Dandelion Nature

Double Dandy, Double Delight

When you’re cycling uphill, you don’t usually want to stop. You lose momentum, and it’s hard to get started again. But sometimes you notice something that makes the effort worthwhile. As I pedalled from Hazel Road shore, uphill past the boarded up Yacht Tavern, towards the railway bridge on Sea Road, this stunning double dandelion caught my eye. Initially, I cycled past, but the lure was too strong. I went back, stopped to really take it in, then struggled to start back up the hill.

As I write this, I’ve heard a Dunnock singing. A Dunnock, not ‘the’ Dunnock, because this week, for the first time, I heard two. One was perched on top of the crab apple, and as I paused to listen to him, I then heard another sing in response from further away. Until now, I’d assumed it was one bird moving around, but now I know different!

I think that when you choose to spend a little longer, you notice more, and you become more connected to the nature around you.

At the start of the week, I went to Hilliers Arboretum in search of early spring flowers, and wasn’t disappointed. As well as snowdrops and primroses, there were still a few witch hazel flowers (I love these!) and a hellebore was being visited by a bee.

The next day, I inadvertently disturbed an orange ladybird in a pot in the back garden.

There’s nothing surprising about the moss on our front garden wall; i know it’s there. The vibrant green can be relied on to put a smile on my face throughout winter. I pause to appreciate it every morning.

Over on Peartree Green nature reserve, the birdsong is starting to build as the season turns. One morning, I used the Merlin app to capture the moment. Seven species from one spot in the upper woodland.

Peartree Green upper woodland, full of birdsong

As I walked back along the track, I stopped at the elm hedge on Sea Road to see what was around. Plum cherries are in flower, and I noticed several leathery fungus fruits on the adjacent shrub. I don’t know what they are, but it doesn’t matter. They’re fascinating.

The final joyful moment this week was this Great Spotted Woodpecker on Southampton Common. I heard it drumming – a sound tbat sends shivers down my spine – and was looking for it when the friend I was meeting arrived. His eyesight is better, so he soon saw it. His phone camera is better too – this video is his.

If you listen carefully, you can hear me talking to a man and his daughter, as I point out where the woodpecker is. It’s joyful to experience these moments of nature, but even better to be able to help others to experience them too. I’m looking forward to what next week will bring!

It started with the Dunnock

He’s recently been singing from the crab apple in our garden.

Yes, I miss hearing a Blackbird, but it occurred to me that, wow, the Dunnock is a really impressive singer. It’s time to appreciate him more.

He’s inspired me to share more moments from this week that have made my heart sing.

Lungwort budding at Woolston Station Community Garden

Flowers are coming into bud at Woolston Station Community Garden, and Lungwort is one of my favourites. Being at the garden this week, improving it for wildlife, has been a real treat.

A rotting stump, a pile of sticks, and some ivy. All good for wildlife.

A morning walk to the River Itchen at Hazel Road shore to search for crockery yielded this treasure.

Later in the week, a cycle to Weston Shore rewarded me with a hagstone for my collection.

Making plant labels from our Silver Birch cuttings was another simple joy. I must remember to be creative more often. (I’m really going to miss that tree).

Plant labels made from Silver Birch cuttings.

It’s been an eventful six days. Sometimes, it feels like it never stops raining, and I barely leave my laptop. So I thought I needed a reminder that it’s not been a bad week.

At Weston Shore, after I found the hagstone.

A bird to be treasured

“I am a blackbird, singing my song”

This is what I used to hear when I opened the front door early in the morning. That is, I heard a blackbird from across the street, and the first part of his song sounded just like, “I am a blackbird”, and I added the rest (and more, but that’s another story!)

At dusk, he’d be singing from a chimney pot a few houses away, and the last few notes would be scratchy and squeaky. It was almost like he lost concentration at the end.

He’d spend time in our silver birch, and use the birdbath regularly.

