All posts by Ian Alexander

Love of Nature

Startled by Sunshine, Mouse, and Kingfisher at Wraysbury

When a chilly east wind drops and the sky clears to a brilliant blue in February, it is a shame not to drop everything and rush outside to enjoy it. So I found myself down at Wraysbury Lakes, all wrapped up in my winter clothes — but my gloves never left my pockets, and my jacket and pullover were soon unzipped as the temperature climbed to 9.5 C, and in the sun with scarcely a breeze (the planes returned to their usual takeoff towards the west) it felt far warmer than that.

White bracket fungi on fallen Poplar
White bracket fungi on fallen Poplar

Some handsome white bracket fungi shone in the sun; they were triangular in section with flattened tops, slightly toothed beneath. Could be a Trametes or Tyromyces perhaps.

On the lake, half a dozen Goldeneye were all that were left of the more ‘special’ ducks; a male joined the party, and a female swam rapidly up to him, bobbing her head; he bobbed back, and threw his head over his back too. Spring is in the air. It looked as if they were already a pair, I’d say.

Also on the lake were some handsome Pochard, mostly asleep, one diving and surfacing, and a Shoveler, preening. A Heron flew slowly over, half a wingspan from the water.  A Field Mouse ran right in front of me and down to the waterside by the willows, and obligingly fed in the open for a minute while I watched with binoculars on close focus: the long tail, round ears and quivering ‘whiskers’ (vibrissae) at work.

Away from the lakes, a Rabbit hopped across the path. A Mistle Thrush called harshly; another flew past; a solitary Fieldfare left over from the sizeable flock a week or two ago.

I wandered down to the confluence of the Colne with the Thames; a Kingfisher gave me a good of that always astonishing turquoise bolt of blue lightning, flashing on short triangular wings over the little river. A minute later, it flashed back upstream, as startling as before. A single green sphere of Mistletoe clung to the leafless canopy of a tree behind the industrial estate.

 

Love of Nature, Quotation

Time to Stand and Stare

The “Georgian” Welsh poet W. H. Davies (1871-1940) wrote the much-loved lines:

What is this life, if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

This is Leisure, a modern sonnet (in his 1911 Songs of Joy and Others), in a long tradition of poetry that reflects on nature, including Wordsworth’s “emotion recollected in tranquillity”. I’ll hardly be the first to observe that modern life is very far from tranquil, or that people rush through parks or countryside looking only at a tiny screen, or talking on the telephone. (John Fox’s My Musical World, a lifetime in music, page 252, for example.) It’s interesting that Davies anticipated this view of modern life by a century. If we were transported back to 1911, we would surely find it a slow, peaceful and carefree existence, at least if we were lucky enough to be out of poverty. It is striking that the poet’s sensitivity picked up the acceleration and lack of awareness of nature that go with Western culture, all the way back then in Edwardian times.

Conservation, Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

Animal Tracks in the Snow

Animal tracks: Fox, Crow, and Squirrel prints on a snowy boardwalk
Animal tracks: Fox, Crow, and Squirrel prints on a snowy boardwalk

Today we woke to a snow-covered city, just a light dusting; and as often with snow, the weather was appreciably warmer than before the snow arrived.

Down at the nature reserve,  the paths were empty of human footprints, but thickly sprinkled with animal tracks. Here some crows had walked to and fro across the path; there, a fox had jogged along the trail. But better was to come: the boardwalk across the pond was interlaced with tracks. On the left, a fox had gone the length of the boardwalk. In the centre, a crow had walked unsteadily along, the same way as me; and it, or another, had walked more rapidly back. On the right, more birds’ footprints: and the four-feet-together group of a squirrel, the smaller front prints clearly showing the marks of the sharp claws.

On a Birch branch above the anthill meadow, a Green Woodpecker hammered in search of food. Down by the ‘mangrove swamp’, a Jay screeched harshly, either for us or for a fox. Near the picnic meadow, a Sparrowhawk flew from its high perch, wheeled above the treetops, dived rapidly out of sight.

We carried tools and a ladder to visit the nestboxes and take down all that needed repairs. While I held the ladder, a party of four Long-Tailed Tits blew by, crossing from one Birch to the next one at a time. One of the boxes contained not just a mossy nest (like three others) but two old addled eggs, probably of Great Tit. While we struggled to prise off a somewhat too well attached box for maintenance, a Robin perched nearby, in hope of eating any grubs we might have disturbed. Several boxes had had their openings enlarged by much hammering by Blue Tits or Great Tits: nobody knows why they might do this, as it increases the threat to their nests from predators. We will make aluminium plates for the fronts of all the Tit boxes (the ones with circular holes): the Robin boxes just have a wide rectangular opening, which they definitely prefer. Inside one of the boxes was a mass of woodlice in the moss; another had a plump dead Noble False Widow Spider (Steatoda nobilis) inside.

