being and becoming – Stories from Nowhere Wood

March 17, 2026March 17, 2026

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 hazel beside the path, like a tiny clock wound too tight. I stop and look up. Far up high in the tree, a blue tit darts between the twigs, hopeful as a scrap of summer sky—blue crown, white cheeks, yellow breast flashing through the bare twigs.

Blue tit in Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Andrew Town]

It paused only long enough to scold me before flitting deeper into the wood.

I walked on.

Nowhere Wood is just beginning to wake into spring. The oaks are still bare but their buds have swollen, and soon the leaves will open. When that happens, the caterpillars will come—thousands of them, hanging in the branches like green commas.

The small birds of the wood are waiting.

Blue tits in Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Andrew Town]

Further along the path I hear another call, slower, deeper and more deliberate: teacher-teacher. A great tit landed on the trunk of an old oak and turned its head to look at me. Compared with the restless blue tit it seemed calm, almost thoughtful, its black breast stripe neat against the yellow. A bird with presence and authority.

For a moment the bird stayed there, gripping the bark.

Then it flew slowly, deliberately, away to an important meeting.

I follow the path round a bend where the hazels thickened. Suddenly the wood becomes alive with movement. Two blue tits chase each other through the branches, and the great tit returned, hopping along a twig above them.

They were not quarrelling. Instead, they searched the branches together, peering beneath buds and along the bark.

One of the blue tits hung upside down to inspect the underside of a twig. Then it seized something invisible and swallowed it.

Food.

Blue tits in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Andrew Town]

Soon there would be much more of it. When the oak leaves open the caterpillars will appear in a sudden green flood, and somewhere nearby these birds will be prepared for it.

In a hole in an old tree—or perhaps in a nest box hidden in the wood—a female tit might be sitting on a clutch of pale speckled eggs. One egg laid each morning until the nest held eight, or nine, or even ten.

When the chicks hatch, the parents will work without rest, carrying caterpillars back to the nest again and again and again.

The birds above me moved on, drifting through the branches lightly in the breeze

A moment later they were gone.

I walked a little further and noticed a feather lying on the path. Olive green, with a hint of yellow at the edge. A great tit’s feather, most likely.

I picked it up, then set it back down.

Somewhere behind me the ticking call of the blue tit began again.

The wood, it seems, is full of them.

Titmice are popular visitors to gardens with bird feeders, especially in the winter. What are the advantages and disadvantages of feeding birds with bird feeders?

Notes on the story

The badgers of Nowhere Wood – a February story

Male badger near Nowhere Wood, February 2026. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

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 rival clans pressing at territorial edges. Of sudden violence in the margins between families.

Imagine spending each day feeding on the earth itself. Earthworms drawn from damp soil; fallen fruit when it ripens; carrion when it is found — but mostly worms. Reliable food, abundant in spring when the ground softens and the night stays wet.

The animals emerging at night to feed and play-fight — no claws unsheathed, no teeth bared — are likely subadult males. They circle, shoulder, and grapple in the leaf litter, testing strength without drawing blood. In time they will disperse, edging beyond the safety of their natal territory and pressing at the boundaries of neighbouring clans.

The breeding females remain underground. Late winter is the season of birth: cubs lie blind and furred in the nesting chambers, sustained by milk and warmth. We must wait several weeks before they appear above ground, tentative in the dusk outside the sett.

We will follow the badgers through their year, as they explore their new world of scents and smells.

How can badgers live safely alongside people?

Notes on the story

Subterranean superheroes

January 26, 2026January 26, 2026

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 a hollow space, worn smooth by centuries of weather. My great-grandmother used to say a wise old owl lived there, and some mothers still do, repeating the rhyme as if it were a charm:

The more he saw, the less he spoke; the less he spoke, the more he heard.

Tawny owls. [Photograph: https://www.pickpik.com/tawny-owl-owl-bird-birds-night-active-animal-3227] — Two tawny owls

Whether or not the owl is wise in any human sense, we do seem to take care around that tree. We believe that tawny owls protect our woods, and that harm done to any of them would haunt us as bad luck. So fallen branches are stepped around, not over, and axes ring elsewhere. The ancient oaks endure.

At night, the owl still emerges with a quiet knowing, the kind that can sense mice and voles in complete darkness. There she sits still for long minutes, head angled, as though the darkness were speaking and he were weighing its words. This is the stillness that unsettled my great-grandparents. Wisdom, yes—but wisdom tinged with shadow.

Not with the blaze of insight promised by the goddess Athena’s little owl, nor the reason of the law courts and the Bristol merchants, but the intelligence of strategy rather than force: patience over pursuit, timing over speed.

