Urban Nature Every Day E-Book

Jane McMorland Hunter

• Herausgeber: Batsford
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 265

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

366 prompts for noticing nature every day of the year. Arranged in day-by-day format, this beautiful book is a celebration of the nature you can find in your city or town, such as urban foxes prowling in the street, wildflowers sprouting from a crack in the pavement, butterflies on your balcony and the joys of wandering along a canal path.  Learn how to put up a bug hotel on the 5th January, search for cherry blossom on the 4th April and have a picnic underneath a willow's branches on the 11th June. There are cloud formations to spot, avenues of trees to walk down and elderberries to harvest. Over the past few years, many city dwellers have learned to appreciate the nature on their doorsteps, as part of the lasting legacy of lockdown. This timely book is a celebration of the vast variety of wildlife around us, proving that you don't need a trip to the countryside to enjoy the natural world.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Introduction

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

Further Resources

Index

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this book is to encourage people to discover nature in urban areas. Not everyone wants, or has the time, to don wellies and waterproofs and head off across fields in search of a ‘lesser-spotted something’. This book will show you that you don’t need to. Nature watching (or listening) requires no specialist kit and no physical abilities and you can often visit the natural world without even stepping off the pavement. It is a common misconception that wildlife only exists in the countryside. In many areas, years of intensive farming have pushed animals, birds and wild plants out of their natural habitats and into towns and cities. Thanks to their adaptability and determination to survive, many are now thriving.

There is sometimes uncertainty as to whether a piece of land is considered urban or rural. Between the two there are wastelands of abandoned building sites, road and railway verges and roundabouts. Nature exists happily here and also deep in cities and towns: parks, communal gardens, quiet footpaths and waterways. You can visit an urban farm or spot birds from a trendy rooftop restaurant. You can watch the weather from the office window or admire miniature natural worlds in window boxes and garden containers. There are so many opportunities and what you see will depend on your chosen site. No one would expect to see a snow leopard walking down a busy road, so tailor your expectations accordingly. Best of all, go out with an open mind, ready to notice and appreciate anything you find.

This is not a field guide, but more of a starting point to awaken your curiosity and alert you to the possibilities on your doorstep. It is for beginners and experts alike. The natural world encompasses so much that it is impossible to know everything about all its myriad parts. Between us two authors, we know lots about the natural world but there is still much more to learn. We constantly surprise each other with snippets of information. Neither of us has any formal training, but we simply love the natural world and want to discover more about it. We think a pretty pink flower is pretty, whether or not you know its name. For some people, knowledge makes nature watching more fulfilling; for others, just being there is enough. Neither way is better – it’s all about what you enjoy.

We have attempted to include something for every taste: large and small, good and bad, truly wild and partly cultivated. The natural world is mostly beautiful but also includes things which can lead to screams of ‘Yuck! What is that?’ You may be surprised at how interesting some things are beneath their ‘revolting’ exterior and indeed how those very beastly things can help make our world better.

As Brits, we are fascinated by the weather. In urban environments, the weather may often simply be an inconvenience or an excuse to change your clothes: too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy. We hope to encourage you to really look at the individual elements of the weather and marvel at them. You may then come to realize the reason for the obsession.

Connecting with nature is a great excuse for seasonal festivals and fairs: wassailing in January, cherry festivals in April and Christmas displays in a local botanical garden. At any time of year, the natural world is essential for our own well-being. The colour green is associated with feelings of tranquillity, refreshment, rest and security, and innumerable surveys have proved that we all benefit mentally from time spent with nature. There are lessons in taking joy in the moment and inspiration from nature’s resilience. Never mind observing the ‘lily in the field’, have a look at that buddleia forcing its way through a crack high up on the wall and flowering in glorious exuberant purple profusion, attracting a bee and butterfly party.

Just as we benefit from an interest in nature so nature benefits from our increased awareness. Unfortunately, much of nature is at risk from humans in one way or another. If we are aware of plants and animals, we are more likely to want to protect them and their habitats. We hope this book will inspire you. Easy activities such as building a bug hotel or participating in a river clean-up day all help.

