Gods and government, proud warriors and foreign invaders: discovering the landscapes and history of Atiu… South Pacific Adventure, part 8.

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Becca

(For new readers – if you’re just discovering this blog and you would like to read about my 2015 South Pacific travels from their beginning, you can click on this link to go to the first chapter: Travels in the Cook Islands.)

My second day on Atiu began with a gargantuan breakfast, fuel for the day’s explorations. Donna, Mark and I then jumped into Marshall’s truck and we picked up the three other tourists currently staying on the island, before heading out on a tour. First stop was the nearby village of Teenui, the closest thing that Atiu has to a busy metropolis.

Downtown Teenui village, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

On an island with a population of around 500 people, you’re unlikely to see much other traffic (apart from chickens). Marshall gave us a tour of Teenui’s sights, starting with the recently-created sports field, which had to be redone after the island was hit by five cyclones in a single season. Climate change is likely to lead to intensified cyclone activity in the South Pacific, so this doesn’t bode well for the people who live on islands such as Atiu.

Teenui sports field on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

We drove past the village store, which was originally the first school on the island (built by the London Mission Society). As elsewhere in the Cook Islands, imported (mostly Christian) religions have had a big impact on local society and culture. There are six churches on Atiu, including CICC (Cook Islands Christian Church), Catholic, Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Atiu people can and do marry folks from different churches, although this depends on each church’s policy: not every faith allows it.

Church in Teenui, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

Our next stop was the island police station (which also serves as Teenui’s bank and post office). Marshall explained that there are two police officers on Atiu, and the consensus is that no crime occurs after 3pm because that’s when they go off-duty… Or on Friday afternoons, because that’s the time for fishing. I quite liked the idea of limited hours for law-breaking. Presumably having the bank attached to the police station also discourages would-be bank robbers (unless of course they decide to carry out a bank raid after 3pm).

Police station, bank and post office in Teenui, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

The legacy of colonial occupation can be seen in government buildings, as well as in the ubiquitous churches. Atiu’s council chamber and tax filing office (Kavamani Enua, or Island Government) are based in what used to be the old British Foreign Office building, when B.F.O. staff were posted on the island. British colonial rule from the 1880s became New Zealand colonial rule in 1901: full independence and self-governance in the Cook Islands not being achieved until 1965.

Island government building in Teenui, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

Other important buildings we saw included the CICC hall, used for singing and dancing events; and the CICC church building itself, the largest church on the island. As on Aitutaki, there were very few graves beside the church, with local people choosing to bury their deceased family at home: only incomers or strangers usually find their resting place in the church cemetery.

Next to the church a limestone obelisk called te pito, ‘the navel’, marks what is said to be the exact centre point of the island. It carries the name of Paulo Ngamaru Ariki, the Atiuan chief who helped restore the CICC church in the 1950s; and Tamaivi Ngamaru Ariki, the chief who planned and built the original church in the 1860s. There are three ariki (chiefs) on Atiu: at the time of my visit only two lived on the island, while the third resided in New Zealand. Ariki descends in family lines, but not automatically to the eldest son of the family: local worthies meet to decide who will make the best successor, when the current ariki dies.

Monument to Atiuan chiefs Paulo Ngamaru Ariki and Tamaivi Ngamaru Ariki, at the centre of Atiu in the Cook islands.

As we travelled around Teenui it was quiet: we saw the occasional local driving a pick-up or moped; children strolling or playing; and of course chickens and dogs patrolling the mostly empty roads. With the population size having reduced by two-thirds in the late twentieth century (mostly due to the decline of exports of produce such as citrus fruits, coffee and copra), community life here is small-scale but still vibrant, with regular community meetings in each of the five villages.

Atiuan boy raking up leaves in Teenui, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

Heading out of Teenui our next stop was the island’s Enuamanu School, which bore a banner celebrating 50 years since the school – and Cook Islands self government – was established in 1965. All stages of education – infants, primary, secondary and college – are contained on the same site. Marshall told us that Cook Islands Maori is the first language taught in Enuamanu School and English second (unlike on Rarotonga). This prioritising of Cook Islands language seems positive, though unfortunately Atiu pupils are disadvantaged when they sit exams under the New Zealand exam system, as exams are set in English. Marshall said that for this reason he and Jéanne home-educated their children, to try to overcome this problem.

Enuamanu School, Atiu (in the Cook Islands).

After the school our next landmark was the village bakery, complete with cement bread oven! It reminded me of the cob oven (earth oven) at Wildwood Escot where I teach in Devon: basically a simple interior oven space enclosed in thick cement walls, heated by burning firewood inside. Should any cracks form in the oven’s walls (revealed by leaking smoke), this is mended by the simple expedient of plastering more cement on the outside… Hence the resulting huge oven structure, sheltering under its corrugated iron roof.

Bread oven in Atiu's bakery, the Cook Islands.

Once the wood has burned and the oven is heated, the ashes are swept out and the tins of bread dough popped inside to bake. The whole set-up is basic but practical, with the only machinery used a giant dough mixer that looked more like a cement mixer than anything else! I quite liked the minimalist kitchen (although I’m not sure what having a lawnmower stored in there added to the mix).

Bread tins in Atiu's bakery (the Cook Islands).

A little further down the road lay Atiu’s telecom mast, phone satellite and TV station. Microwave antennae capture signals transmitted from Mangaia and Mitiaro and boost them onwards. Atiu’s TV channel can receive several signals, but can only transmit one signal at a time to island residents – so locals have to be patient and cooperate with each other, taking turns to watch their favourite TV programmes. At least that avoids TV ratings competition…

Phone satellite, telecom mast and TV station on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

Our next stop was at a coffee plantation, formerly owned and run by German growers Juergen Manske-Eimke and his wife Andrea. Their business ended when Juergen sadly died in mid-2015, but the coffee bushes were continuing to grow well. Missionaries first brought coffee to the island, and it became a cash crop in the 1950s. The island’s calcium-rich soils lend Atiu coffee a unique flavour, and despite fluctauations in the coffee trade it continues to be grown and sold. The production of Atiu Island Coffee is now headed up by local woman Mata Arai, using hand picking and roasting with coconut cream, giving this coffee a very special taste.

Coffee plantation on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

Coming through the forest we emerged near the island’s airport. While we watched a Pacific golden plover or toretoreā (Pluvialis fulva) pottering about on the runway, Marshall related how an Air Raro plane had a tyre blowout while taxiing on the crushed coral runway a year or so previously. It must be interesting being an Air Raro pilot! A request had gone in for a new tarmac runway to replace the crushed coral surface. Locals had already begun clearing the site and bringing in machinery, only waiting for funding to be found so that they can begin work. Marshall also showed us two massive blocks of coral (each half as big as the pick-up we were riding in) that had been thrown up onto the runway by the sea during a cyclone in 2005.

Makatea cliffs on the northeast coast of Atiu, the Cook Islands.

Southeast of the airstrip we hopped out of Marshall’s pick up to walk over the makatea to the cliff tops on Atiu’s northeastern edge. Just as we’d found the day before when trekking to Anatakitaki, walking on makatea requires concentration. We were stepping over a fossilised coral reef, its rugged and undulating topography mirroring the choppy Pacific swell surging below us. Hardy plants such as ngau (Creeping half-flower, Scaevola paulayi) wedged their roots into the crevices, growing in wind-resistant mats and weathering the salt spray.

Plants growing on makatea (fossilised coral) on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

It wasn’t easy to picture the sharp crags of limestone that we were walking on as an undersea coral reef, millenia ago… Until I crouched down and looked closer, when an ancient tropical ocean landscape became revealed. I saw intricate patterns of many different coral species: hieroglyphics written in the skeletons of billions of long-dead coral polyps. There is always something mesmerising to me about being confronted with the geological evidence of deep time. Humanity takes itself and its everyday concerns so seriously… But really we’re just a recent blip on the evolutionary timeline. For some reason I find this weirdly comforting.

Fossilised corals in makatea limestone, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

Driving soutthest took us along the coast road that runs all the way around Atiu, with its handy signs at intervals indicating the distance to landmarks in either direction. Our next stop was at Oneroa Beach, a beautiful little cove with pinkish coral sand used by Marshall and Jéanne’s family. The edge of the reef is very close here, the wild Pacific surf rolling just a few metres out.

After a brief but lovely wander along Oneroa Beach, we returned to the truck and drove on along the coast road to Takauroa Landing on the island’s southern edge. This was the scene of an epic battle between Atiu warriors and invaders from Tahiti. History tells of how a Tahitian traveller shipwrecked on Atiu was cared for and nursed back to health by Atiu folk, but then travelled back to Tahiti… Only to return to Atiu with two vaka (war canoes) loaded with two hundred Tahitian warriors! Fortunately for the locals they were able to ambush the Tahitian invaders as they tried to access the island’s interior through a narrow passage in the makatea: after a pitched battle the Atiuans won. The ungrateful Tahitian who’d led his fellows back to Atiu was reputedly hunted down, fought with by the ariki, and killed. (And allegedly eaten, which seems fair enough.) Two marae at Takaroa Landing mark the burial sites of all those warriors who fell in battle defending their island.

Marae at Takauroa Landing on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

Here in the southern part of the island, the makatea is pretty impenetrable, with its combination of thick tangled undergrowth and forest on top of sharp craggy fossilised limestone. Marshall related how a local lawbreaker evaded arrest by local police for some time by hiding out in the makatea. After a few weeks however the wrongdoer turned himself in, finding living in the challenging landscape of the makatea too difficult!

Makatea scrub on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

A little further on into the coastal forest Marshall stopped the truck to show us a fruits from a boxfruit tree (Barringtonia asiatica or ‘utu). The seed from the centre of ‘utu fruits can be ground up or chopped to release a poison, which paralyses fish if the ground seeds are scattered into the sea. Formerly used for fishing in the coral lagoon, this is now illegal: a local man was recently caught using ‘utu poison in this way and fined $500 (after having been warned several times not to do this).

Marshall Humphreys displays Baringtonia or 'utu fruits, once used to poison fish but now illegal (Atiu, the Cook Islands).

Heading now up the western side of the island we stopped at Taungaroro Beach, which like Oneroa was beautiful and deserted. Walking through the sand and looking out to the Pacific waves splashing against the coral reef, I felt a little like Robinson Crusoe (although hopefully without the white imperialist overtones).

Taungaroro Beach on Atiu (the Cook Islands).

It’s not just coral which makes up the pinkish sands fringeing these islands: billions of fragments of seashells too are rendered down by the action of waves and wind to create the lovely beaches that are such an iconic element of Pacific islands. I spent a happy half hour wandering and gathering seashells, including many cowries or pōre‘o. In many places in the world cowries have traditionally been used as currency: in the Cook Islands they were favoured more for jewellery, especially to convey status to the wearer.

Taungaroro was also the spot where we had a picnic lunch, to fortify us after our morning’s exploring. Banana muffins, fresh fruit salad with papaya and guava and pawpaw sprinkled with grated coconut, and a nice cup of tea to wash it all down: perfect.

After lunch I went wandering a little way into the coastal forest, to admire the tropical trees with their buttressed roots and epiphytic ferns growing in nooks amongst the branches. Atiu was a delight to a plant nerd like me: while my tropical botany knowledge wasn’t good enough for me to identify many species, I still felt happily at home in this green growing ecosystem, relatively unimpacted by tourism.

Tree growing in coastal forest, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

The plan was for us to continue on up the coastal road northwards to Oravaru landing – but our plans were temporarily foiled by a roadblock in the form of a fallen tree. We detoured via Ngatiarua village and back out to the coast by another route, finally reaching Oravaru on the west coast.

Fallen tree blocking coastal road, Atiu (the Cook Islands).

If you search on the internet for information about the Cook Islands’ colonial history, it describes how Spanish explorers sighted Pukapuka and Rakahanga (in the northern islands group) in 1595 and 1606; then Captain James Cook sighted other islands in the 1770s; followed by Captain William Bligh in 1789 (whose tyrannical captainship led to the mutiny on his ship the Bounty). The name ‘the Cook Islands’ was conferred by Russian navigator Adam Johann von Krusenstern in his 1823 Atlas de l’Ocean Pacifique, in honour of the surveying and mapping done by Captain James Cook: previously they were named the Hervey Islands after a British Lord of the Admiralty.