The Greek goddess Athena with her little owl symbol — The Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena with her little owl trophy.

When the cry comes, it comes suddenly, tearing the night. Once, a traveller heard it from the track and remembered a line he had learned in school—the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, which gives the sternest good night—and he quickened his pace homewards. The sound seemed final, like a door being closed somewhere far off.

The traveller did not know that what he heard was not one voice at all, but two.

From the oak came a sharp twit, from the female, and from deeper in the wood a rounded tu-woo, from the male. Female and male, call and answer. Not a lament, but a confirmation. This wood is their place, and they are in it together.

For generations, the mistake had been made—one lonely owl calling to the dark—when in truth the sound marked pair-bond and boundary, a steadying signal stitched into the night.

A Tawny owl in flight — Florence’ the tawny owl; seen during a very wet flying display, at the British Wildlife Centre, Newchapel, Surrey. [Photograph: Peter Trimming, https://www.flickr.com/photos/peter-trimming/5487239086/]

They hunt while others sleep. Not because their eyes are more sensitive than ours—they are not—but because their ears tell them what their eyes can not see. Asymmetrical, finely tuned, they catch the smallest rustle from under the leaf litter.

From a branch they drop without warning, wings betraying no sound, and seize a vole or mouse, swallowing it whole. In leaner times, birds, too. The wood is not sentimental. Even owl chicks are sometimes taken by the buzzards if they can find them.

In Nowhere Wood, the owls continue as they always have, weaving their lives through dark and shadow, with crafts that are millions of years old . Keeping and holding a territory, a pair answering each other in the dark. In balance, with the oak, hollowed by time, listening—saying nothing, but hearing everything.

Why do people think that owls are wise?

Notes on the story

Being and becoming in Nowhere Wood

I bear their homes, too

November 12, 2025November 13, 2025

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.

A carpet of fallen leaves in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Beneath the old apple tree, the king of the orchard, fallen apples lie on top of the leaf-litter, wind-shaken and bruised. Their skins cracked, their flesh softening, their scent faintly sweet but sharp in the still air. To almost every walker, they are simply decaying fruit to be sidestepped or stepped on. But down below, for the mini beasts of the soil, these apples are the food for their futures.

Fallen apples in Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

These apples, built by the tree from sunlight and salts, now become a banquet for a micro-world. First slugs and woodlice nibble the breaking skins.

As leaves and apple flesh break down, bacteria and fungi colonise. Fungi thread through leaves, breaking tough lignin and cellulose into sugars. Bacteria feed on these sugars and their growth increases.

Then the springtails and mites gather. But the major transformation begins when the earthworms arrive.

In this video from @PlayEarth we can see how apples are consumed by earthworms: in our park, the same players are at work, but working at much slower rhythms.

As the earthworms burrow, they drag down leaves and fragments of apple into the soil, creating tunnels rich in oxygen and moisture. The earthworms grind the material in their guts, making it more digestible for microbial armies.

As they pass through, the earthworms consume the microbe-rich soil, expelling the soil as finely ground particles. Their work accelerates the breakdown of the leaves and apples.

The result? The fallen apples, once crisp and bright, become part of the soil. Nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium return to the ground. The soil structure improves. Tiny pores hold water. Seeds waiting in the seed-bank sense the difference. Saplings in spring find richer soil, more ready to grow.

In our small park, what seems like waste—leaves and fallen apples— are the lifeblood of food webs, cycles and renewal. Life depends on life. The work of the worms and other soil organisms is quiet, unseen, but foundational. Without it, the leaf carpet would build up, decomposition would slow, nutrients would be locked away. Instead, the earth beneath is alive and renewing, waiting for the spring.

Many people tidy up the fallen leaves from their garden lawns and flower beds. Why might it be better to leave them where they fell?

Notes on the story

Trampling acorns underfoot

Trick or treat?

Traveller's joy or OId man's beard. Growing on the edges of the meadow, Tendlewood Park — Traveller’s joy or OId man’s beard. Growing on the edges of the meadow, Tendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

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 ‘old man’s beard’ in Hampshire and Wiltshire and called the delightful ‘Withywine’ in Somerset. Its formal name is Clematis vitalba and it has distinctive flowers and fruits.

Drawings of the flowers and seed heads of Clematis vitalba.

Vitalba means ‘vital’, full of energy. It certainly grows rapidly, especially in new habitats, where it can form dense thickets. This is the secret of its success as a coloniser of hedges and woodlands.

