#543: Local case study suggestions: Wendling Beck, Norfolk

Wendling Beck is in Norfolk - my home county. It has undergone some regeneration recently. This video explores this idea of regenerating riparian environments.

#503: Local Distinctiveness

Common Ground has a "local distinctiveness" section to their website.

With the increasing homogenisation of the landscape and culture and the rise of AI slop, it's important to cherish those 'local' differences which can be explored using local fieldwork.

#411: Encounter app - now available to download

I've been following the progress on Melissa Harrison's nature recording app since it was first announced. I was one of the beta testers of the app when it came out a month or so ago, and was excited at the features it offers and the ease of use and the opportunity to record encounters with nature easily, sitting alongside some of the other apps I have on my phone such as MerlinID to identify birdsong.

The app is now available to download, free of charge from the various app stores. This is a soft launch for the app. There is more to come, but any use you can make of the app will help generate data.

It is called Encounter (Nature).

It is a useful companion piece to her recent book 'Homecoming'.

As Melissa said in a recent email to those involved in the testing:

It’s not perfect. We still need to build the search function (weirdly, far more complicated – and expensive – than you’d think); there are some UX (user experience) niggles I am itching to improve; we need to build relationships with nature charities and environmental NGOs so that we can feature their content; and it’ll take a while until the nature tips and information it contains can be properly targeted to users by location: we need to wait for good numbers of people to tag the things they see before we can start turning that data into useful content. But I think we’ve made a really good start, and I hope you’ll stick with us as the app grows and improves, bit by bit.

This is Encounter’s ‘soft launch’. We hope to build our user base over the winter, ahead of its formal launch in April. That’s when we’ll be trying to get press coverage: when Christmas is over, spring is happening, and people are going outdoors again. I’d be very grateful for any help with that when the time comes.

For now, please download the app, play around with it and most of all, enjoy using it: that’s what it’s for! 

I built it to help people notice nature, and to get into the habit of jotting down the things they encounter. The benefits that flow from that simple habit are hard to overestimate: both to us, as humans, and to the natural world itself.

#236: Urban Plants: an ID guide

Most ID guides for plants are about rural locations, and to help identify things like wildflowers and salt marsh plants. They are for taking on nature rambles in woodlands or rural locations.

Pelagic Publishing is preparing to publish a guide in July 2024 which will help identify weeds growing through the pavements, or other urban locations. To be fair, for many schools, these plants are more likely the ones to be found in the immediate area, particularly urban schools which may not have a park or significant open space that is easily accessible.

This is another example where the context of a school may well determine the possibility of offering GCSE Natural History. There are several important factors here.

Description:

Have you ever wondered exactly what those ‘weeds’ are growing along the kerb or between the cracks in the pavement? Not the pampered plants of parks, front gardens and herbaceous borders, but simply those that exist everywhere and nowhere in particular: the true survivors, the botanical opportunists. In this handy guide, we introduce the most commonplace flowers, shrubs, grasses, mosses and ferns that are to be found on the street, and show the main characteristics by which you can recognise them. 

Soon you’ll be more alert than ever to the rebellious species of tarmac, wall and gutter as they defy weedkiller, climate change and dog wee.

So you can identify the plants you discover in your town as readily as possible, the species are arranged according to their growth form. The book starts with the largest group – herbaceous plants – followed by a few woody plants, grasses, mosses and ferns.

Out in July 2024. I think I will be getting a copy of this book for our library of field guides.

#190: 'Local'

Out in January 2024, the latest book from Al Humphreys will be published.

After years of expeditions all over the world, adventurer Alastair Humphreys spends a year exploring the detailed local map around his home.

Can this unassuming landscape, marked by the glow of city lights and the hum of busy roads, hold any surprises for the world traveller or satisfy his wanderlust? Could a single map provide a lifetime of exploration?

Discovering more about the natural world than in all his years in remote environments, he learns the value of truly getting to know his neighbourhood.

An ode to slowing down, Local is a celebration of curiosity and time spent outdoors, as well as a rallying cry to protect the wild places on our doorstep.

This sounds like it might have some good connections with the ideas in the GCSE Natural History.

Why not get out your own local OS sheet?

Mine is OS Explorer 238. 

There's certainly plenty of interest on that map sheet alone that could keep you going. An Explorer sheet covers an area of hundreds of square kilometres which would certainly take more than a year to thoroughly explore.

Available from Al's own website.

You can find out about Al's methodology and thinking around his local exploration here.

This is an area I may return to myself.

I have my copy and can confirm it's a really good read and have already made a few notes and downloaded a few apps that Al recomments, some of which will appear on this blog.

#97: Ronald Blythe

Ronald Blythe died earlier this year, just after his 100th birthday.

He referred to local plants in an areas as "a form of permanent geography".

His writing spans many decades, and includes some classic texts.  There is a great deal that has been written both by and about him.

I recommend starting to build up your Blythe library to introduce students to the work of someone who was tied to a place, and looked at it in detail. 

He was closely linked with the late author Roger Deakin, who will also be mentioned here as well, particularly because of his book 'Wildwood', which was published posthumously.

He's one of the authors who is on my 'charity shop' list - whenever I go to a town I always check out the charity shop stacks and have certain letters I look at (if they are organised alphabetically that is...).

Akenfield has to be on the list of books, but also the various collections of his pieces for local newspapers and other publications.

It can be borrowed from the Internet Archive site.

There is also a 2022 anthology volume of his work called 'Next to Nature' which has come out recently, and contains a range of writing about natural history and what it means to connect with a place.

I'd be interested to hear your favourite Blythe pieces.