Ironically Cook himself never landed on Atiu during his voyage on the ship Resolution: instead one of his officers, Lieutenant John Gore went ashore in 1777, accompanied by the ship’s doctor, botanist and three boatloads of crew. They were met by some two thousand Atiuan warriors and people lining the clifftops, with full body tattoos and carrying spears – no doubt an intimidating sight. Bear in mind that on one of Cook’s previous expeditions to Tahiti, John Gore was the first person ever recorded to shoot and kill an indigenous Pacific Maori person, after an altercation over a piece of cloth. These were not casual explorers but the vanguard of a powerful military empire, intent on mapping and colonising what they regarded as ‘uncivilised’ territories, largely ignoring the rights of the indigenous people already living there.

Oravaru Landing, where Captain James Cook's crew first landed on Atiu in 1777 (the Cook Islands).

Gore’s party were taken inland by the Atiuans to the Orongo marae and cave of the warriors, which would have been an impressive and unsettling sight. It’s said that the landing party’s Polynesian interpreter saw a prepared umu pit (earth oven) but no animal carcasses, and assumed that this meant that they were on the menu! This proved not to be the case however: after being ceremonially introduced to the ariki and being the subject of several hours of close curiosity from the Atiuans, the landing party was allowed to return to their ship.

Marshall told us of an ancient local tradition, that when a new baby boy was born the child was taken to the tribal priest at the Orongo marae, who would wrap the baby up in leaves and leave him on the marae altar overnight. In the morning if the baby had managed to break free of his leaf swaddling he would be raised as a warrior at the Orongo marae and taught how to fight. If the baby was still wrapped in the leaves, the child would be returned to his parents and grow up to be a fisherman or planter.

Orongo marae was also the final resting place of the skulls of the island’s ariki, as well as those of great and heroic warriors. It was and still is a sacred place. In the 1960s two Mormon missionaries visiting the island were disrespectful and foolish enough to remove a skull from the Orongo cave, intending to take it with them to Rarotonga… But the woman missionary died before they got there. The skull was swiftly returned and replaced at Orongo.

The archaeology and history of pre-colonial times in the Cook Islands was seemingly only just beginning to be shown the interest and respect it deserves, at the time of my visit in 2015. I was reminded of Ngaa’s determined labours on Aitutaki to preserve and pass on the culture and history of his people. Compare this with the wealth of research and fieldwork that has been done on ancient cultures such as Egypt, Greece and South America. I suspect that partly this is due to the legacy of colonialism, and the fact that we white Europeans are still reluctant to engage with the reality of our colonial history: a history that contains a great deal of brutality and exploitation, and which persists to this day in some people’s colonial or white supremacist mindset. Too often I’ve heard white people try to diminish the impact of colonialism by saying “Explorers then didn’t know any better”, or “Every European nation was doing the same thing”, or even “These cultures had plenty of their own problems before we came along – what about their inter-island wars and cannibalism?” These defensive responses are missing the point: white colonial powers invaded lands, imposed Christian religion (with all its guilt-ridden and problematic dogma), took whatever resources they fancied, and ruthlessly eradicated many indigenous people through military force and disease. If someone did that to Britain we’d call it an act of war.

When we returned to Marshall and Jéanne’s home, I found a wonderful book on their shelves: Akono’ango Maori: Cook Islands Culture, by Ron Crocombe. Browsing through it I came upon a remarkable photograph taken circa 1904, titled ‘Ngatiarua on Atiu in old time dress‘. The dignity and pride of these muscled men standing with their heavy spears, gazing directly into the camera lens, shone out of the page.

Ngatiarua men on Atiu, the Cook Islands: photo taken circa 1904.

As a privileged white tourist in the South Pacific, I felt enormously grateful to have the opportunity to travel in these beautiful islands, and to meet the friendly and generous people who lived there. This friendliness and generosity is even more remarkable, given the explotiation of their lands and people ever since white colonisers first began occupying their territories. Writing this blog is my effort to show my gratitude to all the Cook Islands and South Pacific Maori and Polynesian people who welcomed me into their homes; and to raise awareness as far as I can of the destructive impact of European colonialism, and the importance of honouring South Pacific culture. It’s vital too that we take rapid steps to limit climate change caused by our industrialised nations, the latest colonial legacy to threaten the safety and future of Pacific island peoples.

I had only one more day to spend on Atiu. I could’ve happily spent another month there (and not just because of Marshall’s mouth-watering cooking!). I felt happily at home on this quiet little island with its rich history and diverse wildlife; its rugged makatea and green forest; and the shell-scattered beaches and sacred marae, freighted with memories and meaning.

Standing on Oneroa Beach on Atiu, the Cook Islands.

As Rowanleaf I write, photograph, teach and sing about the world, for the world. If you enjoy my work and would like to help support me to keep on doing it, please consider buying me a coffee at KoFi, or making a regular donation via Patreon. The links are here below: much gratitude to all those who have encouraged and supported me thus far. <3
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Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 9:

Aliens, natives, lorikeets, flycatchers and noddies: travels with Birdman George
in Enuamanu, Land of the Birds.

Travels in the Cook Islands… South Pacific Adventure, part 1

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Becca

In September 2015 I went on an awfully big adventure. I flew halfway around the world, to go traveling for five weeks in the South Pacific. As I had never been traveling before, this was something of a departure from my normal routine, to say the least.

In the months before I set off, an oft-repeated question directed at me by curious folks was, “Why the South Pacific?” My answers varied depending on the mood I was in, but usually comprised some or all of the following: (1) good snorkelling, (2) friendly and safe for a lone woman traveller, (3) desert islands, palm trees, sunshine, lagoons, coral reefs… And (4) as a child I got more than slightly obsessed with the South Pacific as a result of reading three books: Let’s See If The World Is Round (Hakon Mielche), South Sea Adventure (Willard Price), and The Kon-Tiki Expedition (Thor Heyerdahl).

From my childhood reading (blissfully oblivious of the rampant colonialism in all three books) I received the impression that the South Pacific was a magical and exciting place, teeming with wildlife, populated by quirky and amiable locals, and rich in natural beauty and ancient culture. Here was a place where you could swim with sharks, lie under palm trees listening to ukulele music beneath the stars, see stunning lagoons and coral reefs, and live a simple life in a tropical paradise.

So: off to the South Pacific I went. And for the next few installments of this blog, I will be recounting my traveller’s tales. For the record (spoiler alert), my expectations were exceeded. Coral reefs and lagoons are indeed heart-stoppingly beautiful. I inadvertently swam with sharks several times, as well as with humpback whales and manta rays. There was a lot of ukulele music but don’t ever lie under a coconut palm to listen to it unless you’re wearing a suit of armour. And the South Pacific may look like paradise, but living there requires hard work, ingenuity, strong community and – in the face of climate change and seismic unpredictability – large amounts of luck.

To get to the South Pacific from the UK requires a very long plane journey, whether you fly east via Singapore, or west via Los Angeles. I opted for the latter, with a purgatorial six-hour layover in LA airport. US immigration officials have had their sense of humour surgically removed, and the queues were epic. Quite why our American cousins think anyone is desperately keen to sneak into their gun- and God-infested country is anyone’s guess, but Uncle Sam’s guardians were scrupulous in grilling every sleep-deprived traveller over the minutiae of their journey plans. I caused them no small consternation by wearing glasses, as in my passport photo I don’t have them on. Once we’d established that I was actually me (by the simple act of removing my glasses), I was allowed through to a deserted chilly air-conditioned barn of a boarding gate waiting area. I curled up on the carpet with my back against a wall and cat-napped for a few hours, lulled by announcements at regular intervals inviting US servicemen and their families to make full use of the exclusive airport facilities for serving personnel.

I’d opted for a direct flight to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, rather than going via New Zealand, so twenty-six hours after I’d left the UK I was seeing my first South Pacific sunrise from the window of my plane. It looked very beautiful. And once my plane had landed at Rarotonga airport and I’d been ferried by minibus taxi with a bunch of other bleary-eyed travellers to Aremango Guesthouse where I was staying, I lost no time in going exploring. First project: catch the island bus into Avarua, the main town on Rarotonga, to buy some food.

Rarotonga, like many South Pacific islands, has a mountainous (volcanic) interior, fringed by coral reef and lagoon. The only flat bits of land are largely along the coast, so the Ara Tapu (main road) runs all the way round the edge of the island (as does the older Ara Metua, which runs just inland of the Ara Tapu). As the road goes in a circle, this means there are only two bus routes to keep track of: clockwise and anticlockwise. The whole circumference is only twenty miles, so you can trundle round it in an hour or so on the bus (or less if you go by car or scooter). The buses are battered but comfy old single deckers that appear to have made in China, if the interior is anything to go by.

The bus drivers are an entertaining bunch: my personal favourite was Mr Hopeless, who keeps a running commentary going for the entire journey about landmarks, local politics, tourists and his family and neighbours. When he runs out of things to say, he sings. I feel all British bus drivers should be sent on sabbaticals to Rarotonga, where they will learn from Mr Hopeless that keeping your passengers entertained is far more important than sticking slavishly to a timetable.

By the time I’d returned back from Avarua with the basics (bread, cheese, tea and beer) it was afternoon and time to investigate the beach. A hundred yard walk through some gardens and there I was: standing on coral sands, looking out over a turquoise lagoon. It was warm and there was the sound of surf breaking on the reef; and despite acute sleep deprivation, I suddenly felt intensely blessed to be there. Halfway around the world from where I lived, in the South Pacific at last.

I explored westwards along the beach, past the little motu (islet) called Taaoka, which lies just offshore. Aremango is on south Muri beach, an area of Rarotonga popular with visitors. So popular in fact that sewerage run-off into the sea from tourist accommodation is causing environmental problems, with increased nitrogen levels resulting in algal blooms hazardous to marine life and human health. The problem has been acknowledged and some measures (e.g. improving septic tank sewer systems) have been put into place, but much more work still needs to be done.

On my first day there I was unaware of this issue, and you certainly couldn’t tell from looking at the lagoon that there was a problem. But a couple of days later I found the information display pictured above, and it was a timely reminder that those of us who are wealthy enough to travel and holiday in other people’s countries are responsible for the impact our stay has there, whether that be on the local environment, the economy or the culture. Flying over ten thousand miles to the Cook Islands is no small carbon footprint, so I was keen to stay in simple accommodation and to explore and enjoy the islands by as environmentally-friendly means as possible… Which on Rarotonga meant getting about by three of my favourite methods: bus, cycle and on foot.

As well as trying to address the sewerage pollution issue, there are other initiatives being enforced on Rarotonga to conserve the environment and wildlife. One of these is the designation of ra’ui: a ban on fishing or harvesting foods either in a specific area, or of a specific animal or plant species.

Ra’ui (or rāhui) are a traditional part of Maori culture, whereby a tapu (spiritual edict or prohibition) is placed restricting use of or access to a place, e.g. for gathering food. In the Cook Islands the ra’ui concept was revived in the late 1990s, to protect the island’s lagoon habitat. The Aronga Mana (traditional tribal councils) have placed ra’ui on several areas around Rarotonga’s lagoon. These ra’ui are not enforced through legal channels but instead rely on respect for traditional authority, with infringement dealt with by “rebuke and community pressure”.

The other initiative that seeks to protect the marine environment in Rarotonga and elsewhere in the Cook Islands is the designation of a Marine Park. Although it was formally announced as policy by Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna in 2013, the Marae Moana marine park has yet to be set up. As ever, funding and fishing interests are in the mix… Hopefully these won’t prove insurmountable obstacles for this project, because the lagoon surrounding Rarotonga certainly deserves protection of the highest standard and is a beautiful and diverse environment… As my photo below of threadfin butterfly fish, taken whilst snorkelling, shows.

As well as the occasional ra’ui notice, there were other signs repeated at regular intervals along the Ara Tapu that certainly caught my notice. You know you’re in a interesting part of the world when roadside signs inform you not of speed limits or dual carriageways, but instead tell you which way to run in the event of a tsunami. This disconcerted me at first, but the rather jolly signs are reassuring in a low-tech sort of way. The knowledge that you’re in a place where seismic activity occasionally means that very big waves come ashore is a bit worrying… But no need to panic, there is a plan to cope with this: i.e. run fairly smartly up the nearest hill that presents itself. Which given that Rarotonga just inland of the Ara Tapu is all hill, doesn’t prove too difficult.

