nature notes

Marigold, that's fantastic! Get it running again and post it to Gardeners World, they were asking people to send landscape videos of their gardens, this would for sure get onto TV.

You only need to sign up free to Youtube. Download the app to your mobile phone. Once logged in on your phone, you just upload it and make sure it is set to public viewing, or we will all need a password. You just copy the video link and paste it.
 
OK- not strictly wildlife, though Poppy thought it was! Sorry the video is hazy - I realised afterwards that the lens was filthy and Poppy wasn’t willing to do a second take!
https://youtu.be/aOaQmht0fAU
 
Love these two clips, thanks for sharing, you have a beautiful garden :-)08 :-)08 :-)08
 
A friend posted this on FB. Love the idea of rebel botanists armed with chalk.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/01/not-just-weeds-how-rebel-botanists-are-using-graffiti-to-name-forgotten-flora-aoe?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2YlTzz50ZPRrv7M5gBfg_Q7_5Y_McuKSoRyytZduTTLRn_CwR_LarNsHM#Echobox=1588493675
 
I loved those mini clips. Gosh looking at all that snow, it looked so magical, although I do prefer the sunshine!
I can see now how Marigold got her name. Such a beautiful, almost apricot colour. I bet you are looking forward to a few more after this lockdown has ended, even if it is just for the eggs.
 
I tell you rick those rebel botanists are badass dudes. Shoplifting, street fighting and heavy drinking. You never know when they’re going to strike next. Ladies Bedstraw, Vipers Bugloss, Reflex Buttercup. Their flower labelling knows no limits.
 
If I could buy any chalk you wouldn't be able to see any hard landscaping in the garden here because our land is choc-a-bloc with wild flowers and grasses - aka weeds to many people. I find it rather sad that so many, particularly younger people it seems, don't know what the plants are, even the common ones. It is certainly noticeable that with the lockdown and the scarcity of people out 'doing things' to their land, even the countryside around here, which is always rich in wild plants, has gone completely bonkers. Wild grasses (who knew there were so many) are reaching the lower branches of fruit and olive trees, and with our rather wet but mild spring, everything is burgeoning.

Today's wildlife spot was a large fox, dozing on some land, off the beaten track, masquerading as a log. We stopped and admired him from afar, and then he moved off. He was large and perhaps more sandy coloured than fox coloured. We don't get many around here, though we have found fox poo, so we knew there was one about.
 
Since lockdown, I have changed where I now walk, so it is open fields and woodlands rather than a forest. I walk for miles on my daily excercise ;-)
I have downloaded plantnet app to my mobile phone and it has helped me identify some wild flowers I otherwise wouldn't have known, such as Wild garlic, Herb Robert and Alkanet. I have taken 1 cowslip, 1 alkanet, wild garlic and another wild flower and planted in my "wild" rockery to attract insects. I do have lots of other flowers, too, which the bees enjoy.

I think as we get older and spend more time in the garden, it becomes more of an interest to find out the real names of plants. I know I have.

Has anyone ever heard the nickname for cow parsley as "Mother Die" or is it a localised wives tale? :-)19
 
No I haven't. it might be a local name. In Norfolk bitterns are known as fens man's roast.
I was just moaning about the cuckoo who doesn't seem to have taken a breath since 4.30 am, OH said this is now a week of it. I just wonder if they ever get a sore throat.
I love the smell in a damp area of wild garlic, that gets called ransome's in some areas of the country.
 
Yes, ransomes in Devon and East Sussex I can confirm!
That sounds like an excellent app, I will download it. Although I recognise many common plants there are so many here that I don't know. I have a book and I like to cross ref them as I come across them, but trying to get the names to stick can be hard!
I have never heard the term 'Mother Die' for cow parsley.
 
We found a web site called plant-lore. com, which says it was called mother die as it was believed taking it into the house would cause the death of said parent, seems to be mainly a UK name. It seems to have a lot of names the most common being Queen Anne's lace. Quite an interesting little site, good for wasting time.
Very educational this forum.
Fieldfare in rural Essex get called foofars not sure if that's how it is spelt. No idea where that name came from
 
There’s a whole world of regional bird names here. Sometimes you don’t even know what people are talking about. So try some of these:-
Whaups, Shalders, Skootie Alan, Bonxies, Tammy Norries, Rain Gus, Scarf, Tieves Nacket and Horsegok.

( OK. Curlew, Eider Duck, Arctic Skua, Great Skua, Puffins, Red Throated Diver, Black Guillemot, Lapwing and Snipe).
 
BYM - I am going to look at that plantlore website, sounds interesting. Still got the time, still furloughed until further notice.
Love the word foofar, sounds like it should be a posh poodle actually. :lol:

Hen-gen - never heard of any of those :-) Skootie Alan does sound Scottish, och aye :D
 
Love some of those names Hen-Gen I knew Bonxie. Snipe locally get called bog bleaters, Storm Petrels, Mother Careys chickens. Pied Wagtails Pollies.
Spadger for Sparrow, Mistle Thrush, Storm Throstle. I have heard Puffins called Little Father, or Little Friar, because of their black and white plumage looking like clerical garb
 
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