As Yellowhammers and Whitethroat sang, I was surprised and quietly joyous to suddenly find two young fox cubs playing amongst Oxeye Daisies in a field margin, when the noise of my camera alerted them to my presence. I was about eight feet away. Read more
“In the middle ages, a lawn was more like a meadow; it was a flowery mead, bursting with perfumed wildflowers and herbs and grasses.” John Lewis-Stempel
The beauty of a wildflower meadow is that it is constantly in a state of change. Nature teaches me to be patient: to wait and see what happens each year. Read more
On seeing soft pink apple blossoms in my mini orchard meadow open in warm spring sunshine, I am dreamily taken back to memories of my childhood.
It was an idyllic, nature connected childhood which started as soon as I was able to walk, as you can see by the muddy fingerprints on my beautiful white dress which had doubtless been spotless when my mother had put it on me that morning. I was constantly playing with the mud, or sitting in the garden playing with woodlice, or watching butterflies and other wildlife that I found there. You can see that I was outdoors a great deal by my very tanned face! When I was about 5 years old, my father showed me a butterfly chrysalis in the garden shed and I was fascinated. Read more
The National Water Vole Monitoring Programme is open to anyone to take part.
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As spring warms, the air dances with insects in the new mini orchard meadow and its young apple trees which will soon begin to burst with ‘perfumed wildflowers and herbs and grasses’ (Meadowland – The Private Life of an English Field by John Lewis-Stempel) and apple blossom. Read more
It is early spring and my mini wildflower meadow looks much like the other lawns in this suburban neighbourhood: short grass! But look closer and you can see the leaves of Cowslips, some with flower heads, Common Vetch, Betony, Self Heal, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Field Scabious, Oxeye Daisies, Common and Greater Knapweed and tiny Yellow Rattle seedlings. Read more
Nature is full of surprises! You never know quite what you are going to see in your garden or local patch. It may be a beautiful orange-tip butterfly laying its eggs in spring on cuckoo flower; a hedgehog at dusk on a summer’s evening, the sighting of a vibrant blue kingfisher in your local stream, or an overwintering redwing or fieldfare feeding on berries. Read more