Love of Nature, Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wetlands, Wildlife

Bullfinch! Winter Walk Hits Target

Winter has definitely set in. The spinach beet in my garden was all frozen, the air at -3 Celsius and the ground presumably rather colder under a clear night sky. Fearing it might all be lost, I picked some and went out to see what there might be today down at Wraysbury Lakes.

Almost the first thing I saw was a bulky little finch high in a waterside willow. It called ‘deu’ quite loudly, fidgeted about and flew before I could focus on it. Still, there was no doubt it was a Bullfinch: the call, its shape, its solitary habits, and its shyness all pointing the same way. It is never an easy bird to see, even where it is resident (it is regularly ringed at Wraysbury). Leafless trees and the rising energy of the coming breeding season provide one of the few opportunities to catch a glimpse of this less well known finch.

At first sight there seemed to be no birds out on the lake. Finding a small illicit patch cleared by a fisherman I set up the telescope and looked about. A Pochard or two; some Tufted Duck and Coot; a male Goldeneye… but the Smew and Goosander of a week or two ago were nowhere to be seen. The old truth is that you  never know what you’ll see: but it’s often a delightful surprise, and almost always energizing to be out in nature.

I walked on and looked about again: some rather white ducks caught my eye in the distance. Two male Goldeneye,  each with a female in tow. The males threw their heads forward a few times, pretended to preen; one threw his head back and forth, then lowered his head and stretched it out and in. His female swam after him, her head resting on her back as if she were asleep! But she was certainly watching the display, and swimming to keep up a few lengths behind.

A loud squawk betrayed a Heron; it flapped out of cover at the end of the lake and landed on the bank behind the ducks. A few Mallard panicked from the water below me; a Moorhen briefly took flight.

Away from the lake, a few Robin and Dunnock hopped in and out of the bushes. A solitary Fieldfare or two gave their chack-chack call from the hawthorns, watchful and flighty. Another Bullfinch calling, this time atop a bare hawthorn bush – or maybe the same bird, half a mile on – and again I couldn’t get binoculars on to it, despite my stealthiest movements: it had surely seen me at once, and just took a few seconds to decide when to flee.

A Kestrel hovered beyond the tall poplars: no Buzzards or Red Kites today, but really the Kestrel feels almost more special than them, its numbers declining across Britain.

A few Jackdaws, Carrion Crows and Wood Pigeons on the horses’ hill; some Fieldfares in the trees, with a single Redwing; a Stock Dove flying low.

Natural History, Nature Reserves, Wildlife

A Bright Winter’s Walk in Richmond Park

Red Deer Stag
A fine 16-Point Red Deer Stag

In Scotland, the male of the Red Deer is called simply a Stag, all other male deer (presumably Roe in that country) being known as Bucks. Down here, with Sika and other species about, it may be wise to name the species explicitly. There are signs up warning of the impending cull, so now may be the best time of year to see fine large stags resting quietly, the rut over.

Richmond's splendid anthills
Richmond’s splendid anthills

I was welcomed to the park by a flock of Jackdaws chattering in the trees. Down in the valley, last year’s grass stalks are whitening, the fine big anthills well outlined in the low winter sunlight.

A Stonechat was perched on a slender stalk, level with the tops of the grass; there cannot be much in the way of insect food to catch just now.

Egyptian Geese under the Willows
Egyptian Geese under the Willows

On the Pen Ponds, there were remarkably few waterfowl of any kind, but the lower pond had half-a-dozen Pochard. the males handsomely rufous-headed, a pair of Wigeon, the male with a conspicuous white wing-bar, and tucked in a corner under the willows a pair of Egyptian Geese, taking to the water and protesting with short dry honks when molested by a dog.

Male Stonechat
Male Stonechat

Walking back up the hill, a Kestrel hovered briefly, rested in a tree giving a good view of his spotted breast and back. Two herds of Red Deer, one at the base of the hill, one at the top, both with all ages and both sexes together, grazed silently. In the muddiest places, footprints of men, dogs and deer clustered together.

Environment, Wetlands

Blanket-weed Sprouting in January

Blanket-weed (Spirogyra) covering pond in January
Blanket-weed (Spirogyra) covering pond in January

We’re all getting used to the local effects of global warming − garden crocuses and primulas coming up earlier and earlier (they’re flowering already in my garden).