A few months ago, I realised I hadn’t heard him for a while. And I hadn’t seen a blackbird in my garden for some time either.

I really miss ‘my’ blackbird. I don’t know why they’re absent, but through Southampton Wildlife, a Facebook group, I learned about the Usutu virus. This article from the RHS gives advice on how to reduce the spread of this mosquito-borne disease, including minimising standing water and cleaning birdbaths regularly.

Though the birds seem to be missing from my area, they are still around in other parts of the city, so I take heart from this. I appreciate the birds I do still see and hear in my garden – starlings and sparrows, blue tits, goldfinches and greenfinches. The occasional wren, dunnock and sparrowhawk. And of course, the summertime swifts. But I really miss the blackbird. It’s hit me quite hard, because it’s brought home to me what it’s like to lose a species. Even sadder is that many people probably haven’t noticed they’ve gone, because they didn’t notice them in the first place. When I took a singing toy bird to a nature connection event, I was shocked that some people didn’t recognise the bird or his song. I thought I’d chosen a bird that would be known in the urban area we were in. But it wasn’t familiar to everyone.

Remember there was a poll to choose Britain’s national bird some years back?

The robin won, but a colleague at the time said to me that she thought it should have been a blackbird, for their song. I suppose robins are just so much more familiar to people, through Christmas cards if nothing else. According to this BBC report, the blackbird was in second place until children’s votes were counted.

The poll was a decade ago, in 2015. Back then, I have to admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to blackbirds myself. I hadn’t really noticed them, perhaps because they seemed so commonplace. Hearing a Tawny Owl from my flat in Portswood was exciting because it was unusual. So maybe Blackbirds becoming less common will give them an edge, and more people will pay attention to them. I hope so, because we need to notice them, to treasure them, before it’s too late.

Composting for wildlife

If you want a wildlife-friendly, sustainable garden, making your own compost from green waste is an obvious thing to do. It’s something I’ve never done before because I’ve never had the space. But now, with both an allotment and Woolston Station Gardens, I’ve got the chance to compost – and I’m really enjoying learning and doing!

I’ve been making leafmould in bags for a few years. It’s really easy, even when you don’t have much space. I’m also encouraging more people to have a go, especially volunteers at gardening projects I’m involved with as Wilder Southampton officer with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. I found some clear instructions here, from the Shropshire Wildlife Trust.

When we started volunteering at the station garden, there were two pallet bins. Both had a lot of large woody plant stems in that weren’t going to break down any time soon. We removed them and added them to the habitat piles, then I covered what was left in one of the bins, to speed up the process of breaking the material down.

I’ve also been learning the basics of composting from a free beta test of a course by Garden Organic, which I was offered by Hampshire Community Rail Partnership because I’m a garden volunteer. Using your own compost means it’s full of woodlice, centipedes and other small creatures that are breaking it down, so this is a great way to improve the structure and biodiversity of your soil. We needed this , as the soil was pretty lifeless when we started at the garden in late spring. Gardeners often mulch with compost in autumn, but the Garden Organic tutor suggested that spring can be better, as earthworms are more active and therefore will incorporate the organic matter in to your soil. I’d initially thought our compost wasn’t ready yet, but realised it was ok to use it for mulching, so I added some to the hedge bed that was looking a waterlogged. Improving the structure should help it retain water that can help plants during dry periods.

We’ve got another bin to sort, and we also now have several plastic bins. Two of the three are full – with garden volunteers taking care to cut waste into smaller pieces, to speed up the process, as well as layering green and brown waste.

I’m very far from being an expert, but love a project! I’m hoping we’ll be self-sufficient with compost from now on, and will be able to offer mulch to other nearby projects such as Pollinating Peartree and Victoria Road Gardeners. Watch this space!

Woolston Station Gardens – for wildlife and people

Volunteers Jill, Eamonn and Bridget with Charlene from Hampshire Community Rail.