We both work in bookshops and talk to people all day. A customer once said, ‘What I really like in cities are the trees. When they are beside the concrete, they just seem so much more wonderful. You appreciate them more than in the countryside, particularly when you think about the effort they have made to survive.’ We hope this book will awaken you to the nature around you and how hard it has worked to be there.

Let’s celebrate nature in our day to day,

At home, at work, in how we talk, how we think.

It starts with recognising we’re part of it all.

Nature’s reaching out. Let’s answer the call.

From ‘The Natural World’ by George the Poet

Latin Names

We have deliberately not given most creatures and plants in this book their full Latin names. When watching the goings-on of the natural world, it often doesn’t matter not knowing them. The bird soaring acrobatically in the sky is beautiful regardless of whether you can identify it. If you want to take your knowledge further, we have listed useful books, websites and apps in the Further Resources section on page 248.

A Warning about Foraging

There is great joy in foraging for your supper, but do be careful. Sometimes this can be dangerous, or even fatal. Don’t forage from private land or eat anything unless you know exactly what it is. Think carefully about your location and what might have been there before. Railway sidings are routinely sprayed with herbicides (making berries less appetizing) and if your foraging trail is a popular dog walk, you may want to pick above the level of a cocked leg!

JANUARY

On the first day of the year, make a simple aim: to engage your senses more and notice nature wherever you are. The trees are bare, the weather uninviting and the nights long; once the jollity of New Year is over, January can seem like a grim month, but there are catkins and snowdrops to see, the hoot of an owl to hear and the fleeting beauty of frost to admire on the coldest of days. And rediscover wassailing, an ancient and splendid festival, which awakens the apple trees and their spirits.

___________

Little acrobat of the terraces,

we’m winged when we gaze at you

Jimmucking the breeze, somersaulting through

the white-breathed prayer of January

From ‘Birmingham Roller’ by Liz Berry

1 JANUARY

NATURE BY YOUR BACK DOOR

It is a myth that you need to ‘go to the country’ to find nature. Often, there will be amazing things right by your back door, even if you live in a seemingly barren urban landscape. A patch of rough grass by the roadside will be home to a wide variety of plants, insects and tiny creatures that will amaze you if you take the trouble to look at them properly. Admittedly, you may not spot a tiger or even anything particularly memorable, but it will show you a world both different and wondrous, which exists alongside the one you inhabit.

2 JANUARY

FROST

Frost forms overnight when temperatures fall and the moisture in the air freezes. By morning everything is coated with a thin layer of ice crystals. The air in these crystals makes the frost appear white. If the weather is very cold, fern frost patterns form on windows, creating beautiful and delicate swirls. Frost rarely lasts long, particularly in urban areas, as it is only a very thin layer and will easily melt. If you want to see your local park transformed into a genuine winter wonderland, you will need to get up early but – trust us – it is well worth the effort.

3 JANUARY

WATCH THE YEAR

All naturalists have ‘their patch’. It probably won’t be exclusive to them, but it will be somewhere that they know well, well enough to notice subtle changes as the seasons progress. It needn’t be anywhere spectacular, just a place that has things that interest you. Visit your patch as often as you can: every day is obviously ideal but, for many people, this may be totally impractical. Once a month is fine, once a week is better. The rate at which things grow will adapt to the light, water and warmth; the activities of the birds will alter as they mate, raise a family and possibly prepare to migrate; and the animal and insect visitors will vary. Don’t be put off by the weather, some of our best sightings have been while huddled beneath a brolly.

4 JANUARY

ALDER CATKINS

Alder trees need light and prefer wet ‘feet’, so they can be most often found along rivers and canals. Each tree bears male and female catkins: males are drooping and purple, gradually turning to yellow in spring; and the females are like tiny fir cones at the tips of the branches, turning from bright green to dark brown as they ripen. You won’t be able to see the most important thing about alders; they use the carbohydrates they produce during photosynthesis in an incredibly clever way that improves the quality of both the air and soil around them. The other unusual feature is that the wood does not rot as long as it is kept wet – which is why alder posts are, almost single-branchedly, holding up Venice.