This past fortnight I’ve realized that my efforts to earth up the rhubarb to protect it from frost weren’t working, as frost or no it was cheerfully and energetically pushing up new leaves on long thin red petioles, the leaf-stalks that greengrocers see as  rhubarb.

But I’ve never seen a pond growing over with blanket-weed in January before. Generally it’s an effect seen late in summer, the tangled green mat forming in a rather nutrient-rich (eutrophicated) lowland pond. Each green thread is a flexible cylinder consisting of a single row of plant cells inside their thick cellulose cell walls, with amazingly elegant green spiral chloroplasts inside, hence the apposite and beautiful name of the genus, Spirogyra, drawn and carefully labelled in millions of high school biology exercise books. The strands grow like crazy in warm ponds and ditches, benefiting from the excess of nutrients from runoff in agricultural areas or indeed from towns. The blanket can blot out light from the deeper parts of a pond, killing other organisms living there. But warm enough for blanket-weed in January? That’s something new.

Conservation, Environment, Politics

Ah, the Irony: Prime Minister Bitten By Own Green Committee

Ah, the irony. Do you remember when Cameron used to talk about leading the “greenest government ever”? (It was Friday, 14 May 2010, to be exact.)

Yes, that was just as he came to power.  Since then he’s done next to nothing for nature, and plenty against  (silencing Natural England from protesting about anything, giving planning authorities a presumption in favour of “sustainable” development – i.e. intentional unfairness of process, to name but two; but I digress).

But on coming into office, he did keep one small promise. He set up  a Natural Capital Committee to look into the value of nature to the economy. In the dismal jargon of political bureaucracy, the committee had to investigate what the natural environment would be worth as if it were an investment of money — capital — by adding up what it contributes each year to the economic benefit of the country, considered as a financial return — interest.

So, for example, if we had an acre of woodland and it allows a class of schoolchildren to do a bug-hunt for which the school pays the wood’s manager £100, the woodland has earned £100 per acre. At 5% interest, that would value the acre of wood at (at least) £2000. If ten school classes can visit each year, the value jumps up to £20,000. If we can now find other ways to value the wood — perhaps it helps to clean the air in the city; perhaps it provides a place for a beehive full of hard-working pollinators; perhaps it allows city-dwellers a relaxing walk — then we can add those “services” (I told you the jargon was dismal) to the interest earned, and tot up the “natural capital” value.

Whether it makes the slightest bit of sense to try to put a price on Nature (no, of course not – see George Monbiot’s The Pricing of Everything) is not questioned by either Cameron or the Committee. Anyone who thinks about it for a minute can see that treating nature in this way is absurd. How can we add up the value of all that is, all around us? We depend absolutely and totally on the “environment”, in other words the world, the universe. We have “only one Earth”, “one small planet”. Its value is infinite. But I digress.

Anyway, the young, fresh-faced Cameron of five years ago set up the said Committee, presumably with the general intention of kicking the green issue into the, ahem, long grass, and instantly forgot all about it.

Now, five years later, the Natural Capital Committee (Cameron: Eh? What’s that?)  has reported. It says that the “natural environment” is in deep decline (yeah, what a surprise) and the “natural goods and services” it can provide: clean breathable air; clean drinkable water; food; recreation (i.e. fun) are all in steady long-term decline too.

The good Committee, noting that food, water, air and fun are pretty much all the essentials of life, wrote a truthful report saying that investing in nature for say 25 years would give returns as good as any Cameronian mega-infrastructure project like high-speed railway lines (and be a lot more popular, but they tactfully didn’t mention that).

They pointed out truthfully that

  • cutting air pollution would save the NHS tons of money on respiratory diseases;
  • restoring peat bogs and making new wetlands would save the environment agency bulldozer-loads of loot by preventing floods;
  • improving fishing waters and green spaces would save the country zillions of days off work by improving physical and mental health.

Labour (in the form of Maria Eagle, who hopes to become Environment Secretary) jumped on the bandwagon to remind Cameron of his broken promises and the continued decline of nature in Britain. She conveniently forgot to mention that it had declined all through Labour’s time in government too, and promised that Labour would “make public access to green spaces a priority” and that she would “take real steps” (is there any other kind of step?) to “give communities power” (what’s a community? a local authority perhaps?) “to protect and improve the natural environment”.

Anyway, here we have the amusing sight of Cameron being confronted with some truths about nature, and his own broken promises, as a result of an investigation that he ordered. And of Labour talking up the value of nature, which they ignored while in office, and have pretty much forgotten in their election campaigning too.

Ah, the irony.

