Bits & Bobs to end 2024

December has given us some gorgeous sunrise and sunset skies ....

Photo 1: Sunset from the Back Garden

Photo 2: Sunset Over a Hereford Street

We are down to the last few tomatoes from this year's summer crop ...

Photo 3: Last of the Tomatoes (December 31st 2024)

... and there are still plenty of pears to eat from the autumn crop ...

Photo 4: Ripening Pears (31st December 2024)

A strange looking insect found indoors ...

Photo 5: Tip of a succulent plant!

A picture of Oscar enjoying Xmas wrapping paper ...

Photo 6: Oscar the Cockapoo

A picture suitable for a jigsaw puzzle? ...

Photo 7: Going Bananas

And finally, what's left of a wood pigeon (feline attack?) in the kitchen garden ...

Photo 8: The Remains of the Grey (pigeon)

The Holly & The Ivy (are useful sources of greens for winter hot composting)

 With a HotBin (other hot composting bins are available), it is possible to continue the hot composting process throughout winter. Some mollycoddling may be required (e.g. the use of hot water bottles and an extra blanket when there are frosts) due to limited internal heating from easily compostable green waste (e.g. lawn cuttings) at this time of the year.

Photo 1: HotBin Composter with Ivy Overhang (December 30th 2024)

I'm not sure how old my HotBin is - probably somewhere between 8 and 10 years old. It is looking a little worn and battered (mainly on the inside) but still fully functional (Photo 1). On the penultimate day of 2024, the lid thermometer is registering 52 ℃ (Photo 2) with the top 50 cm of material ≥ 42 ℃ and the top 10 cm ≥ 58 ℃.

Photo 2: Built-in Lid Thermometer on HotBin (December 30th 2024)

As you can see in Photo 1, I have a ready supply of evergreen ivy right next to my HotBin. This can be trimmed and shredded throughout the winter season to supplement the 'green' waste from my kitchen caddy. I don't like to take too much as this ivy bush is also home to a large number of sparrows.

The other main source of greens are foliage and flowers from churches as they regularly change their floral displays. Mary brings me the 'waste' from her church and a former neighbour continues to supply me with faded greens from her church. Naturally at this time of year there is a fair bit of holly and ivy mixed in with conifer trimmings, roses, chrysanthemums, bits of floral Oasis, the odd plastic flower/greenery, the occasional sweet wrapper and bits of tinsel. The amount of inorganic waste (especially Oasis) was a lot less this year, thankfully. After shredding the green waste, I store it in one of my Supercomposters (Photo 3 and Photo 4) if it is not in use ...

Photo 3: Supercomposter

Photo 4: Supercomposter filled with Shredded Flowers/Greenery

... because the shredded waste starts to compost and warm up (30-40 ℃) in the insulated Supercomposter. Adding warm and partially composted shredded waste to the HotBin makes it much easier to maintain its temperature in the 'Goldilock's' region between 50 ℃ and 60 ℃. Generally, I will be adding 6 - 10 L of shredded waste per day.

The addition of easily-compostable waste from the kitchen caddy provides a temperature boost to the contents in the HotBin; I will typically add between one and two caddies of kitchen waste (2L to 4L) per week. If the HotBin needs a temperature boost after a particular cold spell, then I will add one or two hot water bottles. Excess moisture in the compost can be an issue in winter due to the lower running temperatures - just add shredded card or paper. If I'm adding lots of dry 'brown' waste such as twigs, dried leaves, etc., then I will include up to 200 ml of liquid (e.g. comfrey tea). The final ingredient is biochar added at the rate of 30 g per 10 L of waste material.

[Note: I first started adding biochar to my Hotbins about 6 years ago using a rate of 60 g/10L of garden waste. The improvement in soil quality (structure, nutrient content, water retention) was phenomenal. At a rate of about 800 L per year of home-produced soil improver (i.e. compost), I reckon it took about 4 years to reach peak soil performance for my 100 m² kitchen garden plot. To maintain soil quality, I just need to add biochar at half the original rate.]

