Uplands

It’s time for some self-care and safety and we should all take our time to listen to Tom P... 

Tom Cadwallender’s out and about in the uplands of Northumberland and enjoying the collective nouns of bird, and the amazing ‘drumming’ of snipe.

And we’re going medieval with Steve Lowe for a colourful re-enactment 

Plus some top tips for the garden from Tom P.

Chapters

• 0:00 00:00:00: Intro and Theme tune: Princess of the Ocean by Carl Cape Band featuring Steve Deegan, Carl Cape and Jamie Robb (fiddle).
• 1:57 Take it easy #1
• 6:33 Uplands
• 16:11 Take it easy #2
• 22:09 Medieval
• 31:10 Bird names & drumming snipe
• 40:32 Jobs for the week
• 46:30 Outro

Transcript

Carl Stiansen: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Nature Garden Podcast with me, Carl Stiansen, and the Week-ending show team from Lionheart Radio. Thanks for joining us on a canny wee wander down the garden path and country lane with the birds and the bees and the flowers and trees in this episode. It's time for some self-care and safety and we should all take our time to listen to Tom P's advice. Tom Cadwallander's out and about in the uplands of Northumberland and enjoying the collective nouns of birds. And we'll also find out a little bit more about this rather mysterious sound. Any idea what this is? We'll tell you more later. We're going medieval with Steve Lowe for a colourful re-enactment at the Cresswell Peel Tower. Plus some top tips for the garden from Tom P. All coming up on the Nature Garden Podcast.

Intro and Theme tune: Princess of the Ocean by Carl Cape Band featuring Steve Deegan, Carl Cape and Jamie Robb (fiddle).: 1:25

Music

Carl Stiansen: 1:43

Gardening is creative and rewarding and makes us feel happy most of the time. A couple of days ago bone-dry dusty soil blew into my eyes while I was emptying some plant pots causing hours of pain. It made me think about taking a little bit more care and, would you believe it, this week, as if by magic, Tom Pattinson's prepared his annual address to us all on safety.

Tom Pattinson: 2:27

We've had some superb weather recently. Long, hot, sunny days. Not much rain. Dry conditions. Relaxing. Time to get out in the garden. One of the safest places you can imagine. No traffic. No risks. Absolutely fabulous. Everyone dreams of a garden to relax in. Grow vegetables, fruit. Do what you want. The kids can play. Run riot. Enjoy themselves. Let off steam. That's the picture. But what's the reality? Every year around this time, I just cannot resist. making one point, and that point is beware of a garden. Relax as much as you possibly can, but question whether it is the safest place for you. I think it's time to do an assessment of how your garden is run, the plants that are in there, and how tired you are. Accidents I'm thinking about. Now, I know that's a strange thing to bring up at this time of the year, But I think it's best at the beginning of a summer period when we're all going to be out there relaxing, I think it's time to give you a heads up and say, don't forget. Health and safety risk assessment I'm talking about. These are phrases which are used in the workplace generally. But every year, believe it or not, there are thousands of accidents in and around the garden. How do I know? Well, I see some of them in the newspapers, in the press, in the media. But the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents, ROSPA for short, could tell you, visit their website, about safety in gardens. And they just report, as far as I know, those that are reported. Accidents which take people to A&E or small injuries units. How many times in the garden are you stung by a nettle? Have a thorn in your finger. Or cut yourself. Find some glass or an accident with a knife. And they go, should I go to A&E or not? Well, what are we looking at? Oddly enough, the last time I read a ROSPA report, they named a few, something like the top 10 causes of accidents in and around the garden. And believe it or not, lawnmowers were up near the top there. Flower pots. secateurs and pruners, spades, electric hedge trimmers, plants, tubs and troughs, shears, garden forks, hoses, sprinklers, garden canes and sticks. Perhaps it's time to check your own garden. Take a walk around any of the pathways. What are they like? Are they uneven? Are they covered in algae or moss or slime? If that's the case, there's a risk of someone falling and this is the most common occurrence. Garden debris, which includes pieces of wood, twigs, broken glass, rusty metal or canes, they're just as dangerous. Has a hose been left uncoiled after use out on the patio, around the garden, or have tools been abandoned? I know it's an old chestnut, but standing a rig against a wall with the metal tines resting on the ground, that's just about the same as setting a dangerous trap for an unsuspecting passer- by. someone else suspecting that it could well be you if you forget and tread on those tongues do you have steps and ladders are you climbing to tie in a climbing rose a tall rounder such as rambling rector are you climbing ladders are you leaving them around are they solid have they got a solid foothold when you start to climb them those small steps are just as bad as ladders think about these things That's just the beginning.

