Crimean war and snowdrops today

This video is called Snowdrop Festival, Scotland.

By Peter Frost in Britain:

Snowy memories of a foreign war

Friday 29 March 2013

The Crimean war has been back in the news this month. Education Secretary – and history dunce – Michael Gove has done another U-turn and we can all be relieved that Mary Seacole, one of the greatest ever black Britons, is to remain on the national curriculum.

Seacole, a nurse who cared for soldiers during the Crimean war, was one of the first and most prominent black figures in British history.

Gove, it seems, planned to replace her with more traditional Tory figures, such as Winston Churchill.

A huge campaign, including a petition signed by more than 35,000 people, was just one reason Gove changed his mind.

Coincidentally, I am always reminded of the Crimean war at this time of year but for a much more prosaic reason.

Drifts of snowdrops normally paint the winter woodlands white at this time of year and they have an amazing link with the Crimea.

For me, the delicate nodding white flowers, piercing frozen earth, herald the arrival of spring. Others declare them to be the last flower of winter.

There are over 2,000 different types of snowdrop, or galanthus, growing wild in our countryside and in our gardens.

There are even snowdrop clubs and snowdrop societies, and today rare and exotic bulbs change hands for large sums of money.

Many of the more interesting snowdrop varieties were introduced to Britain during and just after the Crimean war.

Out of the horror of one of Britain’s worst examples of imperialism and military incompetence has come this tiny but beautiful addition to our native flora.

British soldiers found themselves fighting in the rugged hills of what today is Ukraine. Jingoistic propaganda convinced them they were there to tame the Russian bear.

In July 1853 Russia occupied territories in the Crimea that had previously been controlled by Turkey. Britain and France decided to do something about Russian expansionism.

After the Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea in November 1853, Britain and France joined the war against Russia.

The war was hard and diseases like cholera and malaria took a greater toll of British troops than did the Russian guns.

The famous charge of the Light Brigade was perhaps the classic example of an incompetent and uncaring officer class using the fighting man as cannon fodder. It still happens today.

In the midst of all the horror of war came the hard Crimean winter and with it came the miracle of the snowdrops. These pretty and delicate flowers flourished in the harsh Crimean snows.

Snowdrops grew wild near the terrible blood-stained battlefields of the Crimean pensinsula and British soldiers, homesick for their gardens, collected the tiny bulbs to bring home or to slip into letters to their wives and sweethearts.

You find them today planted on the graves of soldiers of the Crimean war.

Specialist lists of snowdrops still have varieties named after fighting men of that war.

Huge naturalised swathes of the tiny flowers are found in areas with rich military history and traditions.

The flower’s delicate and fragile beauty must have been a small comfort and contrast to the horror of war. Returning soldiers planted the tiny bulbs and enough survived to change the nature of our countryside forever.

Officers, as well as enlisted men, brought home the bulbs too, and many a stately home has its drift of the tiny white flowers transplanted from the shores of the Black Sea.

So if enough of the snow melts this weekend try to get out to see the snowdrops. Remember another group of British working men sent to die in a pointless foreign war.

And remember too the brave Mary Seacole who bought healing and comfort to both sides in the battles among the snowdrops on the battlefields of the Crimea.

Michael Gove? I think perhaps we should confine him to the dustbin of history.

Related articles

• Mary Seacole and the Crimean War (lovelyoldtree.wordpress.com)
• Clegg promises he won’t let Gove throw out Mary Seacole from history (liberalconspiracy.org)
• Richard Godwin: Michael Gove is being reckless with our children (standard.co.uk)
• Crimean Tatar language in danger (worldbulletin.net)
• Concert To Raise Funds For Mary Seacole Statue (repeatingislands.com)
• Crimean War ends at Paris Congress: From the archive, 28 Feb 1856 (guardian.co.uk)

Rare white-headed ducks in Ukraine

This is a white-headed duck video from Spain.

From BirdLife:

Endangered species back, but for how long…?

Mon, Feb 18, 2013

Europe, News

USPB (BirdLife in the Ukraine)

A colony of White-headed ducks, a globally threatened species and extremely rare in the Ukraine, was seen at the Lake Yarylhach together with other rare birds. Despite the obvious importance of the Yarylhach wetland in terms of biodiversity richness, the conservation status of this area is at high risk. 

At the occasion of the International geese count that took place during the first weekend of February in the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania, 30 White-headed ducks were registered by the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Birds (USPB; BirdLife in the Ukraine).

