provides just the protection the larva
needs to mature into an adult.
Three so-called cold-blooded animals, snails, newts and snakes
are forced into hibernation from now onwards. It is not just the
temperature, but the lack of accessible water when temperatures
fall to around zero or below. In the invertebrate world there is
often a correlation between speed and longevity. Take the garden
snail, which can apparently travel at up to 0.03mph or about 2 ' 6"
per minute. Life expectancy is 10 years in captivity, but two years
in the wild. For half that time it will be totally inactive, living
within its shell and sealed from the outside world by a bung of
mucus called an epiphragm. Before closing the door on winter the
snail will have perhaps followed the trail laid down by other
snails down an old mouse hole or under a stone.
The three species of newt: smooth, palmate and great-crested,
can also live for up to a decade. From late November they hibernate
within stone walls, piles of logs or occasionally within the mud of
their breeding ponds, until emerging in late February or March.
They can travel up to two miles to find a suitable breeding
Each of the three British snakes: grass, smooth and adder
hibernate and choose regular sites known as hibernacula. Typical
are old rabbit scrapes. Unlike the previous examples, snakes have
already found a safe haven by now. The young of grass snakes hatch
from eggs in October and immediately seek refuge for the winter.
Snakes will only emerge when temperatures have maintained certain
levels over a number of days and will quickly seek sunny areas in
which to bask and warm up. Much of their hunting is done from water
in which they are most agile swimmers.
Three books of a kind for Christmas now: 'Food for Free' by
Richard Mabey is full of interesting stories, superstition and use
by man of plants we can forage for today. 'Notes From Walnut Tree
Farm' and 'Wildwood, a Journey Through Trees' are both by the late
Roger Deakin. From a quick browse, they are full of brilliant
observations and writings on everyday life in the countryside and
the wider world.
That's all this time, so let me have any observations as
Nature Notes – October 2008
Nature's own autumnal aerial display - pioneering flyers,
paragliders, hoverers, helicopters and parachutes
Here in this part of the Chilterns in the last week of August
and first two of September, we had over 3 inches of rain. A squint
at the Met Office website to remind me what had been predicted back
in July about the late-summer weather brought amusement when I
alighted on the words "... rainfall totals will be near or above
the long-term average". Well, whatever that means, does that level
of precision provide confidence for the autumn forecast? "... The
UK and north-western Europe will probably have below-average
amounts of rain this autumn." We shall see!
Whatever the outcome, the reality is that this pattern of
relatively cool, wet summers and warmer, dry winters might come to
be the norm rather than the exception. We are also told that during
high-summer and early autumn we can expect more extreme weather
events, sudden and heavy summer downpours or a blistering heat wave
or both. At least we can take comfort from being at 650ft plus,
away from flooding rivers and with bedrock of porous chalk for
insurance too.
To be fair, our weather has always been impossible to forecast.
If it were otherwise we would not talk about it whenever we
politely exchange a greeting and I would not be rambling on about
it here! No surprise then that the media has developed a near
obsessive focus on global warming as the simplistic cause of all
unusual meteorological happenings. This ignores that the British
Isles' unique maritime position adjacent to the continent of Europe
has always given opportunities for extreme or unpredictable
weather. In other words, for us the unusual is the usual.
It has always been the case though that even on a busy news day
there is almost always a story about 'environmental disasters' or
impending climatic perils. But while these threats appear to be of
increasing frequency, the terminology is not new, becoming a part
of common usage back in the 1970s when the fear was not that the
planet would over-heat but precisely the opposite, the fear that we
were on the edge of a new Ice Age.
Another contemporary phrase 'nature conservation' had already
ten years' start and its emergence as an important public issue was
denoted in the first set of newstyle commemorative stamps appearing
in 1963. Depiction of an everyday crosssection of wildlife was more
modest than today and those first stamps included daisies,
buttercups, ferns, badgers, bees, field mice, deer, a butterfly
and, more surprisingly, a woodpecker and longtailed tit. Compare
that list to one from a recent set of stamps, which featured less
everyday examples including a pine martin, wildcat, yellow necked
mouse and Natterer's bat: an illustration of how the public's
education and awareness of British wildlife has been enhanced by a
long line of TV nature presenters from Johnny Morris to Bill Oddie,
via of course, Sir David Attenborough.
