Environmental Law Workshop

In the hopes of learning more about Environmental Legislation so I can help us avoid breaking the law I attended an IEMA (Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment) workshop in Birmingham today.  Whilst I was hoping to learn more about some of the current legislation, it concentrated on recent changes and expected changes, including the CRCEE scheme, WEEE recycling regulations and changes to Environmental Permitting regulations.  However, I found these sections a little lacking in information, other than pointing out that something had changed, and the relevant websites, it wasn’t overly helpful.

Part of the workshop was presented by a lawyer, these parts, which I initially thought would be a little irrelevant, I nevertheless found really interesting.  In addition to including some examples of cases that had set some precedents, she went through what would happen if the Environment Agency came calling, and, what your legal rights are.  The basic message was, don’t sign anything, even a seemingly informal statement (this then makes it a formal statement), without legal advice.  If you are questioned under caution (and this is apparently voluntary) make sure you are prepared, have a lawyer with you and state that you are representing the Company (and ensure you have the authority to represent the Company – if not, you shouldn’t be there).  I think there were probably only a  couple of people in the room who had been in such a position, so I am sure lots of us found this useful.

The venue was good and did provide some sufficient space for networking opportunities.  I met someone from a large engine manufacturer who had lots of experience in Environmental Management and who seems to be further along with energy management.  He has promised some information by email, so it seems I may have benefited from the day in numerous ways.

Insects, insects, and some flowers

No nature notes for two weeks, it is not due to a lack of things to see, just a time issue.  Where to start – probably insects.  The weather has been pretty variable, some sun, rain, thunder, lightning, it was just hail and snow that were missing.  This seems to have had a different effect on insects.  I don’t know what is happening where you are, but I don’t think I have seen a single butterfly in the last two weeks.  I am not sure if it is just a natural hiatus, some are in caterpillar form, others are waiting for the correct plants, but it does seem odd.

What are about in abundance are damselflies.  A walk round a lake on a sunny day reveals them in numbers.  I managed to take some of my best pictures ever. This was taken along the path, and is my first bit of insect porn.  I love the colours of the damselflies against the green of the leaf.  I think that these are common blue damselflies, but they are apparently very similar to the azure and variable blue damselflies and I am just not good enough yet.  There were also lots of large red damselflies about.  Last week I also saw a lot of Blue Tailed damselflies which flew up whenever I brushed past some grass by the lake.

The sage is flowering now, and is bringing a lot of honey and bumble bees to the garden whilst the birds foot trefoil is attracting them to the back which is good because that is where my broad beans (the first time I have tried growing them) are flowering.

Wild flowers are still in abundance, although lots have gone to seed.  The grasses, for those not attacked by their pollen, are looking pretty in both the sun and the rain an around the lake there are a lot of flag iris about, looking bright amongst the green.

The garden is covered in birds every morning.  The finches, green, gold and bullfinches turn up every day, making a lot of noise and getting through a lot of sunflower hearts.  We also had the first baby great tits last weekend.  In recent years they have always appeared over the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May.  This year they are a week late.  They usually turn up at the same time as the baby blue tits, both can be distinguished from their parents by the more squeaky noise they make and the fact that they look as though they have faded in the wash.  However, I haven’t seen any blue tits yet, even though the ones on Springwatch have fledged.

Binning the bin tax – what a rubbish idea.

Listening to the radio on a Monday morning should be relaxing, but I am feeling quite angry.  The new government are scrapping the plans of the previous government to make us all pay for what we throw away, replacing it with incentives to recycle.

So, instead of reducing the amount of rubbish we are creating we are now going to be rewarded for buying more stuff and how are we going to be rewarded – we will get vouchers to buy more stuff – a vicious circle.  If you don’t buy very much, then no rewards for you – we need you to buy things – after all, that is what our economy is built on – shopping.

Do I think recycling is a bad thing?  Certainly not, but I think we should be at a point now where not recycling is unheard of, unthought of.  We shouldn’t have to be rewarded for recycling.

