Category: life depends on life

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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.

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
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.

  1. 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 

 

 

You might also like to read: 

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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.

  1. 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

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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.

  1. Imagine what would the world be like without fungi.

Notes on the story

Trick or treat?

Also see: 

The fairy ring

Moving things on

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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.

Fruit of the London plane tree
Fruit of the London plane tree [photograph https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alvesgaspar]
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.
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.

  1. 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

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

  1. 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
Guelder rose on Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
 

 

Notes on the story

A spot for parks and town centres

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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.
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.
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
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.
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.”

oak galls
oak galls. [Photograph” Neil Ingram]

“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.”

  1. 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

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A home for the summer

The effects of horse chestnut leaf miners, on a horse chestnut tree in Trendlewood Park
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
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
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.

  1. 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”

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It’s Flying Ant Day!

Today is Flying Ant Day: the day that ants take to the air and fly at the same time. The ants are from different colonies that can be several hundred metres apart.

Let’s celebrate Flying Ant Day!

Swarm of flying yellow ants in Nowhere Wood.
Swarm of flying yellow ants in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Andrew Town]
To some, it’s a minor nuisance. They land in your lemonade, tangle in your hair, and make picnics suddenly less romantic. A swarm of tiny aviators with no regard for personal space.

Flying ants on the flowers of common ragwort.
Flying ants on the flowers of common ragwort. [Photograph: Andrew Town]
Is there really anything much to celebrate? Would we not be better off without ants?

But pause a moment—really look. This is the wedding flight, the briefest of honeymoons, when new queens and males take to the skies to mate and search for new grounds and new beginnings. It’s a natural marvel unfolding on our doorsteps, so what is going on below the surface?

It starts underground, beneath a cracked paving stone, under a patch of sun-warmed earth:  this is the colony, the kingdom of the ants. The colony pulses with organised  purpose.

Yellow meadow worker ants.
Yellow meadow worker ants in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Andrew Town]
Tunnels and chambers run through the soil, branching and looping. Here, everything has a rhythm. The queen lays eggs, which are tended and nurtured. The queen is guarded with  reverence because she is the provider of life to the colony.

Their larvae are fed and thousands of identical worker ants are formed.  These do not have wings.

The power of ants lie in their numbers.

Some ants are the pirates of the wood: ferocious and aggressive, they will attack those who cannot defend themselves or have not learned to work with the ants. Like pirates, ants will protect anything that gives them what they want – usually food.

Some species roam in teams, tracking down caterpillars, beetle larvae, or even spiders. They subdue them not with brute force, but with strategy: surround, immobilise, overwhelm. A single ant may be no match for a wasp larva, but a dozen? A hundred? That’s a different story. Their venom can paralyse, their mandibles shear, and their numbers do the rest.

These ants are farming blackflies
These ants are farming blackflies. [Photograph: Andrew Town]
Other ants are the gentle manipulators of blackfly insects, tending huge herds of them.

Blackflies suck the juices of a plant, excreting sweet sticky “honey dew”, which feeds the ants in the colony. In exchange, the ants give the blackflies protection and time to reproduce. Some ants actively”farm” the blackflies, by stroking them gently with their antennae to encourage them to produce honeydew. Like milking a cow.

Biologists call ants ‘keystone’ species. In architecture, the keystone is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the whole structure together. Remove it, and everything collapses.

Ants play this role in the architecture of the wood. Their tunnelling aerates the soil, letting water and oxygen reach the roots of plants. They break down waste, dead insects, and fallen leaves—recycling the detritus of life into the ingredients for growth.

Some species plant seeds by accident, dropping them underground where they germinate safely. Others protect plants from pests or farm aphids like cattle. A colony is not just a nest: it’s an engine of fertility, a subterranean society that quietly underpins the world above.

Take them away, and you begin to see the gaps. Soils become compacted. Nutrients stop cycling. Other animals—birds, lizards, even mammals—that feed on ants start to vanish too. The threads of connection begin to unravel.

The world is a better place with ants – and the flying ants are crucial, for this is where new queens mate with males and go to form new colonies, so the cycle of life continues for one more year. As long as the old colonies have healthy queens, they will continue, so that Flying Ant Day is a way of mixing together different colonies, to make and spread new ones.

The ants benefit, and so does Nowhere Wood, so, let’s celebrate Flying Ant Day!

  1. Why is it an advantage for a new queen ant to fly away from the colony before laying her eggs?

 

 

Notes on the story

Being and becoming in Nowhere Wood

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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
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
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.

  1. 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.
  2. What are the advantages to small insects of going inside a Lord and Ladies flower?