Carl Stiansen: 6:31

Tom Cadwallander's been adventuring in the Northumberland valleys for a fair old chunk of his life. And this week, he's focusing on the lush uplands and big skies in the fabulous North Northumberland National Park.

Tom Cadwallender: 6:57

As a young guy growing up in southeast Northumberland, I was heavily involved in the youth club at our local school. And one of the big things that we did was actually, we did our Duke of Edinburgh's award. And yes, many, many years ago, I can hardly believe it now, it's such a long time ago, but I indeed did my Duke of Edinburgh's award. And it's a mix up of all sorts of different things you have to do but one of the big deals is actually you have to have an expedition camping and walking and map reading and compass work and all that sort of palaver and it's kind of it was an alien beast for me then and it took a lot of learning we had a lot of training expeditions mini expeditions and all sorts of things Invariably though, we would focus on North Northumberland and Northumberland National Park and we did all our training in this area and in fact we had our major expedition and I got my bronze award and I got my silver and I didn't quite get my gold I ran out of time a little bit but anyway I still achieved those other two things but yes it was the it was the expeditions that really turned me on to the countryside I used to go camping with pals and stuff like that but not really doing anything worthwhile but it was those expeditions we had to sort of plot our courses with the on the map using compasses and all sorts of things like that and using local landmarks and habitats and whatever and gradually over time I got a great affinity with Northumberland and indeed Northumberland National Park and I still to this day have regular excursions inland to kind of just explore the old hunting ground if you like and I find it quite fascinating just the change and it's just to feel the quite open spaces Charles Trevelyan back in the last century described Northumberland as the land of the far horizons and if you've ever walked the Cheviots you'll kind of understand what he's on about because there's forever just the horizons just over there just over there the road rolling hills of the North Cheviots just incredible and and yes I really enjoyed my tramping around those and I still do tramp around and not as much as I used to of course but I do like to go into the the valleys of North Northumberland. And I think that's what the flavour of it is about. You know, there's a dichotomy of valleys in North Northumberland. And they're wonderful. Right from the kind of the north, which is actually spreading onto the Scottish border, we have the College Valley. And if you go up the College Valley, that leads you into kind of the foothills of the North Cheviot, the massif itself. Cheviot is an old extinct volcano, of course. But if you go up the, there's two ways up from the College Valley you can't drive the car there but you can park at the bottom and walk all the way up and there's two ways up one is called the Hen Hole and it's a great sort of craggy sort of rocky bit to scramble through and it gives you absolutely wonderful views and the bird life is pretty good too and the plants are exceptional and the other way is through the Bizzle and that's another rocky outcrop but it's slightly more rounded but the Hedge Hope, which is a bit more steep-sided. But you come around from college, the next one down is the Hart Hope Valley, and that's probably the one, the valley I spend most time in these days. And I like to go up there because the In the past, it's been heavily deforested. And historically, kind of prehistorically, in fact, the North Cheviots were covered in trees, scrubby woodland, birches and rowans and the like. And those over the years were gradually sort of taken away. And we have a lot of sheep on the hillsides. But actually, Northumberland National Park are engaged in quite a good programme of replanting. and there's a lot of nice scrubby woodland going back in there, particularly in the hard oak valley. And the reason I like to go into those little valleys and... explore or re-explore this is a kind of a different bird life in those in those little places um you can find species like cuckoo in not abundance but regularly um and ring ouzel, the mountain blackbird, ah geez ring