Whether or not I needed to make use of a tsunami evacuation route during my five weeks of travelling in the South Pacific will be revealed in a later chapter of this blog. In the meantime, I knew that I needed a good night’s kip because tomorrow I was going to be up early to head out on a cycle tour to explore Rarotonga’s interior. I had reached the end of my first day in the South Pacific: happy, hallucinating slightly from lack of sleep, stuffed with bread and cheese and beer and bananas, I fell asleep to the sound of the island’s three billion chickens serenading the sunset. Sweet dreams.

Coming up next time, in South Pacific Adventure part 2:

Off-road cycling; bush medicine and plant First Aid; everything you ever wanted to know about coconuts; and why building a hotel on cursed land is not a good idea, even if you’re the Mafia. Plus chickens. Lot of chickens.

Walking with dinosaurs

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Becca

‘It is bad news to science museums when four in ten Americans believe humans lived
with dinosaurs, and fewer than two in ten understand the terms “molecule” and “DNA.” ‘
– Larry Witham

I am lucky enough to have a good friend who works at the Natural History Museum in London, and back in mid-December he generously gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum. Me being a complete geek (and proud of it), this was the equivalent of finding a Willy Wonka golden ticket to the chocolate factory. I find all science fascinating and biology particularly so (this being the discipline that I know most about), so an access-all-areas exploration of this amazing place was a real treat. We started our day by visiting the NHM’s new and famous acquisition, Sophie the stegosaurus, thought to be the most complete (80%) stegosaurus fossilised skeleton in the world.

My friend Chris works in the Life Sciences department of the museum, managing the UK Species Inventory. It’s hard to overstate how important this inventory is: essentially, if we don’t know what wildlife species we’ve got, it becomes virtually impossible to conserve them effectively. Identification and taxonomy (the science of defining and naming species) are increasingly neglected skills, so much so that the NHM is offering traineeships to encourage more people to champion these branches of science.

Chris is based in the Angela Mormont Centre for Biodiversity, which is tucked away within the Darwin Centre and Cocoon, impressive modern additions to the NHM’s original glorious Victorian Gothic architecture. The new building provides space for housing the museum’s massive collection of biological specimens, whilst also providing an opportunity for the public to learn about and observe the work of the scientists housed within.

Originally, museum specimens were stored in wooden specimen cabinets: precision-crafted pieces of furniture which can still be seen in corridors underneath the museum. Whilst these older cabinets are beautiful pieces of work, they are not ideal for maintaining the stable and pest-free environment that most specimens require, so they have been mostly replaced with more hi-tech storage systems.

Whilst the new grey metal cabinets lack the character of the old wooden ones, they undoubtedly protect the museum’s collection more effectively. And the collection is both massive and hugely valuable, both to science and to culture. Each bay contains several cupboards, each cupboard housing rows of drawers crammed with specimens of all sorts.

The museum’s collection of specimens is vast, having been gathered over the past 400 years. There are 61.5 million animal specimens (including 34 million insects); 7 million fossils; 6 million algae, lichens and plants; and 500,000 rocks, gems and minerals. I felt somewhat awestruck by the sheer volume of material, but also the history attached to the specimens: all those collectors – amateur naturalists and botanists and geologists and fossil hunters – adding over the centuries to our sum of knowledge about the amazing diversity of our natural world. It felt like time travel, looking at some of them (like this Arrowhead Sagittaria sagittifolia collected in 1822 from Mill Meadow, Banbury).

Generally you need a TARDIS for time travel: and like a TARDIS, the museum seems bigger on the inside. Travelling along warrens of corridors and down many stairs took us to a spot in the basement well-known to museum employees, Giraffe Corner. The clue is in the name: this is a tall storage space where giraffe specimens were once parked.

Nowadays Giraffe Corner is used mostly as a reference point for people navigating the basement, although a hatch still connects the space to the display area above… Which is right in the entrance hall of the museum (you can see the wooden trapdoor through which the giraffes would have been hoisted up and down).

As the museum has been replacing its older wooden specimen cabinets with new metal ones, the vintage cabinets have become available for purchase by entomologists, naturalists or anyone who would like them. There are hundreds of them knocking about in storage rooms, gradually being sold off to any interested parties. Some of the most interesting of these superbly-crafted pieces were cases made to protect specimens during the London Blitz. Each of these cabinets is small enough to carry, with a handle on the top: the idea being that when the air raid sirens went off, someone would take the specimens with them to the shelter!

Of course while the museum is a vintage establishment, it’s also crammed to the gills with brand spanking new technology and hi-tech stuff as well. Should a dolphin or other cetacean wash up dead in the Thames, there is an autopsy room at the museum which looks like something straight out of Roswell.

The museum’s collection includes ‘wet specimens’ as well as dry or inert materials, and although time didn’t allow for us to tour these collections I did get a quick peek through a doorway at someone’s work in progress. My inner boffin was suitably gratified by this scene of weird things in jars, with a faint whiff of formaldehyde to reinforce the ambience.

It was a real privilege to see some of the mighty collection and hugely important work being done at NHM. I love the natural world, and value science enormously. When I teach, I’m always trying to communicate a greater understanding of ecology, coupled with an appreciation of the beauty and diversity of nature, and our place within it… Largely because I want it all to continue to exist in all its richness.

Humanity has a dodgy track record of treating natural resources with a cavalier attitude, with the result that we’ve eliminated millions of species since we’ve been stumbling around upright on this planet. The exact figures are hard even for scientists to quantify, but it’s estimated that we’re now losing between 10,000 and 100,000 species per year. This shocking human-driven loss of biodiversity – far greater than natural extinction rates – is not sustainable and impacts on every ecosystem on the planet, which in turn impacts on human existence.

The reason for this is ecosystem services. These systems underpin all life on Earth including our own; and basically without them functioning healthily, we’re stuffed. The ecology of our planet is complex and we’re only just beginning to understand it, so removing species wholesale without considering the impact this will have on the wider system seems equivalent to yanking out random bits of your car engine and then expecting it still to work. (With the essential difference that you can’t whip planet Earth down to the nearest KwikFit and ask them to fix it for you: forget Jurassic Park, folks, extinction is forever. Once a species is gone, it’s really gone.)

Boffins peering at beetles may not seem like life-saving science – and it may have less apparent glamour than landing probes on comets or creating artificial intelligence – but if we fail to understand the biodiversity of which we’re just a part, we’re setting ourselves up for some almighty payback, sooner or later. Some take the cornucopia approach to nature, valuing it as a resource for medicines, industry and the economy. Others think its beauty, variety and general amazingness is what makes it precious. Either way, we need it: and the work of institutions like the NHM will remain key in helping us to understand and protect our natural world.

“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.”
– Charles Darwin

What I did in my holidays… and the rest of the time

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Becca

It’s been quite a while since I last updated this blog (life having been somewhat hectic). But as midwinter approaches and the cold and dark are really strengthening their hold, reflecting back on my summer and autumn adventures is a nice way to pass the time.

As my environmental education work is at its busiest in school term time (particularly the spring and summer terms), usually by the time the summer holidays finally arrive I am more than ready for a break and this year was no exception. Which is not to say that I didn’t have some good times teaching visiting school groups at Rushall Organic Farm, as well. 2014 has been a very busy year at the farm, with more schoolchildren than ever visiting to spend the day learning about farming, habitats, wildlife, soils and rivers. Starting of course in early spring with lambing.

Despite a very wet winter which created havoc for British farmers everywhere, lambing itself went well at Rushall this year: a welcome change after the bitterly cold spring of 2013 when we lost 15% of our lambs due to the cold weather.

Once lambing was over we were still very busy with school visits, including the residential camps where children come and stay in tents at the farm for several days. I really enjoy working with the kids on the camps: you get to know the children and see them develop over the week as they try their hand at activities ranging from den building and camp fires to sheep herding and river dipping. Many of them have never done adventurous outdoor things before and it’s fantastic to see them expanding their boundaries. The teachers often tell us that the Rushall Farm trip is a highlight in many of their pupils’ lives… It’s hard not to be moved by this. It makes the long hours and busy summer term truly worthwhile.

It’s been a year of big change at Rushall Farm, with longstanding farm manager John retiring this autumn and former shepherd Steve stepping up as our new farm manager. The farm will continue to have sheep and cattle and some arable land, including the areas that are managed under the Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) farming scheme to support the wildlife that is such a vital part of our ecosystems and landscapes. Both the HLS and the fact that Rushall is organically managed means that the farm is rich in wildlife… I feel very lucky to work on such a special site. Walking through one of our arable fields this summer with groups of children, we were surrounded by poppies. Such an beautiful sight, and a rare one these days.

Towards the end of the school term when I had a bit more liberty, I lost no time in escaping to the seaside (my usual default getaway) for a long weekend in Lyme Regis. This part of western Dorset, named the Jurassic Coast for its wealth of fossils, contains the Undercliffs National Nature Reserve. This 7-mile stretch of rugged and shifting landscape between Lyme Regis and Axmouth is one of my favourite walks, although it can be challenging in places… as this cheerful warning sign at its eastern end suggests.

The coastal path which traverses the Undercliff is challenging in places: particularly so this summer, because a substantial landslip back in the spring made a section of the route impassable. (There is a detour inland if you want to continue west past Culverhole Point, but it looked a tedious trek so rather than bothering with it I just walked a few miles along the section that can still be safely walked.) Even this path is not for the faint-hearted, however. While I was enjoying the view at the start of the path I was overtaken by a large group of walkers… only to meet them returning later on, with complaints of “The path gets terrible a bit further on – we kept falling over.” I like a challenge, though, so I kept on going. The scenery and amazing wildlife made it worth it: this National Nature Reserve is an absolute jewel.

As it was a fairly muggy day with thunder occasionally rumbling overhead, I didn’t meet many other walkers. In the humid heat, surrounded by dense woodland and ferns, it felt about as close to a rainforest experience as you can get in Britain. Every so often though you come upon reminders that although this is a wild landscape, it has also been a settled one: ruins crumbling away amongst the undergrowth, abandoned houses or farm buildings dating from before the great 1839 Bindon Landslip when a huge slab of land known locally as Goat Island simply detached itself one night and rumbled seawards.

One of the quirks of the Undercliff is that although the path skirts the coast and you can often hear and sometimes view the sea from it, actually descending down the unstable cliff face onto the beach is not an easy task. There are stern signs that threaten all manner of dire fates should you try to do so. So you really, really shouldn’t. It’s naughty and wicked, and the Landslip Goblins will swallow you whole if you do it. (Probably.)

Of course not being a naughty wicked trespasser (perish the thought), I skirted the Landslip Goblins and skipped down a safer route. Once on the beach I eventually reached a spot where you can look up to see where the forces of modern coastal path engineering were confronted by the playful forces of Mother Nature… And have been utterfly vanquished. The winter rains have made the Undercliff even more lively than usual, and the last few hundred yards of that particular path resemble not so much a route as a demolition site. “Subject to movement” is a bit of an understatement: in the UK we often forget that the ground under our feet is a dynamic thing, but seeing landslips like this one remind you of the power of natural forces. Score: Mother Nature 1, Feeble Humans nil. The Landslip Goblins will get you if you dare to venture where you shouldn’t…

Keeping a weather eye on the cliff to make sure that no landslip was currently about to manifest itself, I enjoyed a few hours of leisurely beach-combing. It was worth the effort: by now the thunderstorms had rumbled off elsewhere and it turned into a sunny afternoon. I had pretty much the whole beach to myself (except for a solitary couple who had evidently braved the Path Of Doom and then pottered off eastwards to find their own bit of beach). Left to myself in one of the most gorgeous bits of the Jurassic Coast, I rewarded my efforts with a picnic and a spot of beach art, creating a yin-yang symbol from pebbles and seaweed. Not exactly Andy Goldsworthy, but I enjoyed doing it anyway.

In early August I took some time away from west Berkshire to go to Unicorn Voice Camp, an annual week-long singing camp on the Somerset-Wiltshire border. It was my third Voice Camp and as ever an utter treat for the ears, the voice and the soul: around 400 people gathering together to sing and teach music from a wealth of cultures. One evening a young chap called Matt played his hang for some of us in the big yurt onsite, and it was simply bliss. (If you don’t know what a hang is, check out this video on YouTube.) Unicorn campers (as the name probably suggests) are a creative and mellow lot, I always come away with my energies recharged and a heart full of gorgeous harmonies that I can share with the Sing The World choir that I co-lead in Newbury.

