St Nicks

After the success of our Gillian Clifton Guest Blogs (catch up here if you missed it!) the team here at St Nicks have decided to feature regular “opinion pieces” from staff and volunteers. They are intended to be a bit lighthearted and raise issues and conversations you might not have thought about before. We hope […]

The dragonfly is one of the truly charismatic insects – colourful, darting, elusive, captivating and possessing amazing aerobatic skills. Almost any water body will attract them – ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, rock pools, estuaries, peat bogs, waterfalls, puddles. Their evocative family names beautifully describe their brief lives: skimmers, darters, hawkers, chasers. Most adult dragonflies live […]

Highlights All-day chorus, bright meadows  and the return of a damned elusive plant. Where have all the butterflies gone?  Hoverflies and bugs make up for them! Birds There was plenty of birdsong at St Nicholas Fields in June in spite of dull or damp weather on most of the five Wildwatch Wednesdays in the month. […]

If by now you haven’t heard the news the referendum results are in. The leave campaign has been successful and negotiations are now being carried out to make our exit from the European Union a reality. The vote was a close one, only 1.9% separated leave and remain so whilst the country may not be […]

This is the final segment Gillian has sent me. Here she lists the things she has found out since finishing the January Rubbish Challenge. Take a look at the fruit and vegetable aisles of the supermarket and it looks like a sea of plastic. Why? And why are all cucumbers sheathed in plastic and has […]

Gillian: Oh Dear . . . . Oh dear – what a lousy blogger I am. The month has slipped by and I have barely posted a thing. Well now, it’s time for the truth. We failed. We did not get through January without creating any landfill – nowhere near. To start with I broke […]

  Zygaena filipendulae, the day-flying Six-spotted Burnet Moth, is one of seven Burnet moth species to be found in the British Isles, and is the commonest of them. In most years at St Nicholas Fields we see the adult moths in good numbers, feeding mainly on the nectar of thistles and knapweed, sometimes several on […]

Highlights Cool damp weather suppresses butterflies, and other insects.. birds defending their breeding territories.. trees & bushes reach their flowering peak. Weather Temperatures remained low throughout most of the month.. around 10 – 12 C, although a mainly sunny day on the 4th saw the thermometer climbing to 18C. We had intermittent rain on the […]

This week our Recycling Co-ordinator Sam Taylor gets a bit philosophical in her comments below… The next post, which will unfortunately be delayed until 15th June, will focus again on the practicalities and tips for landfill minimisation! Gillian: It is time to say farewell to my lonely tomato, ie I’m going to eat it. Which […]

From May onwards globules of white foam start to appear on the stems of flowering plants and grasses. Centuries ago this acquired the popular name of cuckoo spit because it seemed to appear at the same time that the first cuckoos of spring were heard. Other popular names were snake’s spit, witches’ spit and frog […]