But, its rope-like branches can choke and strangle the trees over which it invades. Little wonder that frustrated woodsmen have given it a range of darker names, such as ‘devil’s twister and ‘devil’s guts’.

Trick or treat? It is halloween, and it is for you to decide.

Given the large number of local names for plant species, why was it important to create a recognised system of formal names?

Notes on the story

Being and becoming in Nowhere Wood

October 22, 2025November 4, 2025

Celebrating mushroom season!

A close up of a honey fungus, showing its gills and stem, — A close up of a honey fungus in Nowhere Wood, showing its gills and stem. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

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? The people living in Nowhere a century and a half ago would distinguish between mushrooms (which they could eat) and toadstools (which they could not). Learning how to tell them apart was (and is) very important for mushroom foragers. Their children would have been taught that if they were not certain, they should leave well alone. Still good advice, today.

To a mycologist (a biologist of fungi) the term toadstool is not used, and the term ‘mushroom’ is used to describe the fruiting bodies of all these fungi.

Bracket fungus on the old beech tree in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Pat Gilbert] — This bracket fungus is growing on the old beech tree. It is probably a Giant Polyphore. [Photograph; Pat Gilbert]

So, this wonderful bracket fungus is still called a mushroom by biologists.

Honey fungus growing in Nowhere Wood. — These mushrooms may be of the honey fungus in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Which fungi do not produce mushrooms? Well, yeasts are single-celled fungi that do not produce mushrooms. They often grow on the surface of fruit and help to turn apples into cider. Moulds and rusts are also fungi that do not produce mushrooms. They form fuzzy or powdery growths that spread quickly.

Yeasts and other fungi on fallen apples in Tendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram] — Mould fungi on fallen apples in Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Moulds play an important role in helping to break down fruits in the orchard, releasing nutrients back into the soil.

What are mushrooms for? The photograph at the top of the page shows the gills of the mushroom, under its surface. The gills make and store spores, which blow away in the wind. Spores can settle and grow into new fungi.

Imagine what would the world be like without fungi.

Also see:

November 5, 2024November 4, 2025

A different kind of woodpecker

A green woodpecker in Nowhere Wood [photograph: Andrew Town]

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 the wood, without getting in each other’s way. This is because they have different lifestyles.

AI generated woodpecker — An AI generated render of a green woodpecker

This AI generated image of the green woodpecker shows its special characteristics: the green feathers on the back and wings and the paler feathers on the belly. The red head and the black ‘moustache’ around the beak. Males have a red centre to the moustache, so this image is of a young female.

She has a sharp beak , like the great spotted woodpecker. Male green woodpeckers also use their beaks to dig holes for nesting sites.

A green woodpecker digging a nest in Nowhere Wood. [photograph: Andrew Town]

However, male green woodpeckers sing a special call to attract females to their nests. The call sounds like the woodpecker is laughing, and the bird is sometimes called a ‘yaffle’ or ‘laughing Betsy’. You can the various calls of the green woodpecker, here.

Unlike, the great spotted, the green woodpecker does not feed on insects found on the tree. Rather, it hunts for the ants that live in the open spaces near the wood. You might see them in the meadow that runs alongside the wood.

It is these differences in appearance and lifestyle that mean that the two woodpeckers can life happily alongside each other in the wood all year round.

Green and great spotted woodpeckers have different ways of feeding. How does this help them to live alongside each other in Nowhere Wood?
What might happen if they shared the same food supply?

Notes on the story

The sustainable park

August 18, 2025November 4, 2025

A spot for parks and town centres

The “fruit” of the London plane tree is actually a dense, ball-shaped cluster of individual fruits. These hang on long stalks, often in pairs, from the tree’s branches.

The individual fruits are called achenes. Each achene contains a single seed. Attached to the base of each achene is a tuft of many thin, stiff, yellow-brown fibres. These fibres help the wind disperse the achenes to new locations.

The individual fruits (achenes) of the London plane tree, showing the dense fibres. [Photograph: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User: Jebulon ]

The achene cluster breaks up slowly over the winter, releasing the individual achenes (each containing a single seed) to be dispersed by wind.

When the conditions are right, the seed germinates, breaking through the achene, growing roots into the soil.

Fruits that are dispersed by animals (like the blackberry) are often brightly coloured, juicy and sweet tasting. Those fruits that are dispersed by the wind are often dry, small and lightweight. Why do you think this is?

Notes on the story

The end of the summer

July 20, 2025November 4, 2025

Days of gentle ripening

It is mid-July and it has rained for the first time in several weeks. Gentle warm rain, interspersed with strong sunshine. These are the days of gentle ripening, to complete the work that started in in the blossom season of the early spring.