 

Notes on the story

Echoes from Nowhere

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Yellow flowers

Early spring in Nowhere Wood is the season of yellow flowers. Cowslips have an inelegant name: originally called ‘cow slops’, they were thought to grow where cows have trodden their poo into the ground. The old Somerset name of “bunch of keys” is much nicer – the arrangement of flowers on the head were thought to look like a set of jangling keys.

Cowslips on the edge of Nowhere Wood.
Cowslips on the edge of Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Primroses are a most loved flower of Springtime. Called the “early rose” in Somerset, they are the flowers of Easter displays, with bunnies and eggs.

Primroses on the edge of Nowhere Wood
Primroses on the edge of Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
 

But look at this:

A hybrid between primrose x cowslip on the edge of nowhere Wood
A hybrid between primrose x cowslip on the edge of nowhere Wood [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Growing between the cowslip and the primrose is a plant that is similar to both, but different, too. It looks as if it is half way between the two types of plant.

Cowslips and primroses are quite closely related plants. This new plant has both cowslip and primrose as parents. It is called the “false oxlip” and is a hybrid.

close up of the hybrid
close up of the hybrid [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

  1. The hybrid has formed naturally as a result of “cross-pollination” between cowslip and primrose parents. Hybrids can sometimes occur in animals, too. Find about how mules and ligers form.

 

Notes on the story

The story of bluebells

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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 see, high up in the tree, but there he is, pressed against the tree trunk: a male great spotted woodpecker. The other drummer in the distance is a young female. The woodpeckers are having an adventure in Nowhere Wood.

A female great spotted woodpecker approaching her young in Nowhere Wood.
A female great spotted woodpecker approaching her young in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Andrew Town]

Our male is digging a hole in his tree, hoping to impress the female. If it works, she will lay their eggs in the hollow space in the tree. This photograph, taken a few weeks later in Nowhere Wood,  shows the new mother feeding her fledgling chick.

How can these woodpeckers drill such large holes in trees without injuring themselves? Well, it looks as if all parts of their bodies have special characteristics that enable the birds to do this. Scientists call these special characteristics, adaptations.

Look at this video of a great spotted woodpecker pecking at a tree. Look at his  feet. He has three toes on each foot, with two toes facing forwards to grip and hold onto the tree trunk. This prevents him falling off when he pecks the tree! The beak is made of a tough material that keeps growing and keeps the beak sharp.

The adaptations to the skull and tongue of the woodpecker
The adaptations to the skull and tongue of the woodpecker. [Illustration by Denise Takahashi, https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/news/science/woodpeckers-hammer-without-headaches/]

His skull is especially strengthened, like a builder’s hard hat. The brain presses right up against it and cannot move around.

The tongue extends backwards into the head as a long thin tube of bone and cartilage that runs right round the inside of the skull of the woodpecker. This acts like a seat belt, holding the brain in place.

The tongue is especially long and sticky, so it can go right into the tree holes, searching for insects.

Close up of the woodpecker, showing the feathers that protect the eyes from wood chipping.
a close up of a woodpecker. [Photograph: https://www.core77.com/posts/81063/Why-Woodpeckers-Dont-Need-Safety-Goggles-and-Why-Their-Beaks-Never-Get-Stuck-in-the-Wood]

The eyes fit tightly inside the skull, and do not vibrate whilst the bird is pecking. Their eyes have a special transparent membrane that closes across the front of the eye to prevent splinters of wood scratching the eyes. The feathers around the eyes and beak also stop wood reaching the eyes. Together, they act as safety spectacles!

Finally, a woodpecker is quite vulnerable to attack by larger birds when it is drumming against the tree. The patterns of lines and stripes act  like a camouflage jacket, making the bird hard to see against the tree surface.

  1. Woodpeckers have a lot of adaptations to help them to survive in Nowhere Wood. This story contains a photograph that suggests that the woodpeckers are living successfully here. What does the photograph tells us about the future of woodpeckers in Nowhere Wood?
  2. Woodpeckers have developed these adaptations through evolution.  Charles Darwin is the scientist who first suggested a possible way evolution could happen. This is called natural selection. Find out what natural selection is.

Notes on the story

A different kind of woodpecker

 

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What can eat a tree like this?

This story is about how a pair of tiny insects about 6mm long and their very hungry caterpillars can eat a large tree.

Bark of a mature European Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior)
Bark of a mature European Ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior). Photograph: Ash Bark – geograph.org.uk – 645097.jpg

Ash trees are beautiful: young trees have smooth grey bark, whilst older trees have bark that cracks to form diamond shapes,  like the pattern we see on a chain-link fence.

