{"id":3271,"date":"2024-10-10T15:28:11","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T14:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3271"},"modified":"2024-10-18T10:30:42","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:30:42","slug":"culture-and-nature-3-signalling-nature-and-marking-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3271","title":{"rendered":"Culture and Nature – 3 – Signalling Nature And Marking Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Section 3 – Signalling Nature And Marking Moments<\/strong><\/p>\n

download as pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Just Add Signs<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>I spent a year in this building, part of UCL in London\u2019s Gower Street, without reading this, high above the pavement but a plaque to Darwin first went up on this site in 1906.\u00a0 UK nature is rarely as well marked.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps the lowest cost, simplest and quickest way to start to elevate the perception of nature is to improve the visibility of what\u2019s already there.\u00a0 Not just nature itself such as features, plants and creatures but human activities and artifacts which speak of its existence and importance. On a map for example.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Buxton Heath Nature Reserve (Norfolk Wildlife Trust) marked by the blue bird.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1997, the blue bird symbol for nature reserves was added to the UK OS Ordnance Survey Leisure Map series.\u00a0 This small change made nature more visible, and nature conservation more normal and to-be-expected.\u00a0 Of course it could have also prompted more people to consider or look out for nature reserves while out on a walk.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A visit to Buxton Heath<\/em><\/p>\n

The UK has far more detailed maps showing signs of nature conservation activity,\u00a0 at the website MAGIC – www.magic.gov.uk<\/a> (aka Nature On the Map).\u00a0 While this is not so user-friendly and is mainly used by professionals and enthusiasts of map-related sports such as geocaching, it is public.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Buxton Heath area showing the SSSI (statutory Site of Special Scientific Interest), heathland habitat (pink) and Lowland Fen habitat (brown) as well as agri-environment scheme paying public money to landowners\/ managers (cross hatching). <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dozens of layers can be selcted on \u2018MAGIC\u2019. The pale green dots are SSSIs, the olive ones are National Nature Reserves, the dark green ones are designated Local Nature Reserves<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2008 Natural England (NE), the government nature agency for England, had the bright idea of using the MAGIC mapping system to show the public where taxpayers money was going to protect or restore nature, through \u2018agri-environment\u2019 schemes.\u00a0 Despite hundreds of millions of pounds going to such schemes (at that time mainly EU funds, since Brexit purely UK), they were, like the nature they could not identify, effectively invisible to the electorate and politicians.<\/p>\n

NE\u2019s idea was that people who used \u2018the internet\u2019 when visiting the countryside, would be able to look at their phone and see not just their route on a public footpath, road or track but information about nature, including the specific areas where farmers and others were doing good things. I was contracted to write \u2018plain English\u2019 explanations of the scheme categories and organise some market testing but before it got much further, government financial austerity ended the project.<\/p>\n

The detail on public financial support to farmers originally shown on this system was removed following objections by landowners, part of the national public interest \u2013 private interest battle recently chronicled by campaigner Guy Shrubsole in The Lie Of The Land<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Today Ordnance Survey<\/a> maps and other apps like GoJauntly<\/a> now show you online maps and suggest walks but not much about nature and I think it the basic NE idea remains a good one. Only it also seemed to me that the most effective way to signpost nature areas would probably be an app plus waymarks added to the physical signposts that (should) already mark every footpath in the country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A permanent signpost marking a long distance footpath in Wales \u2013 from the <\/em>Ramblers Association<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 (In England and Wales most land is private and the only parts the public can rely for legal rights of access are \u2018Public Footpaths\u2019).<\/em><\/p>\n

A condition of receiving public funding for some agri-environment schemes is \u2018permissive\u2019 (non-legal) public access.\u00a0 In 2024 Farmers Weekly reported<\/a> that \u2018new payments for public access to farmland, which have not been available since 2015, are being introduced. Open access will attract a payment of \u00a392\/ha, while the creation of permissive footpaths will pay \u00a377 per 100m and bridleways \u00a3158 per 100m\u2019 (all annual payments for five years).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An old temporary sign denoting temporary public access on farmland <\/em><\/p>\n

The temporary nature of such schemes has often been reflected in the temporary nature of the signs which mark them but it also sends a signal about the ephemeral nature of political commitment behind the scheme.\u00a0 People are very sensitive to reading unintended messages from appearances.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Left: UK bus stop, right, Netherlands<\/em><\/p>\n