October is when summer and winter wildlife meet. In the early
part of the month the yellows of hawkweed, upright and fitter
look-alikes of their relative the dandelion, and the pinks of
willow herb and alien balsam flowers mingle with the reds and
purples of autumn fruits, rosehips and sloes. The latter matures
right on cue to greet the mass arrival of thrushes, redwings and
fieldfares from far 'up North'. The former, not content with
enticing eager goldfinches to spread their genetic materials,
improve the odds by providing each seed with a pristine parachute
to spread far and wide at the whim of air currents. In the hanger,
the oak stands out as one of the last to give up its deep-green
Meanwhile, the crop of beech leaves is ageing more prematurely
this year and will display briefly in yellow rather than their
signature oranges, bronzes and purples. On windy autumnal days, the
leaves on maples and sycamores will fall and expose greybrown
winged fruits, whose graceful helical descent has been suggested as
a possible inspiration for Leonardo de Vinci's 'helicopter'
Other gyroplane mimics choose this month to lift off. Pesky
craneflies emerge from their subterranean caverns to lie in wait
for any unsuspecting walker foolish enough to encroach on their
territory. Prior to their all-to-brief flights of fancy, craneflies
are known as leatherjackets. This alter ego lives but a few inches
down, feeding on the roots of turf grass. Despite stories of
venomous bites, both the larvae and the adults, which feed on
nectar, may be ugly but are totally harmless to us. Spider webs
glisten in the dew-soaked grass; their architects having launched
themselves on silken strands to glide on undetectable currents of
air across open fields.
The surprise of a warm sunny September Saturday morning brings a
crop of newly emergent red admirals, drawn to some old fermenting
sugar-rich raisins on which they binge close to intoxication
bravely ignoring the attention of a marauding hornet. All the old
textbooks will tell you red admirals do not survive our harsh
winters and come afresh each year as continental migrants, but this
is no longer always the case. Alongside the regulars, (brimstones,
peacocks and small tortoiseshells), a few will survive our milder
winters. This year's cool and wet summer has dictated probably just
two rather than the usual three broods. These late arrivals though
are monster-sized versions of their spring ancestors. They need to
be titans as endurance flying is essential, paragliding in the
cooler air above hedgerows in search of over-ripened blackberries
and nectar rich ivy flowers.
Another late display is provided by pheasants, which can be seen
locally with plumage variations from bird to bird. The vast
majority have the characteristic 'vicar's collar' and blue/bronze
plumage denoting they are the descendants of Chinese stock
introduced for sport to estates in the 18th century. Occasionally
seen are almost black pheasants, again specially bred to impress.
These may owe their ancestry to the much earlier introduced Roman
and Norman breeds, colloquially known as 'British pheasants'. All
are equally capable of giving the unsuspecting walker a start as
they launch themselves haphazardly skywards. Meanwhile, look out
for the aerial displays of juvenile rooks, jackdaws and crows. They
assemble in larger and larger groups to practise their adolescent
aerobatics, much hovering and stalling, accompanied by mutual
squawking before breaking out of the congregation in all
So for the next month or so I hope you find time and clement
weather to experience the fresh air and open spaces roundabouts, as
much as this autumn's wildlife will be too.
Observations and questions as always to:
Nature Notes – August 2008
Stingers, Suckers, Biters and other pesky critters
I set off writing this as Federer and Nadal take an extended
rain-break on one of the few wet days for the last month or so but
this has most likely set the pattern for the much of the summer to
come with both hot, steamy and cloudy, cool days.
A question from a couple of visitors to our area from rural
Georgia in the southern United States a month or two back got me
thinking about the risks we run when we are out and about in the
countryside. Walking down Parrotts Lane, we were forced to cling on
to the bank as one of those unnecessarily large 4x4s tentatively
negotiated a narrow stretch. As the car pressed by and we moulded
ourselves snugly into the grass bank my friends nervously asked if
we had any dangerous wildlife they should be aware of at this
precise moment. No, I said reassuringly.
However as I said, this got me thinking as to what there is out
there in the wilds of the Chilterns, which could trouble us. Well I
guess the obvious place to start is with snakes. Of the three
British species only the adder is of serious concern. Distinguished
by the zig-zag down the back they are not normally aggressive and
unless threatened, tend instead to slink away. If unfortunate
enough to be bitten (although not normally life-threatening to
humans or pets) medical attention is essential. Neither of the
other two is venomous. Grass snakes, normally having a yellow or
orange neckband, kill their prey by biting; often under water.