On Black Friday, I treated myself to a new HotBin which is waiting patiently in the Summerhouse for the right moment to get up and running. Possibly this spring with the first cut of the greensward.

Photo 5: New HotBin Keeping Warm in the Summerhouse

Happy Christmas 2024

 

I've been busy with Citizen Science stuff during December: writing methods, doing experiments and twice weekly river testing. I've got a few blogposts in the pipeline and hope to catch up in the New Year.

In the meantime, seasons greetings to one and all. Mary has decided to downsize 'Christmas' this year. It all has to fit into two boxes and take only 30 minutes to put up and take down. Consequently, the Xmas tree has shrunk to a 75 cm tabletop specimen! Two of our younger grandchildren decorated the tree with ornaments bought or made by friends and family.

December has been very mild so far with no frosts and six days when temperatures have reached 14 ℃ or more (Figure 1). The mild weather is expected to continue into the New Year.

Figure 1: Min/Max Temperatures (Dec 1 to Dec 26)

Clehonger Waterfall

Although surrounded by hills (e.g. Malvern Hills, Black Mountains, and Shropshire Hills), Herefordshire itself has a gentle undulating landscape. Consequently, there are limited opportunities for waterfalls in the County.

Clehonger is a large village (population > 1000) a few miles outside Hereford has one of the few Herefordshire waterfalls.

Photo 1: Clehonger Waterfall

We recently did the Clehonger Waterfall Loop walk with friends starting in the village itself, heading north following the Cage Brook (with a view of the waterfall, Photo 1) to Ruckhall. The path follows the River Wye for a short way (narrow path with steps) before returning over farmland back to the starting point (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Clehonger Waterfall Loop

The ground was very muddy in parts and the local farmer(s) seemed to have a penchant for padlocking gates. Nevertheless, a very interesting yet moderate ramble through a variety of landscapes. A short video of Clehonger waterfall is included below ...

Video 1: Clehonger Waterfall on the Cage Brook (November 2024)

I would have got closer but the ground was very muddy and it was a social walk. Although not large (I would guess 3 to 4 metres high), it was a rather pleasing and somewhat unexpected sight (and site). 

The Cage Brook is a nutrient-rich (i.e. polluted) tributary of the River Wye. Its confluence with the River Wye is one of the testing sites (U066) for the Citizen Science project, The Wye Alliance.

Figure 2: Location of Citizen Science Test Site U066

Figure 3 illustrates the very high orthophosphate concentrations found consistently in Cage Brook. Any value above 0.1 ppm is considered polluting.

 

Figure 3: Orthophosphate Levels (ppm) at Site U066

Cage Brook traverses a largely agricultural landscape where crops such as maize and potatoes are grown. This leads to another source of pollution -  soil run-off. Figure 4 records the Secchi Tube turbidity values at Site U066. In a previous post, I noted turbidities >10 were stressful to aquatic life while values >100 were unsafe. 

Figure 4: Turbidity Values (Secchi Tube) at Site U066

High turbidity is associated with the winter months when the fields are more likely to be bare and rainfall is highest. When a farmer loses topsoil, he is losing his biggest asset. So you would expect the farmer to take measures to protect his most valuable property, the soil, by planting winter crops and leaving a 2-metre or greater grass margin along the brook edge. The farmer, or farmers, around the Cage Brook clearly thought otherwise as the fields were bare and ploughed right up to the brook edges.

Placards and notices claiming NO FARMERS, NO FOOD are plastered all over the countryside and appear whenever the farmers protest and demonstrate.

Photo 2: Farmer Protests (h/t Farmers Weekly)

Perhaps we need another meme: NO SOIL, NO FOOD

I don't want to be unfair to farmers. They have a difficult job and there are lots of issues over which they have no control: low prices paid by supermarkets for their produce, climate change, poor management of subsidies by Governments. But they could help themselves a little bit by minimising topsoil run-off which will also save them money (lower fertilizer costs, higher crop yields).