The White-headed duck is a globally threatened species originated in the Palearctic. In the second half of the 20th century the population has decreased in the Ukraine and has just recently started to recover. One reason, confirmed by a survey run by USPB in February, is that the Ukrainian wetlands are rich habitats for waterfowls and water birds, providing them with resources they need to survive and reproduce.

Indeed, the survey showed that the Ukrainian wetlands are key wintering areas to tens of thousands of geese, different species of ducks, swans, herons, sandpipers and gulls. Rare species, such as the White-headed ducks also gather in these wetlands.

“Registration of White-headed ducks is an extremely important event for the Ukraine, as it is an indication that our wetlands meet international standards,” says Oleg Dudkin, Director of the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Birds.

However, USPB recorded a series of alarming threats to birds and the wetlands they inhabit; Ukrainian wetlands and especially the lake Yarylhach coast where the White-headed ducks nest, are suffering from pollution and destruction due to salt mining, which is also a violation of Ukrainian and International laws.

It is important that Ukrainian wetlands are protected by an effective legislation and preserved from damages linked to human activities.

For more information please contact Olga Yaremchenko, Conservation Projects Director at the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Birds (BirdLife in the Ukraine).

Related articles

• Ukraine Prosecutor Accuses Ex-President in Journalist Death (voanews.com)
• Snapshots from the Heart of Ukraine (12) (andyszpuk.wordpress.com)

Football, Greece-Germany, with Angela Merkel

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This video is called EURO 2012 Greece-Russia: Greek and Russian football fans in Warsaw.

The Euro 2012 European football championship in Poland and Ukraine has reached the quarter-final stage.

From now on, it is the “knock out system”: if a team loses one match, it is out. The winners proceed to the next round.

Tomorrow, Friday evening east European time, in Gdansk in Poland, Germany will play Greece.

Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, will be there.

Earlier, there had been news that Ms Merkel’s government would boycott the football championship. As a protest against violations of the rights of Ukrainian ex-prime minister Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko; now in jail for corruption.

Not that human rights were any better when Ms Tymoshenko and her “orange” coalition still ruled the Ukraine. Ms Merkel cares about Tymoshenko, not because she cares about human rights in general. But because Tymoshenko, a pro-NATO and pro-austerity politician, is, in the Merkel administration‘s view, on the “our guys” side.

Most Ukrainians do not like the idea of joining NATO; then, rising military spending because of NATO membership would wreck the already weak Ukrainian economy. So, Tymoshenko lost the 2010 elections.

If Ms Merkel would really care about universal human rights, then she would not make plans to destroy workers’ rights all over Europe. She would not damage Greek children’s health and condemn Greek pensioners to eating from garbage cans by her vicious austerity policies. She would not limit the Greek people’s right to vote to the right to vote for pro-austerity parties (Merkel’s contempt of democracy helped her Greek sister party get a Pyrrhic victory in the recent elections, with a minority of votes for all pro-Merkel bailout parties together, but a small majority of seats because of a dubious 50 seats extra rule benefiting the biggest individual political party).

Now, the German soccer team has proceeded to the championship quarter finals. Suddenly, the Merkel government forgets, not only about the human rights of Greeks and of workers all over Europe, but about the human rights of Ms Tymoshenko as well. No more boycott. Ms Merkel will be on one of the most expensive seats in the stadium (don’t worry Angela, German taxpayers will pay). I don’t know whether Ms Merkel really likes football. I just know that many politicians know that football is more popular than they are. So they go to matches which are on TV, hoping that some of the sport’s popularity will rub off on them.

Germany-Greece: a very symbolic match, tomorrow evening. Most soccer pundits expect Germany to win. Those pundits, in an earlier stage of the championship, expected Russia to win against Greece as well. However, Greece won, and the Russian team, one of the favourites, were out.

Psychic animals’ football championship failures

From RIA Novosti in Russia:

‘Psychic’ Animals Vie for Euro 2012 Oracle Honors

MOSCOW, June 9

Following the success of Paul the ‘psychic’ Octopus, who correctly predicted the results of the 2010 World Cup, a pig, a cow and an elephant are among creatures attempting to guess the results of matches at the Euro 2012 football championships in Ukraine and Poland.

A swine named Funtik, who is a mainstay in the fan zone in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, had said co-hosts Poland would beat Greece on Friday – a prophesy which did not however come true as the tournament’s dramatic opener ended in a draw – but successfully predicted Russia’s victory over the Czech Republic later that night. Funtik divines, simply enough, by choosing between plates of corn chips, each bearing the flag of the two teams set to play.

