Day Five - 30 Days Wild - 'if you build it they will come.'

We built a small pond in January and have been waiting since then for the wildlife to come.  Every day I performed the pond gazing ritual, bending low and staring into the water, searching for life.

I wasn't expecting newts or frogs, just a humble pond skater to come and walk on the water on its long lean legs.  Well, today I got my wish.  A pond skater was in our pond, or rather on our pond.  I've christened it Torville because of its skating prowess. I watched it through my close focus binoculars and it was mesmerizing.

Torville the pond skater

Apparently, they are aggressive predators, pouncing on insects that land on the water's surface.  They are very agile and can jump to evade a predator.  

But how did it get in my pond?  Well, it flew here. They hibernate through the winter and then re-emerge in spring.

They are also known as water striders, water skimmers and my favourite, Jesus bugs. So far there's only one and it's fairly safe as their main predators are frogs, toads, fish and newts and there aren't any of those in the pond yet.  

However, birds eat them too and there are rather a lot of them in my garden. So from now on, birds are no longer allowed to drink from the pond steps (built to allow hedgehogs to escape) only from the birdbath. I think it's going to be quite time consuming being a pond skater's body guard.

Day Four - 30 Days Wild - Bay Watch

Appreciating a proper beach day, at last!

Enjoying the colours, man-made and natural.  

I kept an eye open for the slice of a dolphin's fin breaking the surface of the sea or the smooth curve of a porpoise.  

I'll be taking part in the National Whale and Dolphin Watch from 25 July to 2 August.

http://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk

Last year I stood on the end of Llandudno Pier for three hours peering through my binoculars.  Eventually I saw a porpoise and while I was distracted, a herring gull, who had had his beady eye on me for some time, swooped in and snatched my cheese and pickle sandwich out of my hand!

Volunteers are always needed to help with the survey.  The web site will tell you how to get involved.  But watch out for sneaky sea gulls!

30 Days Wild - Day Three - Berry Watching

Today I have been mostly watching fruit!  
I took some time to appreciate the different stages of development.
It never ceases to amaze me how delicate pinky-white apple blossom turns into tiny fruit and then into mouthwatering red apples.

Developing apple

Strawberries

Raspberries

Blueberry Flowers

I have a blackbird who loves my strawberries too.  Even when I net them, she manages to sneak under and take the ones at the edge of the bed.  I sit and watch her doing it, she watches me, watching her.  I've planted three large clumps of wild strawberries especially for her but I think she enjoys the challenge of getting under the net and taking mine.  
The ancient Romans believed that strawberries alleviated the symptoms of melancholy.  Me and my blackbird agree.

Wild Wind - Day Two of #30 Days Wild

In my lunch hour today I stood out in the wild wind among a little group of trees and reveled in their movement and sound. 
I leaned against the trunk of one tree and felt like I was on a tall ship with the foresail billowing and the mast creaking and the deck swaying beneath my feet.
Above all the noise of leaves and branches I could hear a blackbird singing, bright and lively as a sailor's hornpipe. I tilted my head and watched the thin tops of the trees swaying madly.  After all this time 'at sea' I felt quite dizzy and when I finally went back indoors I knocked into a desk or two before I eventually got my land legs back!

30 Days Wild...and Slow - Day One

Here's a great SLOW thing to do this month.  

Join me and thousands of others and do something wild everyday.  

Take up the challenge set by The Wildlife Trusts and;

'Make room for nature this June, no matter where you live or how busy you are.'

So, here goes... Day One

Stroke some lichens - very gently - It's impossible to just look at them. Shut your eyes.  What do they feel like?  The ones in the photo were hairy and crusty and springy, like cornflakes and porridge and my Uncle's beard!

Things to like about Lichens -

They are actually a partnership of two organisms, a fungus and an alga.

There are more than 1,700 species in Britain.

They are very sensitive to atmospheric pollution.There are very few around industrial cities.  Search your local churchyard (a good place for lichens) and you'll get an idea of how good the air quality is where you live. (I vaguely remember looking for lichens around our school during a particularly interesting biology lesson about air pollution).