Dark Skies

 Returning from a talk on the importance of Dark Skies, given by the City Branch of the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, we came across this rather dazzling display of Christmas lights (and I don't mean dazzling in a good way!).

Photo 1: A bit Early for Christmas

Photo 2: Still a Bit Early for Christmas

This is the same residence that put on an equally bright Halloween display a few weeks earlier. CPRE Herefordshire has a rather good article on what constitutes light pollution and how you can help minimise its effect on plants, humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. For more information on the effects of light pollution on human health see here, and for its effects on wildlife and ecosystems, see here.

The night sky is full of stars, yet most of us only a few of the very brightest, especially if you live in the city. We are fortunate enough to live quite close to a Dark Sky Reserve in the Brecon Beacons. In the middle of Hereford, where we live the sky looks remarkably empty.

This was the view from our back garden looking SSW in the early evening on the 20th November 2024. If you look very very carefully you can see Venus and Saturn in the early evening sky above the rooftops.

Photo 3: Saturn and Venus in the Early Evening Sky (Hereford, 20/11/24)

They are a bit easier to see in this enlargement; Saturn is between the second and third chimney while Venus is lower in the sky just to the right of the fourth chimney.

Photo 4: Enlargement of Photo 3

If you still need help seeing the two planets ...

Photo 5: Saturn (left) and Venus (right) in the Night Sky

Just a reminder to keep your lights under control. Close the curtains at night, switch off unnecessary lights, put outside security lights on a timer and/or use a motion detection, use the lowest wattage bulbs possible and direct the light to only where it is needed. Avoid the use of uplights to illuminate your house, trees, etc (and ask your local authority and churches to do the same) and choose warmer colours rather than hard white/blue lighting as this is less harmful and intrusive.

At the Dark Skies meeting, someone did ask whether we should adopt Scrooge's 'Bah Humbug' attitude to Christmas lights. No need for that, but perhaps tone it down a bit and switch it off at night when no-one will see it.

Capital Cardiff

After visiting Worcester on the Monday, the very next day (12/11/24) we caught the train to Cardiff for another away day. Mary said she hadn't been to Cardiff before until I reminded her we had visited the Ikea store there; this would have been 15 or so years ago when we were setting up a couple of letting rooms for students. I had visited Cardiff a number of times during my BP career because I tutored a couple of PhD students there. On this visit, the main attraction was Cardiff Castle following a recommendation from Mary's sister who had visited last year.

After entering the castle via the South Gate, the central area was a hive of activity getting ready for the Winter Wonderland event due to open in a few days time.

Photo 1: View from Entrance Looking North to the Norman Keep

Photo 2 was taken from the eastern battlements near the entrance to the wartime tunnels. A trebuchet can be seen in the foreground, while along the skyline from left to right are the South Gate (and Black Tower),  the Clock Tower, the Manor House (centre) and the Norman keep (far right).

Photo 2: Inside Cardiff Castle Looking Westward (November 2024)

Entry to the castle costs £15.50 per adult or £12.50 if you are old codgers like us. We paid an extra £4 pp for a guided tour of the House which was well worth the extra.

First port of call was the cafe, located in the same building as the ticket office, for a cup of tea and a toasted teacake. The staff were very friendly as you would expect in Wales. In the basement of this building is a mural called the Roman Chariot Corner ...

Photo 3: Roman Chariot Corner

The mural was designed and made by artist Frank Abraham between 1981-1983, using cement and plaster with a metallic gold paint finish. Photo 3 shows only a small part of the mural albeit the most impressive part. Entrance to the Firing Line, a museum dedicated to Welsh soldiers, can also be found in the basement.

We dashed off for our midday tour of the house and spent an hour looking around this ornate Victorian makeover. The first room we entered was in the Clock Tower (Photo 4) ...

Photo 4: The Clock Tower

... and was the Winter Smoking Room (Photo 5) where the gentlemen retired after dinner for drinks and smoking ...

.

Photo 5: The Winter Smoking Room

... followed by the children's nursery with its painted mural depicting various fairy tales ...