A meerkat in Russia’s Urals town of Yekaterinburg, too, forecast his homeland’s triumph, but a deer in the northern town of Syktyvkar, not to be outdone, looked much farther ahead, saying Russia will reach the semi-finals.

Fred the Ferret

Poland’s own Citta the Elephant in the Krakow Zoo has also been credited with psychic powers, but they seemed to fail her after she picked her side to win at the National Stadium in Warsaw.

In Germany, Yvonne the cow has foretold defeat in the team’s opening match against Portugal to be played on Saturday night, a forecast countered by a psychic otter in the country’s small eastern town of Aue. Dutch elephant Nelly also indicated a win for Germany.

This music video is called Nellie The Elephant (Toy Dolls).

There is also Fred the Ferret in Kharkiv, one of Euro’s host cities in eastern Ukraine, whose prognostications are not yet known but who will surely be voted the cutest animal oracle of the tournament.

And last but not least, the successor to Paul, who sadly died of natural causes in 2010, is Paulus the Octopus, who was born in Germany but now lives – and works – in a tank in Portugal.

See also here.

Inspired by Paul the Octopus, animal owners across Germany are turning to their pets to predict the outcomes of European Championship matches. Germany’s animal protection agency says the trend is getting out of hand and singles out the use of a python and two live rats as especially tasteless: here.

Domesticated horses’ origin research

This video from the Netherlands says about itself:

Archaeological research is done between a herd of horses at the bank of the Waal [river].

From the BBC:

8 May 2012 Last updated at 07:24 GMT

Mystery of horse taming ‘solved’ by gene study

By Helen Briggs, BBC News

Horses were domesticated 6,000 years ago on the grasslands of Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan, a genetic study shows.

Domestic horses then spread across Europe and Asia, breeding with wild mares along the way, research published in the journal PNAS suggests.

The work, by a Cambridge University team, brings together two competing theories on horse domestication.

The matter has been hotly contested by scientists.

Archaeological evidence suggests horses were tamed in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe (Ukraine, southwest Russia and west Kazakhstan).

Experts think they were used for riding, and as a source of meat and milk.

However, these archaeological clues – such as traces of horse milk found in ancient pots from the western Eurasian Steppe – are at odds with evidence from mitochondrial DNA.

These studies suggest domestication happened in many places across Europe and Asia.

The new study looked at nuclear DNA samples taken from 300 horses living in eight countries in Europe and Asia.

Genetic data was fed into computer models developed to look at different scenarios for domestication.

Dr Vera Warmuth from the Department of Zoology at Cambridge said: “It shows that horse domestication originated in the western part of the Steppes and that the spread of domestication involved lots of integration of wild horses.”

The theory explains why evidence from mitochondrial DNA – which contains genes inherited solely from the mother – suggests horses were domesticated many times, in different places.

In fact, it appears that wild mares were used to re-stock herds of existing domesticated horses, perhaps because they did not breed easily in captivity.

This is the case with Przewalski’s horse, which is the closest wild relative of modern horses.

Related articles

• News Roundup! (aseriesofsmallwalls.wordpress.com)
• Original horse lived fairly recently: close relationships among modern stallions (scienceblog.com)
• Horse Y chromosomes (dienekes.blogspot.com)
• Video of NM man shooting horse sparks outrage (foxnews.com)
• Prospective Wyoming horse slaughterhouse investors watch national scene (trib.com)
• Endangered Horses Spotted in Valentine’s Nuzzle (livescience.com)

United States nuclear plant trouble

This video series from the USA is called “MELTDOWN AT THREE MILE ISLAND“.

From Associated Press today:

CLEVELAND — High radiation levels recorded at a nuclear reactor in northeast Ohio have prompted a special inspection by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Workers at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant immediately evacuated it on April 22 when radiation levels rose while it was shutting down for a refueling outage, the commission said Tuesday.

On the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in northern Ukraine, a former liquidator offers sobering warnings about radiation exposure, with particular cautions for women near the Japanese nuclear plant catastrophe: here.

April 2011: Twenty five years after the world’s largest nuclear accident at Chernobyl, the ongoing effects are still being discovered. An international team of investigators has shown for the first time that the colour of birds’ plumage may make them more vulnerable to radioactivity: here.

Chernobyl Radiation Fells Female Birds, Making Chirping More Frequent from Lonely Males: here.