Meanwhile, the very rarely seen smooth snake is, surprisingly,
neither armed with poison nor a fierce bite but a constrictor,
tackling the likes of mice and voles.
It is insects and other invertebrates that more often than not
bring us grief. They fall into four types. The 'stingers' include
that unwanted picnic guest, the wasp, which becomes increasingly
irritable as the season progresses. The hornet, a close relative of
the wasp, certainly packs a punch but despite its reputation steers
away from troubling us if we in turn leave it alone. Meanwhile
(Hollywood movies aside) bees have to be seriously provoked to
The next group of insects are the 'suckers'. All of these are
pests of domestic animals, such as horse flies and midges and are
doubly troublesome to us as being also carriers of serious
diseases. Only the females bite in order to obtain blood for
protein as part of egg production. Nowadays, mosquitoes in Britain
no longer carry malaria but one hundred and fifty years ago during
Victorian times this was a major cause of death in the Kentish
marshes before these areas were drained.
The third group are the 'biters', ranging from centipedes that
use their front legs to insert poison into the skin, to the water
spider that can also inject venom with a painful bite, leaving you
with an inflammation similar to a bee sting.
The fourth group are best described as the 'pesky critters'.
Brown-tail moth caterpillars have barbed hairs which when brushed
against can cause anything from a mild rash to headaches and
nausea. Meanwhile beware of sitting on a mound made by woodland red
ants. Do so and you may experience multiple bites followed, if you
are unlucky, by stinging, and if you are still around they will
spray you with formic acid for good measure. For most of us such
attacks result in a relatively mild reaction caused by our bodies
producing histamine; but for a few, just a small amount of venom or
anticoagulant can cause anaphylactic shock where urgent medical
attention is needed.
Dangers are also lurking for us in the world of plants. There
are just three contact poisonous plants in Britain. I'll just
mention stinging nettles only in passing. Next on the list has to
be giant hogweed that contains a phytotoxin, which reacts when the
skin is exposed to sunlight and causes blisters and longer term
scarring. The third is only a threat if you fancied a quick dip in
one of our ponds. Blue-green algae, which is present in both fresh
and seawater will, if confronted when swimming, affect our eyes and
provide an all over body rash.
Apart from some over-friendly highland cattle and some
inquisitive ostriches, the only large animals I could come up with
were the occasional sightings of wild boar! Mind you a regular
contributor of interesting local observations (P. Dice) has passed
on that there has been a sighting of a very large black cat (of
puma-sized proportions) in the area, so keep a good lookout!
Meanwhile as we walked along the lane I learned from my American
friend what they had to contend with in the foothills of the
Appalachian mountains: ten different lethal snakes, cougars, lynx,
wolves and bears. I'll spare you all the spiders and insects and
So what's out and about this month? Down in the leaf litter
under hedges, pigmy shrews, our smallest mammals, are rushing about
in search of beetles etc. They weigh less than four grams (or one
penny coin) and females must feed continuously to top up their
metabolism as they produce at least five litters per season. Adult
toads are on the move. They travel considerable distances in the
Spring to find a breeding pool and at this time of year will be
found in and around the ponds building back up their strength,
stalking their food and using their sticky tongue to snare it, then
blinking their eyes to assist the swallowing processes.
Swallows, swifts and martins will be making the most of the
billowing clouds of insects wafting on the evening breezes. Last
year was a disappointing one for butterflies. The cool wet weather
prevented many adults emerging or having sufficient time on the
wing to pair-up. So far this year things are looking up with a good
supply of early summer 'flutterbies' making the right moves. Look
out for fast flying day time 'hummingbird' and 'bee' hawkmoths
visiting the flowers in August. They are very fast and look just
like their respective names.
Take care driving along the lanes as dusk falls. There is a
large number of young muntjac around straying naively onto roads
away from the safety afforded by their mothers. Owls are also out
hunting to feed their young and frequently sweep low along the
high-sided verges, so are also vulnerable. Perhaps a collision with
either of these will be the biggest risk you'll run with the local
wildlife, so take care!
