#657: Fractals, Mandelbrot and granularity in nature

Nature is the best artist, and produces stunning patterns: the feathery fronds of ice on a car in the morning, the complex patterns in a cauliflower and the aerial views of a river and its distributaries across a delta are just three of many thousands.

Often, when one views a pattern, zooming in reveals further granularity.

There is a mathematical relationship at work here. I've previously blogged about the Golden Ratio / Fibonacci sequence and its impact on natural forms.

In Adam Nicolson's 'The Sea is not made of Water' he talks about connections between Tim Robinson's maps of 'Aran' and these patterns.

The coastline of an island is impossible to measure accurately because as we zoom in the complexity of the coast reveals that it is not a straight line but has endless small imperfections which we should also measure if we want to be accurate.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

#656: Big River Watch - back again in September

 The Rivers Trust is running their next Big River Watch between the 18th and 24th of September.

Twice a year, anyone can take part in these week-long citizen science surveys that help to build an important picture of river health across the UK and Ireland. Our rivers are far from healthy. They’re polluted with sewage, plastic, chemicals and nutrients, and just 15% of river stretches in England are in good overall health.

With the Big River Watch app, you can help identify the issues, which help’s the Trust influence policymakers and hold polluters to account. After the drought of this summer, many rivers are at low levels of flow, and my local chalk stream the River Nar is running at very low levels which is not good. To take part you need to download the app, which is free

This would be a good Citizen Science opportunity for students to participate in.

Download the app and head for your nearest river. Mine is about 2 minutes walk away luckily.

Spend 15 minutes watching the river, and answer the questions in the survey. You can complete the Big River Watch at your favourite local spot, or get to know somewhere new. The survey will ask you about what you see, from wildlife and plants to any signs of pollution. Not sure what you're looking at? The in-app pollution and wildlife guides can help you make an identification.

#523: Seal webcam on Blakeney National Nature Reserve

A webcam has been set up on Blakeney National Nature Reserve to observe the seal pupping season on the end of the Point. This is a relatively local place, which is easy for me to get to the end of the Point, but there is no public access to the reserve itself.

Some companies continue to operate at this time of year, taking visitors to the end of the Point.

The National Trust site describes it as follows:

Blakeney Point, on the Norfolk coast, is home to England’s largest colony of grey seals. Each winter thousands of seals haul out on to the beach and dunes for the pupping and breeding season. Until recently, a boat trip was the only way to see this remarkable wildlife spectacle – but nestled among the dunes we now have a solar-powered wildlife camera bringing you a live stream from the heart of the colony.

The webcam YouTube page provides further information. Click to view.

Thanks to Bloomberg Philanthropies for funding this livestream. 

PLEASE NOTE - THIS IS AN UNFILTERED LIVE CAMERA AND VIEWERS MAY SEE FIGHTING, MATING AND SCENES OF A DISTRESSING NATURE. 

The cameras will be live until mid-January 2026 when the seals and the new generation of pups will return to the sea. During that time we estimate around 9000 pups will be born. 

It's one of England's most extraordinary wildlife spectacles. Edward Stubbings, the National Trust’s Area Ranger for Blakeney Point, said: “Last year we trialled the seal camera for the first time and had some great feedback from those who viewed the livestream, as watching the seals can be both fascinating and relaxing. Some of the highlights included a live seal birth, cows suckling their pups and bulls vying for dominance and the chance to mate with the females.” 

The long-term growth of the Blakeney Point seal colony is also now confirmed thanks to the latest data from biologists at the University of St Andrews. 

Latest figures published by the Seal Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) estimate that: 

• Pup numbers have increased by more than three-quarters (77%) in just five years from 5,036 in 2018 to 8,946 in 2023. 

• Over the past decade, pup production has increased more than five-fold from 1,614 in 2013. 

• With no natural predators, growth at Blakeney Point has outpaced national increases, making it England’s largest grey seal colony 

Because of the sheer size of the colony, manual counts are no longer practical or safe.

Image: Seals at Blakeney Point - Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.

#511: Equipment: Hand Lenses

One of the aspects of preparing for the new GCSE specification will be the need to fork out some cash for equipment.