What I do think is that if you throw things away you should pay for it – after all you are taking more landfill and more of that scarce resource – space.  It is the only way to make people think about what they are buying and why.  I understand the argument, there would be more flytipping, and burning of rubbish or putting it in the neighbours bin  – then we will have to be more vigilant.

The pay as you throw works in Belgium – why are we not capable of managing such a scheme.  While it may not be the best way, it is surely a start in the right direction.

A word about the BP and oil.

Despite trying to earn my environmentalist stripes, I admit to not following the events of the coast of Louisiana too closely.  It is not because I don’t think it is important, but more because I think its potential importance is largely being missed, certainly by the traditional media.

Firstly, it is not the worst oil-related disaster, whilst it has apparently leaked about twice the amount of oil as the Exxon Valdez oil spill which I remember watching news coverage of as a teenager, (oh for the days of John Craven’s newsround) the Exxon Valdez is still considered a relatively small oil spill.  However, from an ecological point of view any spill has to be a potential disaster.  Not only is there the problem of the oil to deal with, and the area over which the aforementioned dealing has to happen, there is also the effect of the burning of the oil and the residuals from the dispersants to deal with.  All in all I am sure that most people (even the manufacturers of the dispersants) would agree, it is not a good thing.

There is a lot of blame being levelled at BP, and, rightly so.  It would appear that they did not include such an incident in their risk planning – but then, with the deafening silence from the other oil companies, other than we will help if we can and we should make sure this never happens again, one can assume that it was not in the risk planning of any of the oil companies.  It is just a stroke of luck for them that it happened to BP first.

A lot of the adverse publicity seems to be emanating from the American government – but they do not appear to have any better ideas either, and, I assume that they have profited from the jobs and licenses that result from the deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

My main point, which I am eventually getting to, is that if we are blaming BP for drilling, and we are blaming the American government for its inaction (which apparently some Americans are), then why are we not blaming ourselves?  We bitch and moan about the price of petrol and the excessive profits that the oil companies make, but we can do something about it.  We can stop buying as much fuel, we can stop insisting that our pensions are worth more every year, we can demand that we pay more for our fuel and that some of the revenue is used to undertake deep sea research to stop disasters on this scale occurring.  But we won’t, we will carry on regardless, watch the pictures on the TV and then hop in the car to run an errand.

Perhaps it is time the true cost of oil related products was revealed, and we started to think about whether we think the environmental devastation that comes with any sort of extraction of natural resources is a price worth paying.

A plethora of flowers.

In a week of generally cooler weather, it appears that the exodus of damselflies from the pond has slowed down, although as I am at work there is a chance that I missed some of them.  However, this may be just as well, there have been lots of young sparrows and starlings generally kicking up a racket in the garden, but we have also had a young greenfinch feeding on the sunflower hearts.  You can tell these apart from the adults by their stripiness.

I have seen very few butterflies this week, but, now that the first of our honeysuckles has come out in flower I am hoping to see a lot more bees just outside the kitchen window.

Most of the trees now seem to have their summer foliage on, even the ash and the oak are clothed in green.

Onto the flowers…..  I went out looking for orchids this week, but the place I saw them last year appears to have been mown to within an inch of its life.  However, there are a lot more flowers out there waiting for you.  Firstly, brightening up many a hedgerow and road side is the pink campion.  I spoke to someone a couple of years ago from the Peterborough area who said that at that end of the River Nene they mainly have white campions whilst the Northampton end is populated by the pink campion.  This is  a perennial plant, the pink apparently being a product of the white and red campion.

Not to be outdone by my favourite rose, rosa rugosa, the dog roses, rosa canina, are starting to appear in the hedgrows.  These are mainly shades of pink, but some are almost white.  This is James’s favourite, and we have some growing in the garden which we have grown from seed that we collected from the industrial estate.  He wouldn’t let me plant Rosa Rugosa, maybe it was to make sure I kept going to work!  Speaking of which, I no longer have to stop and snort, there are so many flowers out now that the air is filled with the scent in the morning.