They used to be important sources of dyes for cloth, different lichens give different colours.

#30 Days Wild
www.action.wildlifetrusts.org

Slow Tourist

I set myself a few goals this January. One of them was to write a book to encourage people to slow down and notice what's on their own doorstep. 
OK, I've written the book.  It's only small, roughly 7x5 inches and 24 pages long, but it's full of suggestions of ways to get to know where you live slowly and intimately. There's space to doodle and make notes too.

That was the easy part. The hard part is how to promote and sell it.

I've done some craft fairs, standing smiling behind a table of books not knowing whether to make eye contact as people approach or if it will put them off.  Is it better to just let them browse or get in there and start talking?  I hope the book and the blurb on the back speaks for itself but maybe people want to hear from me.  It's all a great learning curve.  The lovely shop at Theatre Clwyd agreed to take some books and the writing magazine I subscribe to is going to do a review (Writing Magazine).  But I find it hard to sell myself. Confidence, that's the thing to have, and I don't have much.  

Writing the book was the easy part. Will I be 'big' enough to sell it?  If anyone's got any tips, I'd love to hear them. I'll let you know how I get on!

I used www.blurb.co.uk (Bookwright) and the free software is great.  The process has been interesting and fun and I loved doing my own art work - some collage, some photographs, some doodles.  
I would recommend anyone thinking of creating a book to -
DO IT!  

You can see a preview of my book in blurb.co.uk's bookshop, search for The Slow Tourist at home.

If you'd like a copy for £5, including UK postage, let me know!
sleepysparrow@yahoo.co.uk

Early Morning Garden Party

'Get Uuuup Now, Get Uuuup now'. 
That's what a woodpigeon cooed outside my bedroom window this morning. I felt like turning over, but if I had I'd have missed these early morning garden treats...

Mr And Mrs Sparrow chewing the fat

A starling with lovely spots

A baby sparrow waiting to be fed

Blackbird taking a bath

This male sparrow sits here every morning, chirping for all he's worth to attract a mate, no luck so far.

Tulips still asleep

Wide awake primroses

Glowing rhubarb

Courgette seedlings

So thanks for waking me up wood pigeon.  I'm glad I didn't miss this early morning in my garden. It was a real treat for the senses and set me up for the day ahead.  
Take your morning cuppa outside for 10 minutes before you rush on with the day, you never know what you might see, hear, smell.

A New Way

'One's destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things.'  Henry Miller

This is a quote from my book The Slow Tourist.  Today we decided to follow the instructions on page 14 and walk along a public footpath we've never been on before.  Here is what we found...

Bluebells beginning to appear

clumps of primroses

The Spirit of the Woods

A Bluetit's bottom

Silver Birches like brushes painting the sky

A peacock butterfly enjoying dandelion nectar

A tree window

A secret bank of primroses

Blossom alive with buzzing bees

And a fine view of Moel Famau

We've lived here for over 30 years and never followed this footpath before.  We walked for three hours and didn't see another person, only birds, bees, butterflies and lambs.  We had an epic adventure - without going very far, just like it says in my book! 

It also says;

Get an OS map of your area, find a footpath and follow it. Take a note book and pen, draw the flowers, bees, birds - just doodle, you don't have to be an artist.  Write what you see, how you feel.  Record the sounds on your mobile phone or a simple sound recorder, make a sound scape of your patch.  Who knows, in years to come, what you record in your notebook might prove to be of real interest to someone.  You might record a species that no longer exists or one that's new for that area. Even if you live in a town, sketch the buildings, record sounds in the parks, look for wildlife like peregrines nesting on tall buildings. 

But most of all, just enjoy what's on your doorstep.  

Welcome Back Warblers!

'Willow warblers...are amazing little birds: so small, such courageous travellers, so sweet a voice, such fierce competitors. It is when you can hear the first willow warbler of the spring and know it for what it is that you have passed the point of no return.  You have finished and revelled in chapter three of Ulysses. You have become a birdlistner. You are committed. And once you have done that, you know a lifetime of pleasure lies before you. Once you have cracked the willow warbler, you're a goner.'