We launched Woolston Station Garden Club in May 2025 to revive the station gardens. Long-term volunteer Bridget was the only remaining gardener still available when Charlene Arrondeau, Hampshire Community Rail Officer, contacted me in my Wilder Southampton role with Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. My work schedule was full, so I decided to take this on as a volunteer. It’s my local station, virtually opposite two of my Pollinating Peartree patches, and I’d already met Bridget through my role with Friends of Peartree Green.

What happened next? And how are the gardens helping wildlife and people? Read on to find out!

Volunteers at the end of the first session.

To kick-start the garden, we rallied a group of local people and enlisted the help of the Good Gym. Ziggy and Alan from Bitterne Station gardeners also came along. There was already a range of pollinator plants, some of them wildflowers, including cornflowers, ox-eye daisies, poppies and purple toadflax. We worked around them, pulling up tall grass stems by hand and carefully cutting back some of the bramble. Some of us started sorting out the compost areas, while Eamonn took charge of connecting the water butts. We achieved a lot in one hour – and had a lot of laughs in the process.

How are we helping wildlife with this garden? Well, by working around plants, we’ve been able to avoid too much disturbance to the creatures living there. This included a robin making a nest in ivy on the old signal box building, so we didn’t go into that area at all. Leaving plants in place meant bees could continue feeding. Gradually moving garden waste from the dilapidated pallet bin to the new one gave woodlice and other invertebrates time to move. We’ve also built a stick pile close by to provide a habitat for these little creatures, which in turn provides a place for birds to look for food. And we’ve added drinking/bathing areas for birds, mammals and insects.

There are two garden areas at the station. The first one was made by Bridget for her late husband Hugh, who worked in the ticket office. I remember him from when I used to catch the train to work, and I’d noticed the garden on the left as you walk to the platforms. Bridget has now been able to start maintaining this again.

Bridget reclaiming the path through the garden she created when her husband Hugh
worked in the ticket office.

Due to the prolonged dry weather, we haven’t added many plants yet – just a few from our own gardens and some sunflowers donated by my neighbour. We bought a few herbs with funding provided by Hampshire Community Rail Partnership, and I’ve added seep tubes to the lavender and sunflower bed. These are 2-litre plastic bottles with the bottom cut off. Put them in upside down and fill with water, and you have a system that keeps the plants watered for longer, with the water going to the roots. This makes better use of it than surface watering, when it evaporates more quickly. Naturally, the bottles are ones I’ve found when litter picking!

There’s plenty more to be done at the garden, so if you’re local, why not join us? It’s a chance to meet new people, learn new skills and be part of a community – that’s why we’ve called it Woolston Station Garden Club. You don’t need any experience or tools. To find out when we meet, check our Facebook page, look out for posters, or contact me through this blog. Thanks for reading!

Riverside Reflections

One of my stories is that I’m not comfortable near rivers, sometimes even afraid. There have been moments of panic, such as the time I went for a walk at Chessel Bay when the River Itchen was choppy, and I basically ran back along the path to get out. Living on the east, I regularly have to cross the river to go to other parts of the city. Of the five crossings I can use, Northam Bridge would be my last choice. The one time I cycled over it, I felt unsafe. The railings felt too low, the water too close.

These were my thoughts as I sat by the river yesterday. It was the last day of a week off, and I’d left my bike at RideRide near Cobden Bridge for a service. I had at least two hours to fill, so I’d decided on a walk through Riverside Park and onto Monks Brook, where I wanted to check the Purple Toothwort I’d first seen on a guided walk almost a month earlier. The plant wasn’t at its best then, so I thought I’d go back. It looked good, but my photo of Marsh Marigold came out better!

Monks Brook itself isn’t scary, but walking the path alone makes me nervous because it’s hemmed in on both sides. Earlier this week, I’d been talking about this to Rae, a researcher who’s looking at ideas of belonging in green places. To feel safe, I usually choose places where I have a clear view and options to change my route if I feel concerned. This was part of the issue at Chessel Bay, where it’s a no-through route.

