“Daisies are our silver, Buttercups our gold: This is all the treasure We can have or hold.” Thus runs a children’s hymn I remember from Sunday School in the 50s and early 60s. Innocent and charming, it was written by Jan Struther, to be sung to the tune…
Category: natural history
In another post, I pondered on the variation you can find in some wildflowers, including red campion. In contrast, I’ve always been intrigued by the uniformity of the valerian plant (Centranthus ruber). This common plant of wayside and cliffs always flowers in one of three defined colours –…
“Oak before ash, in for a splash; ash before oak, in for a soak” Thus runs the old country saying, suggesting that if the ash tree comes into leaf first, there will be more rain than if the oak tree does. This year, the ash trees are still…
On a dry and bright breezy day, I did this circular walk starting and finishing in the lovely village of Worth Matravers on the Isle of Purbeck. Up and down to the coast along steep combes, and a short stretch of the Coast Path. Walking down to the…
The flowering of the blackthorn tree is commonly associated, in folklore, with a “blackthorn winter” – a sudden unseasonal spell of cold and wet or snowy weather at the same time as the tree is in blossom. Given the very variable weather we get in an English spring,…
A few days of warm sunny weather, and spring is definitely here. Apart from the sunshine, the most joyous aspect is the birdsong. Skylarks have just started singing high over the fields, their wings flickering light and dark against the sky as they hover, borne aloft on a…
What a difference a month makes – at the start of February, we were admiring a snowfall, and now at the end we’ve been basking in improbably warm sunshine for several days. There is an indefinable sense that things are on the change – winter is receding fast…
Early this morning, the alarm woke me from sleep to see the last complete lunar eclipse visible from the UK for about 10 years. When I first looked up at about 4:15, slightly less than half of the moon’s face was bright, and the rest a dull mark…
Every year, I post an image a day for the Advent period for my friends and followers on Facebook. This year, most of my images are beach related as that’s my favourite haunt in my spare time, but I hope to include some of my favourite rusty artwork…