30 Days Wild 2020 – Day Thirty.

Day 30: For my final post of 2020’s 30 Days Wild, I shall look to the future. There are several questions I want to address.

• How does spending time in nature make me feel?
• What can I do to carry on being wild for the rest of the year?
• How can I help wildlife more?

Firstly, who would have thought that I’d be able to blog everyday during a pandemic? When lockdown commenced I have to admit that I became a little worried on how I would be able to make 2020’s 30 Days Wild exciting and interesting for my readers. Hopefully I have managed to keep you all interested and entertained and a little more educated along the way. I know I’ve certainly learned a lot participating in this initiative. Like badgers are the UK’s largest predator. There’s around 40 species of ladybird in the UK. Dolphins have names or a unique whistle to identify them from each other. Great Tits have territory wars with pied flycatchers. The UK’s tallest tree, the Douglas Fir has a non-flammable bark which protects forests from fires. Gulls can drink fresh and salt water due to a special gland above their eyes that filter out salt. 

Benjamin

Badger

Halequin Ladybird

Great Tit

Part of what makes blogging everyday for 30 Days Wild a challenge, is which new topics to cover. Though the UK is one of the world’s most nature depleted countries, we do have an array of wildlife that should be celebrated. I’ve not even scratched the surface in my blog, and I know there is a lot more to learn. I may focus a lot on birds but that is because they are easily surveyed. I would love to know more about trees, insects, arachnids and marine life. Which brings me to one of the questions I want to raise, What can I do to carry on being wild for the rest of the year? Keep being observant and open to wildlife is a positive thought. I think having a childlike look on the world isn’t a bad thing. Continuing to read blogs, follow nature sites and keeping an eye open for new wildlife sightings are easy ways to carry on being wild.

At the beginning of the year David and I became members of Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside Wildlife Trust. Because of Covid I’ve not been able to visit sites in this area but I hope to do so in the future. Joining a Wildlife Trust, the RSPB or the Woodland Trust is one small way to carry on being wild and also to help wildlife more. Feeding the birds all year round is another small thing one can do and an easy task too. Planting nectar rich plants for pollinators is another positive action and can be done on a small balcony or in a garden. Sign petitions and shout out for wildlife by writing to your MP! Go on litter picks. Join webinars (I’ve recently watched two from The Wildlife Trusts, on owls and wildflowers), and even tweet, blog or Instagram your findings. Sharing your knowledge will help others learn too.

Lastly, how does spending time in nature make me feel? 

Shinrin-yoku

David and Riley

Wild Swimming

I believe nature is a great healer and it has been scientifically proven. From shinrin yoku or forest bathing to the joys and health benefits of wild swimming. Just spending 20 minutes a day walking in your local park, at the beach or woodland helps improve mood and promotes positive mental health. When I am feeling blue or struggling for motivation just observing the wildlife around me helps greatly. For me feeding the garden birds helped me overcome a bereavement. Do you know of when nature helped you during a difficult time?

Anyway, that’s enough from me. Thank you for joining in my 2020 30 Days Wild. Hopefully we can do it all again next year?!

Until then and for the final time, Stay Wild!

Christine x

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day Twenty-five.

Day 25: Today’s 30 Days Wild is all about trees.

I find it difficult to ID trees, so I decided to make an attempt at some identification. I pass lots of trees on my route to work, so collected some leaves as I walked.

If you think I may have got these wrong please correct me. Thanks.

Leaves

1. 1. Oak: I was ok identifying this native leaf but then I read that there are two types of oak in the UK, English oak and sessile. Possibly this is a sessile oak which prefers the north? Oak trees can grow up to 40m in height and won’t produce acorns until 40 years of age!
   2. Ash: I think this is a compound ash leaf but not 100%. They can live up to 400 years, longer if coppiced.
   3. Sycamore: Again not 100% on this. It could be a maple or guelder rose. Another long lived tree. Fruits are known as samaras, or helicopters in Liverpool. Do you know them by a different name?
   4. Hawthorn: I thought I would finish on an easy one, as I’ve just ordered one from The Woodland Trust. Hawthorns are native and in spring their leaves are edible. They can grow to 15m but are usually used as hedgerows.

These were just a few of the leaves I collected. I think a couple more were from a hazel and silver birch but not certain. I really need to buy a book on tree identification. If you have any suggestions let me know.