5 JANUARY

BUG HOTELS

Bug hotels may look like stylish garden art, but they are actually a practical way to help bees and other insects. There are many species of bee who live alone and do not produce honey. These solitary bees build and provision their own nests, rather than living in a community hive. For them, and insects such as woodlice or lacewings, cities are often hard, inhospitable spaces where they can struggle to find winter shelter. If you have a city flat with a tiny balcony, think about putting in a bug hotel. As with all hotels, location is key and a sunny spot away from frosts is essential. Use a hanging basket, recycled pallet or a drainpipe and fill with a mix of found objects: drilled logs, canes, pinecones, straw. Make it an attractive pattern to please yourself, but make sure there are plenty of nooks and crannies to please the insects.

6 JANUARY

FOX

When April comes around there will be cute fox cubs at play. At this time of year, the fox world is also with us, but is much less appealing. How often have you been woken in the night by blood-curdling screams reminiscent of the soundtrack of the more lurid crime dramas or horror films? The chances are, unless you are unlucky enough to live in a particularly bad part of town, this will be foxes. Foxes scream and bark to communicate with each other, and at mating time in January this is at its peak. Males scream to warn off other foxes and protect their territory, while females scream to attract a mate. This activity tends to occur at night and neither tod nor vixen care that you have an early meeting.

7 JANUARY

RECORDING NATURE

Keep a nature diary – start one, today. This will be an easy resolution to keep as the more you write the more addictive it will become. It doesn’t need to be a fancy diary and you don’t even need to write it every day, although the habit helps, but simply jot down anything interesting you see. Over the years you will see bluebells arriving earlier or later, migration patterns changing and heatwaves repeating themselves. Photos can record the moment but writing in a diary makes you think more than the mere click of a button. You will soon find unexpected and fascinating connections across the natural world, in your own back garden, park or far beyond.

8 JANUARY

GREAT TIT

A really pretty great tit is a regular visitor to our bird feeder. It’s great in tit terms, but these are small birds. Tits (great, blue, coal and all the tits in between) are always welcome. About the size of a robin and with a similar personality, tits are comfortable with being watched and flit about catching insects on the wing. Great tits have yellow breasts with a black stripe down the centre, greenish backs and black heads with very white cheeks. Blue tits are the ones with the little blue caps, which they can raise as a crest if they are in the mood, while coal tits look similar but have greyish chests. All of them are pretty vocal and like to chat among themselves.

9 JANUARY

IT’S NOT THAT EASY

Nature programmes, podcasts and videos are great, but they can give a false impression of how easy it is to find wildlife. The camera operator may have been sitting in a particular spot for hours, but we only see the three minutes of perfectly edited film. Equally, none of the experts are ever seen peering at something saying, ‘I’m not sure. It could be …’ None of this helps when you go to a carefully researched site, certain of a glimpse of a particular creature, only to find it refuses to appear. Don’t lose heart. Watching nature does not come with a guarantee that you will always find what you are looking for. Look around, notice everything else and simply appreciate being outside in the wild.

10 JANUARY

SITTING STILL

For much of your time spent nature watching you will need to learn to sit still. Very still. Many of the creatures that would normally run away may notice you, but as long as you are not moving, you do not pose a threat. Others, which would run away anyway, may not notice you or, at the very least, sitting still will earn you some time before they do spot you. Find somewhere comfortable, settle down and watch the world around you. Try to look and notice rather than allowing your mind to wander or even close down; this is not a mindfulness or meditation session. Don’t set a time, just watch the natural world.

A tip we learned from Simon Barnes: always take a plastic bag to sit on, it’s hard to be still with a wet bottom.

11 JANUARY

SNOWDROP

Strictly speaking, most snowdrops you see in urban areas will be garden flowers rather than truly wild, but they are the earliest of the spring bulbs, so we are not going to let a technicality stop us from including them. The pretty white flowers hang like tiny lanterns from thin, green stems and are one of the markers that winter is beginning to lose its grip. Measuring 7–15 centimetres (2¾–6 inches) high, each plant has three to four grey-green, grass-like leaves. The three inner tepals (where petals and sepals are indistinguishable) have green tips, the outer three are white. Single flowers, looking like miniature shrouds, can represent death, and according to ancient lore should not be brought indoors, but bunches are a sign of purity and virginity.