The emphasis at the camp is on authenticity, support and celebration of all things creative and spiritual. There is a also a stonking cabaret (LMAO, as I believe the young folks say), a cafe that serves divine cake, and shared meals round your campfire each night. There is singing absolutely everywhere: barbershop harmony, nightingale-voiced teenagers dueting with guitarists, medieval choral music, African melodies and rhythms, Romany songs, gospel, folk, jazz, and all kinds of stunning original harmony compositions shared by the many talented singers and teachers who go to Voice Camp. It’s a very special musical gathering and long may it continue.

Of course I didn’t spend the whole summer playing: I was also running activity sessions for families at Five A Day Market Garden in Englefield. These half-day sessions were popular and I spent several mornings and afternoons outdoors with kids and their parents, discovering minibeasts and pond life and making all manner of amazing eco art creations… Like this lovely clay and sage leaf snake made by one young lad!

When funding allows it, I run these family sessions in most school holidays. We had some pumpkin carving workshops in the October half term which were also hugely popular, and another family workshop (Crafty Christmas) is scheduled for 20th December. It’s great to see all ages of children having fun and getting messy together, and the parents seem to enjoy it as much as the kids! We certainly had some awesome pumpkin lanterns carved.

Towards the end of August I had one more treat: or more properly, RE-treat: a week away at the Barn Buddhist retreat centre, at The Sharpham Trust near Totnes in Devon. Although I’ve been meditating now for several years I had never been on a retreat before and I wasn’t sure how it would go. Rather wonderfully, as it turned out.

Rising at 6.45am and spending two hours or more in meditation every day may not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but you soon settle into it. The retreats at the Barn are based on Buddhist traditions but are non-denominational: anyone can stay, for a week or for longer. Time is divided between mindful tasks (such as working in the organic veg garden and woodland), meditation, and afternoons free for personal practice or simply walking in the surrounding Devon countryside. Silence is held from 9pm each evening to 9am the following morning and there is also one day of complete silence. What impressed itself on me was the absolute peacefulness of the place: both the Barn itself, and its setting on a hillside overlooking the River Dart.

People go on retreats for different reasons. I was basically there to see how it felt, removing myself from the pressures of work and busy everyday life; and also to try to deepen my meditation practice. What I found after a few days of mindfulness and quiet was that so much of what I think is necessary in my life (internet, books, radio, emails) actually isn’t. Having something purposeful to do; taking time to appreciate nature and peace; connecting with other people; savouring every moment of life mindfully; these are more than enough.

Buddhism is a spiritual path sometimes perceived as being rather detached from the world, somewhat devoid of emotion or passion. I find the contrary: it promotes meaningful and intense connection with all of the universe, including the people around us, and an approach to life based on love, kindness, gratitude and patience. (And with a great deal of humour, as anyone who has read Zen Flesh, Zen Bones will know.) I’m by no means an expert but I’m finding it a rewarding exploration. And my retreat at the Barn was a life-changing event, on several levels. I’ve yet to completely work out what seeds were sowed in me while I was there, but they’re definitely germinating.

The most difficult thing about going on retreat was leaving: adjusting back to the ‘normal’ world is a process that takes a little while. I softened the blow by day-tripping Scabbacombe Sands, a little cove near Dartmouth. You can only get down to this lovely beach by walking (a good thirty minutes or so) and the path is pretty steep, so that weeds out the throngs of day-trippers.

Once I got down to sea level I treated myself to a picnic: after leaving the Barn retreat I popped into Totnes to buy picnic supplies, which was entertaining. Totnes is crammed with alternative folks of all sorts (popular rumour has it that the town’s sign once had ‘Totnes: twinned with Narnia’ graffitied onto it) so ‘artisanal’ foods are readily available. Not being made of money I settled for a massive slab of olive bread, some nommy local-grown tomatoes and a pot of wonderfully garlicky guacamole. Nicely washed down with a flask of lapsang souchong tea I’d made myself, before leaving the Barn. Not exactly traditional seaside holiday fare but it hit the spot all right.

I could’ve quite happily stayed until nightfall at Scabbacombe. The sun shone, I paddled in the sea, and all was well with the world. It probably helped that I’d been on a retreat for the past week as well: daily mindfulness practice had switched on all my senses, and for hours I happily sat or pottered about on this beautiful little beach. (Note in the photo below the purple nail polish – a present from a friend at Voice Camp!)

It was good to have some quality get-aways during the summer, after all the hecticness of teaching. Once the schools started back again in September I was busy again, although getting hit by a succession of viruses was somewhat challenging… Especially laryngitis: not a great thing to succumb to when your work is teaching and singing! Fortunately by mid-October I had got enough voice back to run my Songs From The Heart singing workshop, at the lovely converted barn at Elm Farm Organic Research Centre just outside Newbury. It was a fabulous day, with around forty people coming along to sing in harmony together. I was able to share some of the lovely songs I’d learned at Voice Camp, and the feedback from participants at the end of the day was really heart-warming.

I’m starting to be able to give more time to my singing work, which is wonderful: I would like to run more singing workshops for groups. At Voice Camp I went to a series of sessions led by the super-talented and lovely Susie Ro Prater, which got me thinking about how I can compose more of my own a capella harmony songs. And recently I also had an opportunity to sing with a jazz guitarist at Newbury Unplugged (our local monthly open mic night at Ace Space), so music-wise things are expanding for me at the moment. Long may this state of affairs continue.

As winter deepens, my outdoor teaching work has come to its usual seasonal standstill, so all being well I should have some time to spend on developing my singing and other creative pursuits. Sing The World’s ‘peformance group’, Wacapella, is performing as part of the ‘1,000 Voices‘ winter singing event in Newbury on 11th December, so I’m looking forward to that. And on clear frosty days I’ll be getting out and about in the countryside, going for walks and getting some much-needed winter sunshine. During the autumn I carried out some dormouse surveys for local wildlife trust BBOWT, and during one woodland survey came across an absolutely stunning frog. I hope to see lots more wildlife as I ramble across the downs and valleys over the next few weeks. Wishing you all a healthy, peaceful and happy festive season!

Frog in the woods: Peckmoor Copse, Greenham Common.

Not months but moments

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Becca

‘The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.’
– Rabindranath Tagore

I start this blog entry with the above quote for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that time recently has seemed in short supply. Summer term is always busy for me on the field teaching front, and in June and July I worked several fifty-hour weeks. At the time it seemed like a good idea… And I certainly enjoyed the teaching. But working silly hours catches up with you: and lo and behold, I am now feeling thoroughly frazzled.

As this is self-inflicted suffering, I’m not asking for sympathy. It’s taken me a fortnight of not teaching to realise just how ‘busy’ I allowed my life to become. While it’s always nice to be working (paying the monthly bills being the tiresomely necessary process it is), like other members of my family I have a tendency to be a workaholic. This is promoted by the fact that I do work that is generally fulfilling and positive – i.e. environmental education, wildlife conservation, and teaching singing in groups.

One remedy for this is to get away for a bit. Luckily, I’d arranged some weeks ago to go on a camping weekend with some friends in the Cotswold countryside. A group of us stayed at a peaceful campsite on an organic farm near Stroud. The weather was glorious, the people in our group lovely, and I did manage to defrag my hard drive somewhat.

About half an hour’s walk from the campsite, through some National Trust woodland, is a beautiful lake fringed with water lilies and humming with blue damselflies. Several of us from the group, including children, spent two afternoons swimming here. One of the women whom I swam with, who is German, remarked on how curious it is that so few British people swim in outdoor places such as lakes and rivers; whereas in Europe it is a totally normal and common activity.

While ‘wild swimming’ has recently started to enjoy a revival in this country, it still seems to be regarded as an eccentric fringe activity, or even as something trangressive or reckless. I’m not sure exactly why this should be, but I suspect it has to do with two possible factors. One is exaggerated fear about safety. I fully accept that swimming anywhere (including in a pool) carries risk, and there were a few tragic fatalities during the recent heatwave where unfortunate people went swimming in dangerous places. But provided that one follows common-sense guidelines (such as those recommended by the Outdoor Swimming Society), the risk can be managed.

The other issue seems to be access, or lack of it. At the lake where we swam we did have a minor confrontation with a thoroughly unpleasant and aggressive angler who took grave exception to the fact that we were planning to swim in the lake – this despite the fact that the said lake was almost a kilometre long, and there appeared to be ample room for swimmers and anglers alike. After failing to intimidate us (although he did succeed in frightening some of the children in our group) he stomped back into the bushes, while we walked on and found a pleasant and safe swimming spot that was nowhere near any fishing activity.

Being something of a bolshie I tend to be strengthened in my determination to do something if someone authoritatively attempts to dissuade me from doing it. Nevertheless, I am disturbed by the fact that someone feels they should enjoy exclusive access to a body of water simply because they have paid a fee to fish in one small corner of it. Provided that wild swimmers act safely, treat swimming sites with respect (including respecting wildlife) and do not disturb other people, what’s the problem?

The angry angler incident was soon forgotten in the pleasure of swimming in cool water in such beautiful surroundings. The campsite itself was a lovely place, woodland-fringed with spacious tent pitches and few campers (the farm has a policy of limiting the numbers of people who can stay at any one time). There were eco-showers, washing up areas and very upmarket compost toilets: lah-di-dah loos, as a friend of mine might call them. With potted geraniums, mirrors, soft loo roll and a view down the wooded valley… Who could ask for more from a humble campsite bog?

As we’ve been blessed with long weeks of unusually hot and sunny weather, I’ve been able to indulge in wild swimming on a semi-regular basis. I was lucky enough to find a good spot in the River Kennet just west of Newbury, where on several scorching summer afternoons I enjoyed cooling down whilst surrounded by nature: trees, reedbeds, damselflies, fish and birds all doing their thing unbothered by me paddling about mid-channel. I encountered a few other local people enjoying the same part of the river, which was encouraging. One man asked me if I wasn’t frightened of attack from savage pike, to which I smiled and replied “No… I’ve got shoes on.” Perhaps I was being cavalier in my attitude to pike-related human maiming incidents: feel free to let me know if you have documented evidence.

One very real threat in the River Kennet has been a recent pesticide pollution incident near Marlborough. Someone somewhere released a tiny quantity of the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos, which was enough to kill all the aquatic invertebrates living in a stretch of the river. The pollution effects were spotted by volunteers working for ARK (Action for the River Kennet), and the incident is still being investigated by the Environment Agency. Fish and birds that feed on the river invertebrates will of course be adversely affected too. I sincerely hope that whoever did this is caught: they may have been careless, stupid or ignorant but above all they should be stopped from doing it again. The Environment Agency is appealing for information, so if you’ve got any why not give them a ring on 0800 807060. And please always dispose of any pesticides, herbicides or other chemicals carefully: never pour them down a drain.

On a happier note, during September I’m running some wildlife gardening morning workshops at Five A Day Market Garden in Englefield. The photo above was taken of participants on my wild flower and insects course in mid-July, on a truly sweltering hot day. It was a great session with some lovely people, and I’m looking forward to more of them: Trees and Shrubs for Wildlife (14th September), and Garden Birds and Mammals (28th September).

My sessions at Five A Day Market Garden are not just for adults, either: there are two family activity sessions coming up in the October half term holiday: Animal Magic! on Tuesday 29th and Thursday 31st October. A good opportunity for families to come for nature-themed fun, and to get creative with arts and crafts. Both sessions are booking up in advance, so if you fancy coming along to either these or my adult wildlife gardening workshops, best to email me at becca@fiveaday.org.uk as soon as possible.

As well as holiday sessions I’ve been working with Thatcham Young Rangers, the environmental youth group that runs at the Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham. Sadly the RSPB funding that enabled me to work with the group has come to an end, with my last session with the kids being in early September. (The Young Rangers group itself is continuing, under the great leadership of co-leader Becky O’Melia, supported by staff from BBOWT, the Berks Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust.) I will miss the children hugely: they’re a fabulous bunch, and hugely knowledgeable about wildlife. There were a few wobbly lips (including mine) when I told them I was leaving, but hopefully I’ll be invited back as a ‘special guest’ from time to time.