What’s your favourite tree?

Thanks for reading, and stay wild!

Christine x

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day Five.

Day 5: Today is World Environment Day. A day when people are inspired to do something for the planet, either locally, nationally or globally. 2019’s theme is air pollution. You can help #BeatAirPollution by taking the bus to work, or walk or cycle. Turn your engine off when stationary, reduce meat consumption or switching lights and electronics off when not in use.

I shall of course be taking the bus and walking to work. How about you?

In conjunction with World Environment Day, Friends of the Earth, have a campaign to double UK tree cover. Trees help slow climate change by absorbing harmful Co2 and are also home to many animal species. I’ve been debating whether to buy a sapling for the yarden but I am not sure how it would fare in a pot? The Woodland Trust have a good selection of UK species to chose from.

What do you think, should I buy a tree? If so what type?

Thanks for reading, and stay wild!

Christine x

Colour Bingo – Autumn

The first time I completed The Woodland Trust’s Nature Detectives – Colour Bingo, was in February this year, you can read that post here.

Since then, I forgot to participate in spring and summer. So I decided that I was overdue to do another one. I chose the glorious season of autumn in the hope of finding new variations of the colours.

The colours of the bingo are: red, black, white, grey, yellow, pink, cream, brown and green. Here’s what I came up with from my yarden for each colour.

The striking colour red features highly in the yarden this year. There are falling blueberry leaves, cotoneaster berries and ripening autumn growing raspberries.

Raspberries

Wet soil

Black is a hard colour to find. As it had been raining today I chose the black of wet soil. Not very imaginative I know, sorry!

White was a no-brainer. I picked the white of the late blooming dahlia. The hot summer of 2018 had severely stunted the growth of the dahlia, but I managed to get three flowers from it this year. Better than nothing!

Bumblebee on Dahlia

Grey Jasmine bark

Bee on honeysuckle

For grey I chose the bark of the jasmine, while for the yellow I selected the lone honeysuckle flower still soldering on.

Pink was an easier colour. I could have chosen the pink of the penstemon or the delicate flowers of the verbena but I decided to go with the successful sedum.

Sedum

Fuschia

The luscious petals of the fuchsia I chose for cream. This year has been the best showing of the fuschia. Perhaps the heat of the summer helped?

For brown I picked the brown leaves of the heuchera.

??

Ivy

The colour Green, as you can imagine is abundant in the yarden. The ivy plant I deliberated was the best to depict this colour.

There were also the colour blue and purple in the yarden. For blue I chose the lithodora blue, while the purple I chose the beautiful salvia mystic spires. My yarden isn’t complete without this autumn flowering shrub.

Common Carder Bee on Lithodora Blue

Honey bee on Salvia

Perhaps you too can join in the colour bingo? Let me know what colours you find?

Thanks for reading,

Christine.

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day Two.

Day 2: and Saturday was a complete wash out! With a shopping trip planned to Cheshire Oaks for dry bags for future wild swims. I decided to incorporate a visit to a local nature reserve Dibbinsdale. However on emerging from the Queensway Tunnel the rain was falling in rods! I was not dressed for rain! I stood in ballet shoes with no coat! But we decided to take a short visit to the reserve none the less. We plan to revisit on a drier day. 🙂

Dibbinsdale Nature Reserve, Wirral, boasts 74 acres of woodland, wetlands and meadows, with three miles of walking paths. On our short walk we rescued a bumblebee who was struggling in the rain and snapped shots of comfrey and meadow cranesbill. The river Dibbin runs through the reserve and looked inviting for a paddle come sunnier days.

Christine

Comfrey

David

Wet Bumblebee

Cranesbill

Do you have a favourite local nature reserve?

Thanks for reading and stay wild!

Christine x

Colour Bingo!

Drawing inspiration from The Woodland Trust’s Nature Detectives worksheet – Colour Bingo. I decided to go in search of colour in the yarden. I’ve cheated a little as my camera phone isn’t great at shooting wildlife, so I have used both pictures from my phone and also ones David has taken in the past. Ultimately they show the colours that are in the yarden and of those who visit it.

The first colour that caught my eye was red. The red of these laurel berries. How vibrant are they?

 

Red Laurel berries

Starling Picture by David Evans

Black was a hard colour to find. I could have opted for wet soil but at the time I was perusing the yarden a solitary starling flew to the feeder. I found a picture David took a few years back. Starlings look black but they have iridescent feathers and are coloured in brown, green and and blue!