The above is a quote from Simon Barnes' wonderful book 'birdwatching with your eyes closed.'

Yesterday evening, we took a slow walk over the iron age hillfort and across Halkyn Common, laughing at lambs lounging in the late sun, gulping air filled with the lettucey taste of new grass.  We stopped abruptly, looked at each other, cocked our heads on one side and grinned; huge grins that spread across our faces until there was almost no room left.  There was no mistaking that sweet scale-tumbling song. The willow warblers are back safely from Africa.  

It didn't go unnoticed that this moment of joy came on a day of harrowing news reports of the plight of human migrants.

Springtime Slaughter

Just as I'm rejoicing at the first swallow and the arrival of my chiff-chaff and while I'm waiting for all the other birds to come back home and fill the woods with their song, I read this news on the BBC web page -

'Hunters win Malta bird referendum on shooting ban.
Malta has narrowly rejected proposals to ban controversial spring hunting, during which migrating birds are shot before they can breed.

There were jubilant scenes in the counting hall as the pro-hunt activists celebrated victory, which was achieved by only 2,200 votes.

The BBC's Mario Cacciottolo in a tweet says that hunters' association head Joe Perici Calascione is "ecstatic" about the outcome of the vote and has described hunting as an integral part of Maltese tradition.

Malta is the only EU country that allows recreational spring hunting.'

This particular 'tradition' allows for the shooting of turtle doves and quail, though who knows what other birds will be shot in the name of tradition?  Malta has a pretty bad track record and groups like Birdlife International and the RSPB have been working on the island for years to try and prevent the needless slaughter of many birds, including birds of prey and song birds on their way North.

I have heard turtle doves in Italy and their soft purring song is mesmerizing and calming, like a meditative chant.  They are dainty birds and a delight to listen to on a warm summer's evening.  They do exist in this country but mainly in the South and they are on the RED list, meaning they are globally threatened.

Now that hunters in Malta can legally shoot them in the spring time before they have had chance to breed, we are even less likely to hear them here.

It's a sad, sad day for man'kind'.

If you go to www.rspb.org.uk and look up turtle dove, you can hear a recording of their special song.

Thankfully this little sparrow is safe from Macho Maltese hunters.

Reasons to be cheerful - Swallows and Rhubarb!

The swallows are back!  I look out for them arriving every year and I saw my first one this week, swooping through the dusky sky, no doubt relieved to have arrived safely.  It’s swapped red, African dirt for the green hills of Wales and right now it looks like a fair swap.  Lambs are springing like wind-up toys, cherry trees are frothy with blossom, the daffodils are bright suns shining along all the verges and the rest of the bird clan are cramming the air with their spring song.

The first birds of the season are always a delight.  When I open my back door on a chilly spring morning and hear that familiar ‘chiff-chaff, chiff-chaff,’ I break into a huge grin.  The tiny olive bird is the first of the warblers to return from Africa and soon there’ll be willow warblers, black caps, garden warblers and all the others.

And talking of ‘firsts’, this week we had the first of the rhubarb from the garden, lightly poached with a little red wine and brown sugar, delicious!

Go for a slow walk this weekend and see if you can spot a swallow - it's come a long, long way so give it a wave. 

And why not plant some rhubarb in a forgotten corner of your patch? You can just leave it to get on with the business of growing, which it will do effortlessly, and then give you juicy sticks to eat with ginger and ice cream.

To see the difference between swallows and house martins look on www.rspb.org.uk

Let me know if you see any!  Click on the blog title (Reasons to be cheerful) to bring up the comments box.  Or email me at sleepysparrow@yahoo.co.uk

Fantastic Friday

Friday 20th March is a special day.

There'll be a solar eclipse,
a Supermoon,
the Spring Equinox
and if that wasn't enough,
it's the U.N. International Day of Happiness.