A friend who works on improving bus services in National Parks told me that transport planners know that if the public see purpose-made enamelled metal signs giving timetables for buses or trains, they have far more confidence in relying on the service in place of a car, than if they see a plastic and paper temporary sign attached to street furniture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Sign on metal, set in stone marking designation of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in the US Florida Everglades, intended to be a permanent commitment<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A brown \u2018visitor attraction\u2019 road sign.\u00a0 Most nature reserves lack such signage.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>A Fairyland Trust nature training visit to \u2018Roadside Nature Reserves\u2019, two of 111 RNRs, in Norfolk. Tiny relic fragments of roadside verges which somehow escaped agricultural herbicide spraying and over-fertilisation, and are now actively managed for nature.\u00a0 Despite some of the participants living nearby they were previously unaware of the existence of these RNRs. Just showing people how small and now rare these flower-rich verges are, whereas all verges once looked like these, has a powerful effect (but it depends on first getting them to study \u2018normal\u2019 verges)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>Part of Britain\u2019s inadvertently hidden nature heritage \u2013 hundreds of County Wildlife Sites and RNRs and SSSIs, on <\/em>an obscure County Council map<\/em><\/a>, produced by a resource-starved section of the Council.\u00a0 Point source map of the Norfolk RNRs <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 Neighbouring Suffolk has a better system <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Detail from the map of the two tiny Norfolk RNRs visited marked in purple nos. 64 and 104<\/em><\/p>\n

Nature NGOs could work with the government to get much enhanced and more permanent signage for nature, including SSSIs touched by public access.<\/p>\n

Signing Ecosystem Function<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From Washington State in the US \u2013 a watershed forest creek<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here a system in Pennsylvania in the US, allows property owners to signal their support for and implementation of watershed conservation measures (<\/em>details<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

Many other countries are way ahead of the UK in making nature visible for its \u2018Natural Capital\u2019 ecosystem functions, simply by signing them.<\/p>\n

Marking Nature Moments in Popular Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a well known phenomenon that if you ask someone when they first noticed something, or changed their minds, they often will cite a change they noticed: a moment for instance when \u201cI was walking down the street and I saw …\u201d, or \u201cit was only when I visited X that I realised…\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 This is of course much the same process the \u2018prediction error\u2019 learning underpinning Natural History, as opposed to formal hypothesis-testing science (see Section 5).<\/p>\n

The 2024 \u2018missing bumble bees and butterflies\u2019 Silent Spring was one such \u2018moment\u2019 in which something unexpected was noticed, only not in a good way.<\/p>\n

More positive ready-made nature-moments that people consciously wait for include the first Cuckoo, Swift or Swallow of Spring, or the flowering of Bluebells.\u00a0 There are now hundreds of woods promoted as places to go and see the Bluebells but for some reason there is no National Bluebell Week (or possibly fortnight).\u00a0 There ought to be one.<\/p>\n

Where I live in Wells next the Sea, pretty much the whole town notices and talks about it, when the first Pink Footed Geese arrive from the north, usually in September.\u00a0 These mark the seasons and punctuate our world in a reassuring way \u2013 that the clock of authentic nature still functions.\u00a0 As Richard Mabey wrote:<\/p>\n

\u2018we cannot just casually replace one thing by another.\u00a0 A plantation will not \u2018do\u2019 for an ancient wood.\u00a0 A dandelion cannot stand in for a primrose.\u00a0 When the swifts return it is crucial that they are swifts, not starling, and that they are returning\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

and ended his book The Common Ground<\/em> with lines from Ted Hughes poem \u2018Swifts\u2019:<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019ve made it again,<\/em><\/p>\n

Which means the globe\u2019s still working, the Creation\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n

Still waking refreshed, our summer\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n

Still all to come<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And here they are, here they are again\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

