At the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting in Liverpool (2024) there was a soundscape of tropical birds and mammals running in the lecture halls in the run-ups to the start of the talks. Back home I encountered something similar recently when I walked on to Port Meadow. It was still dark but there was a… Continue reading Sound thinking, but uncertain comparisons
Tag: Nature
Paddle your oak canoe
Waterways are still important lines of communication in parts of Britain: I see the boats going up and down the Thames and the Oxford Canal on my bike ride out to Wytham Woods. Rivers were probably even more convenient highways and transport routes for our ancestors before the development of major road networks, although we… Continue reading Paddle your oak canoe
Who ate all the dead wood
So much for hopes of an Indian Summer, with, instead, nearly a month’s worth of rain over the course of a weekend: on my morning walk I paddled through water, when yesterday the level had been about 15 cm below the path. In woodland the extra weight of the wet leaves and the soaking of… Continue reading Who ate all the dead wood
How do we get more trees planted?
The past is a foreign country: we might imagine that medieval kings were primarily concerned with affairs of state such as wars, hunting or other courtly pursuits, but firewood supplies?