Partly as a result of recent changes (the RSPB ending their involvement at Thatcham, and BBOWT negotiating a working arrangement with West Berkshire Council to take on responsibility for managing several local nature conservation sites, including Thatcham Reedbeds and Greenham Common), I’ve been spending some time taking part in more voluntary conservation activities locally. As part of an ongoing conservation project, BBOWT organise regular moth trapping sessions at Greenham Common and Thatcham Reedbeds. I’ve managed to get along to a couple of these during the recent warm weather, when moths have been abundant. I’ve spent a fascinating few hours peering at the moths coming in to light traps, in the company of local moth experts and BBOWT staff. Moths range from the tiny and drab to the large and spectacular, such as the Elephant Hawkmoth pictured above. Well worth dedicating a few hours to, as long as you don’t mind a late night (most moths generally come out to play around midnight or later) and the odd mouthful of midges.

Of course, not all moths come out at night. I photographed this 6-Spot Burnet Moth during an afternoon butterfly transect up on Greenham Common, where it was enjoying the sunshine and 32ºC temperatures (unlike myself and the other two volunteers carrying out the butterfly survey!). These stunning moths, with their dark metallic green wings spotted with scarlet, are often present in large numbers in open flower-rich habitats. The adults feed on nectar in wild flowers such as thistles and knapweeds, whilst the caterpillars munch Bird’s-foot trefoil Lotus corniculatus.

Butterfly transects are part of the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme: a specific walk route is followed on a weekly basis between April and September, with the species and numbers of butterflies seen being recorded and data fed back to the UKBMS. On the two transects I’ve done recently at Greenham, the warm weather had brought out quite a few species – including a pair of Purple Emperors, which we watched gliding about in the tree canopy in the south of Greenham Common. Purple Emperors have a habit of sitting on animal poo to feed on the salts in it, not something that people generally associate with butterflies! I didn’t manage to get photos of the Emperors, but I did get right up close to this Grayling (above), while it pretended to be a stone. Grayling butterflies are found in southern coastal areas and heathlands but are declining in the UK, with numbers down 45% in the last 40 years.

Another butterfly we spotted during our transects were Common Blues, including this mating pair who very obligingly sat still for some time for me to photograph them. (I suspect they were rather preoccupied.) The male is on the left, the female on the right; while the plant that they’re sitting on is Bird’s-foot trefoil, one of their caterpillar food plants.

It was a bit of a treat for me to allow myself some time for volunteering, but I’m very glad that I did so. After last year’s dismally wet and chilly summer, when the heatwave hit the UK this year I was determined to make the most of it. Seeing so many of our native butterflies and moths on the wing has been a great reward. Hopefully I’ll get a bit more time for exploring and finding wildlife as the summer goes on.

When the summer school holidays roll around I often think I’m going to have lots of ‘spare’ time for doing things in, but as usual the time seems to be disappearing! I take advantage of office time at home to do lesson planning, including preparing music for the local community choir (Sing The World) that I co-lead in Newbury. It’s lovely to be listening to and choosing music, but now comes the task of learning it. I teach acapella harmony songs by ear, singing the parts to folks until they’ve learned them, so my brain has to file away quite a lot of music – in addition to the choir I’m also leading a Mellow and Magical singing workshop in October. My chosen method of learning songs is to listen to them on my MP3 player and practice each harmony part, so at certain points in the day I can be seen in queues at the post office or in the supermarket, singing along to a tune that only I can hear. No-one seems to mind, however.

As I seem to be flitting about doing all kinds of things, it seems appropriate to finish this blog entry as I started it: with a butterfly. While a great deal of my current workload is preparing for the months ahead, I will try to remind myself to stay in the moment, and enjoy each one for what it brings me. I hope that your summer brings you many magic moments, and plenty more sunshine.

Small Tortoiseshell butterfly at Five A Day Market Garden

Flowers, sunshine, showers

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Becca

The busy days of early spring and lambing have been followed by the equally busy months of April, May and early June, with my outdoor learning work filling most of my time. Despite our Arctic spring (courtesy of the jet stream’s wanderings), the seasons have been ever so slowly inching forwards, and although today is grey and rainy there are signs that we may have more of a summer this year than in 2012. Here’s hoping!

Most unusually, we did have a sunny and warm Bank Holiday Monday in early May. This was a great relief, as on the day I was paddling a home-made raft with a team of other volunteers down the Kennet and Avon Canal, taking part in the Crafty Craft Race to raise funds for Five A Day Market Garden where I work and volunteer. We paddlers worked in shifts to propel our catamaran-like craft the five miles eastwards from Kintbury to Newbury: you can see from the photo below that a fun time was had by all! (I’m the one paddling at the rear of the craft, in case you were wondering.)

Astonishingly, our ‘Ghostbusters’ team (hence the ‘spooky’ facepainting) won the race in our category! I put it down to all of us Five A Day Market garden volunteers getting lots of healthy exercise and fresh organic fruit and veg. (Plus having a superbly engineered craft, designed and built from an old swimming pool cover by Ghostbusters team member Dennis – kudos to him.)

Before the early May Bank Holiday weekend, warm days were rare enough that when they showed up I tried to get out to enjoy them as often as possible. One sunny weekend in late April I went out to see what spring flowers were in bloom, and discovered the most phenomenal bank of Cowslips Primula veris near Speen, thousands of plants in full flower.

Walking around Snelsmore Common the same weekend, I was struck by how many plants had been brought into simultaneous flowering by the warmth, after so many weeks of unrelenting cold. In Withy Copse, Wood Anemones Anemone nemorosa and Lesser Celandines Ranunculus ficaria were flowering together, starring the ground with white and gold. The large purple-blotched arrowhead leaves of Cuckoopint Arum maculatum were everywhere, while just the leaves of Bluebells Endymion nonscriptus were showing.

The trees were only just showing signs of waking up, with few buds opening to release the tips of new leaves, so there was still plenty of light reaching the ground layer where these fabulous woodland flora grow. In another woodland (Briff’s Copse near Hamstead Marshall) I found Moschatel Adoxa moschatellina, a diminuitive little plant that’s always been one of my favourites. Moschatel comes from the Greek word for musk, as the plant has a somewhat musky smell; its other common name is Town Hall Clock, so called because the five-sided flower is said to resemble the faces on a clock-tower.

Of course with the spring and summer flowers opening, there is finally some nectar and pollen for insects to find. With last year being such a dismal one for British butterflies, it’s even more pleasing than usual to see them on the wing on sunny days. I spotted this Peacock butterfly basking at Snelsmore Common in late April, before it swooped off at high speed as all the Vanessid butterflies seem to do.

Snelsmore Common was also the site for a singing picnic that I organised for local choir Sing The World, which I co-lead with my friend Tessa. We gathered down there on 3rd June to share food and drink, followed by an hour or so of harmony singing as the sun slowly set. A grand way to spend an evening, in my opinion. I love the way that singing unites people of all backgrounds and ages, there’s nothing quite like it. Currently I’m just starting to plan songs for my next singing workshop, which will be on 19th October at the lovely barn conference centre at Elm Farm Organic Research Centre near Newbury. I’m looking forward to it already!

With last year’s challenging weather it was nice to hear some good news about local wildlife conservation: the success of BBOWT’s Heritage Lottery Fund bid for the five-year Linking The Landscape project in West Berkshire. I attended a conference in mid-April organised by BBOWT, at which they were celebrating the previous five years’ conservation work done by BBOWT and West Berkshire Council on the local areas covered by the Living Landscape scheme. I had been involved both as a volunteer and as a freelance consultant in the Living Landscape scheme and the new funding bid, so I was very happy to hear the great news that all the sterling conservation work done so far by volunteers and professionals alike will not only be safeguarded but extended, for the benefit of local wildlife and local people.

The conference itself was an interesting day, with a fascinating speech on landscape-scale conservation projects across the UK by ecologist and Head of Planning and Environment for Forest Enterprise England, Jonathan Spencer. One of his points was that landscapes and wildlife are best protected when conservation is integrated with community needs, including economic needs – and vice versa. This is a message that I think many people, both environmentalists and developers, are still struggling to come to terms with. There’s often a sense in this crowded country of battle lines being drawn up, when actually it would make far more sense for conservationists, businesses and local communities to work together to develop ways of managing our land that allow for sustainable living and plenty of space for wildlife. Good food for thought!

During the afternoon of the conference we had the chance to take part in some workshops on a range of different topics: amongst other things I participated in a training session for monitoring the effects of grazing regimes on the heathlands and grasslands of the commons, with West Berkshire ranger Adrian Wallington and ecologist Thomas Haynes. The aim of this is to recruit volunteers to carry out simple plant surveys to help monitor the effects of the livestock grazing on vegetation on the commons, hopefully to improve management for all kinds of wildlife. What better way to spend an hour two on a sunny summer’s day, than sitting in the sunshine looking at flowers? If you agree, why not get involved by getting in touch with Adrian Wallington and asking him for more info.

Another highlight in April was going on a camp with Thatcham Young Rangers to Rushall Farm, in the Easter holidays. As the weather leading up to our camp had been pretty miserable, we kept our fingers crossed… And luckily, we were blessed with more or less dry days! The Young Rangers were total stars: most of them had never camped or slept away from home before, but they all mucked in and had a great time. We visited the farm animals, helped migrating toads reach their pond, built bivouacs in the woods, and sang so loudly round our campfire that they probably heard us in Reading! Because of the very cold night the kids pitched their tents inside the farm’s 300-year-old Black Barn, bedding down amidst much giggling. All of us adult helpers involved received beautiful handmade Thank You cards signed by every child, with the fervent request “Pleeeeeeease can we come and camp here again next year?”

We are now in the heart of the school visit season at Rushall Farm, with the field teaching team working at the farm most days of the week. In mid-May one of my fellow field teachers found some Early Purple Orchids Orchis mascula in Oaklands Copse at the farm, and was kind enough to tell me about them. Their spotted leaves had evidently been nibbled by deer or rabbits, but the pink flowers themselves had survived: a lovely sight amongst the trees.

Schools have also been coming to Five A Day Market Garden: Castleview School from Slough brought three classes of pupils on visits, which were great fun for children and adults alike. Not fazed by the showery weather, the staff and pupils got stuck into sensory and gardening activities, finally making three fabulous scarecrows, one of which is pictured here. The school brought a really positive and creative attitude with them that made working with their groups a total pleasure: I look forward to seeing them at Five A Day again next year!

On the gardening front, things are finally starting to get going on the allotment that I share with my friend Tessa. The rise in temperatures brought our strawberry plants into flower, which in turn brought out the honey bees from the hives in the corner of the allotment site. We’re hoping that this will be a better year for veg growing, as last year was pretty much a wash-out. So far the signs are promising: we’ve enjoyed our first crop of asparagus since creating our asparagus bed three years ago, our broad beans and sugarsnap peas are coming on a treat, and we finished off the last edible bits of last year’s brussels sprouts: the tender green tops and yellow flowers, which I discovered tasted jolly nice when incorporated into a sweet potato and feta salad.

As part of a planned new housing development, our allotments at Speen are threatened with possible relocation to a new site only 30 metres from the Newbury Bypass. Allotment members and the local community are currently being consulted about the proposals, with a public exhibition of plans for the suggested development at Speen Hall on 19th June. My feeling is that I support the provision of new social housing (of which some 40% of the proposed development is supposed to be), but no way do I want to be gardening on the edge of the bypass. Hopefully an alternative site for the allotments will be found which matches the peaceful current setting… Otherwise I may have to dust off my direct action techniques and dig out my D-lock! The plans are very much at the early consultation stage, so hopefully the feedback from allotment holders and others will produce a better solution for all concerned.

At least the slow start to the growing season this year has meant that I haven’t had to spend all my free time weeding the allotment, so I’ve been able to go out exploring for more wildlife. On a trip with the Young Rangers group to Padworth Common local nature reserve in late May, we were surprised to find a glowworm larva sitting on the edge of one of the corrugated iron sheets used as refuges by reptiles on the site.

Glowworms are actually a type of beetle: the adult females have two brightly-glowing segments on the underside of their rear abdomen, which they use to attract the flying male beetles on summer evenings. They feed on tiny snails and although said to prefer chalky or limestone soils can be recorded anywhere with suitable habitat: open vegetation such as grassland or hedges. The peak for finding glowing females is usually July, so why not have a look at a few sites in your locality and see if you can find some.