Finally in the 'Recently seen in the Hilltop Villages' section
(Puma's aside that is). We seem to be a popular place this year for
raptors, with more and more sightings of red kites and buzzards,
plus some interesting chance observations of some smaller birds of
prey engaged in aerial acrobatics over the woods in Hawridge Vale
last month: and just before going to press, I have also just had a
delightful report of one of this year's cuckoos being fed by a pair
of dunnocks. So as always questions and observations always
Nature Notes – June 2008
Black is the new grey for the shadow-tailed one
I'm not sure if it is just me or have others noticed all our
seasons seem mixed up these days? I guess it could be to do with a
climate influenced by global warming but then again just as easily
the English obsession with the weather. Last year, our summer was
much wetter than in recent years (as wet as 1914; a very wet year).
This year, although a repeat is not expected, the Met Office tell
us we are liable to have some unsettled spells with cool wet
springlike days as late as June or July.
The name 'squirrel' comes originally from a Greek word meaning
'that which makes a shade with its tail'. Squirrels are back in the
news again for two reasons. Firstly grey squirrels have established
themselves in Scotland, territory of the 'reds', for the first time
and secondly, black squirrels are displacing greys in England. In
mainland Europe black and albino variants of red squirrels are
quite common but are unusual in Britain, meanwhile albino variants
of grey squirrels have been regularly reported, mainly in Essex,
Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Between 1876 and 1929, around 30
introductions of American grey squirrels were made into England and
Wales although the ones introduced to Woburn Park (Bedfordshire) at
the end of the 19th Century are attributed with their subsequent
naturalisation in England. 'Black' examples of 'greys' have until
now been limited in number but the situation is changing rapidly in
seems. Surveys indicate there are about two million grey squirrels
in the UK and between 125 and 150 thousand 'reds' the majority of
which are in Scotland. However it has been estimated there are at
also at least 25,000 black squirrels distributed across the eastern
side of England. The 'black' is a variant of the common American
invader the 'grey'. When I say black, some are ruddy/brown/black
while others are a sleek jet black, the latter offspring of two
ruddy adults, two black or combination of both.
But why? Where blacks occur they appear to be dominant over
their grey cousin. Genetically they are missing a sequence of DNA.
As originally described by Darwin in his theory of Natural
Selection for such a mutation to persist it must be giving the
black variety an advantage: in this case providing the black with a
better immune system or higher levels of testosterone in its blood,
which in turn influences the animal's behaviour. In short they are
thought to display more aggressive behaviour than the more placid
grey – tell that to a red squirrel at the time the greys were
The first sighting of the black mutant was in 1912 in Letchworth
Hertfordshire, which now has a black squirrel as its town mascot.
Since then they have spread out to other parts of Herts and
Cambridgeshire where in some villages (e.g. Girton) they represent
50% of all the squirrels present and it is anticipated to move into
parts of East Anglia. So are they coming this way? Maybe. The
sightings nearest to us have been in Whipsnade and nearby Studham,
which is, but a squirrel leap from Ashridge forest. So it is quite
possible the odd black shadow-tail is lurking in a beechwood around
here. Keep an eye open.
There are around 260 species of bee in the UK. Each year,
regular as clockwork, our outhouse plays host to a small but
growing colony of wild social bees. The queen that hatched at the
end of summer last year and hibernated over winter is first seen in
late March/early April, seeking out a suitable venue to lay its
eggs. In this case the space behind some pine lap, accessed via a
discrete knot-hole. May sees the first activity of this year's
brood of workers. As I write this they are streaming back and
forth, decked in the yellow pollen gathered in the rape fields
about a mile or so away. By June the hive is at its height of
activity as the queen will be in full-swing egg-laying, supported
by the drones, which according to a local (female) apiarist, are
"just typical of males, hanging around the nest just in case the
queen needs servicing!" These small bees are almost silent; there
is just a slight hum as you listen close to the entrance. The peace
is disturbed though by the low-frequency drone of a larger very
black and hairless bumble bee ferreting (can a bee ferret?) back
and forth aside the pine boards until it alights, switches off the
power and then silently enters via the hive entrance. This methinks
may be a cuckoo bumble-bee, one of six varieties we have here.