Photo 6: Children's Nursery

The Banqueting Hall was magnificent having originally been 5 bedrooms before its makeover ...

Photo 7: The Banqueting Hall

Photo 8: Minstrels' Gallery, Banqueting Hall

As with lots of artefacts in the house, there are stories to be told. For example, the fireplace (Photo 9) depicts Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, as a knight on horseback (Robertus Consul). An illegitimate son of King Henry I, he was the chief military supporter of his half-sister, Empress Maud, in the civil war (The Anarchy) against Stephen, King of England. Just to the left of Robert, there is a person behind bars - this is Robert Curthose, the eldest son of William the Conqueror, who was imprisoned (house arrest) in Cardiff Castle for the last 8 years of his life until he died aged 83.

Photo 9: Fireplace, Banqueting Hall

A rather unusual room, The Roof Garden, is only open to those paying extra for the guided tour. Roman-themed, it sits at the top of the Bute Tower and was open to the outside elements. Unfortunately, the rain for which Wales is famous was damaging the structure and furnishings; it is now protected by a plastic tarpaulin which you can see above the tiled roof.

Photo 10: The Roof Garden

One of the last rooms we visited was The Arab Room, possibly the most ornate of all the rooms. We were told the room itself was valued at £15 million, presumably because of the copious use of gold leaf in the decorative finish.

Photo 11: Ceiling of the Arab Room

Thanks to the immense wealth acquired by the 2nd Marquess of Bute from the development of Cardiff Docks, the 3rd Marquess of Bute had an open chequebook to restyle Cardiff Castle - and his chosen architect, William Burges, spared no expense.

After another visit the the Castle cafe, this time for soup and bread, we headed off to the National Museum Wales but only had time to look around the natural history section before heading for our train back to Hereford.

A tiring but rewarding day. Another visit is planned to cover the bits we didn't see (e.g. Cardiff Bay, Techniquest) and a deeper dive into the National Museum.

Royal Worcester

We had a couple of days with nothing planned so, rather than stay at home, we decided on two day trips. The first was to Worcester, the historic county seat (town) of Worcestershire. There are excellent road and rail links between Hereford and Worcester; the 25-30 mile journey takes about the same time (45 minutes) whether travelling by car or train. So we took the latter.

Photo 1: A Gulp of Magpies, Hereford (November 2024)

The walk to the station is just under a mile and takes about 20 minutes at Mary's walking speed. On the way, Mary spotted a rather large number of magpies roosting in a tree on a bit of wasteland as we approached the station. There was probably a score or more - not all of them in the picture I took - of non-breeding magpies. In the garden we usually see anything from one to three magpies in a group. A group of magpies is known by many names including, but not exclusively, a conventicle, a gulp, a mischief, a tiding, a tribe and a tittering.

Worcester is famous for many things, among them are Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, Royal Worcester Porcelain, and the composer Edward Elgar but not the monkey wrench (as Google's Gemini reported) - that was Worcester, USA! Unfortunately, being a Monday, quite a few places were shut including the Museum of Royal Worcester.

One thing Worcester does have in abundance is swans ...

Photo 2: Swans on the River Severn at Worcester (November 2024)

... largely down to the establishment of swan sanctuary along this stretch of the River Severn in the 1980s; angling is banned in the sanctuary which has reduced accidental deaths by ingestion of lead fishing weights¹ and entanglement in discarded fishing line. The Swan Food Project was set up to provide a source of nutritious pellets for the swans - available to buy at local retailers.

[Note 1: Fishing with lead weights was banned in 1987 though legacy lead weights still turn up every now and then]

This explained why the mute swans made a beeline for the river path shore, where we were standing, in the hope of a food bonanza.

Photo 3: Hungry Swans?

We spent a little while in The Hive, the main city and university library, before heading via the swans to the Watergate entrance to Worcester Cathedral. This is the final resting place of John, King of England (1199 - 1216) ...