Staying with the theme of nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, at the end of May I went on a bat monitoring and moth trapping evening organised by BBOWT and Berks and South Bucks Bat Group, on the southern side of Greenham Common. As the evening was mild (and teeming with midges and mosquitoes!) we were hoping for some good numbers of bats, but alas all the bat nest boxes we checked were empty and there were few calls picked up by our bat detectors. We were lucky enough to catch a couple of Pipistrelle bats in the mist nets set up by James Shipman and other BSBBG volunteers. These tiny bats can each consume up to 3,000 insects in a single night! After spending several hours being bitten despite liberal amounts of insect repellent, I was silently wishing the Pipistrelles good hunting.

The bat action being less than stellar, I joined the moth trappers for a few hours of identifying the various moths and other night-time insects lured in by the lamps and white sheets placed around the common. I love moth trapping: there’s something quintessentially English about sitting in the dark peering at moth identification books and fluttering beasties in bug pots, periodically bombarded by bemused cockchafer beetles. I’ve yet to meet a moth enthusiast who isn’t also a thoroughly nice person. Enthusiasm is infectious, and frankly I find the geekiness of entomologists rather loveable. I’m well aware that this qualifies me for geekdom myself: it’s an identity I happily embrace, along with my many other guises. Oh, and moth trappers always make sure that good biscuits are conveniently to hand, as you can see on the left-hand edge of white sheet.

In early June I went on a dragonfly and damselfly identification course, one of the many Developing Your Skills workshops that BBOWT run across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. If you volunteer for BBOWT these courses are free of charge, but even if you pay, at £30.00 these courses are excellent value for money. This particular day was led by local ecology consultant Adrian Hickman, a very knowledgeable naturalist who can communicate what he knows in a clear and accessible way. Adrian’s morning classroom sessions focussing on identification features were reinforced by an afternoon fieldwork session on ponds around Greenham Common. And once again the sun was shining, so we had good amounts of sightings of Broad-bodied Chasers, Emperor Dragonflies, Large Red Damselflies (pictured above) and Azure Damselflies to name a few.

I’m looking forward to a summer of exploring nature and putting some of my newly-acquired skills to use: but one of the perks of working in environmental teaching is that even when I’m at work I get lots of opportunities to notice and appreciate the natural world. Recently I’ve started giving illustrated talks to groups, about subjects including wildlife gardening, foraging for wild foods and environmental education. It’s a genuine pleasure to be able to share my enthusiasm for the natural world with even more people, adults and children alike. A love of wildlife is catching, but unlike other infectious things, it’s really good for you! It’s good to see the BBC promoting their Summer of Wildlife, which will hopefully get more people turned on to nature in their own locality. I’ll certainly be out there: peering at moths, sniffing plants, studying dragonflies. However you plan to spend your summer, I hope you enjoy it too.

Wood anemones at Snelsmore Common

Digging ponds and singing songs

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Becca

2013 is here… So a very Happy New Year to you all. May this year be a good one: peace, health, prosperity, happiness, the whole shebang.

The festive season was certainly a good one for me. I got to catch up with more or less all of my family, including sundry nephews and one of my great-nieces (who is, of course, a total cutie). My mum came through a complicated spinal operation successfully and is recovering well, for which I am hugely thankful. And despite the generally discouraging weather (day after day of grey cloud and rain) I did get out into the wild winter countryside on occasion, as well.

One of many highlights was going to stay with my oldest brother in Norwich for a few days over new year. Not only is he a host par excellence (and a very good cook, to boot) but like me he enjoys rambling along by the sea. We made a trip up to Hunstanton (where the photo at the top of this blog was taken), which is right up on the north-west edge of the sticky-outy bit of Norfolk. I’d never been there before; it’s a funky old Victorian seaside town with the most amazing pink and white cliffs, kind of like coconut ice. (Anyone else remember making that when they were a kid?)

Both the white and red upper rocks are types of limestone, the reddish colour caused by staining with iron. There is also a brownish-red sandstone known as carrstone, similarly iron-stained. The limestone strata are full of fossils – a condition which my brother took full advantage of by spending a couple of busy hours working with his rock hammer to extract several really nice brachiopod fossils.

Being in a more beachcombing mood myself, I strolled for a while along Hunstanton beach, which is littered with curious rounded boulders somewhat reminiscent of stromatolites. Crouching down to eye-level with these boulders put me into what felt like a strange mythical landscape, with rounded hills rolling away to the horizon of the sea.

There’s even a genuine shipwreck on Hunstanton beach: the remains of the 1907 steam trawler Sheraton, mostly buried in the beach. This former fishing boat did duty in both World Wars, ending up rather ignominiously as a target ship for artillery practice. She drifted from her morrings in 1947 and was washed up on the coast, to be nibbled away at by salvagers until all that remains is the bottom section of her hull.

After my Christmas and New Year familial wanderings it was back to work in early January. I had been due to help a team of people build a pond before Christmas, but freezing weather and then flooding had forced us to postpone. In the first week of January however it finally stopped raining so we were able to get to work. You may ask, “How does it take whole a team of people to build one pond?” Well, this wasn’t your average garden goldfish pond. No… This was more on the scale of being a minor civil engineering project. For all those who’d like to try this at home, here’s your step-by-step guide to building a very large wildlife pond:

Step 1, get a nice shiny mechanical digger to dig out a hole the size of, oh say an Olympic swimming pool.

Step 2: ensure pond hole conforms to the exacting design of top ecologist and pond-builder supremo Rod d’Ayala.

Step 3: assemble a team of highly-skilled, energetic and fetchingly-attired pond construction staff (aka ‘The Hired Muscle’).

Step 4: pick out stones by hand from pond hole and cover any loose earth with puddled chalky clay (N.B. getting muddy is a vital part of this process).

Step 5: line the entire pond (sides and bottom) with two layers of tough underlay material, to protect pond liner. Note that boots must be removed first, so enabling all those involved to spend the entire day padding about in the pond hole with soggy socks.

Step 6: lift roll of waterproof rubber pond liner (weighing over 600 kg) to edge of pond using digger, then pause to make sure you’ve got it lined up exactly the right way round because if you haven’t it’s going to be rather difficult lifting it out again.

Step 7: let the liner unroll!

Step 8: use your highly-skilled team to unfold the liner and get it tucked beautifully into position. (A great team-building exercise, this.)

Step 9: cover the whole thing with another two layers of underlay material, then cover that with a six-inch layer of topsoil lifted in by digger and spread by hand with shovels. Create marshy and shallow areas within pond by heaping up soil, following Rod’s cunning and intricate pond design.

Step 10: go home to a hot bath and generally ache a lot for a few days afterwards.

Actually, Step 10 should probably be wait for pond to fill with water… So I will re-visit the site over the next couple of months and see how it’s getting on. Watch this space. The pond has been built mainly to encourage toads, so it’s hoped that it will be full enough with water for them to find it attractive as they emerge from hibernation and start to do their courtship and spawn-laying in February. Fingers crossed.

Aching muscles or not, pond building was certainly a great way to start the new year. Being out in the fresh air and helping to create a valuable habitat for declining British wildlife, plus all the Eccles cakes I could eat… Life could be a lot worse!

January continued to be inspiring, with an opportunity for me to attend the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network annual gathering, which was held at Wortley Hall near Sheffield. As a co-leader of Newbury-based community choir Sing The World I’ve been a member of NVPN for a couple of years now, but this was my first gathering – and what an amazing weekend it was. About a hundred incredibly creative and talented singing teachers and voice workers, gathered together to share ideas and teach songs to each other, in a lovely old country house set in beautiful Yorkshire landscapes.

Wortley Hall itself is an amazing place: a former private residence, it was bought by an independent co-operative organisation known as Wortley Hall (Labour’s Home), with the intention that it would be used by the working class as an education and holiday centre. Today it is still run on co-operative principles, and hosts all kinds of gatherings and events ranging from socialist celebrations and conferences to weddings and parties. My paternal grandfather was a strong socialist, so it felt wonderfully familiar to be roaming around a building whose rooms and wings are named after the likes of Keir Hardie, Robert Owen and Sylvia Pankhurst. In the current political climate it was heartening to be somewhere which celebrated a long tradition of radicalism and social justice. A whole bunch of us even sang The Internationale on the hall staircase – in four-part harmony, of course!

Not only was the hall itself a beautiful and peaceful place, but the staff there were friendly and the the food excellent. All of us at the NVPN gathering were working hard over weekend, so it was great to have such a lovely venue. Being singers, of course we kept the bar filled with song every evening… Until 2am, on one occasion! It was impossible to go to bed when there were always so many wonderful voices joining together in harmonies, wherever you went. Music was everywhere: in the bar; over breakfast, lunch and supper; during workshops; even on a 2-hour singing walk around the surrounding countryside (much to the amusement of a Ramblers group we met along the way). I feel very fortunate to have enjoyed such a great weekend, both from a professional development viewpoint but also because I made so many friends.

So all in all, it’s been rather a good start to 2013. Hopefully this is a good omen of things to come… I certainly plan to be getting out and about a lot this year, working and visiting friends and discovering all kinds of new and wonderful places. I’ll leave you with the wish that your own year ahead may be filled with good things too. Have fun, stay healthy, play in the snow and sing whenever possible. Or dance, if that’s your thing. Or do both! Looking forward to the adventures the coming year will bring…

Midwinter musings

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Becca

Well, it’s been a wild and wet few weeks leading up to midwinter. On the few clear frosty days we’ve had, I’ve tried to get out and about as often as possible to make the most of the winter sunshine. Even when it’s bitterly cold, sunlight is a valuable commodity at this time of year. Especially after the predominantly cloudy summer we’ve had: several of my friends have remarked that they feel sun-deprived, as if their bodies are craving a top-up. As one of the benefits of sunshine is that it enables our bodies to synthesize vitamin D, a substance important not only in bone health but also good immune system function, it’s not surprising that we’re all craving a bit of brightness at this time of year.

Luckily I have several friends who enjoy the great outdoors as much as I do, so I have had the opportunity to go on some lovely winter walks. The photo above was taken at the end of November at the RSPB’s Otmoor reserve between Oxford and Bicester. Three of us had been planning for some time to go and see the fabled winter starling roost there: a purpose thwarted in previous years by weather and work commitments, but finally achieved this winter… And it was truly worth the wait. I’ve seen photographs and films of starling roosts; watched a small one in London, over Wandsworth Bridge; but finally getting to see the Otmoor spectacle was a real treat. We were lucky with both the weather (freezing cold, but sunny and windless) and with the numbers of birds (around 30,000 starlings). A few birders with whom we watched the roost told us that most of the evenings they’d come out, the numbers of starlings had been smaller and the flying display very brief… But on that Friday we had almost an hour of watching what has to be one of the most magical wildlife displays in the UK.

Unfortunately you will have to take my word for this, as I was so busy watching the roost that I neglected to take any photographs. I did attempt to film a few parts of the display with my little compact camera, but the resultant blurry clips do more to capture my excitement (lots of off-camera “Whoa!” noises) than the beauty of the spectacle. Starlings perform these extraordinary massed aeronautical manoeuvres for a number of reasons: warming themselves up before roosting for the night; competing to gain the best perches amongst the reedbeds; foiling potential predators such as sparrowhawks with the confusing numbers and rapidly changing direction of their flock. But when I watch this display I am simply swept up in the beauty of it. The ebb and flow of birds, cresting and falling in dark waves against the winter sky. Thousands of individuals transformed into a single entity, turning as one; then suddenly dividing into two clouds of beating wings that form into a heart shape, a drop of water, a rising hill: one cloud passing in front of the other and being reabsorbed, before the whole flock rains out of the sky into the waiting reeds.

Otmoor is worth a visit at any time of year, not just when the starlings are doing their stuff in winter. Its reedbeds and wet meadows support a huge range of bird species throughout the year, as well as dragonflies and damselflies in summer. And it costs nothing to visit, although making a small donation to the RSPB to support their ongoing conservation work there and at other sites across the UK would be a nice gesture.

This winter I have been busier than usual in the run up to Christmas, with field teaching work continuing throughout November. The Young Rangers group that I help to run at the Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham has continued to be popular with local children, even now that colder weather and dark evenings have moved most of our activities indoors. We had a fun time carving pumpkin lanterns for Hallowe’en, and also making models of rockhopper penguins – which later ended up being used in a noisy but fun game of penguin skittles! Northern rockhopper penguins are mostly found on the remote Tristan da Cunha islands in the Atlantic Ocean, where their numbers are declining catastrophically. The RSPB is carrying out research to try to establish the causes of this decline: possible factors include climate change, overfishing and competition from other animals. Again, money is of course needed to support this conservation work, so if one of your New Year’s resolutions is to help wildlife then consider donating to the RSPB’s UK Overseas Territories appeal.