No one likes to see these wonderful trees cut down in their prime. One of the problems with ash dieback disease is that there is often little to see on the outside. Yet the tree is damaged on the inside.

The trunk of an ash tree damaged by ash dieback disease.
The trunk of an ash tree damaged by ash dieback disease. Photograph: Neil Ingram

Some beetles can bore into wood of infected trees, as the  photograph shows. The beetles have made many round holes  as well as carving the thin curved galleries in the wood of the tree.

The oak pinhole borer beetle
An adult oak pinhole borer beetle, which can attack ash trees. Image: John Curtis (1791–1862).

It is hard to say what type of beetle caused this damage, but one likely culprit is the oak pinhole borer,  which (despite its name) can attack weakened ash trees. The infection probably occurred during the summer months, when a male digs a hole a few centimetres deep in the bark of the tree.. The female inspects the hole  and then returns to the surface to mate with the male.

The female then re-enters the hole and the male follows her in. She digs deeper into  the tunnel, working in a curve.  The female eats the wood and excretes the fine wood fragments  in her feces.  This is called frass. The males help to keep the tunnels clear, by moving the grass out of the way.

The insects’ bodies are covered in spores of a group of fungi, called ambrosia fungi.

Ambrosia fungus, grown in a laboratory, seen under a microscope.
Ambrosia fungus, grown in a laboratory, seen under a microscope. Photograph: Kathie Hodge, https://www.flickr.com/photos/cornellfungi/6185749769

These fungi grow in the galleries made by the female. The eggs of the insects hatch to form larvae, which feed on the ambrosia fungi.

The round holes are part of the tunnels that reach the surface of the wood, allowing the new adult borers to leave the tree.

It is an interesting relationship between the insects and the fungi, because both depend on each other for their survival.

We talk in these stories about how energy flows through ecosy stems and how atoms are recycled by other organisms. The ash tree,  the ash dieback fungus, the beetles and the ambrosia fungi are component parts of an ecosystem.

Explain how energy flows through the ecosystem and how atoms are reused.

 

Notes on the story

Yellow flowers

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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.

 

 

 

Ash dieback disease
Leaves damaged by ash dieback disease. [Photograph: https://www.rhs.org.uk/disease/ash-dieback]

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.

  1. 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?

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Fruits of the autumn

Autumn fruits in Nowhere Wood
Autumn fruits in Nowhere Wood. [photograph: Neil Ingram]
Autumn is the time for fruits to become ripe enough for animals to eat. This time last year, Nowhere Wood was full of ripe acorns and the squirrels and birds had a heyday. This year, there are no acorns, at all. Life is uncertain, in Nowhere Wood.

Somewhere, inside a fruit, is a seed and seeds contain new lives – the next generation of the woodland plants.

Blackberry fruits in Nowhere Wood
Blackberry fruits in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

These fruits are blackberries. The seeds are found inside the berries. They are tiny, with hard tough seed coats.

Birds, especially blackbirds and thrushes, love to eat blackberry fruits. In doing so, they help the plant to spread its seeds away from the wood. The seeds are tough and survive digestion inside the backbird.

The seeds are dispersed around the wood in the blackbirds’ poo!

To survive, the blackbirds need the blackberry fruits and the blackberry plants need the blackbirds.

  1. Think about what happens to the seed when the fruit is eaten by a blackbird.
  2. How does the blackbird help the blackberry plant to spread its seeds away from the wood?

Notes on the stories

 

The secret of the winter flowers

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Time travellers to Nowhere (1)

A landscape of the Carboniferous era
A landscape of the Carboniferous era. [Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Bulgo_Sandstone_biota.jpg/1456px-Bulgo_Sandstone_biota.jpg]

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: with no birdsong or animal noise, apart from the distant croaking of frogs.

Extinct tree ferns from the Carboniferous era
Extinct tree ferns from the Carboniferous era. [Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/Lepidodendrales_reconstrucci%C3%B3n.jpg/1280px-Lepidodendrales_reconstrucci%C3%B3n.jpg]

We are in the northern foothills of an enormous mountain range, bigger than the Himalayas. It is unbearably hot and humid.  We are next to a river flowing from the Southern mountains, surrounded by thin horsetails that grow up to 10 metres tall. Tomorrow, there will be a raging tropical storm and the mountains will be pounded by its violence. The rain will flow in torrents in rivers towards us.

Nowhere Wood is located just below the equator, and we are looking up at the aftermath of a series of global catastrophes, which has taken hundreds of million years to happen. Two continents collided and sent shockwaves through the land, pushing upwards to form the mountains that we can see to the South of us. We are in a valley, downstream from the mountain peaks.