ouzels are just wonderful they're like blackbirds they're slightly bigger but they're black and they've got this white crescent around their breast um and then really quite uncommon but they're they're focused in one or two little valleys in in north Northumberland and indeed throughout the west of the county but this is where i like to go it's near enough for me and they're they're migrants and they come in in sort of late march and they'll be gone by July time um but it's great to go in there and you hear them chuck chuck chucking but if you go in into those valleys you know you're going to see other kind of migrant birds you're going to see wheat ears the white rump of the wheat ear and the gray gray hoods and these are birds which are wintering in Africa and they come and breed here in this part of the world it's one And the other kind of migrant that we have of that ilk is the whinchat. Now, you may have come across the stonechat, which is the resident cousin of the whinchat. The stonechat is a kind of a, the males have a lovely pink breast, but black hoods and black backs and little bits of white flashes on the wings and a bit of white on the rump as well. But the windchat is the same sort of shape, but it has a big eye stripe. It is more gingery. And you hear them. You can hear them around the place. They've got a similar cold, similar sort of chatty weather. And they get their name from the noise they make and that chuck, chuck, chuck. and the stone chat it's just like two stones being jabbed against each other and it's uh quite evocative really, but it's these kind of species that you kind of look out for, and you get into the scrubby woodlands uh and you're finding siskins and you're finding siskins are are sort of mini green finches, and they're lovely actually in their in their plumage and their green plumage with little green flashes and their black hoods males and the red polls are there with the little patches of of pinky red on their forehead which gives them their name the red pull and these birds frequently scrubby woodlands in the pine forests that are up there and uh the the the upland forests are really quite interesting now they're becoming much more established they're really very very interesting and i find them uh i really enjoy spending time there and you come back down from from the the Hart hope valley and the next one down is the is the Breamish valley the Ingram valley it's really quite popular it's not quite different because it's not as steep side it's much wider and you can see the geological formation is much more interesting or much more varied if you like and the human habitation is quite evident in the Breamish Valley and then you come down a bit further and you get down to the Coquet Valley where as a youth that was the valley I spent some time in I used to go into the upper Coquetdale and into the Alwin Valley that's where I cut my teeth really in terms of upland birding, and again ringing, and I did actually find a nest of the raven. Raven really is a species that was heavily persecuted and they're now just getting a foothold back into the uplands, in fact there's a coastal breeding raven around these days in Northumberland but they're heavily persecuted and ravens are are one of my favourite birds actually. They're quite canny. They have a sense of humour, almost. But they're the big crows. And if you see the gape of a raven, and gapes are the inside of their mouths, and it's lovely pink. It really contrasts with the black of their plumage. another bird of the uplands which has really had a successful sort of 30 years is the buzzard or the common buzzard to distinguish it from the other species of buzzards they were extinct I remember seeing my first common buzzard in Northumberland 30 years ago and since that time they've gradually increased their population and we see them right down onto the coastal plain now but they're really common in land and they've really established themselves and most seen changes in the bird populations we're seeing new species uh coming in um and but other species are going away medipipids are still as abundant and a lot of meadow pipits will will actually leave this part of the world and actually winter in North Africa and it's incredible really, but yes, it's North Northumberland; Northumberland National Park is pretty special place you know, I think so.