Their life is one of solitude and their habit is parasitic and
brutal. They carry no excess baggage so are honed for speed and
attack. The mission of these all female agents 'women in black', is
to enter the hive undetected, kill the queen, lay their own eggs
and exit unscathed mimicking the behaviour of the social bees and
so avoiding discovery. Meanwhile the 'midwived-cuckoos' are looked
after by the mesmerised host drones. Not this time though as this
cuckoo has been rumbled and makes a speedy retreat from the
Hedgerows are at their very best this time of year. My
suggestion this time is to make a bee-line for one near you and
dally a little to take the vista in. Hedges are just blooming alive
with animals on the make at the moment. The creamywhite of
elderflower takes over the baton from hawthorn. Clumps of yellow
archangel point to a hedge-line that is all that remains of
scrubbed out woodland. A typical hedgerow herb is the pinky-white
cuckoo flower (lady's smock), which is out between May and June in
these parts. It's just one of many given an alternative name by
poets or herbalists of old associating them with the arrival, call
or departure of the eponymous bird. Others include cuckoo buttons
(burdock), cuckoo's bread and cheese (wood sorrel), cuckoo boots
and stockings (bluebell), cuckoo rose (wild daffodil) and cuckoo
buds (buttercup) used by Shakespeare in Loves Labours Lost.
Cuckoo, bring your song here!
Warrant, Act and Summons, please,
For Spring to pass along here!
Cuckoo Song - Rudyard Kipling
And finally, I will have to be more careful in the future when
asking as I did last time for reports of the first cuckoo as it
seems I may be causing a bit of a frenzy around these parts. This
year I had both emails and calls over the 12 hours between 15-16
April (a day earlier than last year) announcing arrival of at least
one very busy male bird in Hawridge and St Leonards. The males
arrive first and fly around calling a lot to try and maintain as
large a territory as possible ahead of the females. Interestingly
enough, cuckoos are not the only ones on the hunt for bird nests
this time of year. Despite having strict vegetarian habits for
eleven months of the year, the shadow-tailed one is also partial to
a bird's egg or two about now.
Questions and comments welcome as always.
Weather and Nature Notes – April
Gowk, Har and Whin
A very wet start to the year saw nigh on 4 inches of rainfall in
January. As I write this, the wind is getting up for a second night
this week. Will I finish before the power goes off again? Looking
ahead we should not bank on repeat of last Spring's record
temperatures, the warmest since 1914. April will be noticeably
cooler than normal although later on in May it will probably make
up for a slow start to the growing season. Rainfall will be much as
you would expect for the time of year but as the water table
remains high there will be a continued chance of surface flooding
if we experience a heavy downfall.
It is not immediately obvious but over the first part of this
year many thousands of our commonly seen garden birds are on the
move, 'migrating' back from their seasonal quarters. Each autumn
many of the birds in our gardens make themselves scarce. By
spreading out along the hedgerows and woodland edges they can feast
themselves on energy-rich seeds, nuts or berries whilst taking
refuge from the worst of the weather. In recent years this habit
has been slowly changing. With the milder winter season and our
growing tendency to supplement their diet by putting out food, some
varieties of garden birds are staying put. Birds have different
ways of feeding in the winter or when food is scarce. Typically
goldfinches, specialist nut feeders, linger on the perch and can be
seen defending their 'horde' (e.g. sunflower and niger seeds)
meanwhile, nuthatches and coal tits neither of whom hang around are
smash and grab merchants. Then there are the marauding troupes of
long-tailed tits that noisily breeze in at 10 to the dozen an as
quickly spiral off as though connected by invisible elastic. All
these birds have been on the increase in our gardens, in recent
years, according to the census numbers reported by the BTO and
RSPB. Another conspicuous visitor this winter which has, this year,
been reported in these parts has been the brambling. It often
congregates with other ground-feeding relatives such as
chaffinches, whose numbers like sparrows, have been falling in
recent years. So one action that can be taken is to provide a
supply of seed in a trough or the like at ground level this will
help the ground feeders including enticing some of the larger birds
such as pheasants.
It's the time of year for the Har. Har is another name for the
hare and is Old English for grey or old. Old perhaps because the
hare looks like it's a stooping rabbit. Brown hares were brought to
Britain with the Romans, possibly for the sport of coursing.
