In An English Country Garden

THE house where I grew up has a good many trees - perfect for bird life. Now we are learning a little bit about bird identification in the Southern US, we had already decided that while visiting my parents, we would get a field guide for UK birds. But Emma's Grandma took this one step further with a wonderful sticker book, and Emma took great delight in recording birds she saw with a sticker and a date. Here are some of the birds we spotted in the back garden, and while tooling around town and country roads, roughly in order of frequency:

• black bird
• wood pigeon
• crow
• magpie
• blue tit
• robin
• thrush
• great tit
• wren
• pied wagtail

Harbinger of Spring

THE cuckoo is supposed to be one of the first sounds of Spring, in the UK anyway. However, I don't actually recall ever having heard one. Until this week, when on a stroll around our lovely local pond there it was. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Over and over again. The sound carried across the whole stretch of water, which despite being called a pond is really more like a lake. (Of course, May is not the beginning of Spring, so it should be noted that these birds can be heard between March and August.) The cuckoo is also infamous for laying its eggs in other birds' nests, where the baby cuckoo boots the other residents out and is fed by its foster parent.

Also around the pond was a large amount of cuckoo spit, the frothy foam in which froghopper larvae live. Emma found this very interesting and kept trying to dig out the baby bug. I just wondered why it was called cuckoo spit. Turns out, the name is a reference to the time of year. The spit appears at cuckoo time.

Swans A-Swimming

WHAT a wonderful time of year to visit a lake. Back in England, we had several opportunities to visit a pond within walking distance from my childhood home. It is a place that holds many happy memories of climbing trees, picnicking on the beach, riding bikes and watching the ducks.

The waterfowl community here is remarkable. A great crested grebe swam in open water and an elegant grey heron watched from afar. Black-headed gulls circled overhead and a cormorant languished on a small island.

Then there were the more familiar water birds. Most striking were the swans - dozens of them. Some swimming nonchalantly around, others more inquisitive. We watched them climb in and out of the water, rest one foot on their back, feed at the water's edge and fly to the other side of the pond. A group of these large birds landing on water just a few yards ahead is an impressive experience! Canada and grey geese, mallards, coots and moorhens were all out in full force, many of them with babies in tow. From a little friend we learnt a new song and we sang it to the birds as they dined:


Dabbling Ducks
All the little ducks turn upside down, upside down, upside down,
All the little ducks turn upside down,
When they dabble at the bottom of the pond.

All the little tails go wiggle waggle wiggle,
wiggle waggle wiggle, wiggle waggle wiggle
All the little tails go wiggle waggle wiggle,
When they dabble at the bottom of the pond.

All the little beaks go snap, snap, snap,
Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap,
All the little beaks go snap, snap, snap,
When they dabble at the bottom of the pond.

Christmas

LIGHT looked down and saw darkness.
"I will go there", said Light.

Peace looked down and saw war.
"I will go there", said Peace.

Love looked down and saw hatred.
"I will go there", said Love.

So he, the Lord of Light, The Prince of Peace, The King of Love,
Came down and crept in beside us.

How Many Footsteps

ON a visit to the historic city of Lincoln, we attended a beautiful and extremely moving event entitled "The Journey". Described as a "travelling Nativity", the annual event takes place in the grounds of Lincoln Castle and traces the footsteps of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men as they journey to Bethlehem. The performance takes place in the dark with figures often showing only as silhouettes, the audience led on foot behind the narrator around the grounds. Instrumental and vocal music completes the poignant display.

I felt like I was treading on sacred ground. Not because of the performance, though this would have been beautiful in any location. But here in the castle of this midsized English city I was struck by the enormity of the history that had taken place beneath my very feet. The earliest origins of Lincoln can be traced to the remains of an Iron Age settlement of round wooden dwellings that have been dated to the 1st century BC. A fortress was built by the Romans on the site of the present castle, and the town was a trading post during Viking times. In 1068, the Norman William the Conqueror had a castle built on the Roman ruins. Much of this medieval castle still stands, supplemented by later buildings used for, among other things, a debtors' prison, and a courthouse still in use today. One of the original copies of the Magna Carta also resides here. How many people - great or lowly - had stood on the same ground as I now stood over the past 2000 years? What did they do, say, think? It was a humbling experience.

Day is Done, Gone the Sun

SOMEHOW in eleven years of living in Atlanta I've never really noticed the difference in daylight hours between here and England at its higher latitude. But as the Winter Solstice approached and passed, the difference became all too evident. According to a day length calendar, there are over two hours less daylight in London than in Atlanta in December - unfortunately those seemed to be the very two hours we often spend outside at home. So on the few days we had nothing planned during our holiday, we had to rethink our daily rhythm to take advantage of the daylight hours. Mornings weren't a problem, but Emma was a little confused getting up from an afternoon nap when it was already dark. How different life must be in those places where daylight is very much more limited.

English Holly

EN route to a park on foot, we spotted many holly bushes and trees. In residential gardens, in vacant spaces, in the woods, we noticed that of the 50-odd instances of holly we passed, only a single bush bore berries. This of course led our inquisitive minds to wonder why. Here is some of what we discovered:

* Although mature in late autumn, the berries are very bitter so are rarely touched by birds until late winter after frost has made them softer and more palatable. So maybe it wasn't cold enough...? Our hats, scarves and gloves indicated that this was unlikely.
* Hollies are dioecious. To the non-botanists among us, this means that you need both a male and a female plant for reproduction to work. So the berryless plants we saw could have been all male, or all female with no male in the vicinity to pollinate them.
* A poor show of berries can also be due to cold winds and wet periods during flowering, which deter insects from pollinating the plants. (Wind and rain in England? How could that be?)
* Of course, the birds could just be really hungry.

Whatever the cause, I was relieved to see plenty of berries on another walk, so all is not lost.

Family Gatherings

TO our good fortune, a family wedding took place close enough to Christmas for us to attend both events with family. We have now embarked on our annual visit to Europe, staying in England and enjoying also the company of German grandparents who are visiting for a few days. We always try to make the rounds of as many people as possible, but this time we have already, or plan to, see every one of our 'immediate extended' family on my side with the exception of two. For our little family of four on the other side of the world, all this clan gathering is wonderful! All in all, our visits have included or will include (from the children's standpoint) one great grandma, four grandparents, three great aunts and uncles, six cousins once removed, ten second cousins and one uncle. How lovely to see all the children playing together!