This will include the development of a toolkit ready for investigating natural history on the school site and beyond.

Hand Lenses are available in different magnifications.

x10 is a useful magnification for scanning a specimen but x20 is best for looking at detail.

Where can they be purchased from?

Here's one NHBS option.

What is your preferred stockist for this sort of equipment?

Do you go for quality? If so, how can a group have one of these each and keep within a reasonable budget?

The cost of equipment such as this will need to be factored in to planning for introducing the GCSE Natural History into any school. And that will just be the start of the expense...

#482: Slow Ways Crowdfunder

This could be a useful context for work outside the classroom, and mapping routes to wildlife, wildflowers, woodlands and other habitats. Students could get involved in mapping the routes.

I've blogged about Slow Ways before.

You have until the end of August to join in with the Slow Ways Crowdfunder to fund the next stage of development and get some benefits in return. Details are here.

Where we’re coming from

Thanks to thousands of people we’ve already created a Slow Ways national walking network with 140,000km of routes that connect all of Britain’s towns, cities and national landscapes.

We’ve proven the idea. Now it’s time to take it to the next level.

Where we’re going

With your support we’ll help millions of people to find, follow and enjoy great routes that match their diverse interests and needs - making places more enjoyable and inclusive in the process.

We'll make the network much bigger and better, add more ways of getting around, enable groups and organisations to share routes for communities and develop website and app to make it all happen.

Slow Ways routes will always be publicly available and free for everyone to follow and enjoy.

We’ll be introducing memberships for people and groups that would like to support our work. In return, we’ll give you extra benefits, features and powers.

For less than the cost of a pair of walking socks and few coffees, as an individual member you’ll be able to enjoy special member-only benefits, including:

✔︎ Better features and functionality - See the table below!
✔︎ A growing calendar of talks, podcasts, meet-ups and workshops
✔︎ Votes on what we develop next

Community organisation members will additionally get:

✔︎ Tools to collaboratively develop route collections and networks
✔︎ Training, talks, workshops, newsletters, podcasts and online forums
✔ Public profile on the platform, with the same abilities as individuals

#469: Big Butterfly Count 2025

This week is the Big Butterfly Count.

Help out Butterfly Conservation.

Download your free ID chart.  These are available in several languages.

Find a sunny spot - the weather has changed a little, but we should still get some sun, and then send in your observations over a 15 minute period.

#464: Neil Ingram and Nowhere Wood

Check out Neil Ingram's blog which contains his Stories from Nowhere Wood.

Neil shares regular updates from his local patch and is also a contributor to the GCSE Natural History Facebook page. Why not join the 800 members to be ready for further updates from this blog and elsewhere.

#463: Wildling App - launches today

The OCR blog has a post from Ant Rawlins.

He talks about the new Wildling app which launches today.

Wildling officially launches nationwide on 9 July, backed by some of the UK’s leading conservation organisations and individuals, including the RSPB, the Marine Conservation Society, Forestry England, and advisors such as Deborah Meaden, Ben Goldsmith, and Sir Tim Smit.

It’s a free app designed to make finding and enjoying nature simpler for everyone. Whether you’re in a city, suburb, or rural area, Wildling helps users discover local nature, explore ideas for getting outdoors, and find calming, inspiring content that can develop confidence and connection with the natural world.

It’s suitable for families, first-timers, educators, and anyone looking to reconnect with nature, and feel better for doing so.

You can download the Wildling app for free from our website.

Wildling has been designed to make it easier for people to engage with the natural world, and that has clear value across many areas of education.

By helping students explore nature where they live, the app can support learning across a wide range of subjects. It’s not about replacing lessons, but enhancing them with real-world experience.

This joins apps such as Melissa Harrison's Encounter app in providing people with a chance to identify and record their encounters with nature, which will be useful for geography as well as for the GCSE Natural History when and if it finally gains approval to be added as a new qualification option.

Thanks to Kerry Sage for the tipoff to the blog post and app.

#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.

