Category: adventures in time and in space
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The Queen of May
May Day is gathered together in Nowhere Wood. The guests are all assembled, having arrived in timely order, ready for the magical day. First to arrive was the wild garlic, clean and green with the freshness of a memory of good times around the family table. Then the first bluebell opened up to the sky,…
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The titmice of Nowhere Wood
[titmice is an old English name for birds of the Paridae family, including blue and great tits. It is also a term familiar to the American readers of these stories.] This is a bright and early sunlit story, chipper with the sounds of Spring: “Ti-ti-pu, ti-tipu….tsee-tsee-tsee”. The quick, little, sharp notes, ticking up from the…
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The badgers of Nowhere Wood – a February story
There are badgers in Nowhere Wood. For the first time, we think. This is their February story. Imagine living in a dark world shaped by scent, vibration and touch — where wind carries stories and the air itself guides you back to the mouth of your sett. A world of kinship and inherited ground. Of…
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The wise birds of Nowhere Wood
After dark, we can hear the tawny owls that live in the old oak by the pond, calling to each other, “tu-wit, tu-woo”. In the woods and hedges around the hamlet of Nowhere, where the ancient oaks keep their own counsel and the paths disappear at dusk into darkness, there is an old tree with…
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The tunnelling armies beneath carpets of gold
It is early November in the park, and carpets of fallen leaves are piling up across the earth in sodden heaps, driven by the autumn winds and rains. The browns of the oak, the sycamore ambers and the golds of the beeches. Beneath the old apple tree, the king of the orchard, fallen apples lie…
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Trick or treat?
A traveller on the pathways, weary after many miles of walking, looks up into the hedgerow and sees the silky feathery threads surrounding the dark fruits. The sight brings the traveller an uplifting joy, at least according to John Gerard in his 1597 herbal. He called it ‘travellers joy’. It has other names. It is…
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A different kind of woodpecker
If you look carefully at this image, you can see another woodpecker, but one that is quite different to the great spotted woodpecker that starred in our last story. This is a green woodpecker. Can you see why? These two kinds of woodpecker are able to live together all year round in…
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Celebrating mushroom season!
Everyone agrees, it is an outstanding mushroom season. The dry summer and the warm wet autumn have created the perfect conditions for these mysterious forms which spend most of their lives living underground. Quietly, but with ruthless effectiveness, they influence and shape the growth of the trees in the wood. But, what is a mushroom?…
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The end of the summer
Nowhere Wood has a weary silence, as the heat stifles its life. It is ready with its autumn plans, which cannot start until it rains. Rain, the life-giver. Yet in flood, rain is the also the destroyer. It is a question of balance. Is the balance changing in the wood? Is the balance changing in…
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Hard hats, safety specs and camouflage jackets
It is a January morning, misty and still. The air hangs silently in Nowhere Wood. Suddenly close, but just out of sight, a loud and fast drumming shakes the stillness. Then a silent pause, followed by a quieter drumming coming from the other end of the wood. Let’s find the first drummer. He’s hard to…
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Time travellers to Nowhere (1)
Imagine you had a Time Machine: where and when would you go to? Come with me back to Nowhere Wood, about 310 million years ago. That is long before humans, mammals or even dinosaurs existed, but frogs laid their eggs in pools, much as they do today. Today it is hot, humid and very quiet:…
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Climate change and new arrivals
Some animals and plants can’t live in Nowhere Wood because it’s too cold or too wet for them. But the climate has warmed by about 1°C since the 1970s. This small change has allowed new species to come and live in the wood because the climate now suits them better. In 2019, a pair of…