Larger, later to bloom and with six green spots are snowflakes, also garden flowers and equally pretty.

12 JANUARY

FEED THE BIRDS

Channelling your inner Mary Poppins supports birdlife and encourages them to visit. While feeding in winter is obvious, food shortages can occur year-round, so provide a regular supply.

Bird tables and hanging feeders are excellent. You are providing a treat, not setting bait, and ground-level feeding exposes birds to predators. While birds mostly eat on the spot, they sometimes take titbits back to the nest, so think about what you are putting out. Young birds can choke on larger morsels, so avoid whole peanuts and large pieces of bread or fat, and look carefully at seed mixes – some contain split peas, lentils or uncooked rice all of which are only suitable for larger birds.

The ultimate treat of the bird world is the deliciously named Flutter Butter, a low-salt avian peanut-butter popular with tits.

13 JANUARY

KIT YOU WILL NEED

On a basic level, all you need to notice nature are your own senses, but if you want to record what you see you’ll need a little kit. A note pad, pen and pencil or a phone are perfect to document what you see. There is no ‘best’ way to record your finds; it is entirely up to you. You can identify what you see using a field guide or an app, or both if you prefer. You can take photographs or draw. What you won’t need are specimen jars; as a general rule, look but don’t disrupt, is the best guideline.

14 JANUARY

RED SKY AT NIGHT

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,

Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.

Whether you say shepherd or sailor matters little: if you live in the British Isles this is an accurate weather forecast, and is probably more accurate than many of the countless websites and apps we rely on. A red sky at sunset means high pressure is coming in from the west, bringing dry weather. A red sky in the morning means the high pressure has moved east and is likely to be followed by wet low pressure. Of course, this does not take into account the gardeners and farmers who would delight in rain during certain times of year, but then the saying has never, as far as we know, catered for anyone other than shepherds and sailors.

15 JANUARY

START SMALL

If you are new to watching wildlife or even if you need a new inspiration – start small. We don’t mean only look at small things, although you can if you wish, but rather find a single thing you are passionate about and concentrate on that. One thing may lead to another, and your interests may widen, or you may remain focused on a particular aspect of the natural world – birds, bees, butterflies, trees, flowers or grasses, it really doesn’t matter. Remember you are doing this for fun, not for an exam, and also remember that, however niche your interest, nature will surprise, delight and possibly even shock you.

16 JANUARY

OWL

We fell in love with owls when reading children’s stories: Winnie-the-Pooh, Harry Potter and the superlative The Owl Service. Traditionally a wise old country bird that lived in the woods, owls are increasingly moving into town, particularly during the winter when food is scarcer. The best places for an owl prowl are parks and cemeteries, but anywhere with well-established large trees or even telegraph poles offers the chance of spotting a roosting owl. The open spaces of sports grounds and golf courses also attract owls, as it is easy for them to spot their prey scurrying across the grass.

The owl’s distinctive round, flat ‘face’ is surprisingly to do with its hearing. The slightly concave discs on owl’s faces collect sound and direct it towards their ears. Try it out yourself – if you cup your hands behind your ears, you will mimic the concave planes of an owl’s face and actually hear better. Hoot if you agree.

17 JANUARY

WASSAILING

Everyone needs a bit of jollity in January and that is exactly what wassailing provides. The oldest or best tree in the orchard is chosen as Apple Tree Man, or the guardian of the orchard. Cider is poured on the roots and a piece of toast or cake, soaked in cider, is placed in the branches to attract robins, which are the good spirits of the trees. Guns are fired or saucepans banged to scare away any bad spirits and wake the trees, which are then often serenaded with traditional songs. Finally, there are toasts (with more cider) and a good harvest is ensured. The name is thought to come from the Anglo-Saxon wes hal, was haile or wase hail meaning to be in good health. Any urban apple tree would welcome such attention.