The orchard in Trendlewood Park has a collection of ripening fruit trees and we hope that the Apple Tree Man of Nowhere will bless the harvest of apples, pears and plums.

Apple fruits ripening in the orchard on Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Pear fruits ripening in the orchard on Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Plum fruits ripening in the orchard on Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

In the autumn, these fruits will be ripe enough for animals to eat. What happens as fruit ripen?

Update: 22/7/25

I could not resist the ripening of the Guelder Rose, Viburnum opals, but do not eat it them, else you may fall ill.

Guelder rose on Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Notes on the story

A spot for parks and town centres

September 12, 2024November 4, 2025

If a tree falls….

A fallen ash tree in nowhere Wood — A fallen ash tree in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

It was a stormy August night in Nowhere Wood. The wind was tearing through the leaves and branches and was strong enough to pull the whole tree down.

And so, a tree that had been growing in the Wood for fifty years or more was felled to the floor of the wood.

In the tangled wreckage of leaves, twigs and branches, we can see the tell-tale signs of Ash-dieback disease. This probably weakened the tree, so the wind could blow it over more easily.

Most of the ash trees in this region have the disease, which is caused by a fungus that produces sores that blow away in the air, spreading easily through the wood. One day they will be cut down.

Fungi feeding in a fallen tree in Nowhere Wood — The tree is a store of nutrients. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Although this tree has died, its adventure through time continues. It is becoming useful because it is a large store of nutrients that other organisms in the wood will use to survive and grow.

Over time, insects and fungi will break down the tree wood releasing nutrients that to the organisms in the wood.

Left undisturbed, nothing will go to waste.

New trees will grow up to replace those that have fallen, using the nutrients that are in the soil. Fallen trees are an opportunity for the wood to re-grow itself.

a fungus on a tree — Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of some fungi. [Photograph; Neil Ingram]

There are lots of fallen trees in Nowhere Wood. The autumn is a good time to see fungi feeding on the wood, because this is the season when they produce their fruiting bodies that make spores. Mushrooms are examples of these fruiting bodies.

It is sad when we lose trees that we have known for years. Yet there is hope for the future. How does the wood recover from the loss of trees?

Notes on the story

What’s in a name?

July 9, 2025November 4, 2025

I bear their homes, too

For Jules Acton, author of Oaklore.

The old oak tree said to the traveller passing by:

“You know me, you see me everyday. I am that oak tree that has stood here longer than any of can you remember.”

The oak tree in Trendlewood Park dominating the view — The oak tree in Trendlewood Park, viewed from the author’s study. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

“I am on the 1840 Ordnance Survey map and I was a sturdy tree, even back then. Let’s say, I’m two hundred years old? I am still in my prime, though. I won’t be celebrated as old for another two or three hundred years. Don’t wait up for me.”

A leaf of an English oak. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

“I am a patriot, a true blue English oak: look at the ear-shaped lobes at the bottom of my leaves and the very short leaf stalks. Pedigree characteristics, those.”

Long stalks on the growing acorns of an English oak tree. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

“And look at the length of the stalks that hold up my acorns – the longer the better. Need I say more, I am as English as St George, cricket and cider.”

“I have never been a wildwood oak: a farmer’s tree, that’s me. My roots are deep in the clay, fed by a spring that kept the animals safe and watered. I had space: my limbs lifted upwards to touch the sky. I’ve seen the storms lash the fields and the brambles come and go. I wear the years in my bark and the seasons in my leaves.”

The oak tree is about 200 years old. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

“I am a good neighbour – well after all of this time, why not? In the summer I play host to lots of welcome visitors.”

Spangle gall on an oak leaf. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

“The gall wasp comes to lay her eggs on my new leaves and I make spangle cradles to help to keep them safe.”

“It happens again and again. Not just the spangles. Look beneath my leaves and you might find round, knobbly balls, like hard brown marbles. These are oak apples, swollen with the same curious purpose. A different gall wasp requests a grander chamber, and I oblige. Within each one lives a single larva, safe and fed by the very cells I’ve grown to protect my own buds.

Why do I do it? I don’t know. Perhaps I am too old to care. Or perhaps I understand that these wasps—these minute engineers—are part of the pattern. They do no great harm. My crown still grows. My acorns still drop. My fungi and birds and lichens still cling and sing and creep through me.

So I let them stay.

When my leaves fall, the spangles fall with them. Some young mothers emerge come spring, and they begin again—quietly weaving their lives into mine, asking nothing more than a shelter made of leaf or bark.

I am not hollowed by this. I am enriched. Insects, wind, rain, rot, and sunlight—they all shape me. I am a home, not a fortress. I bear their homes, too.

