Today’s post comes thanks to my brother. We’re staying with him in Cheltenham, and having spent the afternoon in the town, I was looking for a more wild space, so we walked back through the Pilley Bridge nature reserve, entering via the Community Orchard:

Sadly, the lovingly built wildlife home had been burnt out – destroying at least half  a mature tree in the process. But things improved as we moved through the site.

We weren’t sure what had been working on the entrance to this nest box, but found another which had been similarly enlarged a little farther along the path. Any ideas?

There were elder, bramble and wild rose flowers aplenty and a variety of lower-growing flora:

There were various fungi (or possibly moulds):

In the water there were little fish (failed again on those), and bright, darting flies (poor picture, but amazed to have got a picture at all). There were more flies swarming over the water, and enough midges to make me feel decidedly itchy.

And finally there was this – which might, or might not, have been a stickleback nest:

And if all that were not enough, we got home to this: not good news for the flowers, but pretty spectacular – the caterpillar of the mullein moth:

All in all, pretty wild!

PS: And just how many mealworms can one blackbird carry at once?

(He wouldn’t leave some and come back a second time, because he had to chase off another young male whilst he was feeding).

 

Torrential rain this morning, when I was at home. Beautiful sunny afternoon, when I was in meetings. My hands on ‘wildness’ has been limited to persuading a reluctant dog that it is better to get soaking wet for 20 minutes than to stay inside (as I thought) all day. So the best I could do was plan how to rehabilitate my pond. In previous years it has been home to three healthy looking frogs, although I’ve never seen any spawn or tadpoles. This year I haven’t seen any signs of amphibians at all. I suspect there is too much silt and general nastiness in the bottom of the pond for it to be as attractive a habitat as it has been in the past. So it’s time to cut back some of the overgrowth and let the whole thing breathe more easily. This could be messy!

There is actually a small pond under here, but it is suffering. The iris has escaped from its container, with the  earth settling at the bottom. Leaves from the sycamores on the embankment have fallen into the water and , again, eventually settled into the silt.

The honeysuckle is a bully and is taking over much of this side of the garden and the blue-flowered alkanet (I think) has wicked soft prickles on its stems which get under the skin, despite being almost too fine to see, which always adds a little excitement to gardening. Watch this space for progress later in the week (for the next two days we will be ‘beyond’ the suburbs).

 

Well, it’s all happening in the suburbs on Day 19. For one thing the sun is shining. This is clearly a mistake and normal service will soon be resumed, but for now it is having a very positive effect on the insect life.

There are beetles on the lavender, bees in the roses, and hover flies everywhere:

We also passed an absolutely enormous fungus on the way to the farmer’s market (where was everyone today, it’s normally much busier):

Less happily, when my husband went out with the dog, he found a baby pigeon sitting on the bonnet of the car. Thinking it unlikely that the bird was just hoping for a lift, he called for help. I lifted it on to a nearby tree – with very little resistance on the pigeon’s part – and left it to recover, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

I tried to give it a fighting chance by keeping an eye on the cat, who was clearly already keeping an eye on something else:

But I’m afraid it didn’t make it ( and this time it had nothing to do with the cat).

 

 

Not wild, but nonetheless beautiful:

Day 18 was almost entirely spent catching up on chores, but ended, despite the threatening clouds, in the glorious surroundings of Hampton Court. Whilst beautifully presented, and very formal, this part of the gardens also had plenty of birds and insects around:

And see how, in the foreground, there is space for some ragged edges, even in this most orderly of settings:

And let’s not forget the impact of the river on the surroundings:

On the opposite bank, a row of fishermen sat patiently, and silently, watching the water.

What a truly lovely place:

Hot, grey and occasionally rainy today. Perfect conditions for insects, which were everywhere on our walk, in great variety as well as numbers. Unfortunately, the dog finds patience very hard, and so you’ll have to take my word for it, as there is no photographic evidence.

The insects did, however, attract the birds. Swooping over yellow fields:

or waiting on a wire:

The parakeets are impossible to ignore now, mainly because of the noise they make.

The paths are well used but still almost overgrown in places as the warm, wet weather has led to another growth surge.  The bramble flowers are now out wherever the sun reaches them

and the yellow irises are showing bright in the pond

But the very damp atmosphere is also good for fungi

I love being out with the dog – and when the weather isn’t great, she is often the reason I make the effort to go. I am always extremely careful to clear up after her. I am, however, really disappointed by how many people do not think that’s necessary as soon as they move off the roads and pavements. The paths through our local wild spaces are well used by walkers, runners and cyclists. No-one should have to clean shoes and bike wheels because others haven’t bothered to clear up after their dogs. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, such carelessness shows a real lack of respect for others who use the same paths.

There are bears in our woods!

Overcast and a little grey today. An early, short walk with the dog and then a longer walk along the path by the golf course and through the woods by the recreation ground.

The ground itself might seem too plain and well kept to be a real wildlife haven

but it is a place for fresh air,  where dogs are walked and games played by adults and children alike. There is a wonderful, safe, enclosed children’s playground, a tennis club, a Scout hut. There are bins for litter and dog poo – and they are used. A school boundary runs along one side of the park, and in one corner lies this path through the woods:

A path that runs past knobbly trees

and, of course, the bears

What a joy to have such green space on our doorstep.