#298: 'Homecoming'- out in November '24

One useful practice for those wanting to engage with nature is to keep a journal. I'm not a fan of the verb 'to journal', but 'journalling' as an activity is akin to the scrap books I used to create, or the diaries I used to write capturing what I had for tea and other valuable information to the Mass Observation project.

Melissa Harrison, who has written a number of books which have been mentioned here on this blog has been busy putting together a resource which sounds like it might be of value to explore with young people. 

It is a diary and almanac combined.

🌱 NEWS! 🌱 In November @wnbooks will publish HOMECOMING: A GUIDED JOURNAL TO LEAD YOU BACK TO NATURE. It's for you, your kids, your parents, friends and everyone you love; it's as close as I can get to inviting you on 12 relaxed walks with me. Pre-order: https://t.co/owNdVIPonv pic.twitter.com/3Udh6KZHFQ

— Melissa Harrison (@M_Z_Harrison) April 30, 2024

Description:

A year-long course in noticing designed to plug you back into the rhythm of the seasons.

Begin in any month and continue round to the start.

Follow the stories, small and large, unfolding all around you - whether you live in the heart of a city or deepest countryside.

Connect to nature, boost your wellbeing and find your way in the living world.

Establish your own rituals, high points and habits to carry you through the year.

Homecoming includes a monthly bird-by-ear as well as rewarding and inspiring activities from meteor spotting to marking each equinox, citizen science to caring for your nearby wild.

#131: Hockney on seeing....

Every tree is different. Every single one. 

The branches, the forces in it; they are marvellously different. 

You are thrilled. This is the infinity of nature.

David Hockney

David Hockney is a prolific artist and one of the most important living artists.

His recent exhibitions have been particularly impressive.

This is a reminder to look properly when we are out in nature.

I visited the 'tunnel' as it is called on a previous visit up to North Yorkshire.

#114: Slow Ways: a way to access the countryside

Post updated 3rd November 2023

How do you get out into nature and the countryside easily?

One way is to walk... it's the best way of course, although some would say cycling will extend your range and also provide better exercise.

Some early geologists used bicycles in the fieldwork. In fact, the GA President in 2019 was Grenville Cole, who was known as the "cycling geologist" because of the way that he worked.

Perhaps one way is to join with others and walk one of the Slow Ways.

We have some of the maps in the department and a print which is excellent.

This would potentially make for a good activity with students as at the time of writing there is still quite a lot of work left to ensure that the thousand of routes which connect places have been reviewed and checked for accuracy and safety.

Check out post #85 on the blog for more on Slow Ways, with a podcast with Daniel Raven Ellison.

Updated November 2023

“The Victorians left us street trees and parks. National parks were the legacy of the second world war. What will our legacy be? What if 75 years after the creation of national parks, our politicians created their own legacy for future generations – a proper national walking and wheeling network that’s as easy to understand as the road and rail network but far more joyful, healthy, green, relationship-building and community-connecting and inspiring? What’s not to like?”

Dan Raven Ellison from a piece by Patrick Barkham in The Guardian.

Remember also that the countryside is not equally connected.

#83: Encounter Nature App - coming in 2024

I'm a great fan of Melissa Harrison's writing. I have a number of her books in my library and several of them will also be added to the suggested reading list for the course. Check out her fiction book "All Among the Barley" and her collection of nature pieces called 'The Stubborn Light of Things'. She has also channelled 'BB' with a pair of children's books based on the classic 'The Little Grey Men', who I have blogged about previously. I also have her book called 'Rain', capturing four walks. She has also produced a 4 volume series of seasonal almanacs.

She is now working on a new app which will be launching in Summer 2024.

You can sign up to the newsletter to find out more on the progress as it takes shape. 

It sounds like it will be a very useful app for students to have on their own devices, and perhaps keep a nature diary during the course to track their observations and experiences. I think that would be a really nice idea for engagement with the natural world.

Description: 

Person by person, street by street, we need to repair our connection to nature. Encounter is a guided nature journal from nature writer Melissa Harrison that will open your eyes to the wild world around you, whether you live in the heart of a city or the deepest countryside. Full of seasonal prompts, tips and ideas, it will help you turn photos, notes and audio into a rich, meaningful and lifelong relationship with the natural world.