And you, traveller —if you lie on your back and look up through my summer canopy, you might see more than green. You might see a world.”

Jules Acton’s book, Oaklore, Greystone books, 2024, is an essential companion piece to this story. Jules helps us to think about all of the things that the English oak tree has given us as society and individuals.

Update, 20/07/25:

A new gall has appeared on our favourite oak tree. This is a Knopper gall, caused by the gall wasp Andricus quercuscalicis. The wasp secretes chemicals that distort the growth of an acorn. This is a rather more serious pest to the tree than the two show above, because it can reduce fertility of the tree.

Protected inside the gall is a developing larva, which will develop into a pupa and will emerge as an adult wasp in the next spring.

Notes on the story

Being and becoming in Nowhere Wood

March 15, 2025November 4, 2025

A tribute to fallen trees

The trees in Nowhere Wood are always there, going quietly through the motions of the seasons: noticed only when we stop to look and reflect. But we feel their presence strongly, just out of sight and mind.

Until today, when their absence feels like the loss of dear friends.

Fallen ash tree trunks at the quarry face of Nowhere Wood. [Picture: Neil Ingram] — Fallen ash tree trunks at the quarry face of Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

It only took a morning, and nearly 100 years of growth has ended. Yes, they had Ash dieback disease and were marked with a red spot. Yes, they were unstable on the quarry floor. Even so, we feel their loss keenly.

Trees with Ash dieback disease are marked with a red spot. [Picture: Neil Ingram] — Trees with Ash dieback disease are marked with a red spot. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

The wood will regenerate, but only if we can remove the trunks from the woodland floor. Else we shall see little re-development in our lifetimes. This problem is one that we have to own.

The robin is an optimistic opportunist. Making the best of new opportunities amongst the fallen branches of ash. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

In the mean time, life goes on amidst the debris of fallen trees.

Notes on the story

The sustainable park (2)

July 7, 2025November 4, 2025

A home for the summer

The effects of horse chestnut leaf miners, on a horse chestnut tree in Trendlewood Park, July 2025 {Photograph: Neil Ingram]

By the high summer of July, the new fresh leaves of the horse chestnut are losing their lustre. The proud spread of leaves are now crumpled and marked—creased with dry, papery wounds edged in rust. At first glance, it looks like disease or drought. But the truth is stranger, and smaller.

These are the workings of a moth barely visible to us—Cameraria ohridella, the horse chestnut leaf miner.

The horse-chestnut leaf miner insect. [Photograph: Soebe https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cameraria_ohridella_8419.jpg]

The insect arrived in Britain around 1990, a quiet traveller from North Macedonia, and it has found homes wherever horse chestnuts grow. As the climate warms, insects from the southern regions are able to live successfully in more northern areas.

The female lays her eggs on the newly opened leaf, which hatch to form lavae (caterpillars).

The larva of the holly leaf miner insect. [Photograph: Been-tree https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cameraria_ohridella_larva_beentree.jpg]

The larvae feed within the leaf itself, tunnelling through the soft tissue, leaving behind pale blotches that crackle in the sun.

What’s remarkable is how unnoticed it all is. The adult moth is just five millimetres long and flits at dusk, almost never seen. The eggs are microscopic. The caterpillar never breaks the surface of the leaf. And yet, whole avenues of horse chestnut trees wear the evidence every July—brown-scarred leaves fluttering like worn-out flags, months before autumn should arrive.

The tree will survive. The damage is cosmetic, mostly. But it leaves a strange melancholy in the woods: an early whisper of decline in the green heart of summer. A reminder that even the mighty horse chestnut has its unseen vulnerabilities. And that nature’s smallest players are often the most quietly transformative.

What benefits do the horse chestnut leaf miner gain from living with the horse chestnut tree. What benefits does the horse chestnut tree get from the arrangement?

Notes on the story

“I bear their homes, too”

October 11, 2024November 4, 2025

What’s in a name?

Dryads Saddle — Dryad’s saddle [photograph: Andrew Town]

This fungus grows in Nowhere Wood. It has the glorious scientific name of Polyporus squamous. That’s hard to say, harder to spell and even harder to remember!!

Scientific names are important though: they give the accurate name of the organism, and they also tell scientists quite a lot about how the organism lives. These scientific names are a kind of code that give the name and address of the organism in the living world.

However, the names that ordinary people give organisms are just as important. They are easy to remember and often tell an interesting story. This fungus above is called the Dryad’s saddle. If you look carefully, you can see that it shaped a bit like a saddle that someone would use when riding a horse.