My final spot of the week are the cheerful ox-eye daisies (leucanthemum vulgare), members of the chrysanthemum family which are showing up at the roadsides now.  You will have to excuse the picture, there are not many in the estate, and I have not managed to get to the edge of town where there are lots of them across from the scout hut.  Interestingly, many herbivorous insects do not like the daisy, the juice is apparently very bitter, so it used to be mixed with animal bedding in order to deter flies.

How to lead a more simple life….

A three part series has just come to an end on BBC2.  The series was presented by Peter Owen Jones, an Anglican vicar who tried to reduce his dependence on money and ‘stuff’.  During this time he tried self sufficiency, managing without money and making his way from his Sussex parish to North Devon depending on the benevolence of complete strangers for food and shelter.  His inspiration in this was St Francis of Assisi, his quest was to find out if living a more simple life would make him happier.

There have been some criticisms of this, many justified; is it easier to live without money if you have some, the presence of a camera crew may have made people more generous etc.  But, to me, the central messages of the series are pertinent to modern day life.

Firstly, the acquisition of money seems to be a way of reducing reliance on others, building up barriers so we can separate ourselves from other  people – we can just buy things or services from anonymous people and anonymous companies.  There is no need to bother building a relationship with people, having a relationship with money is easier.

Money is also self-defeating to some extent, or, rather the pursuit of money is.  Once we get past a certain point where we have enough to live comfortably; put food on the table, pay the bills, what do we want more money for?  In part it is (hopefully) for insurance for old age, but, more often it is to buy more.  Buy more cars, buy more things, buy a bigger house to put them in etc.  Then, we need more money, because there are other things we need more of.  When do we stop and ask whether we need these things, or even really want them.  There are very few people who do not have things in their house that they don’t use or wear, or that someone else bought for them, because they had to get them something, but ‘they already had everything they needed’.

Finally, by working to pay ever increasing bills, we are rushing round, not stopping to see what is there, all around us, and, more importantly, getting stuck in a rut, not finding out what we are really capable of.  Whether this is painting, gardening or even just listening, there are many of us who don’t take the time to find out what we can do.

So, did Peter Owen Jones successfully live without money, did a simple life make him happier?  I think the answer to both is yes.  In the end, the system beat him, he has to have a car due to the fact that he is vicar to three rural parishes, and car insurance is not something he can trade his time for.  But, admitting that in modern times it will be necessary to have some money, then I think he did quite well.  However, when he finally did get his wallet back I was surprised to see him struggling to not make spontaneous purchases of stuff!  Oh, and he did seem to have found a way to make his life more meaningful, and consequently happier – by spending time with parishioners, swapping his time for whatever they wanted to give – surely that is the way it should be if they value the service he offers?

So, what are my thoughts about Peter Owen Jones’ experiment?  I think it was an admirable experiment, that, whilst it would not work completely for everyone, certainly has something to offer to all.  It’s message certainly resonates with me.  We can all live with less, without the hankering for more.  Over the last few years I have bought less and less, Waitrose and books from Amazon being my main indulgence.  Not only does this give me more financial security, it means I throw less away, and, I have more time.  In that time I have discovered new hobbies – blogging for one, made new friends – at Tai Chi and a local camera club, and learned a lot more – through distance learning, internet resources and good, old fashioned reading.

I am at the point now where I don’t want more stuff, only more time.  As the saying goes, the best things in life are free (written whilst listening to bird song and watching the sun go down).  Maybe if we all tried to slow down and live a more simple life we could reduce society’s dependence on outside addictions including anti-depressants?

Nature just keeps on coming.

It seems as though all my posts are notes on nature, and, I apologise a little for that, but, when there is so much happening, so much that is new to look at every day, it is easy to forget about new governments and ash clouds, and to just get carried away with the song of blackcaps and the sight of butterflies, more of which later.

