Why you should be composting

Whether your interest lies in food growing, wildlife gardening or creating picture-perfect flower beds, composting could be your missing link.

Categorised as green or organic waste, our food scraps and garden cuttings are anything but rubbish! When allowed to recycle naturally, these become a great source of nutrients which will fertilize your garden and provide food and habitat for visiting wildlife.

Read on to find out why composting is not only good for the environment, but for our own mental and physical well-being too!

We have also enclosed a quick easy guide on how to get started with your composting bin.

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Connecting with nature from home

Nature has long been known to lift our mood and during the last year the power of nature to improve our spirits has never been more important. However, Coronavirus has delivered new mental challenges and at the same time lockdowns have meant the opportunities to immerse ourselves in the natural world have become scarce.

The need to provide adequate green space for nature and ourselves is something Wild Ideas continues to actively promote, but we can sit back on our sofas and let the wonders of modern technology bring nature direct to us.

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Species Guide: The Adder

The whole snake family has a rather strange evolutionary history.  Snakes’ ancient ancestors (who were also the ancestors of lizards) progressed from above-ground life, to living and moving about underground, burrowing through the earth. This subterranean lifestyle meant they’ve evolved to have relatively poor eyesight. To compensate, snakes picture their surroundings using their tongues, which collect chemicals in the air. On retracting the tongue, this transfers the chemicals to their ‘smell’ organ (called Jacobson’s organ).  The adder (Vipera berus) is, of course, also unique in being Britain’s only venomous snake. They use venom to help kill their prey, small mammals and chicks. But adders should not be feared – they will only bite you to defend themselves from a serious threat, like being handled or stepped on.

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Creative Encounters with the Natural World: Some Prompts for Writing and Visual Art

Our natural environment has been a fertile area of inspiration for writers, artists and all manner of creative folk, ever since ancient humans began to paint on cave walls. Engaging with nature can help us forget our egos, worries and daily frustrations – and encourages our imaginations to inhabit a different world. That said, creativity doesn’t always flow spontaneously. We often need a bit of direction to get started – and this is what prompts are for. Read on for a selection of activity prompts inspired by nature and wildlife…

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Species Guide: The Common Frog

During the last month, the warm weather has sent frogs in search of somewhere to cool down – and should you have a suitable pond in your garden, frogs will discover it surprisingly rapidly. We recently built a small garden pond, and within three weeks, we found a little juvenile frog enjoying a swim. The common frog (Rana temporaria) is one of two native frog species in mainland Britain; the other is the pool frog (Pelophylax lessonae). The native populations of pool frog became extinct a few decades ago, but there have been attempts at re-introducing it. There is another native UK species, the agile frog (Rana dalmatina), but it is only native to, and found in, one site in Jersey.

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How does noise pollution affect wildlife?

The roads and skies of the UK have been quieter than ever during the lockdown. The peace and stillness has been remarkable – and many of us hadn’t experienced anything like it before. That we felt this way reveals just how used we’ve become to incessant background noise. Even while walking in the deep countryside, you can hear the faint thundering of motorways and the rasping of jet engines.  

There is emerging evidence that noise pollution is bad for our health. But what about how noise pollution might be affecting the natural world? Well, luckily, academic interest is growing in this topic, with many scientists and researchers now investigating how noise might be impacting various species. So what sort of noise is involved, which animals are affected, and how?

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Species Guide: The Slow Worm

Slow worms (Anguis fragilis) are living evidence that names and appearances can be deceptive. The first thing anyone will tell you about a slow worm is that it is a lizard, not a snake. They look similar to snakes, because these lizards have evolved in such a way that they no longer need legs – a similar evolutionary process that gave rise to the snakes. 

There are some tell-tale signs that these little creatures are lizards. They have eyelids, and blink; snakes, on the other hand, don’t. Slow worms’ tongues are rounded – in contrast to snakes, who have unmistakable forked tongues.  Like many other lizards, the slow worm can detach its tail when trying to escape from a predator. And a slow worm’s head is usually the same width as its body – that is, there’s no narrowing behind their heads – whereas snakes have an obvious ‘neck’.

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