In Nuclear Accident, Risks Extend Beyond Evacuation Zone: here.

Hungarian Roma flee from neo-nazi thugs

This video about Hungarian neo-nazi Jobbik party is called The NAZI Jobbik – LET’S STOP THEM TOGETHER!

The Hungarian Red Cross evacuated hundreds of Roma women and children from their homes today because they were frightened of a far-right vigilante group which was setting up a training camp near their village: here.

British mass eviction of Roma and travelers: here.

A German court convicted Ukrainian national John Demjanjuk today of thousands of counts of acting as an accessory to murder at a nazi death camp and jailed him for five years – closing one chapter in a decades-long legal battle: here.

Last week, a court in Munich handed down a relatively mild sentence to Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk on charges of accessory to murder involving 28,000 Jews at the Sobibor concentration camp in occupied Poland: here.

Ukraine won’t join NATO

In this blog post, we will quote from the DPA German news agency. Though today’s Germany of course is far from being identical with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, as we shall see, the DPA item about Ukraine has some unpleasant echos from the past.

From DPA:

Ukraine halts NATO accession planning

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:19:12 GMT

Kiev/Moscow – Ukraine‘s new government on Monday cancelled plans to work towards NATO membership, according to local media reports.

President Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russia politician inaugurated into office in February, revoked a 2006 executive order charging Ukraine‘s government with preparing the military for eventual membership of the Atlantic alliance.

Yanukovych’s predecessor, the pro-Western politician Viktor Yushchenko, was an outspoken proponent of bringing Ukraine into NATO as soon as possible. …

Other Russia-friendly initiatives pushed by Yanukovych since becoming Ukraine’s president include … the cancellation of a Yushchenko executive order making Stepan Bandera, a World War II anti-Soviet partisan, an official Ukrainian hero.

The Russian government, of course, is far from being alone in regretting the honour bestowed on Stepan Bandera by Yushchenko. Eg, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in the USA opposed that very strongly. Would DPA say that the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s opposition is supposedly a result of being “Russia-friendly”, excluding all possible other explanations?

By the way, the decision to annul the medal awarded to Bandera was not Yanukovych’s, but a local court’s.

Bandera was a terrorist responsible for the deaths of possibly hundreds of Ukrainians, Russians, and Jews, according to Kremlin historians.

I do not know which “Kremlin historians” DPA means, as they do not say so. However, these seem to be historians who estimate extremely conservatively, as the number of Jews, Ukrainians, Russians, or others killed by Bandera’s forces is estimated at thousands by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, rather than “possibly hundreds”.

It seems that German news agency DPA suggests that Bandera, being an ally of Germany, even though it was then mass murderer Adolf Hitler’s Germany, can hardly have been all bad.

Most Ukrainians oppose the idea of joining NATO, which is frequently seen in the former Soviet republic as a former Cold War enemy, and an organisation responsible for conducting unlawful military operations in Serbia and Afghanistan.

Opinion on ethnic Ukrainian partisans fighting during World War II is more divided, with some supporting Moscow’s view that Bandera and his supporters were criminals, and others seeing them as fighters for Ukrainian independence.

Bandera and his supporters fought indeed for a sort of “independence” for Ukraine: a Ukraine allied to nazi Germany. That did not exclude that they fought for this with criminal means: mass murder of Jews etc.

By the way, it is rather strange that DPA calls Bandera’s men “partisans”, a word usually used for underground fighters against nazi occupation troops. As Bandera’s men were in the “Galicia” division of Adolf Hitler’s Waffen SS.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych warned on Monday that the Chernobyl nuclear reactor remains a serious threat to Europe, urging donors to stump up funds to secure the facility on the 24th anniversary of the world’s worst atomic accident: here.

Ukraine’s communists have challenged the government to hold a national referendum on further co-operation with the US-dominated International Monetary Fund: here.

The counter-revolution in the USSR has allowed a few people the “freedom” to exploit workers in order to become millionaires, but has diminished workers’ rights, as we can see from the following appeal from Ukrainian workers for solidarity from abroad: here.

Ukrainians protest Bush visit

This Associated Press video is called Ukraine Protests Before Bush Visits. It says about itself:

Several thousand people rally outside the U.S. Embassy in the Ukraine, ahead of a visit by President Bush. They burned an effigy of Bush, shouting for Bush to get out and not pull the country into NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (March 31)

From Al Jazeera:

Ukrainians protest over Bush visit

Thousands of protesters have gathered in Ukraine‘s capital to denounce Washington and Nato ahead of a visit by George Bush, the US president.