It's also World Sparrow Day,
and, apart from following Mark Twain's advice above, I recommend watching sparrows sleep, bathe, squabble, sing to make you smile. 

Enjoy the day.  Make someone happy.  Be happy yourself.
Sometimes it's just a matter of choosing it.

www.worldsparrowday.org
www.dayofhappiness.net

Wanted - Air Traffic Controller

It's crazy in my garden - it must be Spring.
Sparrows are scrapping, dunnocks are flicking their wings like flamenco dancers, blackbirds are posturing. A song thrush makes himself heard over the ruckus, repeating himself loudly, just incase we didn't get it the first time. Blue tits (eight of them) swing on the suet cake and starlings click and whistle from the terraces like rowdy football fans.

When I venture outside to hang out my washing, birds whizz past in a blur of brown and gold and blue and black and I have to dodge out of the way before I'm hit.  I take my tea to the blue bench and watch the shenanigans from a safe distance.



Some of our nest boxes

There are 13 nest boxes around the garden and the birds are busy house hunting, trying to make up their minds and then squabbling over the most desired residences. 
I watch a sparrow pulling hard at fennel leaves to line his nest. He's unable to break off the feathery fronds and it looks like he might end up wing over beak. I can't see him struggle so I go to his assistance and pull some off  for him. Two more sparrows brawl over a white feather that flutters into the new pond, lost.  Then a couple of blackbirds start a fight. It's violent. They end up at my feet, a blur of black and yellow. I almost have to pull them apart.

By mid-morning, calm has descended into the garden again. I scatter raisins and meal worms to keep the peace.

If you're fed up with the UK election already, here is something worth voting for -
Britain's National Bird, the result will be announced on May 7th.
Which one will you vote for?
http://www.votenationalbird.com/

Do leave a comment here and let me know. If it's too complicated on the blog, try
sleepysparrow@yahoo.co.uk

Forget the chocs and flowers - I want compost for Valentine's

The sky's been low and grey and spring seems a long way off. My lovely friend came to visit and brought me a tray of soil – nice!  She assured me it was full of hibiscus seeds she’d sown.  I put the tray on the window sill and each day I inspected it as I opened the kitchen blinds. 

Finally, last week a tiny seedling appeared! Bright, zingy and green, it filled me with hope and excitement.

I didn’t know much about hibiscus plants so I looked them up.  I discovered that the flowers are edible and that there are actually a whole lot of flowers you can eat.  

Nasturtiums, primroses, marigolds, violas, pansies - all look lovely in salads and fruit dishes, in soups and rice, in sweets, yogurt, cakes, biscuits, jelly.  And I see that hibiscus flowers look fab in the bottom of a flute filled with Champagne!

So, I'll be asking my Valentine to forget the bunch of flowers this year and buy me packet of Nasturtium seeds instead! And I’d rather have a bag of compost than a box of chocs - honest!

 

Planting seeds is a lovely, slow thing to do on a grey February day. Just push the seed into the compost, enjoy the smell of the damp earth and the anticipation of long summer days. Nature won't be hurried. But eventually, from that tiny seed a whole, flower-filled plant will grow and, in the case of nasturtiums, rampage all over your garden! But you'll get lovely peppery leaves and flowers for your salads and bees will bury themselves in the deep trumpets.  I love the way the buzzing reverberates when a bee is deep inside a flower and they come out covered in yellow pollen and almost too drunk to fly.

Tonight's tea?


 https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=764

http://theedibleflowershop.co.uk/
http://www.nonowenherbalist.co.uk/  (Fabulous workshops if you live in North Wales)

Tuesday's Treasure

 

In winter things can look grey and boring but if you look, there are always splashes of colour to be found in the landscape.

 

These photos were taken on an old industrial site near where I live. 

As I was taking them, I could hear the call of a nuthatch, loud enough to make the frosted leaves tremble.

The metallic call of a great tit smashed through the freezing air, like a hammer on ice.

In contrast, the whistle of a bullfinch seemed soft and fuzzy, like the edges of these teasels.

 

Wrap up warm, go outside and look for treasure...