Carl Stiansen: 16:17

Tom Pattinson is urging us to think this week and always before we snip and mow. Here's part two of his safety audit and some tips that could save you a lot of pain and trouble.

Tom Pattinson: 16:32

Well hello, it's me again. Full of gloom and doom, but it's for your own good really. Think about accidents happening in the garden. Remember, you're checking it out to see, have a general survey, see where accidents could occur. We can't stop them all. That's why they're called accidents. They're accidental. But we can plan a little bit beforehand. Before you start any gardening, physical activities, hedge cutting, trimming, mowing, for instance, consider whether protective headgear, eye shields, gloves, footwear are necessary. Of course they are. protect your eyes if you're trimming the hedge pieces are flying around all over the place if you haven't at least got spectacles on put something on to protect your eyes your hands your feet if you're lawn mowing don't do it with flip-flops on or soft shoes and especially if it's one of those mowers which floats around my goodness it's just not worth thinking, well it is worth thinking about if you're using chemicals fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, whether they're liquid, granular or powder form, don't leave them hanging around. Use a type of gloves when you're handling. They must be locked away, away from children, especially if they're children around. And oh my goodness, please don't think about decanting. If you have a bottle of Contair liquid decanter, a liquid insecticide, for example, or a liquid herbicide, don't even think about decanting it into another bottle and leaving it without a label in a shed where children can gain access. Pardrin tools, I'm thinking about those as well. Those hedge trimmers, the lawnmowers, if you're using them, any electrical appliances, for goodness sake, really you should have an RCD, a residual current device, that is, you plug it into the main socket and and then you plug your device into the RCD and if there's an accident, if the blades stick or any moving part sticks, whether you're cutting the hedge or mowing the lawn. If, say, you're cutting the hedge and the cord gets in the way and you actually cut through it, or a neighbour starts to talk to you and you get in conversation as you're cutting, cut through it, there's a chance of electrocuting yourself. But that doesn't happen if you have an RCD attached. It cuts the current immediately. It probably costs somewhere in the region of 20 pounds, 25 pounds, maybe not even that. What price do you put on your life? I'm thinking about back strain, a simple thing. Lifting. You're going to lift something, move it, a bag of compost, a heavy bag of compost, or something in the nature, a heavy pot on the patio, which has a single plant in it. Have you got a salt barrel, or is there an easier way of doing it? Don't try to lift it by yourself. Back strain is one of the curses, and don't keep planting or cutting or bending down for too long. That's a strain on your back, and it gradually catches up with you, believe me. Buy some kneelers, knee pads. There are lots of different possibilities there. The garden pond, I'm thinking of that as well, and the barbecue, water and fire, what a combination. Is the garden pond, is it covered? It just needs to be about a centimeter deep, 30 centimeters deep afoot if a child falls into it and that's it. The barbecue, excitement around the barbecue. I'm thinking of burnt fingers and leaving it unattended. What about plants? I take tours of the poison garden at Amick. voluntary tour volunteer i am there and I've had my eyes opened in recent years I was aware of poisonous plants before of course but the simple plants around your garden which are poisonous to you I'm thinking of the lupin laburnum, the sweet pea, the seeds of those a broom seeds from the cytosis or broom which you just finished as golden flowers recently, oh it just goes on and on, lily of the valley, monkshood, delphinium, foxglove, they're all harmful. Honeysuckle, beautiful fragrance, but the berries that it forms, they're harmful too. There are other plants in the garden which can give you a nasty burn. I'm thinking of things like rue. You'll rue the day you touched it, you really will. In the daylight, giving you blisters, euphorbia, and things like that. Oh, a whole list of plants. Pick up a book or take a tour of the Alnwick Poison Garden. Pick up a book on poisonous plants, basic stuff. If you have youngsters running around, grandchildren, your children, youngsters coming to the garden, give it a lot of thought, please. And if there's just one person avoids an accident and they've heard this, then I'm a happy fellow. After this, I'm going to have a nice, harmless cup of tea, Carl.

Carl Stiansen: 22:07

And now for something a bit different. It's time to take a classic trip back to the medieval ages as we join Steve Lowe, Rosa Mundi re-enactment and the Living History Group at Cresswell Pele Tower.

Steve Lowe: 22:30

What can you do here at Cresswell Pele Tower? The sun is shining. It's a bit breezy, but otherwise it's looking fantastic. And I'm joined by Dave Bowen, who's one of our volunteers and works with us on the Living History Group. Hello. So we've got with us today, we've got a group called Rosa Mundi. Rosa Mundi, that's right. It's one of the premier medieval reenactment groups in the country. And they look fantastic, don't they? Oh, they're absolutely amazing. I mean, you know, people think people used to look all grey and dull back in medieval times. You should see the palette of colour in their costumes. Yeah. It's absolutely beautiful to see. And obviously against the backdrop of the walled garden, which is looking particularly nice today. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. At this time of year, it's a riot of colour. So we've got, what, six or seven massive tents up there. We've got a leather worker, arrow maker. We've got a demonstration of spinning on the medieval great wheel with various different types of fibre, so spinning linen fibre, silk. They've got silkworm cocoons, and they're actually giving demonstrations. Oh, fantastic. How you extract. Baking in a traditional clay wood-fired oven. Right. That's what the smell is. The smell is. Just on the wind. It's absolutely marvellous. And I ate one of the buns yesterday and it tasted delicious. Really? Yeah. Oh, well, I don't know where I was at that time. Probably stood upstairs, probably. Yeah. Or maybe I was stuck in the stocks. Well, that's very true. Yeah. Because it's a terrible job and somebody's got to do it. So we've got all ends of the spectrum here, mostly to do with daily life. rather than martial. Absolutely, yes. I mean, obviously we've got the Fletcher making arrows. But yes, no gunfire today. Craft and domestic life orientated. Thanks, Dave. I hope the day goes really well. We're just at the start of it. So fingers crossed, mate. And thanks for all your help as well in getting this organised. You and Peter and Lynn, everybody have done a grand job. It's been an absolute pleasure, Steve. Cheers, mate. Thanks. Cheers.