Photo 4: King John's Tomb, Worcester Cathedral (November 2024)

Photo 5: Worcester Cathedral from the River (Severn) Path (November 2024)

Worcester Cathedral (length = 130 m, width = 44 m, height = 62 m) is noticeably longer than Hereford Cathedral (length = 104 m, width = 78 m, height = 50 m) though not as wide.

Photo 6: Looking towards the West Window

Photo 7: Worcester Cathedral Looking towards the High Altar

Levels of ornamentation are much higher in Worcester Cathedral whether that is the painted ceilings ...

Photo 8: Painted Ceiling, Worcester Cathedral

... or the grandiose tombs ...

Photo 9: Tomb of a Local Dignitory

I have to include a photograph of the altar frontal. Mary, as head broderer at Hereford Cathedral, wasn't overly impressed ...

Photo 10: Altar Frontal, Worcester Cathedral (November 2024)

And, finally, there was a photographic exhibition in the Chapter House showing the naves of all 42 Anglican Cathedrals ...

Photo 11: Peter Marlow, The English Cathedral Exhibition

One thing we didn't see were the peregrine falcons that nest regularly at Worcester Cathedral - wrong time of year.

We made our way slowly back to the railway station (Foregate Street) arriving back home in the dark around 6 pm. Tired (14,000 steps) but happy.

Great White Egret at Brockhall Gravel Pits Nature Reserve (8th November 2024)

 

Photo 1: Great White Egret (Brockhall Quarry, 8/11/24)

It was a dank grey mizzly November day where the temperature struggled, but failed, to reach double figures. Just the weather for sitting by a warm cosy fire reading a book. For some reason, we decided to go for a walk around a nearby nature reserve, Brockhall Gravel Pits (aka Brockhall Quarry and Sugwas Pools). We parked the campervan in the lay-by on the A438, carefully crossed the road (it can get busy), took the house-lined side road to our right for 50 yards before disappearing down a ginnel towards the woods and emerging onto the grassland with the waters ahead of us. Fuller details with photos on how to access the nature reserve can be found here.

Figure 1: Brockhall Gravel Pits/Sugwas Pools (Google Maps)

This was the eastern edge of the ice sheets covering Herefordshire during the Last Glacial Maximum, 20,000 to 25, 000 years ago. You can read about the ice age ponds found in this area here and here.

This is a popular place for spotting waterfowl, waders and migrant species. Check the website of the Herefordshire Ornithological Club for details of the site (Brockhall Gravel Pits) and a list of birds regularly seen.

We did the circular walk around the lake - about 3 kilometres. On the water we saw, in addition to the Great White Egret, a Grey Heron, lots of Tufted Ducks, Coots, Mallards, Mandarin Ducks, several Great Crested Grebes and a Common Gull. In the surrounding woodland there was a flock of long-tailed tits, robin, blue tits, rook, crow, blackbird, jay and kestrel (Photo 2).

Photo 2: Kestrel at Brockhall Gravel Pits (8/11/24)

The star of the show was undoubtedly the Great White Egret easily discernible from its smaller cousin, the Little Egret, by its yellow beak and black feet (the other way round for the Little Egret!). If you are lucky enough to observe the Great White Egret next to our more familiar Grey Heron (as we were on this occasion), you will immediately see their similar sizes whereas the Little Egret is much smaller. 

Photo 3: Great White Egret, Brockhall Gravel Pits (8th November 2024)

We tried to get closer but every time we approached within about 50 metres of the bird, it flew away. The short video below shows the third time (of four) that the bird did this. By the way, the noise in the background is from the shooting range at the nearby Credenhill Barracks.

Video 1: Great White Egret, Brockhall Gravel Pits (8/11/24)

It was 2 pm and we were ready for a hot drink and a bite to eat. The nearest establishments are the Hereford Garden Centre (heading back into Hereford) and Timothy & Birch (in the opposite direction). Both serve excellent food but Timothy & Birch is hard to beat for the quality of the food and the friendliness of the service. Don't forget to have a look round the shop packed with lots of ideas for presents, either for yourself or that special friend/relative.