Environment, Politics, Quotation

Joan Walley MP on Fracking

How nice to come across a politician who actually understands about human impact on the environment:

Ultimately fracking cannot be compatible with our long-term commitments to cut climate-changing emissions unless full-scale carbon capture and storage technology is rolled out rapidly, which currently looks unlikely.

Joan Walley, MP, chair of Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee.

Sure enough, a specially-tamed pro-fracking scientist, Quentin Fisher, accused the Committee of  “putting the ‘ill-informed views of anti-fracking groups’ ahead of evidence-based scientific studies.” Quite what evidence he thinks he has for believing that carbon emissions don’t contribute to climate change is unclear. Of course gas is not as bad as coal, but since coal is on the way out in the UK anyway, the comparison is spurious: the choice is gas, nuclear, or renewables.

Conservation, Environment, Politics

2009 Prediction Correct: 2015 Catastrophic Drought in Brazil

“Brazil’s most populous region facing worst drought in 80 years” screams the BBC News headline. The three states with the largest populations, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais are all desperately short of water.

Bad luck? A natural disaster? Act of God?

None of the above. It was simple bad planning, and failure to heed loud, clear, accurate warnings.  Back in November last year, the area was correctly said to be “sleepwalking into water crisis“. What got done about it? Nothing. The journalist, Wyre Davies, asked rhetorically “So how does a country that produces an estimated 12% of the world’s fresh water end up with a chronic shortage of this most essential resource – in its biggest and most economically important city?” He was too polite to say “By a lot of politicians shoving their heads in the sand.” This isn’t just Brazil. Brazil’s politicians are no different from your politicians or my British politicians. ALL OF THEM have their heads in the sand. Climate change isn’t some vague, aesthetic, dilettante bit of academic test-tube arm-waving with a wussy computer model that probably proves something-or other. It’s happening now, and it’s frankly disastrous.

But surely, you’ll observe, Brazil could hardly have done much between November and January, however hard the politicians had tried. You’re right. But they were told FIVE YEARS AGO.

Back in 2009 the Brazilian climatologist Antonio Nobre announced that deforestation in the Amazon would within five years cause severe drought in South-eastern Brazil. He predicted that the lack of forest-created cloud (water is sucked up by the trees and evaporates in huge amounts forming clouds every day) would change the region’s climate.

It did.

Nobre warned that if deforestation continued, there would be disastrous water shortages.

It did, and there are.

The meteorologist Jose Marengo called the huge clouds of water vapour that stream from the Amazon rainforest “flying rivers.” They are drying up.

We – you, me, your neighbours – are by our daily choices – flying, buying petrol for cars, buying teak garden furniture, buying cosmetics made with palm oil grown where rainforest used to be, eating meat and buying petfood from cows grown on grass where rainforest used to be – causing disaster in one region after another. The Amazon. The Sahel. Sumatra. Borneo. Sounds faraway? The climate where you live is warming up. The wildlife where you live is vanishing. Not so faraway now, maybe?

 

Environment, Nature Reserves, Politics

Showing Rupa Huq (Labour) Around a Nature Reserve

Showing Rupa Huq (Labour) around Gunnersbury Triangle Local Nature Reserve
The new warden, Netty Ribeaux, and me showing Rupa Huq (Labour) around Gunnersbury Triangle Local Nature Reserve

Having lobbied the sitting Member of Parliament for the local constituency, Angie Bray, a few weeks ago, I thought I’d invite the Labour candidate, Rupa Huq, and see what she thought about nature.

She came along to Gunnersbury Triangle, together with two of her supporters to take some pictures and video clips of the occasion. I did my best to fit what I wanted to say into short bursts – I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to do soundbites before, but perhaps it will come in handy when anyone asks what I think about nature and politics, or for that matter to put into a few words what my book is about. (It’s about how crazy the English are about nature, and why.)

We talked about why nature matters and the benefits it brings (votes, of course; human wellbeing in an age of e-gadgets; education; mental health; knowledge of climate change; the value of the wild gene pool… ), and I suggested some topics that it would be nice to have as party policy.

Tiny Frogs (and a slug) hiding under a mat
Tiny Frogs (and a slug) hiding under a mat

We walked around the reserve, saying a little about its history, its current uses (school visits, corporate bonding days, volunteering, talks, picnics, family visits, bug-hunting and pond-dipping, days out for the mentally handicapped). We saw the variety of habitats, enjoyed hearing the Robins singing even on a chilly day in January, and looked under a mat at the tiny frogs sheltering there. Rupa certainly left with a deeper understanding of what nature can do for people and why it matters; and of the possibilities that the Gunnersbury Triangle reserve, at least, has to offer for her constituents.