Autumn Colours

September 11, 2020May 3, 2022 | Rebecca Gibson

I was back in the wood this week, helping Joan and John with their restoration project. The forecast blatantly lied about there being no rain all day, but luckily we timed our visit with a brief spell of sunshine! The breeze brought the added benefit of whisking the midges away. After topping up the feeders we had a slice of Joan’s delicious homemade ginger and sultana cake and watched the chaffinches and great tits up in the trees.

One good thing about the rain is it brings up all sorts of fungi – with so much soggy soil and plenty of log stumps I knew there would be loads to see in a few days’ time. For now though, I amused myself with tiny sprigs of yellow stagshorn fungus that were just starting to emerge. I’ve been lucky enough to see several fly agarics already this year but I’ve got my fingers crossed that more will be popping up in the wood soon.

The autumn colours are really beginning to pop. Ling heather is still dominating the woodland floor but a lot of the saplings are shining in the sun too. The rowans are beginning to brown, the oak leaves are turning acid green and the wild cherry leaves are burning a vivid pink. It’s an excellent place to learn tree ID and with Joan’s help I’m already picking up on some of the common species.

As I watched a buzzard gliding overhead, Joan ventured off to pick the first blackberries and the last raspberries. There were a few apples which were ready to be plucked too. I’m in love with all the rich colours and can’t wait to see what the true autumn will bring!

September WILDLIFE

September 1, 2020September 8, 2020 | Rebecca Gibson

Birds

For many birds, September is the time to move. Species such as swallows and house martins, which have spent the summer feasting on insects, are now returning south to Africa for winter. Seabirds including puffins and gannets leave their clifftop nests and head out to sea, where they will remain until it’s time to breed again next year.

As some birds leave, other start to arrive. This month, look out for geese passing through during their long flight from the Arctic Circle. Canada, greylag and barnacle geese can all be seen arriving at roost sites across the UK in their classic V-shaped flight formations.

From now until late November, one of nature’s most dramatic displays is taking place. Most of us have seen starling murmurations on TV, but these pale in comparison to the real thing. As well as the sight of hundreds of thousands of birds swarming through the sky, the sound of all those wings is just like rain. Just be careful of the white rain that comes with them!

Mammals

With dusk getting earlier, it’s a good time to look for badgers as they forage on fruit, nuts and insects. Settle down before sunset and wait – if you’re still and quiet you may be rewarded with a badger or two!

Although sometimes elusive, water voles can be seen a little easier now that river vegetation is starting to die back. Now is also when young water voles are venturing out of the burrows for the first time and looking for food.

Fungi and Flora

No matter where you live in the UK, you can admire the turning leaves. City parks and dense forests alike will start to show beautiful displays of reds, oranges and yellows. To get the most dramatic photographs, head out during golden hour (shortly after sunrise or before sunset) and catch a vivid gold light on the leaves.

There is also plenty to see below the changing leaves. Emerging from the forest floor is a diverse range of fungi. Many people forage wild mushrooms – always be careful and know what you’re picking! – but for many people, the sight of these strange and sometimes vividly coloured growths are just as exciting. Fungi come in all shapes and sizes and often grow rapidly so take a look at what’s growing near you. To identify some of Britain’s common fungi species, check out this guide from the Woodland Trust.

The seeds of the horse chestnut tree are also a sure sign that autumn has arrived, although many people know them better by another name: conkers. Whether you play the official game of conkers or just collect them, these smooth, chocolate brown seeds are great fun to find. Be careful of the spiky shells though!

Fly agaric – one of the most well-known British species

This article was originally published on Bloom in Doom as part of my role as Nature Editor.

2019 Wrapped Up

December 24, 2019May 3, 2022 | Rebecca Gibson

Christmas is here again, which means it’s time to reflect on what I’ve achieved in 2019. I still have a long way to go before I can really call myself a freelance writer, but I’m so proud of the progress I’ve made this year.