(Before this only Mountain hares could be found in moorland
Britain). Their sudden arrival in this country and prominence
around the festival of Eostre probably accounts for their adoption
as mystical creatures in Pagan culture. They were originally
animals of the steppes in Asia, which moved into the continental
grassland prairies. The clearance of forest and development of
arable farming enabled them to spread fast in lowland areas but
they cannot survive in the highlands where their cousin still holds
sway. The next two months is the best time of year to see hares;
they are active over their prolonged breeding season from February
to September and despite being night-time feeders they are most
visible around now with crops only newly emergent. The "boxing",
for which they are noted is not a territorial battle by males but
is instigated by the females repelling over-amorous suitors.
Females can raise up to four litters per year, each of two to four
young (leverets). Unlike rabbits they do not use burrows but rear
their young in scrapes or forms, where they and are particularly
vulnerable so they stay motionless all day and only being fed at
dusk to avoid detection by predators. Hare populations vary
considerably from place to place and season to season, leverets, in
particular, being heavily predated by foxes and stoats. They rely
on their marbled camouflage to avoid detection and their speed to
escape. Although around here their numbers maybe modest, two places
I have see them in recent times are the fields at Bellingdon End
and those between Hawridge Common and Heath End. Elsewhere, when
numbers overrun and due to the damaging impact they can have on
cereal crops and young tree saplings they have to be managed as a
minor pest.
It's also the time of year when one listens out for the Gowk.
The work Gowk is a Scottish or north English word for one who is an
awkward or a foolish person who does not take their
responsibilities seriously. In this case we are referring to the
cuckoo, well named on account of it leaving parental
responsibilities to others. Last year the first call was on 17th
April. It is said to be lucky if you hear your first cuckoo when
out walking and no such luck if still in bed! Let me know if you
hear one around this date this year and what you were up to at the
The hedgerows and commons really come into their own this month.
Yellow flowers predominate attracting in particular some of the
first bees of the year. Although already making a showing if March
is warm, Lesser celandines appear where the ground is wetter.
Cowslips like well-drained undisturbed pastures where chalk is not
far from the surface. Look out for Common gorse, which is one Old
English name that has stuck, as it has also has regional names of
furze and whin (as in whinchat a bird which sings from the top of
furze bushes). These days its erstwhile usefulness is largely
forgotten. Its presence on the Commons are not an accident, as it
would have been carefully managed and cherished, as the young
shoots are a valuable source of animal fodder, whilst the woody
parts make excellent fencing to keep animals in or out or for
fires. So any Commoners found abusing their right to collect furze
were liable to a heavy fine.
Once again with the bluebells due out in the last week in April
there is only one choice for the kind of walk this time of year but
plenty different woods to choose from. But beware the first
speckled wood butterflies have emerged and are all males. They set
up territories along the woodland walks and are prepared to defend
their domains ruthlessly!
Please let me have your observations and questions as usual.
Weather and Nature Notes – February
Spinning a tale or two about the web of life
Difficult to believe in a year when there was no summer to talk
about, but 2007 was the third warmest on record, only edged into
bronze place with 1998 in gold and 2005 in silver. Despite this,
2007 also proved to be the wettest so far this decade (circa 33
inches fell locally). Whereas Britain suffered major flooding in
2007 we were lucky to escape most of the deluge in July, which
luckily fell mainly elsewhere. In fact this increased rainfall has
been a significant feature of the last 18 months or so and has led
to a dramatic rise in the local water table, which rose to over 50
feet by April: its highest point since 2001. As the water table has
remained high going into 2008 and with the medium-term
meterological forecast suggesting a wetter than average first
quarter, I anticipate that we may see the seasonal chalk streams
and bournes spilling out lower down the 'vales' and as in 2001/2
once again putting pressure on Chesham's flood management.
There are over 640 species of spiders in Britain and 100 of
these can be found in our gardens and around a dozen more living
amongst us indoors. Early morning dew bedecks the webs of garden
spiders. It is only the female who constructs these traps. The male
scavenges for food rather than producing these elaborate
structures. The webs are built twice, the first time a non-sticky
framework, which is tensioned with stout strings. When the second
web is spun it starts as a fine spiral on the central section of
the web. This is where the spider will await its prey. Meanwhile
the outer sections are then re-spun using sticky gummed silk
produced by a special gland and entwined by three spinnerets on the
spider's abdomen. The non-sticky strands of the first web are eaten
as it goes. To avoid getting tangled, the spider spreads special
oil liberally over its legs. Not all spiders produce elaborate
webs. Some lay their sticky strands across the grass in a mesh;
others produce funnels or 'spit' a sticky net at their prey. For
the spider this is a web of life, for its prey a web of death!
