Social creatures

This morning the weather had changed. My friend and I would only manage an hour of gardening before the sleet drove us indoors. The grass was too wet to cut, the ground had become claggy and difficult to work.

We did want to do something useful but once my workmate had gathered a barrow load of moss from the lawn, we called it a day.

These gulls were less bothered by the weather, sitting on the Mormon church roof. From what I had heard earlier this morning, I suspect they had already checked out the park nearby for worms and scraps. Now they were digesting and keeping out of dogs’ way. Later the dustcart was due, always worth a glance from a scavenger’s eye! In a few hours the tide will have turned at Whitstable, and who knows what may turn up?

One thing is sure: this mob will fly off there together, making a terrific racket, unlike this morning, sitting sociably and all but silently, on the church roof.

This morning

smart

This morning there was mist and dew at the Glebe, soon to be burned away as the Sun got to work.

Des Res for Wrens?

We were given a wren house for Christmas, I placed it in our riverside hedge at the Glebe garden where I work with disabled gardeners in non-pandemic times. Needless to say, the wrens nested under the opposite hedge, in the heap of scrap timber I was going to tidy away – I’m glad they were spotted in time!

The parent wrens were quite happy to fly very close to my workmate when he was sawing away, almost on their flight path.

On the other hand, we had at home a similar box for bluetits, hung on our house wall and surrounded by pyracantha, a thorny evergreen. Two years running, and again after a year’s break, the blackbirds built on top of it. After that we did have blue tits (like chickadees) two years running. I think they prefer old wood to the smell of new.

The wrens’ house is hidden in the hedge opposite.

Wind Flowers

It has been windy but bright these last few days, just the weather for windflowers, wood anemones. Mrs Turnstone’s walk took us up to the University woods to greet them. Here they are are very pale, even white. Across town in Larkey Valley woods there are patches of such a dark pink as to merit being called purple. I had a photo of them, somewhere …

Croaking into Spring

smart

Mrs T had been subdued, hardly mentioning the lack of frogspawn in our garden pond. It’s an annual worry: will they lay this year? Last summer neighbours cleared a neglected garden and disturbed many frogs in the ivy that was undermining the garden wall.

I said nothing; till today. As I let myself through the back gate I heard a croak, a full-throated, joyous croak. At least one frog was alive! Naturally I peered into the pond and there I saw two mounds of frogs’ eggs. Had a certain friend brought some from her garden which always has a surplus?

Not at all, these had been laid overnight. Coming later in the season they are less likely to be killed by frost, though we’ll have to be on hand to cover the pond overnight with bubble wrap. Let’s live in hope, and continue to provide places of refuge amid ground cover plants such as ivy, periwinkle or these violets.

Flying the Ukrainian Flag

Canterbury City Westgate this morning.

This is Post No 501 on Will Turnstone’s site.

Online ecology library opens to all readers.

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We like to share some of what we see, hear and smell as we go out and about. We hope readers continue to enjoy these snippets. However, there is a bigger picture; scientific observations that describe what is happening, and point to what we should be doing to improve matters for our interconnected earthly home. This information is not always easy to find and can be expensive, even on-line. Here is an initiative that should help make research findings more accessible.

The Laudato Si’ Research Institute at Campion Hall, Oxford (LSRI) and Knowledge Unlatched (KU) have joined forces to make 11 titles from the field of Integral Ecology Open Access (OA) – freely accessible.

In his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of a united, global response to the current ecological crisis. Dialogue and learning on integral ecology, however, is often hindered by limited access to the academic publications on the subject, which are not affordable for many individuals and institutions in lower-income countries. The Laudato Si’ Integral Ecology Collection was developed to address this problem by making OA a selection of key texts on integral ecology. The collection will provide a valuable resource for lay readers, students, and those undertaking more advanced academic study. Publications in the collection could also be read as part of a reading group or an online course.

The titles will be made available OA to users all over the world after the official launch of the Collection on Thursday, 3 March, 2022. The books will be hosted in a special module on the Open Research Library.

“I am thrilled to be launching this pioneering OA library of books on integral ecology, which will reach people globally, whether one is a university student in the Philippines, a layperson engaged in environmental action in the UK, or a college teacher in Kenya,” said Séverine Deneulin, Director of International Development at LSRI, adding: “We hope that the Laudato Si’ Integral Ecology Collection will not only contribute to narrowing the knowledge gap between different regions of the world but also equip people globally to better respond to the cries of the earth and of the poor.”

“We are delighted to work with the LSRI team on making this collection of important content freely available thanks to the KU Reverse model,” said Philipp Hess, KU’s Manager of Publisher Relations. “We are also very grateful to the co-funding institutions that have helped to make this possible.”

LINKS

Read more about the collection here: https://lsri.campion.ox.ac.uk/events/launch-laudato-si-integral-ecology-collection

Laudato Si’ Research Institute – https://lsri.campion.ox.ac.uk/