A particularly significant event was the Grant Arms Wildlife Book Festival in April, where I travelled to the beautiful Cairngorms National Park to stay in what is undoubtedly the coolest hotel in the UK for wildlife lovers like me. I attended some fascinating talks, met many established writers and was thrilled to see my first pine marten. However, perhaps the most influential moment was meeting author Stephen Moss, who runs the MA in Travel and Nature Writing at Bath Spa University. We sat down for a chat and spoke about my work so far, and after our talk I began to think seriously about doing a masters. I was sad to leave the beautiful wilderness of Grantown-on-Spey behind, but I was also intrigued by the possibility of further study and what it could do for me.

In the summer I visited Madrid – my first solo trip to a non-English speaking country. I don’t think it occurred to me how daunting that prospect could be until I arrived and realised that my A Level Spanish was a lot rustier than I had anticipated. Nonetheless, despite the language barrier and the most intense heat I have ever experienced, I really enjoyed my stay and learnt a lot about my resilience when travelling alone. Madrid is a beautiful city that I would love to return to some day, just in a slightly cooler season! The highlight was undoubtedly the flamenco show on my last night – that experience will stay with me for a very long time.

Not long after Madrid it was time to drive up to Rutland Water nature reserve for Birdfair, which has now become a yearly tradition. I caught up with good friends from uni, met the lovely Lucy McRobert and finally christened my new tent in the campsite. As always, Birdfair was a fantastic networking opportunity and I met some lovely authors and conservationists who were keen to share their advice. I also saw Stephen Moss again and bought rather too much wildlife art…

September saw some more networking at the AFON conference – I’d never seen so many young naturalists in one place and I felt proud to be part of that community. During the weekend I introduced myself to author and illustrator Tiffany Francis, who is one of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. I swapped Instagrams with lots of inspiring writers and conservationists, many of whom I’ve stayed in contact with since. Events like the AFON conference are such a great way of reaching out to like-minded people and I was so happy to build my network further.

In October there was a very big change: beginning the MA. The week-long residential in Corsham was a chance to meet my fellow students and be introduced to the way the degree was run. I’m sharing the year with a diverse and enthusiastic group of people and I already feel close to them after so little time. An unexpected achievement has been my rekindled love for drawing and painting, which has proven to be a great tool for inspiration. So far I have submitted two assignments for the course and have been really pleased with my results. The second term will begin in the new year and I can’t wait to tackle the next module – a trip completely organised and funded by me where I need to try and get writing commissions from professional publications. Naturally I’m apprehensive about it, but I’ve done this before with the Isles of Scilly so I know once I begin my research I’ll be away.

Finally, the end of 2019 saw my first official commissions – two for Blue Sky Wildlife, two in Hertfordshire Life magazine and the completed annual report for SEZARC. The team in Florida loved what I’d done and have now asked me to make the next report for 2019, which I can’t wait to get started on. In fact, I’m excited to announce that I shall be visiting Florida again in 2020. Not only will it be a chance to see my friends and work colleagues, but also a fantastic opportunity to gather new images to use in the next report. I don’t know when it will be yet, but I’m so excited to get the details in place.

Hertfordshire Life Magazine

I began this year feeling a little shaky and unsure of exactly where I planned to go. I still don’t have everything figured out, but the commissions have given me a real boost of confidence. It has been great meeting other naturalists including young women like Tiffany Francis and Lucy McRobert, as well as everyone on my course who are all making amazing contributions to wildlife writing. I have a great feeling about 2020, and I can’t wait to see where I am this time next year.

Escape to the Wilds

November 1, 2019 | Rebecca Gibson

Recently I travelled up to Northumberland to visit friends from university. They are two of the busiest people I know, so I was pleased to be able to steal a few days in October to catch up and visit their local patch.