The festival usually takes place on 17 January, which was the date of Twelfth Night before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

18 JANUARY

OBSERVATORIES

Normally, we advocate getting up close and personal with nature but sometimes a little help is required. While in theory observatories are sited on hills away from towns to avoid light pollution, there are a surprising number of them in or near to cities, and many have tours or public nights. Visit gostargazing.co.uk to find one near you. If you get the chance, do try to visit and gain a cosmic perspective on the night sky. As well as powerful telescopes enabling you to see the surface of planets or more distant stars, observatories have helpful and knowledgeable staff who can explain just what you are looking at.

19 JANUARY

GALES

There is something so exuberant about a good gale. One which, as they say, blows the cobwebs away. The word gale derives from the old Norse galinn, meaning mad, frantic or bewitched, and these strong winds are powerful and even violent. If you are not one to run out into the gale and embrace the feeling of being buffeted around as the air turns your cheeks pink, then enjoy the fun from inside. Peer through your windows and look at the trees, the cranes and any cabling as it dances in the wind. Or listen to the Shipping Forecast on the radio – ‘Warning of gales in Stornoway’ sounds exciting and romantic (unless you happen to be in Stornoway).

20 JANUARY

LEARN TO LISTEN

Living in cities we are surrounded by noise. It is almost as if we fear silence, so we fill the void, but in order to cope with the continual bombardment we have learned to block out much of the constant din: traffic, other people, music in shops. Go to a park or garden, sit (or lie) with your eyes closed and listen. You will hear cars and people, but go past those and listen to the wind in the trees. Birdsong is beautiful and uplifting, even if you don’t know exactly which bird is saying what. Hearing something is every bit as important as seeing it, and in some ways even more so as you can allow your imagination to run riot at the same time, which is always a good thing.

21 JANUARY

JELLY EAR

The elder tree in the local cemetery has a nice crop of jelly ear fungus lined up like pellucid brown ears listening out for rain. Jelly ear or wood ear is one of those fungi that is fun to spot because of its unusual appearance. From a distance it looks like a party frill on the trunk of a dead or dying tree, but closer in it really does look disconcertingly like a cluster of ears, the colour and texture of rubber bands. One of its other common names is Judas’ ear, possibly due to its frequent appearance on elder trees, reputedly the tree from which Judas hanged himself after betraying Jesus. In 17th-century herbal medicine, jelly ear was used to treat eye and throat conditions.

22 JANUARY

WINDOW BOXES IN WINTER

It is easy to have spectacular containers in spring, summer and even autumn, but winter requires a little more ingenuity. Walking around any town at this time of year will reveal a high number of sad-looking containers, either empty or sporting the collapsed remains of last summer’s flowers. Birds, insects and even humans need flowers and greenery now more than ever. Evergreen grasses, heathers, wallflowers and open flowers such as hellebores and pansies are good choices. Seed heads are also good but only as long as they remain stately and upright. Bulbs can be planted underneath all these and will push their way easily through the greenery in spring.

23 JANUARY

NOTICING NATURE

Some people notice more than others, but it is very easy to train yourself to be more observant. There are two ways of looking at something: a sweeping view that gives a good overall impression of the area; or a slow, detailed look that takes in all the little things you might otherwise miss. Both are equally important. You also have peripheral vision, which you probably use without thinking about it: checking for traffic while making sure the bus you want to catch isn’t pulling away; keeping an eye on the frying pan while chopping the onions. Learn to use it when you are out and about; look at the tree you are trying to identify but also be aware of the bird flying out of the branches.

24 JANUARY

NO SUCH THING AS BAD WEATHER

Alfred Wainwright wrote a number of walking guides to the Lake District, but for our purposes his most important piece of wisdom was, ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing’. Those who have had picnics ruined by an unexpected storm may well disagree but, if you have the right clothing – or a decent umbrella – even soggy picnics can be unexpectedly successful. Invest in a decent waterproof jacket and comfortable waterproof boots, walking or wellies as you prefer, in cities it doesn’t really matter. We prefer standard umbrellas to the huge golfing ones, which are unwieldy and antisocial. A good brolly will allow you to make notes, sketch and peer at something in detail and, if the rain continues, you can eat your lunch or tea beneath it.

