Category: the environment

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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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The end of the summer

Nowhere Wood has a weary silence, as the heat stifles its life. It is ready with its autumn plans, which cannot start until it rains. 

Rain, the life-giver. Yet in flood, rain is the also the destroyer. It is a question of balance. Is the balance changing in the wood? Is the balance changing in the world? This has been the hottest summer the wood has ever known. People across the world are saying the same things. 

Fern leaves wilting in the summer heat in Nowhere Wood
Fern leaves wilting in the summer heat in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Even the fern leaves are wilting for want of water. Holly trees have deeper roots, but they are suffering, too. The soil in the wood is very thin, because it used to be a stone quarry, and the roots cannot grow deep enough to find water.

Holly leaves wilting in the summer heat in Nowhere Wood.
Holly leaves wilting in the summer heat in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Then, the remains of a hurricane in the Caribbean barrels westwards, bringing with it strong westerly winds, which blow the summer away in a moment.

The first autumn rain falls in Trendlewood Park.
The first autumn rain falls in Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

The rain falls, gently at first, then much stronger. The smell of the wood changes as the plants take up the water and everything seems to relax.

Droplets of rain on a leaf of a snowberry plant
Droplets of rain on a leaf of a snowberry plant in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Nowhere Wood is lucky. Somalia in East Africa it has not had any significant rain for two years and a quarter of the population faces “crisis-level food insecurity” (near-starvation). Yet, in 2023, October floods killed hundreds of people and washed away thousands of homes. The harvest was ruined, leading towards more famine.

It is the unpredictability of the weather that causes most concern. Farmers sow their seeds not knowing whether it will produce enough food. And that is now the same everywhere across the world, including Great Britain. Time will tell what will happen in the future. 

Meanwhile Nowhere Wood celebrates the arrival of the rain in autumn as the fruit ripens and the wood moves forward into the next stage of its adventure.

Apples ripening in the rain in the orchard in Trendlewood Park.
Apples ripening in the rain in the orchard in Trendlewood Park. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

1. Imagine that the autumn rains did not come. What would happen to Nowhere Wood?

 

Notes on the story

Climate Change and the Weather

 

 

Update: 

A few days alter, after real rain, the fern has recovered and perked up. 

After a few days rain, the fern recovers.
After a few days rain, the fern recovers. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
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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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Climate change and new arrivals

Some animals and plants can’t live in Nowhere Wood because it’s too cold or too wet for them. But the climate has warmed by about 1°C since the 1970s. This small change has allowed new species to come and live in the wood because the climate now suits them better.

Rosel's bush cricket
A pair of Rosel’s bush crickets were found on Golden Vallety field in 2019. [Photograph: Andrew Town]
In 2019, a pair of Roesel’s bush crickets were found in Golden Valley field. They seem to have bred successfully. The warmer climate has helped them find more places to live. They are moving northwards from the South of England and have migrated more than 50 miles over the past 20 years.

 

 

Downland Villa bee fly
This Downland Villa bee fly looks like a bee, but it is actually a fly. [Photograph: Andrew Town]
The Downland Villa bee fly was first seen in Sussex in 2016 and has been moving northwards, probably because of the warmer climate. These flies look like solitary bees, which are bees that do not live in hives or colonies. The bee fly feeds on solitary bees by dropping their eggs into the bees’ nest, where they hatch and eat the bee larvae.

Scientists think there may be over fifty species of animals arriving in the UK because of climate change, although most of them have not yet arrived in Nowhere Wood!

  1. Crickets eat grass. Do you think the arrival of the Roesel’s bush crickets will harm or help the wild life that live on Golden Valley fields?
  2. Roesel’s bush crickets seem to have bred successfully on Golden Valley. What does this mean? How will this help the survival of the crickets in the area?
  3. How might the arrival of the Downland Villa bee fly affect the solitary bees in Nowhere Wood?

Update, 7/5/25: New bee arrival!