The first thing I experienced was severe house envy. Wildlife art adorned every wall; the sort of beautiful paintings and drawings that I planned to splash all over my own home some day. However, it was the bookshelf that really caught my attention. Sprawled across an entire wall and almost reaching the ceiling, it was crammed with every book on natural history you could want. Not just modern paperbacks but antiquarian hardbacks with leather bound covers and swirling gold titles. In front of every row of books was an envious selection of treasures: pinecones, gannet eggshells, roe deer antlers, pin badges, lino prints, Wade Whimsies, fossils, gemstones, lichens, miniature animal wood carvings and a beautifully preserved badger skull with its lower jaw intact. I spent ages studying everything in turn, gravitating first to the roe antlers. I have a roe buck skull of my own – one of my most prized possessions – but I still long to find dropped antlers too. It was an impressive collection of everything nature, framed by dozens of books from my wish list.

I stayed with my friends for a long weekend and managed to cram quite a lot into those few days. Heather and I visited a fantastic patch of woodland, which was home to not only red squirrels but also pine martens! I knew we probably wouldn’t catch a glimpse of one during the day, but it was still exciting to walk among trees that might be housing a sleeping marten. It was so peaceful and quiet with only faint birdsong punctuating the air. As we searched for fungi to photograph, I found a gorgeous caterpillar making its way along the fence. Later, we discovered it was a buff tip moth caterpillar.

The next day I helped Heather with a “Mini Wildlife Adventure” that she was running for a child’s birthday party. The boy was intrigued by nature and so he and his friends spent the morning pond dipping, searching for bugs, finding badger prints and birdwatching in a hide. It was such a fantastic idea for a birthday party, and it was particularly refreshing to see that the boys had good wildlife knowledge and were genuinely excited by what they saw. Educating children about nature at a young age is the key to ensuring they continue to care about it when they grow up. Those boys would have spent hours pond dipping if we’d had the time, and it was so lovely to see.

That evening Heather, Cain and I spent a peaceful last evening watching Sherlock with the fire cracking and snapping in the grate. It had been a pretty jam-packed weekend but as always, I felt inspired with a rejuvenated love for nature that always comes after a trip to northern England or Scotland. I sometimes struggle to feel that same passion at home in the south, where there are more people and noise and far fewer pine martens. I love escaping to the wilder parts of the UK and look forward to another wildlife adventure very soon.

The Red Rut

September 15, 2019May 3, 2022 | Rebecca Gibson

As the mornings grow gradually colder, signs of autumn such as emerging fungi, clusters of conkers and grass crunchy with frost can now be seen. A seasonal highlight among wildlife during this colourful season is the deer rut, where red stags and roe bucks compete with each other for the right to breed with hinds and does respectively.

The deer rut is regarded as one of British wildlife’s most impressive spectacles, especially that of the red deer – the UK’s largest land mammal, reaching over one metre at the shoulder. From late September to early November, testosterone-charged stags spend many weeks bellowing at dawn and dusk in an attempt to ward off rivals and also to bring hinds into heat (oestrus). They will often thrash in vegetation, gathering foliage into their antlers to increase their size. A slightly less glamorous habit is wallowing in their own urine. This olfactory stimulus also triggers oestrus among the females.

If two stags are equally matched, they will parallel walk alongside each other to assess size and strength. Stags will also clash antlers and shove each other – the victor of these battles will claim his harem of females and win mating rights. Due to its high risk of injury, physical contact is often only a last resort, carried out towards the end of the rut when the dominant male is near exhaustion. The rut is a huge physical drain for stags and they can lose up to 20% of their body weight as a result of being on constant guard of their harem and therefore not eating or resting.

A red stag grazing in Woburn Abbey Deer Park earlier this month – in a few weeks’ time his strength and endurance will be put to the test to win a harem of females

If watching red deer during the rutting season, it’s important to take care and keep a respectable distance. Stags can be aggressive and unpredictable, so it is essential not to get too close when watching the event. This autumn I would love to witness my first red deer rut. After my incredible encounter with a roe deer at Tring Park recently, I’m keen to continue learning about these often under-appreciated animals and witness more of their natural behaviour out in the field. While many good spots for deer rutting are in the wilds of Scotland, more accessible locations include Richmond Park, where over six hundred deer can be found.

