For my parents, who always encouraged me to go outside and have little adventures.
Contents
Sources of Information and Inspiration
Since Springwatch first hit our television screens back in 2005, the series has developed an enduring two-way relationship with its audience that is unique in UK broadcasting. Springwatch tapped into the public’s passion for natural history and invited the audience to get involved, ask questions and share their experiences of observing their local wildlife. It started with good old-fashioned letters, videotapes and comments on the programme’s website, but the conversation has today evolved to various social media networks like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. Whatever the method of communication, one thing remains the same – the audience’s undimmed enthusiasm and endless thirst for knowledge.
By 2009, frankly, the show was inundated; thousands of beautiful photos, hundreds of hours of interesting footage and countless intriguing queries poured in from the audience. To accommodate all of this brilliant content a sister show called Springwatch Unsprung was spawned, with the inimitable Martin Hughes-Games at the helm. Subsequently, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch also gained their own version of Unsprung. Like its host, Unsprung can be anarchic, chaotic and irreverent, but at its heart lies a desire to rekindle a child-like wonder and curiosity about nature. It includes quizzes, live animal guests, artists and other guests who make a living from or have a hobby that involves nature. As a live, unscripted and unrehearsed show anything can happen – and it often does. Ultimately, though, Unsprung is made by the audience; without their input the show simply wouldn’t exist.
Still, even with Unsprung, there just wasn’t enough airtime to answer all the compelling questions that were sent in – proof, if it were needed, that UK wildlife can be just as fascinating as exotic foreign species. Hence this book, as an effort to scratch that metaphorical itch of a nagging wildlife query. You know what it’s like … those niggling but profound questions in life that strike when you’re walking to work, pottering in the garden or beachcombing with the kids (children always seem to ask the simplest but most challenging questions!). Why do ladybirds have spots? Do snails get slower with age? How do moths find their way in the dark? Do oysters dream? And why, oh why, do dogs love rolling in fox poo?!
You’ll find the answers to all these and other equally perplexing questions in this book, arranged by season. Martin Hughes-Games has written an introduction to each section to inspire, inform and boost your natural history knowledge so that you can impress (?!) your friends in the pub. There are some mind-boggling quizzes thrown in for good measure too. And if reading about nature spurs you into action in the real world, there’s a selection of wildlife organisations that would welcome your support and involvement. While Unsprung can’t be re-created exactly on paper, hopefully its spirit shines through in these pages.
Spring – surely our most uplifting and optimistic season? The thrill of seeing the first flowers, usually the lesser celandine with its gleaming golden petals, the naughty green shoots of Arum (lords and ladies) poking through the brown debris of winter (a plant which probably has more rude colloquial names than any other UK plant, due to the shape of its phallic stamen within the fold of the first leaf), and the shattering sight and smell of a bluebell wood, seemingly hovering an inch or two above reality. How can it be so dazzling? The colours are almost unreal, created from nothing more than air, sunlight and water, with a pinch of minerals from the soil. Magic.
Along with the bluebells there are often great swathes of powerful-smelling ramsons at this time of year. A girlfriend once cooked me a quiche flavoured with ramsons (wild garlic). It was, honesty compelled me to be frank, quite horrid and I foolishly said as much. That was some 30 years ago and she’s still not forgiven me!
Suddenly eggs appear in nest boxes as my chickens start to lay again after a winter of rest. Soon I’m making holes in compost with a pencil to plant tomato seeds. Then there’s the almost forgotten sensation of the Sun’s warmth on bare skin … Yes, spring is one of the glories of living in the UK because, of course, in some countries the different seasons are not so clearly defined – they cannot enjoy this incredible sense of rebirth after a gloomy, desolate winter as new life explodes all across the countryside.
In early April I scan the sky with a mounting sense of expectation. Then, suddenly, there it is – the first swallow of the year, sweeping through the sky, chesting up on the breeze, all the way from Africa, bringing with it the promise of warm days to come.
There are a host of things to see and do in spring. Watch out for migrating toads early in the year; thousands of them wake up from their winter torpor and start to march, en masse, towards their favourite breeding ponds. This can be a seriously impressive spectacle. Writing in 1188, Gerald of Wales slightly misinterpreted the toad migration:
‘In our own days,’ he says, ‘a young man was persecuted by a plague of toads. It seemed as if the entire population of toads had made an agreement to visit him. Toads came flocking from all directions, more and more of them until no one could count them. In the end the young man’s friends who were trying to help were quite worn out.’
So far so good, but then Gerald comes off the rails – as ever, scientific verisimilitude