In November I also had the opportunity to revisit the RSPB’s east London flagship reserve at Rainham Marshes. I and a colleague were shadowing the RSPB field teachers there for a day as they worked with a local school, getting some ideas for developing our own teaching practice back at Thatcham. When we arrived the site was cloaked in freezing mist, which cleared slowly throughout the day to give some atmospheric views across the Thames estuary to the docklands beyond.

Rainham is an interesting site to visit, not just for wildlife and the excellent education facilities (I had major gadget envy for some of their teaching resources!), but also for the history of the landscape there. Gazing out over the foggy marshes I found myself reminded of the opening scenes in Great Expectations, with a young Pip startled by the appearance of the convict Magwitch out of the mist. I’ve always found the juxtaposition of industrial and natural landscapes fascinating, and Rainham is certainly a place with stories to tell.

Closer to home, I’ve been exploring some of the woodlands around Newbury. My old hiking boots finally gave up the ghost and I treated myself to some new ones, so this gave me an opportunity to break them in on short rambles in the beech woods around Cold Ash. With all the rain we’ve had the ground was pretty much a quagmire underfoot, but curiously it hasn’t been a good autumn for fungi – at least not on the sites I’ve been visiting. I did however see quite a bit of spalted beech wood on my walk – timber with a characteristic pattern of differently-shaded areas separated by dark lines.

These markings are caused by different types of ‘white rot’ fungi growing through the wood, bleaching out some areas and forming dark boundary ‘zone lines’ where two fungi meet. It’s common in beech and other hardwood trees, forming attractive patterning in timber that can then be turned or carved into bowls and other objects.

As well as exploring on foot I’ve been cycling quite a bit, especially along the Kennet and Avon canal towpath. In early December I cycled to Kintbury for a pint at The Dundas Arms, not realising that for most of the last mile or two the towpath was not so much adjacent to the canal as in it. High amounts of rainfall and maintenance work on some of the canal’s locks meant water levels had risen over the banks, making for somewhat soggy cycling. By this point on my cycle ride I was pretty determined that nothing was going to stop me enjoying my pint so I persevered, discovering en route that the secret to negotiating flooded towpaths is essentially just to keep pedalling, no matter what. I made it through the mire with freezing wet feet and a soggy bottom, but nothing that couldn’t be remedied with some Good Old Boy and a bag of crisps.

After frequent rain the ground is fairly well saturated, with standing water and flooding to be seen pretty much everywhere around Newbury and Thatcham. We’ve been lucky enough to escape the serious flooding that has caused so many problems in other parts of the UK, for which I’m very thankful: it must be hard for a lot of people to celebrate Christmas this year, displaced from their homes or businesses by inundation. Once again we seem to be suffering from ‘extreme’ weather events. After bemoaning the serious lack of winter rainfall last year, with consequent knock-on effects on habitats, wildlife and agriculture, the current heavy rainfall and consequent flooding may seem a touch ironic. But solutions to both issues may lie in the development of more sustainable water management systems, for example rainwater harvesting (RWH) and sustainable drainage systems (SUDS). I recommend reading this interesting article by Brian Pickworth, which explains how both flooding and drought could be tackled by the adoption of integrated systems for managing our water resources at times of peak and lowest availability.

A major part of any strategy for regulating water and managing the increasingly serious problems of flooding and droughts in the UK will have to be ensuring that we conserve as much of our natural wetland habitat as possible, of course. Much criticism has been levelled at the drainage and development of our floodplains, whether that be for housing or for agriculture. As a nature conservationist my sympathies are of course firmly on the side of wetland wildlife, which is the main reason why I’m opposed to the development of the so-called ‘Boris Island’ Thames estuary airport. The only case the airport-building supporters seem to have is an economic one… Although given the long-term costs of flood damage and other issues associated with unsustainable developments like these, someone clearly hasn’t been doing the math.

I’ve noticed recently that economic arguments are increasingly being used as a justification for development decisions that make no environmental sense. If any greenie dares to query the potential impact of anything ranging from fracking to nuclear power, it’s suggested that they are collaborating in some kind of Luddite plot that will drag Britain inexorably downwards in an apocalyptic economic disaster. I hope that people aren’t cowed by this financial McCarthyism. Using fear as a tool to push their own agendas is a technique long beloved by governments, but I’m hoping that in this age of access to information most of you will seek the science behind the headlines and prevent the destruction of ecosystems that are, ultimately, what keep all of us alive. It’s lovely to be able to fly abroad and visit beautiful places, but not at the cost of accelerating climate change and destroying our own native habitats and wildlife.

Ho ho ho… ‘Tis the season to be jolly, so I’ll end on a less polemical note! The nicest thing for me about this festive time of year is that I get time off from the pressures of work to go out and explore the countryside, as well as to catch up with friends and family. So in that spirit, I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year… And may you have a peaceful, healthy and prosperous 2013.

Sunset at Otmoor.

Three months later…

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Becca

If the title of this blog entry seems a trifle enigmatic, let me dispell the mystery: it’s been three months since I last wrote a blog entry. Lawks! How did that happen?

Well it happened, of course, because I’ve been a tad busy. All good stuff, many adventures and projects and work-related developments, but for several weeks other things (including this blog) have had to take a back seat for a while. The allotment that I share with my friend Tessa has also been somewhat neglected, or at least hasn’t received the kind of TLC that we were both able to give it the previous year. To be fair, the rather moist summer we’ve had has meant finding a spare half day to work on our plot when it hasn’t been siling down with rain has been virtually impossible. It’s also meant that an awful lot of veg that we planted did not do well: broad bean plants rotted and died, salads were a disaster area, peas were decimated by pigeons, even courgettes (which we’re usually reduced to putting in carrier bags and leaving anonymously on people’s doorsteps) fell prey to the slugfest that has been this year’s growing season. The only things that did well were our asparagus, Festival squash (pictured above) and some O’Driscoll drying beans (pictured below). These last are a Heritage Seed Library variety that grows like a runner bean, and is picked in late autumn, giving oodles of pleasingly white and purple speckled little round beans that I’m looking forward to eating. I grew mine from a few seeds donated by a kind friend.

With all the rainy weather I resorted to growing a few things on the windowsills of my flat (which helpfully face due south), including the biggest basil leaves I’ve ever seen in my life and a crop of ‘Apache’ chillies that are so spicy they are probably contributing to global warming. I am a chilliholic (I used to eat the ones that came pickled in jars of vinegar, then drink the vinegar) but these have given me a new respect for chilli-dom. They apparently score 75,000 – 80,000 on the Scoville Scale of chilli hotness: to give you some context, jalapeño chillies score about 2,500 – 8,000 on the Scoville Scale. I’m not sure whether to cook with the Apaches or stockpile them as lethal weapons.

Work has been full-on pretty much all summer and into the autumn, apart from a week off in early August to go to Voice Camp (of which more in a later blog). Despite the adverse weather conditions it’s been a good year so far for field teaching. I’ve especially enjoyed doing some Forest School sessions with the Thatcham Young Rangers youth group I co-lead. The Forest School ethos is that activities are hands-on and largely child-led: we leaders gave instruction in safe and correct tool use, establish some ground rules… Then let the kids choose their own activities. We’ve had den building, fire lighting, stick whittling, tree climbing – in fact, pretty much everything I used to do as a kid, but which most children today are usually not allowed to do. Even just getting messy was a novelty for some of them – though they soon got the hang of it, especially when they discovered how to make facepaints from elderberries and mud!

It’s been great being so busy, but because I’ve been teaching on Saturdays as well (running some wildlife gardening courses for adults) I have missed having weekends to go exploring. Last Saturday was free and I took advantage of the mild autumn weather to go on a yomp around Combe, a few miles southwest of Newbury. Amazingly I didn’t see a soul during the three-hour walk. I started high up on Walbury Hill, where the gorse and brambles lining the track were hung with cobwebs silvered with mist.

It was a perfect day for walking, cool and bright and still. There is something about being high up on hills and ridgelines that is wonderfully exhilarating. You’re about as far away from the sea as you can get in Berkshire, but there is something of the feel of the coast when you’re high up on the downs. It got me thinking about cliffs and the sea as I walked along… Maybe next year I will do some of the South West Coast Path when I’ve got a long weekend or a week free. In the meantime I was happy to be striding out over the hills, enjoying the autumn colours that are starting to show spectacularly in woodlands and hedgerows.

I know from my teaching at Rushall Farm that it’s been as tough a year for farmers as it has been for veg growers, so I was interested to see in one field a straggly crop of maize, interspersed with dense drifts of Scented mayweed Matricaria recutita. I wondered for a moment what kind of maize crop would have been gathered in after the cold wet summer – until I remember that maize is commonly grown as a cover crop on land where pheasant shoots take place. The mayweed was pretty, anyway.

My guess about pheasants proved correct. Once I cut into the woodland, the wretched things kept exploding from the undergrowth like demented banshees. It’s a mystery to me why pheasants sit quietly until they’re almost underfoot, whereupon they burst out in a flurry of scolding clucking and whirring feathers that causes any passer-by to suffer near cardiac arrest. I haven’t eaten pheasant for many years (although my maternal grandpa was a bit of a dab hand at poaching, family lore has it) but by the time I’d walked through the small woodland I would’ve quite cheerfully stuffed a few into an oven. The phrase “too stupid to live” kept coming irresistibly to mind. I know it’s not the pheasants’ fault that they’re here in such vast amounts in our countryside, and they are strikingly handsome birds… But boy, are they dumb. Maybe they have to be, for the purpose of pheasant shoots. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the average toff who goes pheasant shooting (and at a cost of around £1,000 per day, I’m guessing that most of the participants are toffs) prefers his flying targets not to be too quick-witted.

If I sound a bit jaundiced it’s because I am. It’s tricky; I work a lot in rural areas where being anti blood sports is not well looked upon, but it’s the ‘sport’ element of it that I dislike. I’d rather people shot and ate deer, if they have to shoot anything. We could certainly do with a lot less of those around, and in the absence of wolves I guess we could fill that ‘top carnivore’ niche. I don’t object to people knocking off pheasants and eating them per se. It’s the whole industry of it that bothers me – that and the way some gamekeepers and landowners see pheasants as privileged creatures to be protected at all costs, even if that means destroying actual native British wildlife. Our local MP and Minister for Wildlife and Biodiversity Richard Benyon controversially tried to introduce a programme for Defra to fund the capture of buzzards and destruction of their nests. Fortunately the resultant uproar from conservationists – not least because the proposed scheme was based on anecdotes of pheasant chick predation rather than any kind of scientific evidence – forced the government to back down. Or as Richard Benyon put it, “In the light of the public concerns expressed in recent days, I have decided to look at developing new research proposals on buzzards.” Mmm.

Buzzards are actually commoner than they used to be, largely thanks to the successful reintroduction of red kites (one pictured above) into England. A lot of work was done with landowners and gamekeepers to prevent the newly introduced kites from being shot or poisoned, with the result that buzzards have also benefited. I’m really glad that these large birds of prey are making a comeback: my heart never fails to lift when I see them wheeling and soaring over freshly-ploughed fields at Rushall Farm. And towards the end of my walk around Combe there were a few red kites circling above me, riding the air currents over the downs… A fitting end to a good day’s walking.

Speaking of Rushall Farm, I had a particularly pleasing moth moment there at the end of a field teaching day this week. I had just finished cleaning the toilets (the glamour of working in outdoor education!) and spotted a very spanking Merveille Du Jour moth sitting on the toilet door. This moth’s name translates as ‘Marvel of the Day’, and it pretty much was. It feeds on oak Quercus spp., of which there is a good amount at Rushall thanks to the well-managed semi-natural ancient woodlands on the farm. All supported by funding such as the Higher Level Stewardship scheme which Rushall succeeded in gaining this year: a good example of how farming can benefit the environment and wildlife.