So why did I choose to walk here today? Well, partly it was convenience, but it was also an opportunity to become more familiar with these areas and the species that live there. It was a chance to explore.

The walk through Riverside Park from the cycle workshop to Woodmill Coffee Kitchen would take about 20 minutes at my normal pace, but I wanted to slow down and go where curiosity took me. One place was to the water’s edge to look at this board, which I’d spotted from the main path.

I’d never been to this spot before. The board tells us that badgers use this riverbank, something I hadn’t realised. (I’m not sure what caused the black marks, but someone’s spray painted ‘I 💜 nature’ in purple over it).

Another reason for visiting was to see the latest mural by Joanna Rose Tidey. This is at Woodmill, and was commissioned by Southampton National Park City to celebrate the importance of the River Itchen to the Atlantic Salmon.

Mainly though, I wanted to just spend some time doing nothing in particular. Of course I got a bit hung up trying to identify trees, and yes, I sat at the cafe overlooking the river hoping to see a seal or an otter. But I also gave myself time to reflect, inspired by this book, a gift from my partner. It comes from Natural Academy and covers aspects of nature connection and well-being that I’m familiar with but don’t often allow myself time for. There’s much in the book to inspire me, but feeling comfortable by the river, letting my mind wander, felt like a really good start. I’m beginning to change my story.

Big Garden Birdwatch Plus

Twenty-five starlings, two bluetits, a wood pigeon, a magpie, two or three greenfinches …. I can more or less predict how many birds of each species I’ll see when I take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend. What I’m less sure of is what they’ll be doing. And that, for me, is the really fun part.

2024 was the year I started keeping notes on more than just numbers. And, as is often the case, it all started with Starlings.

First, in spring, I noticed one on a nearby chimney pot, making particular wing movements and calling. It – he, I now realise, would then disappear into a crevice before coming out and repeating the routine. I looked this up and discovered he was advertising his nest site to females.

Whether he was successful, I don’t know. But not long afterwards, I sww another Starling in our silver birch, pulling at the papery bark. At first, I thought he was foraging for insects. But a few days later, I saw the same behaviour. I made the time to watch for a while, and was rewarded. He pulled off a strip of bark and flew away with it – but not towards the chimney nest, where the other Starling was again shouting about his nest site. Was Starling number 2 using the bark for nest material? It seems possible, as they are known to use flowers.

2024 was also the year I started using the Merlin app, which identifies birds from their calls. It’s really handy when you can’t see the bird, which is the case when our silver birch is in full leaf. One day in late September, there was a call I hadn’t heard before. Despite circling the tree, peering up at it from all angles, I could see nothing. Enter Merlin, who told me it was a Chiffchaff. I should note here that it wasn’t the song I could hear, which is easily recognisable, and which I know well from walks on Peartree Green nearby. Funny though, isn’t it, how ‘seeing is believing’? Most of us are so used to confirming things by sight that there’s a niggling doubt. Ridiculous really in the case of a Chiffchaff, which is a classic LBJ – little brown job, difficult to distinguish from other, similar species. So, for me at least, seeing wouldn’t help much!

Two days later, I heard another mystery call. This time, Merlin said Dunnock. Now, I wondered whether Chiffchaff had been right. To me, a single note, even repeated, is hard to distinguish from another single note. Could Merlin get it wrong? Maybe, but let’s face it, the app is more likely to be right than I am. I have since seen Dunnocks in the garden, in winter, and I’ve learned to recognise the song. And, excitingly, I’ve seen a Chiffchaff – I think, first in December, then again, earlier this month, January, and I watched the bird take a sunflower seed before flitting back into the climber on my fence. This is where the birding community is so helpful. I couldn’t get a photo, but posted my observations on a Facebook group, Southampton Wildlife, and the experts came back with yes, likely to be a Chiffchaff. Fortunately, one of those experts lives just a few houses away from me and confirmed they’d got Chiffchaffs visiting their garden, though they hadn’t seen them take seeds from a feeder.