Bush arrived in Kiev on Monday for a two-day visit before this week’s Nato summit in Romania, where Ukraine hopes to win approval for the first step in the country’s bid to join the military alliance.

About 5,000 protesters, comprised mainly of communists and other left-wing groups, massed in Independence Square before moving off to the US embassy as police looked on.

Many waved flags and placards saying “Bush out of Ukraine” and “Yankee go home” as Soviet-era songs blared in the background.

Ukraine’s bid to secure a Membership Action Plan (Map), the preliminary phase for joining Nato, is running into opposition from Russia, limited support for the alliance inside Ukraine and doubts among Nato nations in Western Europe.

Dutch NOS TV briefly showed images of the demonstrators in Independence Square, with red flags and a “Fuck Bush” sign. Then, the camera focus panned outwards, in order to show that the demonstrators certainly did not fill all of the big Independence Square.

This reminded me of corporate media policy five years ago, when United States soldiers pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdous Square in Baghdad, Iraq.

Then, the corporate media gave the impression there was a big crowd of Iraqis around that statue, cheering. Then, the camera focus did not pan outwards. If it would have panned outwards, it would have shown to the world that the crowd was really small (it consisted mainly of United States soldiers, foreign media people, and very recently arrived supporters of Iraqi convicted bank fraud cum Iranian-United States double agent, Ahmed Chalabi; see also here).

Such differences in camera policy …

Ukraine update, September 2008: here.

Wildlife in unexpected places

This is a black grouse video.

From Wildlife Extra in Britain:

Wildlife thrives in the most unlikely places

Mystery of seal found five miles inland

The recent discovery of a young seal wandering down a road in Lancashire made us start thinking about other unlikely places where wildlife is found, and even thrives.

Many of these locations have one thing in common, humans are unwelcome, or keep well clear, for one reason or another.

Chernobyl [in Ukraine]

The region surrounding the devastated nuclear reactor has become a complete no-go for humans, and yet despite this, in fact almost certainly because of it, it has turned into a positive wildlife haven [but see also here].

Those animals and birds that were already found there (badger, elk, fox, otter, aquatic warbler, black grouse & white-tailed eagle) began multiplying in number, and many species that had not been seen there for years moved back in.

Wild boars have multiplied in numbers, and consequently wolf numbers have climbed in a similar fashion.

Lynx and eagle owls have both re-colonised the area, despite not having lived there for decades, and traces of bears have been found too.

Amazingly, there seems to be very little obvious side effects from the radiation amongst the wildlife.

A less optimistic view on this is here.

Incredibly there is evidence that many birds have taken to nesting in and around the damaged reactor site.

Salisbury plain

The major training region for the British army covers some 45,000 hectares is out of bounds to the public and thus a haven for wildlife in the UK.

The plain includes 13,000 hectares of agriculturally ‘unimproved’ chalk grassland, one of the largest areas of this kind of habitat in Europe.

That military training sites are not crowded may have its benefits for nature.

However, we should not forget the problems of military use, especially for chalk grasslands, which, eg, this article shows.

The large area of untouched grassland is an absolute boon for populations of invertebrates, and they provide a plentiful and varied diet for many of the birds and animals.

The area is home to a number of scarce and rare bird populations including nationally important numbers of birds, such as quail, whinchat, stonechat, grasshopper warbler and skylark as well as grey partridge, hobby and merlin.

The Salisbury plain was also chosen as the region to re-introduce the Great bustard to the UK, being by far the largest and least disturbed area of its kind (by a happy co-incidence the Great Bustard is the county bird of Wiltshire, appearing on the county flag.)

The area is also of major importance for UK populations of the marsh fritillary butterfly and the stone-curlew, which had one of its best breeding year in 2006 for many years.

De-militarised Zone, Korea.

The narrow strip of land that separates North and South Korea is 150 miles long, but just 2.5 miles wide, heavily mined and covered with barbed wire.

Mostly mountainous but with some grassland and rivers too, and is one of the least likely wildlife havens anywhere.

Yet a combination of a complete lack of human presence combined with increased human activity on both sides of the zone forcing wildlife into its narrow strip has turned this no-go zone into an important wildlife area, to such an extent that there is talk of making into a wildlife reserve.

Bears and leopards are relatively common, and there are reports that a few tigers may hang on here too.