Is this what a dryads looks like? — Is this what a dryad looks like? [An AI generated image]

Dryads are nymphs that live in the world of myths and legends. They live inside trees, often oaks.

Oak trees can live for a 1 000 years, and the dryads are the spirits of the woods, protecting and nurturing the trees. They are the guardians of the woodlands. They are invisible, unless they choose to reveal themselves to us.

Perhaps you will see a dryad in Nowhere Wood? You will have to be quiet and be thinking the right kinds of thoughts.

Dryads observe the changes in the seasons, the rhythms of nature and their deep connection to the Earth. Perhaps we need to think the same way if we are to be allowed to see them for ourselves.

There are lots of fungi with interesting fairy names. This is the scarlet elf cup and grows in Nowhere Wood, feeding on fallen sycamore and hazel wood.

Find out what the scientific name is for our human species. What do the words mean in English? Do you think they are a good description of us?
Very few people believe that there are dryads protecting our woods. Can you think of any benefits to thinking like this? Are there any disadvantages?

Notes on the story

The fairy ring

April 4, 2024November 4, 2025

The greening of Nowhere Wood

It is a cold and wet April in Nowhere Wood, which is full of birdsong and flowers.

The trees are becoming green with new leaves. Leaves grow silently that we can miss their unfolding, noticing only when they are fully opened. If you look carefully, you can see new leaves opening today.

It raises our spirits, and makes us look forward to warmer days.

New leaves grow from buds. Buds are covers that protect the developing leaves from damage during the frosty winter days.

Emerging horse chestnut leaves in Nowhere Wood. — Emerging chestnut leaves in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

New leaves are a special shade of green called Kelly Green. Later in the year the leaves become a darker shade of green.

The greening of Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Emerging oak leaves in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

What happens to these new leaves in the autumn?
Why do plants make new leaves during the summer, ready for the next spring?

Read more about leaves in the A year in the life of a sugar factory.

Notes on a story

If a tree falls…

June 5, 2025April 11, 2026

The Lords and Ladies of Nowhere Wood

Nowhere Wood in late winter is a place of bare branches, weak shadowy light and unspoken secrets, waiting for new leaves start to emerge.

Lords and ladies in January — Lords and Ladies in January [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

On the woodland floor, hidden beneath the shade of hazel and hawthorn, something strange is happening. By April, it is fully revealed.

Lords and ladies, in Nowhere Wood April — Lords and Ladies, in Nowhere Wood, April [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

It’s not flashy, no pretty flower show. Just a apple-green leaf, twisted like a bishop’s cowl. A greenish-purple hood half-hiding something inside. You’d walk past it if you didn’t know better.

The plant is Arum maculatum, but no one calls it that around here. It has lots of ancient names, some of which are so rude that they would make Geoffrey Chaucer blush! In Somerset, it was called ‘Adam and Eve’, but most places call it Lords and Ladies, and there’s a good reason for that. With a little imagination, we can see the tall upright lord dancing with his lady in the flowing green gown.

This is a flower and it is a seed making factory. It does this by subterfuge, luring insects and holding them hostage until it gets what it wants.

Lords and ladies flower exposed — Lords and Ladies flower exposed, [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

One glance inside the sheath and you’ll see the machinery of the deception: “the Lord” is called a spadix, sitting on top of a ring of yellow hairs that point downwards. Below them are the orange ovaries, that will become fruits containing the new seeds. These are the “Ladies”.

Beneath the ladies are the yellow pollen-making anthers, that ripen after the ovaries have received pollen from insects.

Down in the gloom of the woodland floor, the spadix heats up, becoming warmer than the air around it, which attracts small insects. It also gives off a smell of rotting meat and dung — irresistible, if you’re a midge or a small fly looking for a good meal.

They blunder in, hunting decay. Down they fall, past a ring of slippery hairs that trap them in the chamber below. There’s no nectar. No reward. But while they wander round, they give up their pollen to the ovaries. The pollen grows tubes that towards the egg cells, fertilising them, and making new seeds.

The stamens burst open with fresh pollen, which give the insects a quick meal, whilst covering their bodies in pollen.

The yellow hairs of the jail bars have withered overnight, allowing the insects to escape with their pollen load. No harm done, the insects immediately carry the pollen away to the next ripe lords and ladies flower in the wood.

lords and ladies fruits, nowhere Wood, June. [Photograph: Neil Ingram] — Lords and Ladies fruits, Nowhere Wood, June. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

By June. the sheath is long gone. But what remains is a spike of fruits, ready to ripen in the late summer sun. As bright as traffic lights, the fruits rise like a warning from the shade. Poisonous, yes. But beautiful.

ripe fruits of lords snd ladies in Nowhere wood, July. — ripe fruits of Lords and Ladies in Nowhere Wood, July. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

The autumn is a time for making food, using its large leaves that are designed to capture the dim light of the woodland floor. The food is stored underground in a rhizome.

young leaves of lords and ladies, in Nowhere Wood, January. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Later, the leaves disappear and the plant lives underground for the winter.