Steve Lowe: 24:32

Hi, Ian. Are you all right? You're with Rosa Mundi. I am. Yeah. Tell us about Rosa Mundi. Well, we specifically like to reenact the 15th century. Right. The name, Rosa Mundi, means Rose of the World. Okay. And the flower has red and white petals. So it's sort of... Yeah. When you're doing Rose of the Roses, it means we can swap sides, you know, as we feel we need to. Yeah. And we like... We obviously do the battery enactment, but our main thing is to do what we've called domestic and crafts. Yeah. So we cook food to the original recipes. We recreate the crafts, like I usually do, fletching. There's people doing calligraphy, and we even mint our own coins. Oh, fantastic. Right, I'll be over there for a few. Yeah, you make yourself a rich man. Yeah, absolutely. So you've been doing this for a little while, then? Yeah, quite a few years. We started in the mid-90s with an event at Richmond Castle with English Heritage. Nice. And it all sort of happened more or less at the same time from there on. We did a TV program as well for Stop, Look, Listen, it was called. And after that, we sort of expanded... bought tents of the medieval style so we could actually live in the tents and stay in places. And you've been staying here, haven't you? We have. We've been staying in the walled garden, which is nice. Excellent, yeah. Good location. And it means we can then basically set up, stay in the tents overnight, and we're ready to go further public in the next morning or however long we're at a particular site. Sounds fantastic, to be honest with you. I mean, it looks fantastic, I've got to say. So what are you wearing? Pretty well 15th century gear. I'll start at the top with my hat, which has a gild of Fletchers. Yes. And the bow from Richard III. Yeah. And then... As a slightly older chap, I usually have this, which is like a hair cover called a coif. Coif, yeah. Younger lads tended to not wear them at the time. No, right. But they were almost unisex. Yes, women tend to always have the hair covered. Having your hair covered was seen as a sign of being a decent person. Right, okay. Well, I trust you now then. Yeah, you're safe. Yeah, yeah. And then after that, it's doublet and hose. And underneath is a thing called a paw point. Yeah. Which means four points. And that's to hold your hose up so there's no braces. Everything's tied on with little ties. Tied to the top. To the top. Yeah, yeah, right. And how comfortable is that? When you first wear it as a man, it feels really uncomfortable. But you kind of get used to the oddness of it. Yeah, yeah. And then the hose themselves. Yeah. Very hard to describe. Sort of like people think of them as almost like a stocking. Yeah. But made of wool. Made of wool, yeah. And then mine are footed, so I have... Basically, it goes all the way down your leg and into your foot, so it's like a onesie. Okay, right. Is it itchy? No, the wool is boiled, so it's actually quite soft. So it takes away that, yeah. And then our medieval footwear, which is copies from finds in London. Right, yeah. When they were doing all the docklands excavations, they turned up loads of old shoes that were thrown into the river. Right. So we have them copied in style to keep everything... you know, looking right and being right. Well, everyone looks to the port. That's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. You feel the port, I guess, when you're wearing the right things. Once you've got the kit on, you realize, well, firstly, what the restrictions are and things like that. So because you're literally tied in as a chap, bending over is sometimes quite difficult. So you see illustrations of them where they've loosened the ties at the back so they can move around more. Yeah. And the same with the women's costumes. The dresses that they wear are very, very long. They're always ground length. So there's always like a drag. The freedom of movement, though, for other activities. Yeah. And then the other thing that people are quite interested in is a thing called patterns, which is a wooden shoe that you fit over your normal shoe. So if you're walking around in the mud or something like that, it just lifts you up. And that would have been... the norm in a village or something like that. And probably quite noisy when you're walking around. If there's like a cobbled stonework and lots of people are wearing patterns, it gets pretty noisy. Pretty noisy, yeah. Well, I mean, that's a really good description. Thanks very much for that. And you're actually quite colourful as well because most people think, oh, medieval drab. Yes, no, the colours... We often get that, oh, it's quite colourful, because I think a lot of people are influenced by films where everything medieval is brown or grey. The reality was they used all kinds of dye, some of them staggeringly expensive, so that you had a really good array of colours throughout. Do you actually have a guy or anybody that does dye in your group? We have people who... We'll do the dyeing of the raw material. Yes. So when the wool is spun, it's then dyed to that particular colour. We do have a lady who spins as well on a wheel called a great wheel. Yes, I should say today actually. So you can get some idea of how they used to work with the spike that Sleeping Beauty is always talking about where it's sticking out of the side of the great wheel. So if you passed by, you're able to get stuff like that. So all the things that you're talking about, they're actually pretty much ingrained in literature and all sorts of stuff as well, aren't they, when we think of it in a wider way? Well, all I was going to say was thank you, but also... just to encourage people to come along and see you guys, really. Yes, it's worth coming along. We always engage people in conversation about things that they're particularly interested in. And very often, even if the person you're talking to doesn't have the knowledge, we know somebody who can talk to you about that. Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, thanks very much, Ian, and hope you enjoy your day. Yeah, thanks for being at the Peel Tower. Cheers, then.