Orchard bee
Orchard bee. [Photograph: USGS Bee watch]
The orchard bee is a solitary bee that is spreading rapidly in the south of England, which was once too cold for it. It won’t be long before it reaches Nowhere Wood! Read more here.

 

 

Notes on the story

Climate change and the leavers

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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
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
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]

  1. 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?
  2. 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

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Apples and the new year

Let’s travel back in time three hundred years or more, to the East End Farm, near the hamlet of Nowhere. 

East End farm has a few sheep and goats, some vegetables and several apple orchards.

 

Children in Bridport, Dorset, wassailing in a community orchard
Children in Bridport, Dorset, wassailing in a community orchard. [Photograph, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Bridport_Community_Orchard_Wassail_2022_%2851830797371%29.jpg/1024px-Bridport_Community_Orchard_Wassail_2022_%2851830797371%29.jpg]
Tonight the orchards are surrounded by farm workers and villagers from Nowhere, all singing and banging pots and pans. Children hang pieces of toast soaked in cider from the tree branches. 

For tonight, January 5th, is the wassail, the twelfth night of Christmas.

 

Small orchards in Somerset
The orchards contain a number of apple trees. [Photograph: David Smith, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5606792
Apples grow all across the county of Somerset, and are especially important to Nowhere and its bigger neighbour, Nailsea. Every farm brews cider, which they give to the farm hands as part of their wages. 

(Centuries later, cider would be brewed and sold in large factories. Nailsea hosted  Coates factory for over 150 years. These days, the Thatcher family brews cider at Sandford, ten miles to the southwest.)  

Wassailing at night
Wassailing at night. [Photograph: Steven Brace, https://www.flickr.com/photos/30399879@N03/3286351432]
Back in Nowhere, apple trees are a sign of a healthy farm. Wise famers celebrate the good health of their orchards with a wassail.

Their people visit the apple trees by the light of burning torches.  Singing songs to them and making a lot of noise to ward off evil spirits. Hopefully, this should be enough to ensure a good harvest in the next year. 

The oldest tree in the orchard is given the greatest respect, and he is called the ‘Apple Tree Man’. [Image: Neil Ingram]

 The Apple Tree Man decides how many apples will grow in the next year. Farmers keep the Apple tree Man happy by pouring cider over his roots. 

There are several old folk tales told in Somerset about the Apple Tree Man. The next story is a modern retelling of one of these old tales.

 

 

Notes on the story

The Apple Tree Man of Nowhere

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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 (2)

 

An ash tree showing symptoms of ash dieback disease
An ash tree showing symptoms of ash dieback disease. [Photograph: M. J. Richardson, https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5465604]
We did not want those trees in Nowhere Wood to be felled, but we accepted that the trees were infected with Ash die-back disease and had to go. 

Growing and managing trees is something that people of done for tens of thousands of years. One secret is to use every part of the tree mindfully, to benefit the community.

And so it was that fifteen volunteers from the Friends of Trendlewood group came together to drag the fallen branches (“brash”) to the edge of the pond.

Dragging Ash branches to the pond
Dragging Ash branches to the pond. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
We worked alongside the council parks team, who piled wooden stakes in the ground across the edge of the pond. We then weaved layers of  branches between the stakes to create a “dead hedge”, separating the pond from the children’s playground. 

Laying a dead hedge, using ash branches
Laying a dead hedge, using ash branches. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
The pond is fed by streams and disappeared for many decades, only to return as a permanent feature in the last few years. Watercress plants grow in the water, as they would have done in the 1800’s, when people used to collect them to eat.

Water cress plants
Water cress is a salad crop. [Photograph: Laura Whitehead, https://www.flickr.com/photos/thewhiteheads/8693844036]
It took a morning to build the dead hedge, which will help to protect children and dogs from getting wet in the pond. It is a good use of waste wood  that would otherwise be burned. Burning wood releases stored carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

The completed dead hedge.
The completed dead hedge. [Photograph: Simon Stannard]
It is another example of how the park is managed in sustainable ways.

Sustainability is an important idea. The United Nations has a sustainable development goal for life on land, (number 15). Find out what it says and why it is important.