Rhizome of Lords and Ladies plant. [Photograph: Neuchâtel Herbarium, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Neuch%C3%A2tel_Herbarium_-_Arum_maculatum_-_NEU000100869.jpg]

It lives on as a secretive rhizome, sleeping through the summer heat and the turning year, until — just as the bluebells fade — it returns to play its part again.

Be careful: all parts of these plants are poisonous to people – especially the berries.

Each ripe red fruit contains a seed of the Lords and Ladies plant. Birds, like thrushes and backbirds love to eat these fruits. Explain how this helps to disperse the seeds away from the parent plant.
What are the advantages to small insects of going inside a Lord and Ladies flower?

Notes on the story

Echoes from Nowhere

May 28, 2025November 4, 2025

A tale of two butterflies

It is a sunny afternoon in May and two butterflies are flying round each other in a shaft of sunlight. The smaller one chases the larger one away.

I first thought they were a courting pair, but then realised they are different types. Where do they come from and what are they doing in the sunshine?

Specked wood butterfly in Nowhere Wood, May 2025. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

The chasing butterfly is a specked wood, seen resting on an ivy leaf, keen to be photographed. It is a true native of Nowhere. It started life as an egg laid during the previous autumn, perhaps on some of the long grass that skirts the wood. It probably emerged a few days ago, and has taken to flying in the same shaft of sunlight.

It is warm and bright in the sunlight and both males and females are attracted to the same spot. No wonder our male wants to chase rivals and other butterflies away!

The unfortunate butterfly to be caught up in this tussle was a red admiral. It was harder to photograph against the floor of the woodland.

Red admiral butterfly, Nowhere Wood, May 2025. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

This butterfly was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The red admiral butterfly is a summer visitor to the wood, with large numbers arriving in the UK from southern Europe and North Africa each year. They love to feed on flowers that produce a lot of nectar, so are often found in the gardens that surround the wood.

They will breed whilst they are living in the wood, and some of these new butterflies will try to fly back to Europe in the autumn. It is not clear how many of them will survive the long journey.

Others will try to survive the winter in the UK. In the past, most of these have died because of the cold, but warmer winters mean that more of them are surviving to breed in the spring.

We could be seeing a shift in their behaviour because of climate change, that could lead them to being permanent residents in the wood.

Update:

Two days later, the speckled wood was still patrolling the same patch of sunlight. Let’s hope he gets lucky soon!

A male speckled wood butterfly was found in the same spot two days later. — The male speckled wood butterfly was found in the same spot two days later. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

In Southern Europe and North Africa, red admiral butterflies can breed continuously throughout the year. Why is important in the survival of the red admiral species?
Why is it an advantage for the specked wood to defend a territory in Nowhere Wood?

Notes on the story

Being and becoming in Nowhere Wood

October 22, 2021November 4, 2025

Safety in numbers

cluster flies on a leaf in Nowhere Wood — Cluster flies on a leaf in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

These animals look like cars parked in the autumn sunshine. They look harmless enough, but they have some gruesome secrets.

What are they and what are they doing? They are called cluster flies, and they are warming their bodies in the sun, before flying to feed on the fruits of the wood.

They are having adventures in time and space in Nowhere Wood. Life in the wood is dangerous and the animals are busy being alive: feeding, drinking and staying warm.

The animals certainly look like flies: with one pair of wings, a large head and huge compound eyes. Look closer and you might see their mouthparts, sucking water from the surface of the leaf.

More cluster flies gather on the leaf in Nowhere Wood, October 2021. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

The flies have lived their whole lives in Nowhere Wood. Their mothers laid their eggs in the soil last autumn. In the Spring, the eggs hatched to release larvae into the soil that burrowed into the bodies of earthworms.

They spent the early summer feeding on the worms before pupating. The adults emerged in the early summer, killing their earthworm hosts.

The flies are in a hurry to breed before it goes colder, later in the month. They are becoming mature enough to produce the next generation of flies.

Then the cycle of ‘being and becoming’ will begin again.

There is safety in numbers. The main predator of these flies is a type of wasp. There are twenty pairs of eyes looking out for danger and when one senses the wasps, they all fly away.

