The 29th is the fifth day of Christmas – when we are supposed to receive five gold rings from our true loves. But few of the Friends have any use for gold rings so here, instead, is a fivefold gallery of the reserve’s goldfinches.
All pictures taken in the reserve.
A Christmas Eve gallery of the reserve’s robins, photographed by DKG.
What would Christmas be without mistletoe?
Continue reading “Mistletoe”
Treat your garden birds with a Christmas bird table. Here are some suggestions:
Continue reading “Christmas bird table”
Now that the festivities are well and truly over, here are a few indigestion remedies you might find in the park.
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…or not.
There are no geese anywhere on our species lists but we can offer you six species of corvid instead.
[1] Crow [2] Jay [3] Rook [4] Jackdaw [5] Magpie [6] Raven
Goldfinches of course.
On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me five goldfinches. . .
Pictures taken in the reserve by DKG.
a partridge in a pear tree. The park’s partridges are Perdix perdix, the grey partridge, not the pretty little North American plumed partridge, Perdix plumifera, sitting in our Christmas card’s pear tree. Neither does the park actually have any pear trees: cherries, plums, sloes, apples and pedants aplenty but no pears at all. Nevertheless…
Christmas greetings from the Friends of Southwick Country Park.
A Christmas Eve gallery of the park’s robins, photographed by DKG.
What would Christmas be without mistletoe?
Continue reading “Mistletoe”
Many of the evergreen plants in the park have traditionally been used in the celebration of winter festivals. As the days grew ever shorter and colder, winter must have been a frightening and dangerous time for the early human cultures of northern Europe.
Continue reading “Winter festivals”
a partridge in a pear tree. The park’s partridges are Perdix perdix, the grey partridge, not the pretty little North American plumed partridge, Perdix plumifera, sitting in our Christmas card’s pear tree. Neither does the park actually have any pear trees: cherries, plums, sloes, apples and pedants aplenty but no pears at all. Nevertheless…
Christmas greetings from the Friends of Southwick Country Park.
A Christmas Eve gallery of the park’s robins, photographed by DKG.
What would Christmas be without mistletoe? There is only one species of mistletoe native to Britain, Viscum album, but there is none growing in the park. We would love to see it established here but we are not sure how we would go about it.
Continue reading
Many of the evergreen plants in the park have traditionally been used in the celebration of winter festivals. As the days grew ever shorter and colder, winter must have been a frightening and dangerous time for the early human cultures of northern Europe.
Continue reading “Winter festivals”
. . . to all our followers and to all the people who visit our park; thank you for your care and support.
We will be taking a couple of days off now but will be back and posting on the 27th.
FoSCP
The picture is by DKG.
Treat your garden birds with a Christmas bird table. Here are some suggestions:
Continue reading “Christmas bird table”
On a brisk Wednesday morning, FoSCP hacked its way through the woods in Kestrel Field, cleared the path between the trees and then settled down to mince pies and brandy butter. Yummy!
Christmas crackers spill plastic trinkets onto your Christmas table every year. Nobody keeps them; who even remembers what fell out of their Christmas cracker last year?
It all ends up in landfill with the paper hats. The hats will biodegrade in a matter of weeks but nobody knows how long the cheap petrochemical-derived plastic dinosaurs and whistles will remain in the ground. The best estimates of the time it will take such plastics to biodegrade are anywhere between 5,000 years and never.
Here is Friends of the Earth’s thought provoking video about Christmas crackers.
It’s nearly Christmas and we have scoured the internet for last minute doggy ideas . . .
. . . and here are some of the best.
What would Christmas be without mistletoe? There is only one species of mistletoe native to Britain, Viscum album, but there is none growing in the park. We would love to see it established here but we are not sure how we would go about it.
Continue reading “Mistletoe”
Many of the evergreen plants in the park have traditionally been used in the celebration of winter festivals.
Continue reading “Winter festivals”
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 