Carl Stiansen: 30:58

And you can find out more about Rosa Mundi and their displays at rosamundi.org.uk. That's rosamundi.org.uk. The incredible sound there of snipe drumming. I had the pleasure of hearing that in Scotland just after Easter. And now, well, from our own, very own, gaggle of field reporters, Tom Cadwallander's here to tell us more about the amazing snipe and the collective names of birds. Over to you, Tom Cad.

Tom Cadwallender: 31:40

You may remember I've mentioned this countless times before. I'm fascinated by the seaside, coastal environments, and I live my life... almost by the seaside and I'm out on the shore almost every day and it's fantastic and I've mentioned before about volunteering on Coquet Island, in fact, just last month I was kind of waxing lyrical I think about spending there and helping out with monitoring of birds out there But the thing that's popped into my mind this morning is that whilst I was on Coquet Island, I was surrounded by a committee or committees of terns, sandwich terns, rosy terns, common terns, arctic terns. They're all there squawking away. And when they lift, and they do that on a regular basis for no apparent reason, it's called the dread. So you see these clouds of terns And they're sometimes called kettles as well. But it's a committee of terns. But also, whilst I was on the island, we kind of wandered around and checking out things. We had a pandemonium of puffins. And that's the collective noun for puffins, a pandemonium. And the collective noun for turns is a committee or a kettle. and the uh it's fascinating so it really is quite interesting this whole idea of collective nouns and I'm never sort of far away from the kind of the thought of it, and here this morning, it's really quite early and I'm doing I'm doing more survey work that's in land and I don't get a chance to come in land very often and but when Ii do it's absolutely magnificent because... you might be able to hear the, there's some cattle behind me sort of mooing and mooing and whatever. But if you just listen so closely, I don't know if you can pick it out. Skylarks singing. I'm surrounded by an exaltation of skylarks. Can you hear it? Yeah, there's a little squad of them here. Obviously, there's been a hatching, and they're all up in the air singing away. And it's absolutely glorious. It's wonderful, and it's a great privilege to be out here. And so, an exaltation of skylarks. That's another collective noun, if you like. Can you hear them? Oh, wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Also in the background, you may well be able to pick out reed buntings. They're cool. And sedge warblers with their kind of typewriter-y, chattery way, sort of as they kind of shoot through their song. We're getting a little late in the season now, in the breeding season, so a lot of these birds are kind of just going through the last throes of their breeding process. Or I can hear some meadow pippets too, squeaking. But the other thing I've been hearing a bit this morning, I've heard the goldfinches, they have a little tinkling noise. And goldfinches, the collective noun for goldfinches, is a charm, a charm of goldfinches. That's so evocative of kind of how they tinkle as they pass through. Another thing that I was thinking of, and I've just picked them up relatively recently because they went quiet for a while, that are long-tailed tits. And I don't know if you're familiar with long-tailed tits, but they're almost like lollipops because they've got quite long tails and they're quite small bodies. And as they fly, they seem to be just sort of, they have this sort of, this trail of a tail behind them. And they went quiet for a little while. Obviously, they were breeding in the woods and hedges and so forth and they've just started to reappear and if you listen closely you can actually just hear the little kind of the contact noises they make and these are kind of just so quiet, but if you listen you can hear them but the collective noun for long-tailed tits is a tribe, which is quite fitting really