Life is so uncertain in Nowhere Wood. As well as wasps, the air contains the spores of dangerous fungi, that can infect and grow inside the adults, eating them up from the inside! In spite of the dangers, enough cluster flies survive to breed to be present in the wood next year.

Life is an uncertain adventure for the cluster flies, the earthworms, the wasps and the fungi. Everything is connected in Nowhere Wood.

Suggest why cluster flies need to warm their bodies in the morning, before they can fly.
Suggest why there is safety in numbers.

Notes on the story

Goodbye, for now

March 13, 2021November 4, 2025

Time travellers to Nowhere (3)

Carboniferous dragonfly, with 1.5m wingspan. [image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Meganeura.png/1280px-Meganeura.png]

We are in Nowhere Wood, about 300 million years ago, staring at a forest of tree ferns, watching them make oxygen. Over the years, these tree ferns have made so much oxygen that its concentration in the air has risen to about 35%, (compare that with the 21% found in the 21st century).

Wildfires in Chile. [Photograph: https://globalclimatecare.in/climate-asia/f/man-made-or-nature-made-chile%E2%80%99s-forest-fire-creates-global-threat]

There is so much oxygen that the lightning strikes produce frequent explosions in the air, causing forest fires. Nowhere Wood is a dangerous place to be, sometimes.

Arthropleura, a giant millipede. [Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropleura#/media/File:ArthropleuraSide.jpg]

The animals are using the oxygen to grown large: some millipedes are 1.5 metres in length and 0.5 metres wide. Some dragonflies have 70 cm wingspans.

Hylonomous lizard [Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hylonomus_BW.jpg]

With all of this food available, there are opportunities for new carnivorous lizards to appear, including Hylonomus. This is one of the first creatures to have a new eggs with membranes inside, a characteristic later shown by all birds.

Eryops stalking Arthropleura in the Carboniferous period — [Image: https://www.darwinsdoor.co.uk/feed/the-giant-arthropods-of-the-carboniferous.html]

Also the flesh-eating Anthracosaurs first appeared at this time. These are the direct ancestors of the dinosaurs, that appeared millions of years later.

In Nowhere Wood, everything is connected together, in space and in time.

So many adventures in space and time, so much opportunity for the evolution of new forms. All of which depends on the formation of sandstone in Nowhere Wood.

Imagine what it was like to live in Nowhere Wood 300 million years ago. What would be the same and what would be different.
How do you think the world will change in the future?

Notes on the story

Safety in numbers

February 23, 2021November 4, 2025

What is a frog?

It is late February, the cold weather has moved away and the frogs have moved back in. It’s been a couple of years since they were last here, but here are their newly-laid eggs and the female is hiding beneath the leaf in the top left corner of the photograph. What is a frog and how is it having adventures in Nowhere Wood?

Frogs reproducing. [Photograph: JBdeHeer, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frogs_in_reproduction_time.jpg]

Frogs are amphibians, animals with backbones that live for most of the year on land, but which have to return to water to breed. A female with eggs is popular with males, which compete with each other to get close to her.

When she releases here eggs into the water, the males release their sperm onto the eggs. Fertilisation takes place in the water. The female lays about 2 000 eggs and many of them die. The brown eggs in the top photograph are probably a clutch of eggs that have died.

Inside the egg, the embryo is growing into a juvenile tadpole, feeding on the jelly that surrounds it. It will grow a tail and gills and become a free swimming tadpole.

Ten-day old tadpoles [Photograph: Tarquin, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tadpoles_10_days.jpg?uselang=fr]

Soon, the tadpole will break free and have to make its way as an independent animal, all of the while developing into the adult frog.

There are dangers in the water: tadpoles become carnivores and will eat each other and there are other predators, too. There is also a real chance that the water in the pond will disappear if we have a prolonged dry spell.

The frogs in Nowhere Wood are having adventures, moving forward into an unknown future, with no certainty of success. Most of these eggs will be eaten and will become food for other organisms; one or two might survive. Most years, frogs return to the water to breed, as frogs everywhere have done for the last 265 million years.

1. The survival of the frogs is not just due to chance. There is competition between male frogs to get close to the females eggs. How does this help to increase the success of the mating?

2. There is also competition between tadpoles for food. How does this help ensure that some frogs will survive to become adults that can reproduce for themselves?

3. What, do you think, is a frog?

Frog news update:

Frog spawn in Nowhere Wood [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

One week on, and the spawn has floated to the edge of the pond and the adds are swollen because they have taken up water. They still look healthy. Fingers crossed for the next stage!

Notes on the story

Early risers!