Muddy water flowing in a stream
Muddy water flowing in a stream. [Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/Uruzi_hamwe_n%27ikirere.jpg/2560px-Uruzi_hamwe_n%27ikirere.jpg]

The mountain rock is soft and is easily weathered by the stormy wind and rain. Cascades of small, eroded particles surge down the mountain slopes, transported in the muddy river waters.

Mountains become tiny grains of sand settling at the bottom of the smaller rivers and streams running through and around Nowhere Wood. The streams are running from South to North, and criss-cross each other to form  a network of channels.

Layers of sandstone on Nowhere Wood.
Layers of sandstone on Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Layers upon layers of sediment are depositing in the streams, blocking the channels. Over time, the increasing weight of sand squeezes the water out. Minerals like feldspar and mica help to cement the grains together to form sandstone. These are the cliffs that we can see today at the far end of Nowhere Wood.

Pennant sandstone was used to make flat roof tiles
Pennant sandstone was used to make flat roof tiles. [Photograph: https://www.beechfieldreclamation.co.uk/shop/paving/reclaimed-welsh-pennant/]

Pennant sandstone used to be  quarried to make roof tiles for the people of the town and local areas.

It is easy to think of living organisms having uncertain adventures through time and space. But the same is true of rocks, although on a much larger time scale.

[updated 14/02/2025]

1. Find out where the matter that makes up planet Earth originally came from.

2. Think about what has happened to the sandstone in Nowhere Wood since it was formed.

Notes on the story

Time travellers to Nowhere (2)

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The sustainable park (1)

The old willow tree in Trendlewood park
The old willow tree in Trendlewood park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
This willow tree in the park is very old. Maybe a hundred years or so. Look how its bark is gnarled and twisted. It is a great friend of the park and is home to many different insects and birds. One year, a female mallard duck even made a nest on the flat top of the tree!

The willow keeps on growing because every few years, it’s friends cut off all of its branches!

This really does encourage the tree to grow strongly. 

We call the removal of the branches ‘pollarding’.

This ancient willow tree has recently been pruned
Pollarding trees is a way of keeping them alive. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
This week, it was the old willow’s turn to be pollarded. You can see the cut stumps where the branches used to be.

Woods have always been important to people. In the 17th century, new forests were planted to provide enough timber for the boats for the Royal Navy.

People have pollarded woodland trees for thousands of years.  It was their main source of wood for building, making furniture, for charcoal and for fuel to heat their homes.

 

Wood is a very useful sustainable resource, when managed in this way. It is sustainable because the tree carries on growing and making new wood.

Pollarded willow wood is special. It is used to make cricket bats and weave baskets.  For generations, this provided income for poor families  in Somerset.

It is also a good way of making new fences. This is because cut branches of willow will grow new roots when they are placed in water.

The cut stems will grow into new trees and can become a hedge when they are planted closely together.

Two volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood Park soaking the branches of willow
Two volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood Park soaking the branches of willow. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
The photograph shows two volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood Park preparing willow branches to build into a new hedge in the area near the playing fields.

They place the cut ends of the branches into water.

A newly planted willow hedge in Tendlewood Park
A newly planted willow hedge in Tendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
In a few months’ time, when the weather is warmer, this hedge should be growing strongly and could grow for many years.

  1. This species of willow is called the brittle willow, because branches break off easily. Suggest why it is an advantage to the willow for these branches to be able to grow into new trees.
  2. This species of willow has two ways of reproducing. It flowers and makes seed and also can propagate through fallen branches. Find out why it is useful for the species to be able to reproduce in these two ways.

After the story:

Just after I finished writing this story, it was announced that young trees grown from seeds of the Sycamore Gap tree are to be given to charities, groups and individuals as “trees of hope“. This ancient sycamore tree, from Northumberland, was cut down in September 2023.

new growth from there Sycamore gap tree
Image from https://www.thesill.org.uk/sycamore-gap-tree-is-sprouting/

This is a lovely, kind idea. The tree lives on, not only through its seeds, but  also in the new stems that are growing from its cut stem. This shows the power of nature to recover and re-grow. Life is resilient, it does not give up.

 

 

Notes on the story

Apples and the New Year

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Time travellers to Nowhere (2)

A forest of tree ferns.
A forest of tree ferns. [Image: ttps://www.laterredufutur.com/accueil/la-plus-vieille-foret-du-monde-a-ete-decouverte-dans-letat-de-new-york/foret-380millions-dannees/]

We are not alone in Nowhere Wood, about 300 million years ago. We are deep in a forest of tree ferns, towering above us, fifteen metres high. The damp air has a sweet and woody fragrance, heavy with spores, heavy with promise.

