Category: pass on information
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The wise birds of Nowhere Wood
After dark, we can hear the tawny owls that live in the old oak by the pond, calling to each other, “tu-wit, tu-woo”. In the woods and hedges around the hamlet of Nowhere, where the ancient oaks keep their own counsel and the paths disappear at dusk into darkness, there is an old tree with…
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Fruits of the autumn
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…
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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! To some, it’s a minor nuisance. They land in your lemonade, tangle in your hair, and make picnics…
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The secret of the winter flowers
It’s January 1st and the floor of the wood is covered with fresh new leaves, growing in dense patches. The first flowers are starting to open. Within a week, the air is scented with a sweet fragrance. This is the winter heliotrope, which is just as much at home in Nowhere as it is in…
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All change!
When you next look into a mirror ask yourself if you are the same person as you were yesterday. Well, of course you are. Even people who last met you ten years ago can still recognise you and call you by your name. Although they might add, “My, how you have grown!” And yet, if we…
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Life is a relay race
This story continues the adventures of the ferns in Nowhere Wood. The first part of the story is Climbing the walls. The genome of the fern contains essential information that the fern needs to grow and make new cells. At different times the fern produces spores, sperm and eggs and the two forms of the…
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Climbing the walls
A hundred years ago, Nowhere Wood was a sandstone quarry, and there is still a cliff face at the end of the wood.How can this hart’s tongue fern grow on a vertical cliff face about two metres from the ground. That is quite an adventure in time and space. This story explains how this fern…