 

Doorstep Epiphany!

Another adventure close to home...

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire.

I know it’s only 7^th Jan but yesterday I did possibly the coolest thing I’ve done this year (it may well end up being the coolest thing I do all year).  All it took was a twenty minute drive, a flash of my passport and a glimpse of my address on a heating oil bill. 

I walked into the high-vaulted, Hogwarty room as the glow from January’s amber light licked at the Gothic windows, seeping in through leaded panes, making the oak beams glow and igniting work-smoothed, wooden desks.  Dust motes danced in those slices of amber light the way I was bursting to, but somehow I suppressed my excitement and watched the receptionist’s lips mouthing instructions.

Her animated eyebrows said more than her paper-thin library whisper and the pages being turned upstairs in the gallery shouted down to me. I wanted to yell, ‘Ok, Ok, just show me where to sign!’ And I wanted to pirouette over the wonderful, creaky floor boards, hang on to the honeyed-rope handrails, pull myself up the ridiculously quaint spiral stairs and twirl with the dust motes through that soft amber light to a desk that was glowing just like the Tardis before it leaves on an epic adventure and begin to write my life, for I had the feeling, it was just about to start!

One of many 'Tardis' desks, waiting for adventure...

Joining Gladstone’s Library as a Reader was easy and FREE.  It’s a magical, peaceful, contemplative place with fabulous food and great coffee and you can even stay the night!

There are all sorts of events coming up from an invitation to 'gather round the hearth' with writers and poets, to the annual Gladfest event, craft fairs, interesting talks and tours and you can even learn Greek in a week!

www.gladstoneslibrary.org

Another Doorstep Adventure

With a flask of coffee and the last of the Christmas Stilton we set off to roam the ramparts of one of the largest hillforts in Wales.  Penycloddiau is about a 10 minute drive away.

The Offa's Dyke National Trail passes through the fort, over rounded hills, past a bronze age burial mound and a half frozen pond that may have provided the Iron Age residents of this high fort with water.  The deep ditches and banks that kept livestock in and invaders out are still clearly visible.

Today, us and a couple of Ravens were the only invaders.  The great black birds, glossy in the low winter sun, dropped their heavy 'kronks' like molten iron into the heather. 

Two and a half thousand years ago people lived and worked up here in thatched roundhouses.  Perhaps they took time out to admire the view across to Snowdonia as we did today, picking out the rare summit view of mighty Yr Wyddfa, the dinosaur back of Tryffan and the great bulk of Cadair Idris?

If you take your mobile phone (not very iron-age I know) you can dial 01745 222 123 when you get near one of four numbered posts and hear the voice of a hillfort resident telling you what life was like for the iron age folk who lived up here.
Or find out more about this and the other hillforts in this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the web site.

www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk

Looking Back towards Moel Famau

Snow Senses

Happy New Year!

In winter I like to give my senses a bit of an airing, I mean really focus on each of them, not just sight. I shut my eyes and sniff and taste and touch.  Being out in the snow is generally not an olfactory experience but if I try hard enough, there's always something to make my nostrils twitch. 

 

Sounds:  

The chacker-chack-chack of fieldfares in wind-bent hawthorn, 
the crunch of footsteps in ice-crusted snow,
the heavy kronk of a tumbling raven,
the pebble-tapping clicks of a stonechat.

Smells: 

Wood smoke from the chimneys of thick-walled miner’s cottages,
sweet, wet hay scattered for foraging sheep and ponies.

Touch: 

The prickle of gorse when I try to pull myself up a steep slope for the best coffee stop view,
the hot plastic cup from my flask warming my hands,
sticky cake crumbs on my lips,
icy wind against my cheeks.

Taste: 

Hot, sweet coffee,
chocolate cake,
a lemon-ice taste in my mouth from a gulp of mountain air.

Sights: 

 

Black raven in a blue sky, sheep splashed with either red or purple paint, one lamb or two?
Yellow gorse flowers shining on the hillside,
watery-orange sun slipping below the whale-back-mound of Moel Arthur.