The usual suspect, work, has meant that I’ve only managed to snatch the occasional walk outside in nature over the past few weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve been up with the dawn for a wildlife watch and it’s high time I got back into it. For the deer rut especially, it’s the early bird that gets the reward.

To Catch A Fly

October 22, 2018 | Rebecca Gibson

Fly agaric, or Amanita muscaria, is perhaps one of the most recognised mushrooms in the UK. It is often used as perching posts for pixies and gnomes in storybooks, and can regularly be seen bringing a spot of colour to the forest landscape. With its blood red cap and white spots, it’s almost unmistakable. Fly agaric can be found from late summer throughout winter, dotted around birch, spruce and pine trees.

As is often the case in the natural world, pretty means dangerous. With a name derived from its ability to kill flies, fly agaric has been widely used as an insecticide. It is a poisonous mushroom known for its hallucinogenic properties but, despite this, it has been a part of religious tradition for thousands of years. In Hindu practice, fly agaric was supposedly used to produce a psychedelic drink called soma, taken as part of religious ceremonies to increase one’s awareness and evoke sensations of bliss, poetic inspiration and even immortality. However, there has been disagreement among modern scholars over the exact ingredients in this psychoactive beverage. Soma has been described as containing a plant with leaves and flowers, contrast to fly agaric.

Elsewhere in ancient history, fly agaric was consumed in potion-form by Vikings in the 8^th century, allowing them to fight in battles with increased frenzy. And of course, Alice used the mushroom to change her size in Wonderland, after being instructed to do so by a smoking caterpillar with a ‘languid, sleepy voice’.

Though perhaps this wouldn’t be the recommended theme in modern children’s literature, it shows that the mysterious fly agaric has woven a complex and intriguing story through the ages. Now, as autumn descends, the fungi season is in full swing. Fly agaric sits radiantly among more drab varieties of mushroom, its vibrant colour a dangerous lure. It is a specimen that has fascinated us for centuries, and will continue to intrigue long into the future.

Northumberland: Day Three

November 27, 2017November 27, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

There was no frost today, but the sun was shining brightly and I knew the larches on the hills would be lit up like fiery beacons. We only had the morning, as we were leaving the bothy just after lunch, so first I headed out with Cain to pick up the camera traps. I was wrapped up in my fleece but was soon peeling layers off – the weather was surprisingly warm today with such bright sunshine and little wind.

Just before we returned to the bothy to check the footage, Cain took me to see the huge troops of orange fungi up the hill by the clearing. I’d just been saying how little fungi I’d seen, but I was soon proved wrong when I saw how many there were up here. Sprinkled all the way along the track were small orange bulbs of every shape and size. Some were illuminated in patches of sunlight, which made their colours shine even brighter.

As I was stooped on the ground photographing the fungi, I heard a bizarre sound that reminded me of an angry cat. I turned and saw the outer layer of trees swaying in the growing wind, releasing the most peculiar creaking noises. Cain explained how these trees would usually grow on the inside of the forest, but due to felling they were now on the outer layer and were struggling to cope with the battering elements. Some had already succumbed, and we passed gigantic trees lying flat on the forest floor, their roots larger than tractor wheels.

Out in the open, the wind was a lot stronger, so we ducked back down and sought the shelter of the forest. We gathered everyone in the bothy and had a look to see if the traps had been successful. Sadly, the two I had put out only had footage of my bobble hat as I attached and detached the trap from its post. However, Cain had put one in the garden and this had filmed several clips of a bank vole darting in and out of the rock pile. Later in the night, a wood mouse joined the scene, distinguishable by its longer tail and much larger Mickey Mouse ears. So, the traps weren’t a complete disaster, but certainly no pine marten footage.