So, on the what’s new front, what is new?  For starters, my favourite rose, rosa rugosa, is beginning to flower.  I know they look blousy and flowery in their barbie pink and startling white, but the smell has to rival honeysuckle as my favourite scent.  Fortunately they are a favourite on industrial estates allowing me to stop every day to get a snort on my way to work.  Other flowers are out too, buttercups are now the yellow flower of choice for all self-respecting roadsides, as their predecessor dandelions seem to be going to seed.

There are other newcomers in the flower world if you look closely, including the very delicate looking vetch.  This member of the legume family seems to be fairly abundant once you start looking for it, mainly preferring slightly shadier conditions.

Many of the shrubs and trees appear to be flowering, with the hawthorn in full flower on both shady and sunny sides of the street.  Dogwood and sorbus (aka Mountain Ash or Rowan) are also showing off their white flowers, and the horse chestnuts are in full bloom.

I have no new birds to report, but the starlings and sparrows seem to have fledged and they are now busy repairing their nests (possibly with the aid of leaves pulled from my sweet peas) ready for the next brood.

On the insect front, I saw both a Holly Blue and a couple of Cabbage Whites in the garden today.  I am still chasing a picture of one of the Orange Tip butterflies that are patrolling verges and hedgerows, but in the mean time I did get a less than satisfactory picture of a Speckled Wood with its wings closed, an insect which is appearing in ever increasing numbers along the old railway track.

Today was also a good day for damselflies, with numbers emerging from the pond getting into double figures – the bamboo and rhubarb appearing to be good places to sit in the sun!

In the garden, perhaps half of the lettuces I planted out last week are still surviving, but one of my courgette seedlings has passed away, and my beans are awaiting the installation of a suitable climbing frame so they can be planted out (small hint there).  The bees are still making use of the pulmonaria, but are also being attracted to the aquilegia which is now in flower – although mainly in shades of purple and pink – oh, how I covet the white ones I saw round the corner!

Dare I hope? Is Summer coming?

This week continued to be unseasonably cold, with frost on some mornings – irritating for those who drive to work, but not for me.  However, on Monday I did notice the first hawthorn flowers of this Spring, but only in one place.  Everywhere else is green, with the buds just waiting to open, but not yet.  Many of the ornamental cherries have lost their flowers and are looking a shadow of their former selves, but their place is being taken by wild and bird cherries (prunus padus).  The latter are fairly distinctive having a spike of white flowers – they seem quite popular in industrial estates – the name is due to the popularity of their bitter fruits with birds.

In the verges there are now some buttercups competing with the dandelions, but I was surprised to see some clover flowering already on the industrial estate.  I didn’t think it would be out this early, so that shows how little I know.

I have no new bird sightings for the week although the number of house martins seems to be increasing which is good news because there is some concern about the numbers returning from their wintering grounds.  We have started feeding mealworms to the garden birds in the last week (not a cheap hobby as they can easily eat their own bodyweight in worms every day – or so it seems).  The main takers are about six sparrows and one great tit.  The starlings would be the main takers if we hadn’t put them behind bars (the mealworms that is, not the starlings), so, instead, they have taken to waiting for a sparrow to land with a mealworm and then they attack it.  Some have learned to fly straight off with their booty and avoid the ambush.  Other birds are making regular appearances with chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches as well as a robin and blue tit visiting each morning.  At work I have been lucky enough to watch a few pairs of bullfinches from my office window – they have been on the grass eating the seeds of the dandelions.

I finally saw a speckled wood butterfly this morning, well, about 4 or 5.  They were busy patrolling the nettles and garlic mustard on the old railway track as we walked back from town.  There were a couple of orange tips about as well.  Hopefully there will be more if the weather stays warm.  Today was also the day for my first damselfly of the year.  I spotted this large red damselfly in the garden, its wings sparkled in the sunlight as it flew up from near the pond to rest on the bamboo.  I found a larva case on a plant nearby so I think it may have emerged today.