 

Notes on the story

What can eat a tree like this?

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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.
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)

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Goodbye, for now

Hose Martin in flight.
House Martin in flight. [Photograph: PaulK, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:House_Martin_-_Delichon_urbicum_-_B%C3%A6jasvala.jpg]

By late October, the last of the visitors are leaving Nowhere Wood. House martins are birds that build nests in the eaves of the surrounding houses. They fly by swooping up and down in the summer skies, feeding on flying insects.

 

Then, suddenly, as the season changes, they leave. But where do they go?

House Martin in nest. HTO, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons]

Amazingly, for such confident, visible, birds, they have been able to keep this a secret from us. And, even today, we really do not know for sure. We think they fly to Africa, over the Sahara Desert, to countries like Cameroon, Congo and the Ivory Coast. That’s a journey of over 5 000 km.

There they spend the winter, feeding and resting, before making the return journey in early Spring, arriving back to Nowhere Wood by April.

 

If all goes well, they return to the wood, and even to the same nests. It is a dangerous adventure and not all make it back. The birds can be eaten by birds of prey, or trapped by hunters.

Above all, the declining number of insects is killing the house martins. Loss of habitats, use of pesticides and climate change are all linked to human activity, so indirectly, we are to blame. So, perhaps, in the future, it will not be goodbye for now, but goodbye forever.

  1. How does the use of pesticides across Europe and Africa affect the survival of house martins?
  2. How could we conserve our populations of house martin?

Notes on the stories

Fruits of the autumn

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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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Early risers!

The first snowdrops of spring
The first snowdrops of spring. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Every year, the snowdrop is the first plant to flower in Nowhere Wood. It is a symbol of the birth of Spring, bringing good cheer and hope at the end of a long winter. This is one reason why people plant snowdrops in their gardens.

Snowdrops in snow
Snowdrops in snow. [Photograph: ERS images, https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/12736811423122699/]
Snowdrops are tougher than they look: they can grow through ice and snow. Their leaves have hardened edges that act as snowploughs and their cells contain a snowdrop antifreeze that stops ice crystals forming. The real secret of the snowdrop’s success is found below the ground, in the frozen soil. There, in the darkness, is a bulb, full of food made in last Spring’s photosynthesis. Like a battery, it is an energy store, so that the plant can start to grow in the weak winter sunshine.

This means that the plant can make leaves to grow in the warming Sun. The leaves make food to store in its bulbs ready for next year. Snowdrops do all of this before the leaves of the big trees open to steal the light, so that the floor of the wood becomes shaded. By then, the work of the snowdrop is over and it can wait for the next winter.

1. How have people helped the snowdrop to survive for so many years?

2. What advantages do snowdrops have by storing their food in underground bulbs. Can you think of any possible disadvantages?

Snowdrops have many more secrets that help them in their adventures in time and in space. We may tell more stories about snowdrops in the coming days! Come back to read them.

Notes on the story

Time travellers to Nowhere (1)

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Moving things on

The weather is warm and wet in Nowhere Wood.

These are perfect conditions for growing the fungi that spread  everywhere throughout the soil of Nowhere Wood. Fungi are Nature’s recyclers, feeding on the fallen leaves, fruits and wood.

Mycelia of fungi. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Fungi feed on the wood of the dead oak trees, turning it into nutrients that provide energy and chemicals needed  to grow new fungal cells.  (These cells form long threads called hyphae). Some fungi can spread out over really large areas, several kilometres wide.

At this time of the year, the fungi are busy ‘ being’.

Fungi in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Then one night, silently and without warning, the fungi do something else.

They produce structures that we call “mushrooms” **.

Mushrooms are  fruiting bodies. They produce thousands of tiny spores.

Spores are small and light. They are carried on air currents to new places in Nowhere Wood, where they will germinate and grow into new hyphae.

Fungus in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]
Spores have often been found in the filters of jet aircraft flying at the edge of the atmosphere, so some spores can travel right round the world. When fungi produce spores they are ‘becoming’ something new: small, light and mobile versions of themselves.