when you see them travelling around and they'll go in lines, and it is a tribe of long-tailed tits as these them going through little bits of scrubby woodland or hedgerows or that sort of habitat, and it's really quite something and you see them sort of making their way through and they're so cute and hey I tell you what I'm not a great one for anthropomorphising but I think they're cute, so yes, long-tailed tits with the tribes of long-tailed tits and the nests interestingly the nests are sometimes described as nests of a thousand feathers. Because they're almost entirely made up of feathers they've collected on their little journeys around the place. But it's interesting. If you keep your eyes and your ears open, you can find all sorts of things. And there's all sorts of folk stories about birds and their habitats. And I'm just looking around this little bit of... bit of scrubby woodland on the edge of this these fields the fields are full of rape they um and there's a few beans and a field across the way there but there's a nice little bit of wetland on associated with this this bit of farmland and it's got juncus in there but also I've been hearing the drumming of snipe snipe are wading birds and They're kind of really quite secretive. But if you kind of just settle down there, early mornings and evenings are the best. You hear them drumming. And the drumming is the vibration of their tail feathers. And it's part of their display. And... they will kind of just, they will kind of go really quite high in the sky and you can hear the kind of sort of noise they make. But when they're on the ground and they have this little contact noise they make, it's... And it's quite funny when you go, what is that? You know, you come and, oh yes, oh yes, it's a snipe. And snipe, if you're not familiar, are kind of wading birds, as I've mentioned. And they're round and they're not very big. They're about the size of a kind of blackbird sort of size. But they're cryptically plumaged and they're stripy and they're beige and browns. But they've got incredibly long bills and they'll probe into soft mud looking for invertebrates that live in the mud. But their plumage really reflects where they live. They like to live in these damp hollows. which we still have in decreasing sort of quantity, but we still have them in certain places. And these little wet damp hollows are filled with or can be filled with Junkers. Junkers is a damp loving plant and you always recognise where a damp area is when you see little groups of Junkers growing there. And Junkers is quite a succulent really. It's got fleshy leaves and quite long and spiky. And when it dies it becomes quite brown. And so if you see snipe, a common snipe, standing in front of or in some juncus. It's really quite hard to pick out because their plumage almost reflects the vegetation around them, this juncus vegetation. So yes, you've got to be sort of quite on the ball ready to pick them out. And in the wintertime, we get jack snipe, which are slightly smaller, and they come across from the continent to winter in this country. And we also get wood which are a bigger version and of the snipe and they're kind of this beigey gingery brown colour and they're a little bit bigger and these birds actually I've just remembered they've got an amazing thing they've got their you know birds have their their eyes kind of well down their faces but actually these snipe and woodcock have got their eyes quite high up their heads and that allows them it gives them 360 vision so yes there's a there's a wealth of birds out there and to look just on the farmland and farmland fringe. So I'm here doing some survey work, and the majority of birds I'm seeing, I'm hearing, and you can hear them, skylocks. Fantastic. So, it's still going to be summer for a wee while longer, so get out and hear some skylocks. Gan canny, folks.

Carl Stiansen: 40:35

And so, to the sound of War Blackbird and Catherine Tickelland Band playing the Morpeth Rant, here's Tom with some things to be getting on with in the garden.