25 JANUARY

BINOCULARS

Nothing makes you look more like a serious naturalist than a pair of binoculars – or ‘bins’ as you will learn to call them. But, joking apart, binoculars are truly amazing, whether you are interested in stars, birds, tree-tops or even architectural details on tall buildings. You can also get close-focusing binoculars for looking at flowers or butterflies in detail. Like many things you get what you pay for, but a reasonable pair needn’t cost a fortune. Go to a reputable shop, ask for advice and test as many pairs as you can. Once you have a pair of bins, always take them with you; they are no use sitting at home.

26 JANUARY

HAZEL CATKINS

The drooping yellow catkins appearing on hazel trees now are male, and are the distinctive markers to use for staking out trees from which to harvest nuts later in the year. The edible nuts, also known as cobs or filberts (filberts are long rather than round), which ripen to a dark brown and are ready to harvest in autumn, grow from the not-particularly-noticeable female flowers. Hazels tend to be shrubby rather than majestic, but manage to be categorized as trees as they sometimes grow on a single stem (the rough divide is shrubs: many stemmed; trees: single). The purple filbert (Corylus maxima ‘Purpurea’) is a popular urban tree with pretty, purple-tinged leaves and catkins.

The green nuts are soft and should be eaten when picked; the mature brown ones will keep for several months.

27 JANUARY

CAPTURING THE MOMENT

The next step from taking time to appreciate nature is to try and capture the moment. Painting, photography and writing are all effective ways to take ‘just looking’ to another level and for a keen artist the natural world is a perfect subject. With photography there can be a tendency to take a quick picture with your phone and never go back. Resist this. Examine your subject: think about framing. Close up or panoramic? Are filters and effects appropriate? How would it look in black and white? If you draw or paint; what medium is best suited to your subject? Use your art as both a means to create something beautiful or arresting and as an activity to deepen your relationship with the subject.

28 JANUARY

BIG GARDEN BIRDWATCH

Since the Big Garden Birdwatch began in 1979, some 139 million birds have been counted. It is the largest wildlife survey in the world, and taking part is both fun and the opportunity to play a part in an important conservation activity. It only takes an hour. Pick an hour on Birdwatch weekend – the last weekend in January – and make a note of the birds you see. It doesn’t matter where you are – you can watch from a balcony, garden or in a park. Remember to only count the birds that land and report your results on rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch. If you need a little help to identify the birds, then register in advance with the RSPB and they will send you a free identification guide. The data collected helps build up a picture of how different species are faring, and which ones may need help.

29 JANUARY

RAT

Cycling down the towpath there is a flash of brown as something darts in front of you – it might be a rat. It is one of the urban myths that in Britain ‘you are never more than 6 feet away from a rat’. In truth, it is more like 164 feet, but even this is averaged across the country, and rats are not evenly spread out – there are more in sewers, on farms or in grain stores, and the chance of you meeting one at home are slim. They will be having fun elsewhere. Rats are really very social animals who share food and care for each other. A group of rats is called a ‘mischief’, a name which reflects their fun-loving side.

30 JANUARY

JOHN LEWIS-STEMPEL

Military historian and farmer John Lewis-Stempel is one of the heroes of the literary natural world. The Times described him as ‘Britain’s finest living nature writer’ and we agree. Many of his books relate to his traditional farm, far from any city, but he has also written delightful little books on owls, oak trees and foxes. Nightwalking is one of our favourites; the seasonal walks take place in west Herefordshire but will encourage you to regard the dark with a new sense of wonder and perhaps even take a detour away from well-lit areas on your way home from the shops, office or pub. There is much to see in the dark.

31 JANUARY

RAVEN

From the Bible to Edgar Allen Poe, ravens occur frequently in folklore and literature. We read about the princess with hair as black as a raven’s wing; we fear that if the ravens leave the Tower of London the kingdom will fall; we understand ravens are the messengers of the gods and that the raven was the first bird Noah released from the Ark. One of the most intelligent of birds, ravens are somewhat unfairly portrayed as symbols of ill omen, despite their playful nature. Being scavengers by nature, ravens were originally attracted to cities by the rich pickings around meat markets and slaughterhouses but made themselves very much at home, and today are more likely to be found scouring rubbish bins for that leftover piece of burger or kebab.

FEBRUARY