Many birds thrive on this former battlefield, including Black-faced Spoonbill, spotted greenshank, Black vultures, Red-crowned cranes and White-napped cranes and even a few Steller’s sea eagles.

Motorway verges and Railway tracks

Yes, when you drive at speed along the motorway you collect plenty of insects on your windscreen and radiator, and many smaller mammals and birds end up as ‘roadkill’, but the untouched grasslands along the side of major transport arteries provide perfect conditions for many insects and even small mammals, and also are perfect conduits for helping spread species form one area to another.

Recently Network Rail won a top conservation award.

It was nominated by the charity Butterfly Conservation for work carried out along a stretch of track in Somerset to help the Large Blue, one of Britain’s rarest butterfly species.

Falklands Islands Mine Fields

30,000 mines are still hidden in some parts of the Falklands, and they have benefited the various penguin species.

The mines keep humans well clear, but the penguins are not heavy enough to set them off.

The penguins are declining due to lack of their usual food (read details here), but the minefields are providing a small haven.

Roof Gardens night club

Not strictly in the same category, but an unusual and surprising place to find a few flamingos and ducks.

The London nightclub on top of the huge department store in Kensington has a 1.5 acre garden where a few flamingos are kept and a few other species have made it their home too.

Water Voles

Upland areas, agricultural ditches, industrial sites and urban fringes are all proving to be unexpected water vole havens.

These habitats had not been previously surveyed by conservationists because of the traditionally healthy water vole populations along main rivers. Read more here.

Tate modern

A pair of Peregrine falcons took to using the huge towers of the Tate Modern as a hunting roost. See the story here.

Kennedy space centre

The Kennedy Space Centre [in the USA] shares a 35 mile long island with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

This is a particularly rich area for wildlife where healthy populations of manatees, sea turtles, alligators and raccoons.

Some 350 species of bird have been recorded here, including Florida scrub jays, Bald eagles, Roseate spoonbill, painted buntings, snail kites and red-cockaded woodpeckers are all notable sights.

The Horniman museum’s eco-roof

ONE of the earliest pioneering green roofs to be built in London has undergone a scientific survey for unusual species of plant and insect life before receiving its annual trim.

More than 50 insect species were identified, including the smallest species of British Ant and Britain’s largest Hoverfly.

Several other unusual species were found including a nationally scarce beetle and ground bug normally associated with dry, sandy coastal regions.

Designed to provide an oasis for wildlife, the energy saving CUE building was constructed in 1995 using environmentally friendly materials and now supports a unique wildflower meadow that keeps the building cool in the summer and provides insulation in the winter.

The roof requires minimal maintenance and is only watered occasionally by gardeners during the height of summer.

Every autumn after the flowering season, the meadow is cut to encourage biodiversity and make sure any young tree seedlings that have taken root are removed, including conkers planted by squirrels.

On the lush north side, meadow grasses – which can reach almost a metre-high – and flowers like Musk Mallow and Wild Carrot, grow alongside deep cushions of mosses.

And on the shallower but warmer south-facing aspect are examples of Field Pansy, the sage-scented Wild Clary and Kidney Vetch.

Meanwhile, visitors are treated to a swathe of Cowslips in spring and a carpet of Ox-Eye Daisies in early summer.

Coleoptera (beetles) 18
Diptera (flies) 12
Hemiptera (bugs) 9
Hymenoptera (bees, wasps etc) 11
Lepidoptera (butterflies & moths) 1
Orthoptera (grasshoppers etc) 1

Fifty-two species is not a good number for any ‘normal’ habitat, but compares very well with other roofs surveyed.

Otters in English town centre: here.

In this series that looks at the relationship between mankind and wildlife, Andrew Cooper explores the natural history of the Dart Valley Railway and details the way in which the arrival of the steam train affected not only the landscape, but also the plants and animals that call the trackside their home: here.

Related articles

• Rare great Indian bustards seen (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Cornwall birds conservation (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Where are the young naturalists these days? The next generation of conservationists (blogs.independent.co.uk)
• Marcia Davis: Wildlife Week includes many new programs for birders (knoxnews.com)
• UK News: Wet summer makes 2012 year of slug (walesonline.co.uk)
• Army Corps clears Valley wildlife area used for sex (laobserved.com)
• Two Indian tiger cubs rescued (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Interest in wildlife growing (jsonline.com)
• HawkWatch season gets ready to roost in Ramona (utsandiego.com)
• Portraits of Nature (thehindu.com)