Meet the Toadflax Brocade moth caterpillar, which came into my life on Wednesday, 23 August 2023. They feed on Purple Toadflax, a plant that I first identified on Peartree Green a few years ago, and which is abundant in the alleys close to our garden. This post is about noticing wildlife in unexpected places andContinue reading “A Tale of Toadflax”
Author Archives: jilldday
A Swift Sandwich
OK, that isn’t a swift, it’s a blackbird. But I think the title works better with ‘swift’, for the alliteration and the alternative meaning. This isn’t a blog post about eating a sandwich quickly, it’s me trying to come up with a title that’s more original than ‘A day in the life of my garden’.Continue reading “A Swift Sandwich”
30 Days Wild & the Five Pathways
The idea behind 30 Days Wild is to do one thing in nature each day in June. It takes place every year, and in this post I’m writing about my experiences in 2022. I think that year was the first time I logged something every day. Maybe that’s because it was easier in some ways,Continue reading “30 Days Wild & the Five Pathways”
Suburban Safari
Does this look like a wildlife haven to you? Does it even look like nature? Maybe not for many people. For some people in Southampton, ‘nature’ means the New Forest. For others it might mean one of our local nature reserves, such as Miller’s Pond, Peartree Green or Chessel Bay, or maybe a park. ButContinue reading “Suburban Safari”
The fruits of ignorance
Yesterday, I was really tired. I’d had a whole morning of working on my laptop and with three hours of online training still to come, I needed some ‘tree time’. So after eating lunch, I nipped over to Peartree Green, the local nature reserve I help to look after as a volunteer. I’m really luckyContinue reading “The fruits of ignorance”
A sense of place
“What are you doing?” This was the question a little boy asked me on Christmas Eve morning. “Picking up rubbish so the birds can find some food”, I replied. “Okay!” he answered, and off he went. Moments later, a gull landed on the grass and started rooting around for worms, as if it had justContinue reading “A sense of place”
Favourites and familiars
This post was inspired by something that happened a few months ago. I’ve sometimes found run-over hedgehogs on the road near my house, and I usually bury them. I can’t bear the thought of a hog just lying there like a piece of rubbish. So one morning when I saw a brownish shape in theContinue reading “Favourites and familiars”
Peartree Green: after the fire
On 12 August 2022, after weeks of dry, hot weather, the inevitable happened: there was a serious fire on Peartree Green local nature reserve. I was sitting in our garden when my partner came out around 5 pm and said, “Something’s on fire over there”. I turned to look and said, “Oh my god, thatContinue reading “Peartree Green: after the fire”
Outdoor Learning: Noticing Nature
Not surprisingly for a nature-lover, one of my favourite parts of working in outdoor learning at Youth Options was when young people showed an interest in the natural world around them. Sometimes this was in the forest school area, and other times it was out on a walk around Itchen Valley Country Park, where weContinue reading “Outdoor Learning: Noticing Nature”
When is it lunchtime?
In my last blog post in January, 8 months ago, I was about to start a permanent post with Youth Options, after first volunteering, then working on a casual basis with them since October 2020. As a casual worker, a lot of my job was working at holiday club, so it’s fitting that my finalContinue reading “When is it lunchtime?”
Dandelion Nature 