Decaying fungus in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil ingram]
Then, almost as soon as they arrive, it is all over. The fruiting bodies die and become food for other fungi and bacteria in Nowhere Wood.

This is how it is. The precious molecules are used, recycled and become part of the growth of new organisms. Nothing is ever wasted.

  1. Nearly all of the atoms present on Earth when life began to evolve about 3.7 billion years ago are still found on Earth today. Many of them are found locked inside living organisms. Sooner or later, all of these organisms will die. Imagine what life would be like without Nature’s recyclers.
  2. You are a collection of recycled atoms. Think about how carbon atoms enter and leave your body. [Hint, carbon atoms are found in carbohydrates and in carbon dioxide.]

You can read more about ‘being and becoming’ here.

 

**Some mushrooms are good to eat, others are really poisonous and can kill us. It is hard to tell them apart unless you are an expert, so it is sensible not to touch or eat any mushrooms you find in a wood.

Notes on the story

Climbing the walls

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Counting the ways to stay alive

Forest fire in Canada. [Photograph: https://imaggeo.egu.eu/view/12490/]
No one knows how many different kinds of animals and plants are alive today, and, sadly, we never will.

A survey in 2011 suggested that there are nearly 8 million species of animals and nearly 300, 000 species of plants.  Astonishingly, nearly 90% of these species have yet to be discovered, described or named. Many are found in hard-to-reach places, such as tropical rain forests or the deep oceans. Given the rate of man-made habitat destruction, it is possible that many of these species will become extinct before they can be named by scientists.  

These 8.1 million species are, for now, the success stories of evolution. Each is a unique way of solving the problems of surviving and reproducing in an unforgiving and changing environment.

Humpback whale breaching in the ocean. [photograph: https://news.scubatravel.co.uk/restoring-whale-numbers-combat-climate-change.html]
All species, like this humpback whale, have special characteristics that allow them to survive in their chosen habitats.

But if the habitats change too much, such as when when the oceans become acidified, rainforests are cut down or burned, then species may no longer be able to survive and they become extinct. Forever. 

  1. Why does it matter that species of organisms become extinct before scientists can discover them?

Notes on the story

Being and becoming in Nowhere Wood

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Trampling acorns underfoot

Acorns in Nowhere Wood


I have never seen so many acorns in Nowhere Wood. Everywhere I step, I am treading on acorns. Acorns are the fruits of oak trees and this year it certainly has been a bumper harvest.  Biologists call this a “mast year”.

The air in Nowhere Wood in April and May was very hot and still. This allowed the oak pollen to hang in the air near the feathery stigmas of the oak flowers. Perfect conditions for pollination and making acorns.

July and August were warm and wet, ideal conditions for growing a record crop of acorns.

A jay with an acorn. [Photograph: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2007-11-21_Jaybird,_Eichelh%C3%A4her,_Garrulus_glandarius.JPG]

This is good news for the birds of the wood, like pigeons, jays and woodpeckers, which eat acorns. And for the squirrels and mice, too. Deer eat acorns, and I did once see one near the woods very early in the morning. The oak trees are producers and this is one way that they make food for the woodland herbivores.

The oak trees in the wood are perhaps seventy or eighty years old now and tower above the other trees. They are successful, but for how much longer? The oldest trees are falling down, some by lightning strikes during thunderstorms.

It is difficult for young acorns to grow into oak trees, because the floor of the wood is covered by thick ivy and brambles. There is a battle going on here for light, space and water that makes an episode of Eastenders look tame!

Young oak seedling in Nowhere Wood. [Photograph: Neil Ingram]

Some young shoots make it through to the light, but they are few and far between. The future of acorns in Nowhere Wood will depend on them.

Everything is connected together, and a change to one organism affects everything else. The squirrels and the jays will be needing the oaks to remain successful. This is the way of life in Nowhere.



 

  1. Walk round an open space or a park near where you live. How are the living organisms depending on each other to survive?



Notes on the story

Counting the ways to stay alive