This weekend has started clear and cold and sunny, so I made the most of yet another free Saturday to stomp around Snelsmore Common for a couple of hours. The wind was bitter but the woods were looking fabulous: full autumn colours and drifts of leaves bowling around in the gusts. I found an Amethyst Deceiver Laccaria amethystina among the beech leaves, looking like it had been put there by a set designer. Fungi are the coolest things: they recycle dead leaves and wood, and many form dense networks of underground root-like hyphae which grow in close association with the roots of trees and other plants, benefiting them enormously. Fungal hyphae are tiny: in one gram of woodland soil there can be an astonishing 100 metres of hyphae… Yet the largest (and oldest) living thing in the world is a fungus: Armillarea ostoyae (Honey fungus to you and me) in the Blue Mountains in Oregon, one specimen of which has hyphae covering 965 hectares. Epic. How can you not like fungi? Especially as when they do pop their fruiting bodies up above ground or out of logs, as the familiar toadstools or mushrooms we’ve all encountered, they manifest in such a funky range of shapes and colours.

Autumn being the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, the other good reason to walk through the woods at Snelsmore Common was to glean the ground underneath the many Sweet chestnut trees Castanea sativa that grow there. I was half expecting the squirrels to have got there first, but there were actually lots of nuts to find, especially when I rootled about under the thick litter of orange-brown leaves lying on the ground. I’m not sure yet how I’ll cook ’em up – maybe something involving mushrooms, which go well with sweet chestnuts’ rich earthy sweetness. Or possibly brussels sprouts, although it’ll be a while yet before ours will be ready on our allotment. Maybe I can cook and freeze the chestnuts in the meantime…

So by coming back to allotments and food, I’ve come full circle. Must be all this healthy outdoor walking giving me an appetite. My Festival squash are sitting cheerfully in a corner of my kitchen, from where I regularly choose one to roast or stew. I won’t be carving one for Hallowe’en, because they’re just too yummy to waste as lanterns… Though I might carve an ordinary pumpkin anyway, for a bit of fun. I’m looking forward to Hallowe’en – or Samhain, the old Celtic new year, as I celebrate it. In the half term holiday week I’ll be running some ‘Creepy Crafty Creatures’ family events at Five A Day Market Garden which will focus on bats, owls, spiders and other spooky wildlife; plus another wildlife gardening course for adults, so I’ll be keeping busy. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a photograph of a very gorgeous creepy creature found on our allotment this summer: a beautiful toad who’d made herself at home catching the slugs feasting on our strawberries.

Happy Hallowe’en for next week!

Whatever the weather

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Becca

I write this on a grey, showery first day of July, after what has been a largely grey, rainy June. It feels cool and windy and not at all like midsummer should be: working outdoors almost every day as I do, I feel slightly more entitled to whinge about the inclement weather than most folks. And reminding myself that “we need the rain” doesn’t actually help much. At the end of the day, I would prefer to be field teaching without having to garb myself up like a North Sea fisherman. Not to mention that 75% of the schoolchildren who turn up on field trips appear to be offspring of parents who haven’t had the nouse to put the words “outdoors” and “suitable clothing” together in their overtaxed brains. Here’s a clue, folks: in the real world coats have to be waterproof. All the Hello Kitty accessories in the world will not comfort your child if they are soaked to the skin on a five-hour school trip in the countryside.

If I sound a tad grumpy it’s because I’m not well: after being surrounded by schoolkids barking out coughs like sealions for the past month, I’ve succumbed to a tenacious virus that has left me teaching in a sultry croak that occasionally frightens younger children. Taking days off sick when you’re self employed is not really an option unless you have pneumonia, so I’m consuming epic quantities of garlic and fresh lemons and fortifying myself with echinacea and paracetamol. Being able to teach in dry weather would be helpful but the latest forecast seems to be continuing on the moist side… Heigh ho. Waterproofs at the ready.

In an effort to cheer myself up I’m posting some photos taken in late May and early June, before Britain entered the Rain Age. My friend Chris led a walk at Hartslock Nature Reserve near Goring, for Reading and District Natural History Society (RDNHS). It was a scorchingly hot day, and a lovely opportunity to revisit a nature reserve where I once lived for a few months in a caravan as the resident warden ‘guarding’ a colony of Monkey orchids (Orchis simia). The photo at the start of this blog is of Hartslock Woods, looking east down the River Thames. If you don’t know this site (which is owned and managed by local wildlife trust BBOWT) then I highly recommend you visit it: it’s fabulous for plants, invertebrates, birds and commands views over the Thames Valley and Goring Gap second to none.

RDNHS was founded in 1881 and is still going strong: the group runs a programme of outdoor visits to sites of wildlife interest and indoor talks about subjects ranging from earthworms to bird conservation in Ecuador. I don’t get along to their meetings as often as I’d like (especially at the moment, as I’m teaching six days a week and several evenings too), but I can thoroughly recommend them. Not only do you get a fascinating look at the natural world, but you meet some phenomenally accomplished amateur and professional naturalists who will generously share their knowledge with you. A list of their upcoming outdoor trips (on midweek evenings as well as Saturdays and Sundays) can be found on their website.

The Monkey orchid (Orchis simia) pictured in close-up above is one plant that gives Hartslock its botanical cachet. In 2002 a Lady orchid (Orchis purpurea) flowered at the site, and by 2006 the first Monkey-Lady hybrid Orchis simia x purpurea was seen in flower on the reserve. Now there is a thriving colony of 250+ hybrids alongside the existing Monkey orchids on the main orchid slope, and there has (and continues to be) lively debate about the pros and cons of hybridisation. My take on it is that ‘hybrid vigour’ (check out the sturdier-looking hybrid plant below) may well prove to be a healthy thing for the Monkey orchids long term… And that Mother Nature generally knows best and gets on with sorting things out, regardless of what opinions we puny humans may have. For more background info on the science behind the hybrids, check out Chris’s Hartslock website.

Being an unimproved chalk downland reserve, Hartslock is generally fantastic not just for orchids but all kinds of plant species. There is a small colony of (introduced) Pasqueflower Pulsatilla vulgaris, of which one was still in bloom in late May.

Another notable at Hartslock is the semi-parasitic Bastard toadflax Thesium humifusum, a tiny creeping little plant that taps into the roots of other plants and derives some of its sustenance from them. It reminds me of a diminutive mistletoe, although confusingly it is part of the Sandalwood family. There is a bug Sehirus impressus that feeds solely on the sap of this rare plant. We found one of these small dark metallic blue bugs on our ramble: my photo doesn’t do it justice as it was so warm the bug was practically break-dancing in its pot, but never mind.

After several hours in the scorchio sun my water supplies had run out and I was ready to call it a day… But not the stalwarts of RDNHS, who gamely set off on a foray to inspect the neighbouring slope for botanical and entomological gems. My ambition for my twilight years is still to be actively enjoying nature, so those more senior members of RDNHS are an inspiration. I salute them! Those of us who work in conservation owe a massive debt to such passionate and thorough amateur naturalists who have amassed a huge body of painstaking observations of our native wild plants and animals.

From the older generation to the younger… It is peak season for field teaching and I have been very busy working with schools and youth groups at Rushall Farm, Five A Day Market Garden and the RSPB’s Living Classroom at Thatcham. Schools often prefer to schedule their field trips for the summer term, although to be honest they could have just as good a day out in spring or autumn – or even winter for some study topics.

At Rushall Farm schools come on residential camps as well as day trips, which gives us a chance to do more adventurous things such as campfires, bivouac building and team building activities such as sheep herding. I’m telling you now, if you haven’t seen a class of eleven year-olds trying to get half a dozen confused sheep into a pen, you haven’t lived. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. One pupil related to their parent that they’d been “sheep hurdling”: that pretty much covers it. And the bivouacs that the kids build in the woods are works of art. Maybe not always 100% weatherproof, but creative marvels nonetheless. Ray Mears, eat your heart out.

What I like about the camps at Rushall is that you get to know the children over a couple of days and build up a rapport with them. Too often when classes come on trips there are worksheets to be done and curriculum topics to be covered: all worthy stuff and part of what outdoor education is about, but for me the real point to it all is making sure these kids develop a strong and lasting connection with the natural world that will sustain them throughout their lives. There’s a lot of talk these days about Nature Deficit Disorder and the lack of contact that most children (and adults) have with nature, so it’s easy to feel despondent… But what I see when I’m field teaching is children quickly getting into the wild experience, especially if there are ‘real’ things such as mud, sticks or campfires involved. The only things holding kids back seem to be adult fears about risks (not a problem if you plan things properly and set boundaries with groups) or getting clothes dirty (leave the designer gear at home). No-one will be able to see your designer labels once they’re muddy, anyway – and tribal facepaint (as modelled by me below after a bivouac building session at Rushall) beats Bourjois make-up any day.

It has been challenging teaching on some of these really wet days, but to give the kids credit, I haven’t heard a single one moan about the rain – even when they’ve been sent to us with insufficient footwear or rainproof clothing and have consequently spent the day somewhat damp. I’ve loaned a lot of clothing to kids in the last month in an effort to keep them at least partly dry: my feeling is that maybe instead of twittering on about reviving O-levels and getting kids to learn poetry by rote, Mr Gove should ensure that all schools have a set of wet weather gear that can be borrowed by kids going on field trips. Why should kids suffer because their parents are apparently clueless about what constitutes ‘appropriate clothing’ for a country where rain is the norm at the moment?

Getting off my soapbox… Despite the wet weather, I’ve had some great days out with school groups. Hunting for minibeasts, pond dipping and going on sensory nature walks are still crowd-pleasers. And even when I’ve had a gruelling day with a ‘challenging’ group, the things the kids come out with when I ask them what they remember about the day never fail to lift my spirits. No-one works in environmental education for the financial rewards, and teaching of any sort is at best demanding and at worst exhausting, but when I think of all the thousands of children I’ve worked with it feels worthwhile. I know what a positive impact my early nature education experiences had on me at primary school, and how that’s sustained me in later life. I just hope that some of what I do will have a similar effect on the children I teach.

Since the rainy season began and I became temporary host to the World’s Most Persistent Cough, I’ve not had much time to garden on the allotment that I share with my friend Tessa. Last time I visited (over a week ago) the blackfly were taking over the broad beans and I spent an unpleasant half hour dealing with them, as well as weeding like a fiend. However there has been just enough sun to ripen our strawberries so this weekend we picked four punnets, as well as some early raspberries and a few broad beans. It’s been a weird year for gardening so we’re not getting too bothered about our lack of produce so far. Everything looked very pale and washed out (literally) until very recently, but now hopefully things will get growing if we get a few warmer days. I planted some climbing French beans that a friend of mine gave me seeds of: an heirloom variety called O’Driscoll, which you can leave the pods on to grow large and then harvest the bean seeds for drying and using as a cooked pulse. I’m looking forward to sampling them later this year.

One other nice thing I did on one of the few sunny Sundays we’ve had was to go for a bike ride along the canal towpath to Kintbury. It was hot day and I was very glad to break my journey near the wonderfully-named wet woodland called The Wilderness, and go for a wade in the River Kennet (which runs parallel to the Kennet and Avon Canal at this point).

The river was crystal clear and beautifully cool and I spent a very pleasant half hour paddling about in it, spotting fish and botanising along the banks. The Kennet is a superb chalk stream, despite worries about its falling water levels. On the Action for the River Kennet (ARK) website you can find a lot of information about its current problems and wonderful wildlife. Simply put, we’re using too much water: ARK states that Thames Water abstracts 19 million litres of water per day from the aquifers that should be feeding the Upper Kennet. With all the rain we’ve had it may be hard to imagine that lack of water is still an issue, but it is. Leaks from water company infrastructure are definitely a factor, but that doesn’t mean that as individuals we shouldn’t also take steps to conserve water in our homes and gardens. My personal favourite tip is: Turn off the tap whilst brushing your teeth. This saves about 12 litres of water per person, every day. If everyone in Berkshire did this, it would save over 10 million litres of water per day… Which is over half of the water currently being taken out of those aquifers.

Time for me to go and pack my bag for another day’s field teaching on the morrow, so I’ll end this blog entry here. The forecast is for heavy rain and we have a large school group booked in at Thatcham so no doubt that will be interesting! But on the plus side we’re finding lots of groovy snails and slugs on our minibeast hunts… And frogs in the meadow. I will leave you with a picture of one the kids found last week, whilst sweep netting for insects. They were thrilled, the frog less so. It may be tough sometimes being a field teacher in the rain, but it’s even tougher being an amphibian who lives in area used regularly for environmental education. I suspect we’ll be seeing the same frog more than once before the end of term.

Rowanleaf

Writing, Singing & Teaching About The World

Tag Archives: wildlife