Noticing how birds feed has helped me to identify them when I can’t see them clearly. This is part of what birders mean when they talk about the ‘jizz’ – the behaviour of the bird, as well as its call, where it is, and its appearance. Over the years, I’ve seen that Goldfinches seem more likely to use the perches on the seed feeder, whereas Greenfinches often favour standing on the tray, rummaging through what’s there. Both finches get quite territorial about the food, chasing each other off. The Blue Tits keep out of it, nipping in while the finches are preoccupied! They grab a seed and take it to a branch to eat it.

Some mysteries remain though, which keeps it interesting. I’ve twice found blood on a feeder, but am not sure what happened. Both times, there was no blood anywhere else, and no signs of predation around the feeder. These feeders are mainly used by pigeons. Let me know in the comments if you’ve seen this too.

Garden happenings, 2024.

It seemed like it was all happening in our garden last year. Here are a few of the highlights.

Probably the most exciting event was seeing a leaf cutter bee using the bee hotel. I was, quite honestly, beside myself with excitement. This happened 3 weeks after I’d moved the bee hotel from one side of the fence post to another – crucially, the south-facing side. I saw a bee make several trips across the garden to cut discs from the rose leaves, before taking them to the tubes. Watching this was fascinating. Despite careful observation, I couldn’t tell how many bees were using the hotel, but who cares?! Just wonderful.

A close second was the proliferation of self-heal, one of my favourite flowers but one that hasn’t done well in the garden before. A plant with panache, don’t you think?

Then there was the bagworm. I’d seen the case of one a week or so before it featured on Springwatch, but had no idea what I was looking at. Once I knew, I went looking for more, and found one at the moment it was emerging!

Another thing I saw on Springwatch was a wolf spider carrying her babies on her back. Then hey presto! One scuttled out from the gap in our paving slabs. I have to admit that the look of this makes me shudder for reasons I can’t explain, but it’s a garden wildlife experience I’m glad I had. My photo is blurred, so I’ve added another I found online.

I was also in the right place at the right time to witness some mating activity, like these hoverflies and slugs – though it felt a little intrusive taking photos.

Not sure what was going on with these two brocade moth caterpillars. Maybe a stand-off over who had feeding rights on the purple toadflax?

Garden spiders have to eat too…

Also in summer, this chrysalis caught my eye. I hoped to see the butterfly emerge, but missed it. Maybe next year?

So much activity, and I haven’t even mentioned the birds – the return of Greenfinches after a few months’ absence, Great Tits seen taking wool for their nest, a Starling having a thorough wash after I’d hung the bird bath in a better position. More on birds in my next post, but to end this one, it’s over to one of my favourite critters, the woodlouse. They shed their exoskeleton as they grow, and, for me, finding one is like finding treasure.

Pollinating Peartree: Itchen Ferry Memorial Garden

Me next to the Itchen Ferry Memorial Garden after the tidy up.

Near where I live, there used to be a village called Itchen Ferry. Most of it was destroyed during World War 2, as it was close to the Supermarine factory where Spitfires were built, and now there’s a memorial with a garden. The memorial plaque states that, in 1985, pupils from class 3B at Ludlow Middle School learned about the area, and wanted there to be a memorial. You can read the full text he re.

As R.G. King points out in his book Itchen Ferry Village, a 16th century map shows a few houses at a place then called ‘Itchyng’. My aim with this post isn’t to write about the history, though – the book just mentioned is available in the library, and Marie Keats has written an excellent post on the subject, which includes some fascinating photos. My angle is the natural habitat and the space for nature provided by the garden. As I wrote in my blog post from 2021, I’ve done occasional litter picks here with the Woolston Wombles, and regular ones with my partner. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the garden, other than adding a Pollinating Peartree sign. I was told it was looked after by Southampton Amateur Rowing Club, who are based at there, so when I noticed it looked in need of a little attention, I contacted them to organise a shore litter pick and garden tidy up. Below, you can see ‘before and after’ photos.

