The Return of Nature Notes: cannibal rats! giant robins! trees in peril!

After a bit of a break from Nature Bothering, Nature Notes is back. I've rounded up some local Nature News (sorry still nothing about Railway Fields before you ask), added in some recent news stories about the flora and fauna of the UK and shared a couple of photos taken locally, including one taken in my fridge. 

Read on to find out how Nature invaded my fridge, a fight to save a much loved tree, where to see three giant robins and much more...

Local Nature News

Good news from Woodberry Wetlands!

In case you missed it, the appeal for Woodberry Wetlands passed the £110,000 mark (the cost of keeping it open for one year), thanks to £60,738 in donations from supporters and £55,000 in match funding from Berkeley Homes and Hackney Council.

This means Woodberry Wetlands will be reopening on Wednesday 15th July. The café will be opening, but with some changes to make it Covid-secure.  You can check for updates on their website

Fight to save The Happy Man Tree

Also up the road in Woodberry Down, residents are locked in a battle to save a beloved London Plane dubbed The Happy Man Tree that is marked for felling to make way for new housing. A group called Friends of The Happy Man Tree are battling Hackney Council and Berkeley Homes to save the 150 yr old tree and are now mounting a 24 hr vigil to protect it, including building a platform in the branches. Local people recently lost a court battle and have been threatened with fines and prison if they continue to block its felling. Having just finished the powerful novel The Overstory by Richard Powers, this local fight to save a much loved tree has struck a chord. Read more about the plane on their website and it was recently featured in the Guardian series Tree of the Week. 

The distressing and  wanton destruction of the mature trees on Green Lanes in the BDC carpark one Easter Sunday is still fresh in the memory of many of us. I, for one, shall watch with interest how the fight to save the Happy Man Plane Tree story unfolds.

Feeding the wildfowl

A timely reminder from Lordship Rec of the dos and don’ts of feeding the waterbirds in our local ponds and lakes. 

Photo via Facebook

Don’t swim in the rivers!

As pictures circulated of people bathing in the River Lea at Hackney Marshes (and people subsequently ending up in A&E), many of us were amazed that anyone would want to cavort in sewage and heavy metals, even with the heat. The rivers of East London are heavily polluted and the sad truth is that NO river in the UK is deemed safe enough for bathing due to high levels of pollution. With this in mind, a new campaign to see bathing water standards for British Rivers has been launched by the Rivers Trust.

Find out more here

The English Elms at Seven Sisters

I’ve really enjoyed a couple of mail outs from Bruce Castle Museum about trees in Tottenham, in particular the Elms of Seven Sisters and Bruce Grove. Packed with far too much information to share in this round up, I’ll just point you in the direction of Carol Ann Duffy’s poem The English Elms which begins,

Seven Sisters in Tottenham,

long gone, except for their names,

were English elms.

Find out more about how to sign up for emails from the museum here

Nature Street Art in Mayes Road

Three Robins

Photo by PeepO’Daze on Twitter

Nature Notes

The Summer of The Cannibal Rats!

Many people have reported close encounters with foxes, squirrels and other scavengers as the lack of food from restaurant bins and mucky humans means that they are forced into closer contact with our household bins and gardens. Rats too have had a hard time and have started to move in with us. The cannibal part? You’ll have to read the article to find out 

The short but industrious life of the worker bumblebee

If you’ve been alarmed to find expired bumblebees, don’t worry. It’s all part of their life-cycle and the sad fact is that worker bees only live a few weeks before they die. It’s therefore quite normal to see a small number of dead bees in the garden. As long as you are still seeing live bees in the area, then it’s unlikely to be something to be concerned about.

Bumblebee nests grow throughout the season, and produce new males and queens at the end of their life-cycle. Throughout the life of the nest, a large number of worker bees help the nest to grow by collecting nectar and pollen – these make up most of the bees that you see out and about in summer.

When bees are close to death, they often cling to flowers and look quite lethargic. When they do die, they then drop off the flowers, and you may find a number of these in your gardens, especially near the most bee-friendly plants. The reason why dead bees are often found in gardens and near nest sites is simply because that’s where they’ve been living and working. Also, you may find dead bees and larvae near nest entrances, this is because dead and dying bees are removed from the nest so that disease does not spread.  

Source: Bumblebee Trust News. Find out more about the life-cycle of the Bumblebee here

When is a wildflower meadow not a wildflower meadow?

Twitter users were very appreciative of a picture from Rotherham of a 13km stretch of flowering verges known as ‘the river of flowers” but not everyone was impressed. Ecologists and botanists pointed out that many of the plants were non-native species that don’t always support the native invertebrates of an area and that in creating these verges native species can be crowded out or even destroyed. Dr Amy-Jane Beer looks at both sides of the debate in this article in Discover Wildlife.

I didn't need to go to Rotherham to see a lovely display. I just had to stop and admire this planter in Woodlands Park Road full of pollinator friendly flowers. Well done to whoever has made such a lovely job of this space.

Lockdown silence enables the first global map of the Spring Dawn Chorus

Did you get up early in May to experience the Dawn Chorus uninterrupted by aircraft or traffic noise? Many people who did captured the birdsongs on their phones, enabling a global map of the Dawn Chorus to be built. Inspired by the bioacoustician Bernie Krause and led by Prof Michael John Gorman, the project has led to the creation of DawnChorus.org. Read about the project in this Guardian article

Butterflies and Moths to see in July

Finally 

This gorgeous creature turned up in my veg delivery this week. Eurydema ventralis is a bit of brassica/radish botherer and was freezing in my fridge but after five minutes in the sun it was soon wandering about. Not sure if it will find many brassicas in my garden though!

Have a good week and don't forget to LOOK UP