PS: I’m often asked why there are so few people in my photographs. Sometimes it is straightforward: I want to illustrate a building or tree or flower, and am looking for a clear shot. But more often, when there are crowds of people around, it is because of an awkwardness about photographing people I don’t know without their consent, particularly if there are likely to be children in the picture. Is this unnecessarily cautious? I don’t know, but I do admire those photographers who have found a way of capturing the atmosphere of crowded places. What do you think?

 

 

Well, after a wonderful time by the sea yesterday there wasn’t too much wildness in my life today. But I did try to take full advantage of what there was.

Starting with another train into central London,I think I spotted a young jay at the station.

Much of the rest of the day was spent rushing to and from meetings with very little sight of anything green. I decided to walk to an evening event, rather than get back on the Tube – but the most direct route was straight down Oxford Street. I haven’t done that walk for a while and my goodness it is depressing. There are occasional trees, but there is an overwhelming amount of redevelopment – and, of course, Crossrail preparations – which seems to be reinforcing the hard surfaced,unnatural environment.

Before heading into the event – and, in all honesty, entirely because of my 30 Days Wild commitment – I went in search of greenery. And found Grosvenor Square. Not exactly wild. But a pleasant green space  full of dog walkers and families. Children raced and played and shouted and laughed. People talked to one another. And there was birdsong.

So not wild, but another reminder, if any were needed of why Parks Matter.

Off to the seaside. Much of the day spent with builders, but, despite the grey skies, there was still time to get out and breathe – and my Wild Days are back on track.

It’s hard to explain just how happy walking by the sea makes me. At this time of year the area just above the high tide line is an absolute delight. There are reds, pinks, blues, white and yellows. The variation in flower colour between individual plants of the same species is astonishing. The sculptural shapes and colour combinations of some of the plants which grow right on the pebbles are endlessly fascinating. And that’s just the plants: the bushes are full of colonies of noisy, insistent sparrows. And today, as well as the usual bees and hover flies, there was a tiny blue butterfly battling the wind. I spent a happy 10 minutes completely failing to photograph it and  felt in no way defeated as I wandered on.

I love gardens, and gardening, but for me there is nothing that quite compares to the natural wilderness of the beach. See if you agree:

And if you prefer birds, I offer sparrows:

 

Open spaces more your thing? Views from the beach:

(that was quite a long way off, but I do love a barge!).

I have never actually lived by the sea, despite growing up in Cornwall, but over the past 20 years I have come to rely more and more on a seaside fix to make sense of overfull days and overcommitted weeks.  Wherever I’m based, I know that I need a couple of hours by the sea at least once a month if I am going to function as well as possible.

Note to self: put that time in  the diary now!

 

The sky was not encouraging as I set off for meetings this morning:

In a way this image captured my feelings about my personal blog challenge. I started to fret about what I was going to write, and to wonder when I was going to fit in time to look and listen properly to the natural world around me. I grabbed a quick image of a rose at the station to give me something to fall back on….and then realised that I had had come very close to completely missing the point!

Some days it is simply easier than others to take time to breathe and appreciate our surroundings. That’s just life. If today is too busy, well so be it. It’s only a problem if EVERY day is too busy.

So after my meetings, I headed to Guildford and the Watts Gallery in Compton.  It’s a place I love, and one which makes best use of a really lovely setting.

I may not have consciously focussed on Compton as today’s place to engage with nature, but once there it was very obvious. The artist in residence, Andrew Kearney, describes his year’s work at the Gallery as a journey that was ‘an opportunity to reflect on the natural environment and on those elements outside human control that we tend to overlook in our everyday routines.’

His work is on show indoors and out and responds to the environment he found.

So actually a perfect contribution to my 30 Day, which sent me back to the gardens for the shapes and colours of late evening:

Today is wild gardening day. Wild in the sense that it is pouring with rain and looks likely to do so for much, if not all, of the day. Having been soaked through once, I am taking a break to dry off and warm up. But I have already discovered that there are many advantages to such gardening – and not just that the weeds show much less resistance!

I have been potting things up ready to move in the autumn.

The cherry tree was a gift from colleagues when I left the Heritage Lottery Fund and will travel with me – in increasingly large pots – wherever I go. The little  rowan tree – which needs a small stake – is part of a Woodland Trust promotion marking the Queen’s 90th birthday. We have had at least one acer wherever we have lived. The pots of violas, primulas and ophiopogons  were a happy combination that came about when I was splitting and moving seedlings. And the hellebore seedling is one of a number that I will watch with interest as it grows: every one is different (tbc)

Back for another session between inundations. The smells of the garden are much stronger after the rain: not just the roses and lavender, but the pelargonium leaves as I brush against them. I am causing all kinds of chaos by moving pots, pulling up weeds and sweeping. The ants were particularly cross when I repositioned one of the biggest pots:

They had excavated the sand from between the bricks and rushed to move eggs back underground when they found them exposed.

The snails moved at speed to find a kinder spot when I pulled up the weeds by their wall:

One decided to show me who would be the eventual winner of this contest by crawling rather deliberately over my gardening gloves:

But despite the weather, I have filled three sacks of weeds and trimmings, potted on seedlings from the borders, and dead-headed the roses. Even the buttercup pulls up without too much of a fight when the ground is as wet as it is at the moment.

But I have a confession. I am finding it hard to feel charitable towards bindweed. It must surely have some purpose beyond strangling my roses, mustn’t it? Does anyone want to make the case for its benefits to the environment?