Tom Pattinson: 40:53

So it's jobs for the week time. There's been so much dry weather recently and hot that plants recently put out into the garden, vegetables sown, planted, ornamental plants, even things which are planted in the autumn are starting to show the stress. If there are no water restrictions, try to keep those that deserve to be, keep going alive, try to give them water first. Get a list of priorities for watering, as long as there's no water restrictions, because you're going to lose them, unfortunately. That's really important, first and foremost. My strawberry plants, which were put into a new bed just about three, four months ago, they've been feeling the pressure, getting some lovely strawberries from them, ripe strawberries already, and they're netted against the blackbirds, of course, but they've been showing stress, so I've had to water those just to keep them going. I'm indoors, undercover at the moment. I'm also keen to keep the tomatoes going. They droop at the slightest hint of no water. During the day, sometimes you have to water them twice in a day at present. Ventilate the greenhouse as much as you can. and damp down the floor. If it's a flagged floor, well, if you have a flagged floor, then put water on there. It helps build the humidity, keep down the heat. The tomatoes, they'll drop their leaves very quickly, but if you catch them in time, they recover. One of the things you'll see is one or two fruits maybe, if the soil's been allowed to dry, out around their roots they may have blossom end rot but that affects individual fruits on their dark patch appearing at the very tip of the fruit and spreading gradually it just affects individual fruits so just remove those if you suffer from that I'm also removing some leaves from the tomatoes at the moment lower leaves when i first planted them there was quite a lot of space between them now there's quite a thicket developing we've got the fourth truss on the tomatoes developing the first truss lower down they're not ripe yet but it's time to remove some of those lower leaves with a sharp knife which I'm going to do so I have a fair view of the pots so I can water the pots. I also water the substrate border in the greenhouse which the pots stand on that has to be done daily sometimes twice daily i am feeding once a week I'm alternating between a liquid feed and the pounded feed I'm thinning out the grape vine bunches but that's time consuming can't do it all I'm talking about if we've got too many actually embryo bunches of grapes I'm actually talking about thinning out the whole bunch of grapes every now and again. So this vine, it's an old vine, 30, 40 years old, but there's a younger one about 15 years old. They have to support these bunches of grapes, so I'm thinning some of them out. Also, there's just not time for this at the moment, but on an individual bunch of grapes, if you can get some scissors and sharp scissors, and you can reduce, decimate the fruits themselves, that gives you bigger fruits and more room from the spread, stopping mildew forming. time consuming.... all of this reminds me, to keep sowing lettuce outside... I'm thinking about the lettuce and radish every two to three weeks at the moment we just go leaf lettuce we don't grow the hearting lettuce because it's been taken up to about three months 90 days to form a heart and then they're gone in one go so we have leaf lettuce cut and come again salad bill, the red one or rosso as well and to keep them fresh keep them watered if you don't water them often enough that have a bitter taste and they're no good to you. So, sowing every three weeks or so to keep things fresh and tying up the sweet peas and removing tendrils. I've got a single sweet pea plant to every cane and removing the tendrils and tying them in as they grow rather than letting them become a bit of a thicket of growth with the tendrils clinging on. You get smaller, shorter stems and possibly not the top quality of blooms that you see at the flower shows so we're removing the tendrils and tying the sweet peas we're already picking the sweet peas which is good and it's just mid-June Looking around at the herbaceous border, there's been quite a lot of wind recently. It's never satisfactory tying them up or staking them, supporting those plants when they've been flattened by the wind. So if it hasn't, there's been quite a bit of wind, if it hasn't flattened them already, get some ties in. Those that need support, get some canes or pea sticks or something of that nature. Outside, sowing herbaceous plants. Herbaceous perennials in fields outdoors, June and July are best months for doing that. Or throw some wallflower seeds as well. Sow those. Net those strawberries. Don't let the birds get all of them. Whatever you're doing next week, enjoy your gardening.

Speaker 01: 46:32

You've been listening to gardener Tom Pattinson. Birder Tom Cadwallander from the British Trust for Ornithology and Steve Lowe from the Cresswell Peel Tower. Don't forget you can listen back to all of our previous programmes via the Nature Garden podcast. That's the Nature Garden podcast. I'm Carl Steinson. Thanks for listening and enjoy your gardening and time outdoors with nature. Bye for now.