Carboniferous trees
Carboniferous trees [Image: https://forces.si.edu/atmosphere/02_02_06.html]

The plants are silently photosynthesising, growing ever taller and adding oxygen to the air. Year after year, generation after generation.

Stages in the formation of coal.
Stages in the formation of coal. [Image: https://www.manalifelab.com/the-science]
The wood in the tree stems is a new invention of evolution: no other plants have wood and fungi have yet to discover a way to eat it. This means that when the trees die and fall into the swampy wet soil, they do not decay, but stayed for thousands of years, gradually becoming compressed together to form deposits of coal.

The formation of most of our coal brought Earth close to global glaciation.
The formation of most of our coal brought Earth close to global glaciation. [Image: George Feulner, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1712062114]

The tree ferns took carbon dioxide from the air and locked it away as wood and coal. They took so much and the amount of carbon dioxide in the air fell so much, that the  climate cooled, lead to the destruction of the tropical forests.

Today, humans have found the coal and burned it, putting the hidden carbon dioxide back into the air, re-warming the planet. No we face a global warming, not a global cooling. Perhaps, one day, Nowhere Wood will be destroyed for a second time.

  1. Think about how interconnected the rocks, the trees, the atmosphere and the climate are. How does a change to one thing affect everything else?
  2. Ferns are the first group of plants to develop proper roots. Think about why it would be an advantage for the early tree ferns to grow into sandstone.

Back then, the tree ferns grew through sandstone much as the smaller ferns in Nowhere Wood do today. Read more about this in another story: Climbing the walls.

Notes on the story

Time travellers to Nowhere (3)

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Time travellers to Nowhere (3)

Carboniferous dragonfly
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
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.
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
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.

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

Notes on the story

Safety in numbers

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The singing trees

ice freezes the pondWinter has come to Nowhere Wood and ice has formed around the fallen trees in the pond. Everything shivers and wood is silent again. Squirrels search for food in the frozen mud, but everything else is waiting, biding its time.

Silent, except for an ancient overgrown hedge formed from a row of old trees, bound together into a thicket by generations of bramble stems. These trees are singing, for this is the home of the tree sparrows. The trees are just outside the wood, next to a path much used by dogs taking their owners for a daily walk.

The tree sparrows are warm, protected from the icy wind by the layers of dead branches that surround them. Impenetrable, they are hidden amongst the branches, out of harm’s way. In this forgotten place, they thrive and they sing.

 

Well not quite forgotten. In the garden of a house, less than 10 metres from the singing trees, is a garden with a bird feeder, filled daily by its residents. The sparrows dart from the hedge to the feeder and then back again, hour after hour, making sure they do not go hungry.

Small acts of kindness can make a big difference to the birds in Nowhere Wood. These ancient hedges are important, too, as wildlife corridors, joining ancient woodlands together, giving animals a chance to move safely across the landscape.

  1. Why are the ancient hedges such a good place for the tree sparrows to live?
  2. Why are bird feeders so important in the winter months?

 

 

Notes on the story

Spring is coming!

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Spring is coming!

The shortest day
The shortest day. [Image adapted from https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice#/media/File:Earth-lighting-winter-solstice_EN.png]
Nowhere Wood on December 23rd was silent and still. The wood was in midwinter, at its furthest point from the Sun on its journey through the seasons. At only 7 hours and 49 minutes, this was the shortest day  and darkness ruled the wood. From now onwards the days will get longer by about two minutes each day until midsummer’s day in July.

The air was was misty and damp. No birds sang. The only movements were from ten or more baby squirrels running up and down trees, looking for food. The plentiful acorns in the autumn gave their parents the nutrients the needed to produce a special autumn litter.

Robin, in Nowhere Wood
Robin, in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Even by January, the wood had moved onwards and the days were drawing out. Robins sang from high branches of trees, marking out the wood into their territories, preparing for the coming spring.

Jay versus magpie
Jay versus magpie. [Photograph: Alex Appleby, https://www.ephotozine.com/photo/magpie-vs-jackdaw-59874975]
Jackdaws and magpies fought for the right to control the high airspaces and the food that the neighbouring houses throw away. The wood was bustling with movement and sound.

Snowdrops in Nowhere Wood
Snowdrops in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Today is February 1st, the day that the Celtic peoples call Imbolc, the first day of spring. The flowers are opening and the frogs will soon return to our ponds to breed. Look upwards to the sky.

Spring is coming!

  1. Think about the acorns that filled the floor of Nowhere Wood in September. How have they led to the birth of the new squirrels?
  2. What changes have you seen in your neighbourhood in the last few weeks since January?

Notes on the story

What is a frog?