Cock pheasants are prone to causing a disturbance day or night
at the moment as they patrol their territory, ensuring their harem
of hen birds are not wandering off. Occasionally, a younger male
'on the make' will try and muscle in and this will set-off one or
more controlled couplets of clucks. Where the encounter is with a
deer, human or predator, rather than a cluck it's a cacophony. More
distinctive though are the wing beats of the defending male as he
drives the upstart off. Whereas we hear this as the drumming, it is
not so much the noise but a low frequency vibration, too low for
our ears, which resonates for several miles around and signals to
other contenders to keep away. Other 'game' birds such as grouse
and quail have their own distinctive signature tunes. Perhaps most
unusual is the snipe, a wading bird much persecuted as 'game' in
earlier years, which I recall hearing as a youngster as its booming
sound bombarded my ears causing me some discomfort.
Populations of these game birds are subject to many ups and
downs. Typically, this is the result of being both reliant on a
reliable and constant supply of invertebrates, grain and grass or
in the case of pheasant all of these. On the other hand, healthy
populations of 'game birds' support many predating animals – fox
and stoat, or bird – sparrow hawk, peregrine and jay, or reptile -
grass snake, which like the jay, happen also to take eggs. This web
of life is complex. So fluctuations in the population of 'game'
birds have an impact on those above and below them and vice
Early morning - the hour before dawn - the airwaves are the
province of blackbirds, chaffinches, starlings and thrushes.
Blackbirds having made the running during January although due for
a comeback in March, fall silent in February leaving the way clear
for Mavis (the thrush) to rehearse any one of over 100 tunes it has
in its extended repertoire. Meanwhile, starlings freed of their
autumnal murmurings will be heard to whistle as they seek out a
cranny (or nook). Chaffinches start hesitantly but when others have
had their say are still going strong, finishing with a flourish.
The mellow laughter or 'yaffing' of green woodpeckers in flight can
be heard. The key to breeding success for such birds will be the
availability of invertebrates. Warmth encourages the early
emergence of sugar-rich flowers such as celandines, the
ninepetalled stars bursting through their leaves, garlic, and in
these milder days, cow parsley. In early March, there is the annual
flourish of blackthorn, the pungent whitewash marching at the
double along the lanes from Chesham, Tring and Wendover taking
perhaps a fortnight to reach the hilltops. Without this sugar-rush
there will not be an explosion of flies and bugs to provide the
source of carbohydrate essential if these birds are going to have
sufficient energy to propagate. This web of life is fragile. No
warmth, no flowers, wet grass means plenty of worms and ground
beetles, meanwhile a sharp frost and bug and bird alike are
On warm March days look out for the sulphur-winged brimstone
butterflies emerging from hibernation, normally but not always
ahead of small tortoiseshells. Our mild winters now support
overwintering red admirals hitherto delayed abroad until the first
favourable continental winds. However, a forestalled spring and
shortage of suitable nectar-producing flowers will mean fewer eggs
are laid and therefore less predation of the food plants. The web
of life is selfregulating. So in good years an excess of
caterpillars will consume all the food leading to shortages later
in the season.
Some of you may have heard Sir David Attenborough last month
launching the 2008 Year of the Frog campaign aimed at raising
awareness of the fragility of the populations of frogs due to
industrialisation, pollution, deforestation, climate change and in
particular a newly discovered disease which is affecting certain
populations around the world. Frogs are unsurprisingly not at the
top of most people's list of favourite animals. However, without
them many pests of our cereal crops such as slugs, or beetle larvae
and, further afield, locusts would be uncontrolled. Alongside
spraying and inoculation they are the principal control for
mosquitoes and the spread of malaria. The campaign is not aimed at
changing their celebrity status but is more about raising their
importance for conservation purposes and the crucial role they play
in the web of life.
So next time you happen on a glistening spider's web, think
about the metaphor it portrays. A delicate inter-connecting weave
of plants and animals whose ecology is balanced on thin threads
which are easily damaged.
As always I look forward to your questions and comments.