The rowing club do regular litter picks, and John Bailey of the club organised the memorial and raised funds for the garden. But he isn’t sure when it was established – if anyone reading this knows when it was, or has photos, I’d love to hear from you! Ongoing garden maintenance isn’t something the club has taken on. Despite this, around 15 club members were already well underway when I arrived with other volunteers on the day, and had cleared a lot of the scrub that was spilling over the sleeper walls. I was lucky to have my partner Tricia with me, who’s a professional gardener. She was able to guide others about what was growing, how to prune and what to leave. Here she is with Robin, who’d come prepared with tools and long arms, and was a great help at cutting back clematis and pulling out rubbish from the back of the garden, including two footballs, a crowbar and a kit bag.

Below: before and after on one corner, looking towards the Itchen Bridge. You can see some of the dry stems of couch grass, which is well established and may make it hard to establish new plants, though Tricia did put in a few from our garden.

The rowers worked hard to clear the grass from the three tree pits, then Laura and son Toby planted crocus bulbs – some provided by the club, some from Pollinating Peartree.

As I write this in early December, there’s some Borage in bloom and a Rock Rose in bud. Come spring, thanks to everyone who helped, pollinators should be able to find food more easily, especially when those crocuses come out!

Tricia, Jill, Robin, Toby and Laura. Nick and Lisa missed the photo, but also helped the rowing club members bag up all that rubbish!

Badger Green

Places like Badger Green seem to be overlooked when people talk of ‘access to nature’ or ‘green spaces’. I’m not sure why this is. Has someone decided a ‘green space’ should be a minimum size, or that it must be designated a ‘park’? Southampton City Council’s website has a category called ‘parks and open spaces‘. ‘Open spaces’ covers greenways and nature reserves, and while some (most?) parks have plenty of ‘nature’, I can think of some that are much less green than Badger Green. But you won’t find Badger Green on this list, or even on a map (yet). It’s a name I’ve invented, inspired by the badger that Joanna Rose Tidey painted on the telecomms box. Places need names for people to connect to them, don’t they? Since I named it, I’ve visited it more often, and am paying more attention to what’s there. It’s become another of my local walks, and that’s largely because of the trees.

Badger Green is made up of a wide verge of grass and trees that wrap around part of the boundary of the Merryoak Estate, separating back gardens from the road. The Green runs along Merryoak Road from Cypress Avenue to Spring Road, and then along Spring Road as far as Blackthorn Road.

There are around 30 mature trees: beech, oak and lime. These presumably date from the time of the original Merry Oak estate, when there was only the manor house (and the name was still two words). An ordnance survey map of 1841 – 1952 shows a large number of trees in this stretch of land. This lime is one of my favourites.

Inevitably some trees have fallen or been felled over the years, but several of the beech stumps – elephant’s feet – are like mini nature reserves as their core has decayed and other organisms have moved in. This one below seems the most established, as well as being the biggest. It took me 12 steps to walk around its perimeter, about 7 metres. There’s holly and ivy, moss and fungi on the outside, plus grasses and a sapling growing in the middle – and that’s just what I could see from a two-minute observation in the rain.

The two beech logs provide seating for drinkers, but wouldn’t it be great if they took their empties with them? The area does attract a lot of litter, as there’s a takeaway and a Tesco Express across the road, and a bus stop (with a bin next to it, mind you). So, I fill a bag or two on each visit.

The same log was host to a special fungus in the autumn, the Coral Tooth. It was so striking that I first noticed it as I cycled past.

It’s exciting to have found this ‘new’ place only five minutes’ walk from home. On my most recent walk, I noticed this hazel for the first time, and I’m sure there is much more to be discovered as the seasons change.