Sightings

Bank vole – on camera trap (Myodes glareolus)
Chaffinch(Fringilla coelebs)
Kestrel(Falco tinnunculus)
Robin(Erithacus rubecula)
Wood mouse – on camera trap (Apodemus sylvaticus)

Northumberland: Day Two

November 24, 2017November 24, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

When I woke up the blinds were bright. I had a peek outside and was thrilled to see there was a frost clinging to the grass. I hurried into clothes and headed out into the garden. It had been a full year since my last frost and I was eager to capture some macro photos again. Leaves, twigs and thistles were all coated in a fine layer of silver crystals that, when hit by the sun, twinkled and shone like last night’s stars. Soon I had wet knees from crouching in the grass and the beginnings of a crick in my neck from getting as close as possible. My plan was to crop the photos in to create a repeating abstract texture. As usual, I took far more than I probably needed.

After relaxing for a while in the bothy I headed out again, down one hill and up the next. I passed the tyre swing, but the lack of decent light meant the shots weren’t quite what I imagined. I knew I had to photograph the bright yellow and orange larches that had taken my breath away on the drive in yesterday. Unfortunately the sun that I’d wanted to shine was well and truly concealed behind thick clouds; the light was so diluted I could gaze in its direction without difficulty. However, when I began to shoot, the rusty warm hues still popped. I began to experiment with positioning individual subjects like stray grasses in front of the camera, so the trees bled together and created a vibrant background.

The rest of the day was spent writing beside the fire and recording what I’d seen during the day. I had a sneaky look at my photos so far and was pleased with some of the outcomes. Hopefully there’d be more opportunities on our last day tomorrow.

Sightings

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
Goldcrest (Regulus regulus)
Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)

Northumberland: Day One

November 21, 2017November 24, 2017 | Rebecca Gibson

We arrived at the bothy just as the sun was at its warmest. We were in the Northumberland National Park, and as the car rumbled up the hill I craned my neck to see the valley opening up into a patchwork blanket of green, orange and brown. It was autumn at its finest; an explosion of colour with just the right amount of chill in the air. On the way up to the bothy I spied an abandoned tyre swing, which would be a great accompaniment to the stories about childhood memories, so I made a mental note to return tomorrow.

After the customary dumping of the bags, I headed out with Cain and Lequane to set up two camera traps. With a new area, you never knew what could be roaming the forests; red squirrels, even a pine marten perhaps. We followed the burn down the hill, which was a thick sponge of fallen leaves. A dry stone wall ran parallel to the water, and I could just imagine small mammals darting along it, so set up the first trap looking out over the wall.

The light was fading, so we made our way along the burn with torchlight. The wall had collided with a tangle of sticks in one patch, perhaps a resting place for voles or mice. I set the second trap up with a viewpoint over the wall.

We made our way back up the road to the bothy, and were very surprised to see bats zooming around over our heads. Cain told us how it was very late in the year for bats, and they were perhaps roosting in or around the bothy. Cain’s sharp ears picked up a redwing calling in the distance, and then we heard a tawny owl very close by, so decided to pursue it into the cluster of trees behind the house. It was tantalizingly close and we searched the trees in the gathering gloom for any sign of it. No doubt the owl could see us perfectly and was watching with a combination of confusion and amusement, as it stopped calling as soon as we reached the trees and we didn’t hear it after that.

After taking shifts to cook our separate dinners, we had a look outside and there was a series of gasps and excitable shrieks when we all saw the night sky. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many stars – the sky was pitch black, with not a single lamppost or car light to spoil it. We all hurried inside to layer up and grab cameras, then broke off in different directions to get started. Some wandered up the hill and turned towards the Milky Way, while others stayed in the car park and began a time lapse of Orion’s Belt.

I hadn’t done a great deal of night photography, but I began to experiment and soon I found myself quite addicted to it, especially with such a beautiful and flawless background. The camera picked up millions more white pinpricks in the sky, and I was very pleased to find that I’d caught a shooting star in one image.

After an hour or so, my fingers had begun to grow numb, and I found myself capturing the same photos multiple times just because they were so beautiful. For the sake of my memory card, I headed back to the bothy to warm up and have a snack before bed.

Sightings

Barn Owl (Tyto alba)
Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)
European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)
Redwing – heard (Turdus iliacus)
Robin (Erithacus rubecula)
Soprano Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus)
Tawny Owl – heard (Strix aluco)