All in all it has been quite a good week for nature spotting in Northamptonshire.

The first week of May.

At the end of April it was easy to be fooled into thinking that Summer was just around the corner.  This week has reminded me just how variable the British weather can be.  Whilst it has not been completely full of grey skies and gloom, I was a bit put out to see the hail come pouring down on several occasions – still ’twas a Bank Holiday Monday.

But, before I get too melancholic (also note, I will be complaining if it is too hot in the Summer, should we get one), I still found plenty of new things this week (new for the year, I am not claiming to have made any exciting discoveries).

On the insect front, the weather has made it pretty dismal, orange tip butterflies still taunt me when I have no camera handy, but otherwise I have not seen many insects about.  There are still some bees foraging, workers as well as queens, and a few wasps to be seen.

As far as flowers go, it appears everything is awash with dandelions and daisies, and, it seems the first dandelions have set seed already.  One flower that is also adding some colour is Herb Robert (Geranium Robertianum), a cransebill that grows in hedgerows.  This plant was used in medieval times for its medicinal properties, being used as a remedy for nosebleeds and toothache as well as dysentry.  The leaves, if rubbed on the skin, apparently repel mosquitoes, which I am not surprised by.  This plant often turns up in the garden, and, if you pull it up and are not wearing gloves, its not very pleasant smell stays with you for some time.  Whilst it is supposed to attract many insects, I must confess that I do not like to leave it in my garden as it does self seed quite prolifically.

Speaking of gardens, my beans are growing quite well now after the threat of moving them indoors.  The lemon balm is providing plenty of leaves for herbal teas and the bluebells are flowering well, showing up particularly in the less than ideal light we have had over the last week.

However, it is the bird news that I find most exciting this week.  On Sunday, a visit to the Country Park showed that the terns were back.  Although there were plenty of swifts, swallows and house martins there did not seem to be any sign of the hobbies that often hunt them at this time of year.  However, a check of Northants Bird Sightings seemed to suggest that the hobbies were back and some of those terns may have been arctic terns, unless they were being frightened off by the peregrine!  I sometimes think my timing may be a little off!  In the garden we have had two young blackbirds around, and I can say with certainty that there are young in the starling’s nest in the gutter outside my window!  I also heard and then saw my first blackcap of the year on the old railway track.  I am trying to improve my recognition of birdsong, the blackcap sounds a little like a robin, but more ‘burbling’.

All in all, considering the weather, it does not appear to have been too bad a week.

Not all bees are bumblebees.

OK, another post about bees, and, it is partly an excuse to put another picture of a bee on my blog, but there is a point I want to make. There has been a lot of concern about honey bees and the sudden collapse of hives (often this concern is motivated by the potential disaster for farmers and lost revenues), there has also been some publicity regarding bumble bees, following this I joined the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust, but what about other bees?  Other bees I hear you say – well, yes, what about solitary bees.  Before this Spring I didn’t really think about other types of bee, but once I started looking at them, the diversity amongst this set of insects becomes quite amazing.

In addition to the tawny mining bee that I mentioned in an earlier post, I have also come across the little chapess in the photo in my garden.  Once again I turned to I Spot as I had no idea what this was.  She was almost totally black, with a long proboscis and was totally obsessed with my pulmonaria.  She is in fact a hairy footed flower bee – what a fantastic name (anthophora plumipes). Both this bee and the tawny mining bee are solitary bees.  In this species the females are black apart from their pollen baskets whilst the males are more of a gingery colour.  They have particularly long tongues which they cannot fully retract, which is quite noticeable as they hover in front of flowers.  Although I have never noticed one before they are quite widespread in the South of England and are common visitors to gardens.

So, now you know, not all bees are bumble bees or honey bees, not all are stripy and (like the tawny mining bee) not all bees sting.