Birds of a Feather

To London on Wednesday, for a meeting of the rather wonderful Wildlife Gardening Forum. This was my second meeting, the first being at Wisley last year, and I have to say they really are useful.

The presentations this time were especially good, focusing on a particularly important aspect of the whole wildlife gardening ethos - the need for hard evidence.

There has always been an acceptance, at least within the 'business', that gardening for wildlife is a 'good thing'. But bearing in mind the resistance of some sectors of the population to the idea of a bit of untidiness or - perish the thought - the presence of weeds in the garden, it would be great to be able to quantify that 'good thing' with some proper science.

Thankfully, that seems to be happening. The culmination of the meeting was the launch of 'Wildlife of a Garden: A Thirty-Year Study', a book by Jennifer Owen, who has catalogued the flora and fauna of her small Leicestershire garden for, as the title suggests, the last 30 years. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice it to say the range of organisms she has recorded is staggering, including some new not only to the UK but to science. And the crucial point is that she has never gone out of her way to garden for the benefit of wildlife.

That was the culmination of the meeting, but earlier talks were just as important. Hard evidence from the BTO demonstrated that a whole range of scarce bird species move into gardens from the wider countryside when times are hard; a detailed survey by Pond Conservation showed that, area for area, good quality garden ponds are as species-rich as those in the countryside, but probably more abundant; and after a presentation by Jan Miller of Saith Ffynnon Wildlife Plants I will be thinking more about the recreation of 'brownfield' habitats in a garden context.

All in all, a thoroughly useful day, and graced by the presence of both Chris Baines and Sarah Raven, which sent my fan-boy heart a-racing...

All the fun of the fair

On Saturday we went to an event called 'Wild About Sussex', organised by the Friends of Burgess Hill Green Circle Network (I think they need an acronym or something...).

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but as it turned out it was one of the best gatherings of conservation organisations I've been to. And over 20 years I've been to a few, believe me.

The FBHGCN (a bit better, I suppose) had packed two floors of the Martlets Hall with stands representing around 40 conservation bodies, including some major players, like the RSPB. Plantlife had come from their HQ in Salisbury, and Pond Conservation had travelled all the way from Oxfordshire.


For a local conservation group to organise such a well-attended and professional-looking event is a fantastic example of what can be done at the grass-roots level. I just hope public attendance was high enough to do justice to the effort that had obviously gone into this event.

Dreadful trade

Had some very nice Samphire with dinner last night, though to my eternal shame (as a supposed wild forager) it came from a supermarket, no doubt at great expense. Raw, it can be very salty, but boiled briefly or steamed and served with a knob of butter (unsalted) it's great.

My wife was trying to sell it to the kids as seaweed, though it is actually a true flowering plant. The flowers, though, are tiny; mere scales on the surface of the cylindrical fleshy stems. The seeds form inside, and when ripe the whole plant shrivels and breaks up into segments, each containing a seed, which are then washed away on the tide. This puts them in the charming category of 'propagules' - units of propagation - rather than true fruits. You can have that bit of useless information for free.

Our native Samphires are a complicated group belonging mostly to the genus Salicornia. They are all very similar, requiring an expert with a hand-lens to tell them apart, and they languish under the burden of names like Salicornia dolichostachya. Luckily for the wild food enthusiast they are all equally edible and pretty distinctive. The saltmarshes where they grow undergo a transformation at this time of year to rival our broadleaved woodlands, as the Samphires and their relatives turn red, purple and gold.

The title of this post, incidentally, comes from King Lear - 'Halfway down hangs one that gathers Samphire - dreadful trade'. That actually refers to another, unrelated, plant - Marsh Samphire. This member of the carrot family is more often found on rocks and cliffs than in saltmarsh, and was collected for the table at great personal risk to the collector, hence the 'dreadful trade'. It is just as edible as its namesakes, though with (not surprisingly) more of a carrot/celery flavour.

Meanderings

A very enjoyable, but also unsuccessful, expedition today in search of crayfish. Rumour has it that they can be found in a certain stream not far from the village, where local children hoik them out in their hundreds and sell them to posh restaurants.

That's the rumour - in practice all we found was one tiny Bullhead. Still, a wonderful little stream with some of the best meanders I've seen for a long time, and lovely to see the kids wading around and poking nets into corners, albeit for no return.

Rocket Man

I love a bit of rocket in a salad, but I've never let it bolt before. It's actually quite attractive, a bit like the native Sea Radish:

Wildflower ID Course

Great first session of this year's wildflower course - perfect venue, enthusiastic participants, tea and biccies... and I get paid to waffle on about something I enjoy.

What's not to like?

New project

Today I mostly sowed a meadow in a wheelbarrow.

I know, I know - it seems like a strange thing to do, but I wanted something to take to shows that was a little bit more interesting than leaflets and flyers.

So thanks to a chap called Nic, via Freegle, I have an old wheelbarrow. Yesterday I filled it with our horrible clay sub-soil, and today I sowed it with a wildflower mix. I may post photos as it develops...

Possible source of tadpoles identified:

Put a little bee house in your soul

Lots of insect activity in the garden this weekend, and it was gratifying to see the bamboo bee house actually being investigated by three solitary bees (are they really solitary if there are three of them?).

At least one now seems to have taken up residence.

Weed

On a day like this, even the humble dandelion looks good.

Produce

In a neat bit of re-use, I forced some rhubarb under a tower of three old car tyres. We had the first crop the other day, stewed with stems and leaves of Sweet Cicely for a bit of an aniseed tang. Very nice, though I say so myself.

And the tyres are now free to be filled with soil and spuds.

Down on Jimmy's Farm

Had a great tour round Jimmy Doherty's pig farm near Ipswich today, with farm manager Nathan, a man of boundless enthusiasm. Spoke of many possible projects, from meadow creation to biomass. All very exciting.

I hope it is the beginning of a fruitful association.

Taddies' daddies

And speaking of which, what about this pair?

I think he looks a bit spent...

Taddies

I found myself watching tadpoles in our pond today, and then realised that I hadn't really stoppped and watched them for years, probably not since I was a kid.

Note to self: don't forget to take the time to watch things like tadpoles. They're brilliant!

Foreign Flowers are Eating our Wildlife, says Daily Mail

My old mate Andy Tasker seems to be causing a bit of a stir with his website IHateDaffodils His contention is that they don't belong in the English countryside, apart from those few small areas where they are native, and are ousting our own native flora.

I have mixed views about this (sorry, Andy). I agree that planting non-native species in the wider countryside is a Bad Thing. Always. Daffs are no exception. But I'm not convinced that they are aggressively invasive in the same way as, for instance, Japanese knotweed.

Having said that, I visited one of the Notts Wildlife Trust's remotest nature reserves, down a bone-shaking gravel track out the back of a miles-from-anywhere village. And lo and behold, there in the reserve entrance...

A nice clump of daffs.

Who is it that does this? Who travels all these miles to add to the aesthetic appeal of our finest widlife sites with the addition of a clump of Tete a Tete? I would like to meet them. With no witnesses around.

Hedgerow bounty

First forage of the year - wild garlic. Made wild garlic pesto, with fresh grated parmesan, olive oil and (if I'm honest) a bit too much wild garlic.

Note to self - go easy with it next time. Oh, and get some pine nuts. And mouthwash...