I was going to plump for a photo of a pigeon for grey but then the dunnock visited, so I decided to use him for the colour grey. I couldn’t find a good photo of the dunnock so one from a video grab will have to do.

Grey Dunnock

Yellow blotches on Laurel leaf

I noticed these yellow blotches on laurel leaves. Every leaf looked different.

Green was the easiest colour to find in the yarden. There is still so much foliage about. I liked the pretty rain drops on these poppy seedlings.

Rain on poppy leaves

Robin

Though the robin’s breast would have been ideal for red. I decided to choose the robin for brown. While I was mooching about the yarden, he sat watching me from the tree. Probably waiting for me to throw food for the pigeons so he can snatch some for himself.

Cream was another difficult colour. I opted for the cream chests of the visiting goldfinches.

Goldfinches Picture by David Evans

White camellia bud

For white I chose this bud from the camellia bush. There are many buds on the shrub. I am hoping for a good show this spring from the camellia.

Borage

I couldn’t find anything for pink, but I did spy a borage flower braving the winter. I decided to incorporate its blue instead.

Perhaps you too can join in the colour bingo? Let me know what colours you find?

Thanks for reading,

Christine.

Sunday Sevens #28

Just a quick round up of my week in a Sunday Sevens, devised by Natalie.

Red Campion

Plant ID: In my last Sunday Sevens, I asked if anyone could ID a plant for me. Thankfully I have managed to ID it myself and found that the plant in question is a red campion.

Book I’m reading: I have recently finished reading Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See. Doerr’s book was epic in size but the chapters were manageable. I like short chapters. I read before bed and on the commute to work. I was amazed at how quickly I got through the book as my mum said she couldn’t get into it. The narrative is during the 2nd World War. Two character’s stories intertwine, that of a blind French girl, Marie-Laure and an intelligent German youth, Werner. They only briefly meet in the story but the plot follows them growing up before and during the war. It is a tale of people striving to live when the wold around them is disintegrating. I found it sadly, echoed today’s political environment. The writing is easy to read, however the matter of fact description of death (an everyday occurrence in wartime) is in places shocking. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in historic fiction, though the end feels a little bit rushed.

All the Light We Cannot See

Folly

I have just begun Folly by Alan Titchmarsh, I have no assumptions about the novel, but hope the writing is better than his other book, The Haunting.

The Easter weekend: for me is all about the Classic FM Hall of Fame. Four days of none stop music, counting down from 300 to 1!In January I voted for my top three. It’s hard to pin down just three favourites. This year I chose:

Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony.

Mahler’s 5th Symphony.

Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto.

Sadly the only one of my three choices that ascended the chart was Rachmaninov’s 2nd Symphony, which climbed nine places to number 29! His 2nd Piano Concerto stayed firmly at number two, the Lark Ascending by Vaughn Williams held it at bay! Unfortunately Mahler fell out of the top 50, only coming in at a lowly 66! You can view where your favourites came here.

Out and about: On the Easter Monday we listened to Mahler’s Adagietto on the car radio while we travelled to Formby Point. We spent a few hours walking the beach and giving Riley a good run.

Christine and Riley

David and Riley

We were out walking again at the end of the week, as David and I took Riley for a walk around Liverpool’s Sefton Park on Saturday.

#walk1000miles: Though I have been working longer hours at work this week, I have managed to maintain my average mileage of 25 for the week. On my daily route to work I passed many clumps of bluebells turning the grassy verges blue. Amongst all the swaying heads were a mass of pink and white bluebells. I don’t know whether they are native plants or not.

White bluebells

Spanish Bluebells

The Big Bluebell Watch:  The Woodland Trust have a new initiative, to survey all the bluebells across the nation. Click here to add your sightings to the map. I’ve added my lowly two bluebells. I think they could be native as they have white pollen but they could very well be crossed. Have you seen many bluebells where you live?

Bees: This weekend the NW of England has been blessed with some wonderful weather, if a bit cold. A familiar buzz sounded in the yarden. I spotted a male and female hairy-footed flower bee as well as a red mason bee. Have you seen many bees this spring?

Female Hairy-footed Flower Bee

Well, that was my week, how was yours?

Until the next Sunday Sevens!

Christine x