The Woodland Trust runs a \u2018Nature\u2019s Calendar<\/a>\u2019 project, guiding and asking people to help record on which dates wild plants come into leaf or produce flowers and fruit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certain that nature played a central role in making time from way before we had \u2018dates\u2019 in the sense of the Gregorian<\/a> calendar we use today. Ancient Neolithic and later stick-calendars carved into bone, stone, ivory or wood, marked astronomical and ecological events<\/a> such the timing of breeding wild birds, flowering and fruiting of plants and the migration of fish and whales, and are thought by some to be the origin of \u2018magic wands\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Fairyland Trust took this as inspiration to invent a signs-of-time \u2018Elf Stick\u2019 Workshop:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Elf Stick \u2018magical stick of time\u2019 or yearly nature-clock\u00a0 A black feather marks the arrival time of Swifts (in Norfolk). Contemporary wild plant and animal events on the yearly nature-clock are marked by leaves, flowers or symbols. The silver circlets are full moons, and the gold circlets the solar equinoxes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Historically the the solar and lunar events were used to time Imbolc (also the Chinese New Year and the Christian Candelmas), and Beltane, Lammas and Halloween, which are \u2018cross quarter\u2019 nature based festivals.\u00a0 These have innumerable folk traditions associated with them, such as how to manage hay meadows (shut out grazing animals at Imbolc\/ Candelmas, let the hay grow, and then harvest it and let the animals back in after Lammas Day (in August)).\u00a0 May is associated with Beltane celebrations of fertility, such as Maypole Dancing, which the Puritans tried to ban, and of course Swifts.<\/p>\n

Awareness raising moments can kick start the process of change-making.\u00a0 The basic audience campaign sequence I use is awareness> alignment> engagement> action (explainer<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In the case of nature it often starts with experiencing a primal sense of awe or wonder.\u00a0 It might be in the mind of a small child discovering a world of insects on back yard flowers, or during a holiday snorkel across a coral reef, or on a first visit to an ancient forest, or to a Bluebell Wood in May but it\u2019s frequently enhanced by having someone with you to point out \u201cwhat we\u2019re looking at\u201d or in the case of a Nightingale, \u201cwhat we are hearing\u201d.\u00a0 Such moments are often followed by an emotional conviction such as \u201cthis is wonderful it must be kept\u201d or in the case of threat or loss, \u201cthis is terrible, it must be stopped\u201d.<\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s Lost Nature-Culture Moment<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The BBC prepares to live-broadcast Nightingales, 1924. In the 2010s the BBC said that technical challenges made repeating Outside Broadcasts of Nightingales too difficult. Photo from <\/em>Science Museum<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Mass broadcast media made it possible for millions of people to experience such moments together, from their homes.\u00a0 The first ever<\/a> live Outside Broadcast was made on BBC radio, from 10.45 \u2013 11pm on May 19 1924.\u00a0 It was also the first ever live broadcast of a wild bird.<\/p>\n

This famous broadcast came about because musician Beatrice Harrison realised in 1923 that when she played the cello in her garden, she was being accompanied by a Nightingale singing in the adjacent woods.<\/p>\n

Harrison told Lord Reith who ran the BBC, and next year the resulting historic live broadcast was listened to by a million people, some as far afield as Italy, Paris, Barcelona and Hungary.\u00a0 The BBC interrupted a broadcast by the Savoy \u2018Orpheans\u2019 dance band to do so<\/a>.\u00a0 It was so popular that over 50,000 people wrote letters to Harrison, and in subsequent years, thousands turned up at the Harrison\u2019s house to hear the Nightingales,\u00a0 where the family fed them beer and tea.<\/p>\n

The BBC continued the tradition each year, interrupting live radio concerts of dance music, until 1942 in World War 2.\u00a0\u00a0 A popular cultural nature event, if ever there was one, now lost.<\/p>\n

By 2000, Nightingale numbers in the UK had plummeted 90% so when one sang on a heath near our house in Norfolk, I walked up the road up to listen, and wanting to share the experience with someone else, I called journalist Mike McCarthy and held up my phone to the bird.\u00a0 Mike picked up just as he was leaving an Indian resturant on the Chiswick High Road in London.\u00a0\u00a0 He later wrote about<\/a> the moment in The Independent<\/em>.<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cLive. Real. Not a recording. Singing now. The five pure slow deep notes, then the characteristic jug-jug-jug, then the machine-gun rattle, all delivered fresh and clear on the night air.\u00a0 For a moment, as the alcohol fumes swirled around my brain, I thought I was hallucinating; but by no means. The bird was singing in a copse … at Salthouse on the north Norfolk coast 140 miles away\u201d. \u2013 Mike McCarthy, 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2014 when there were even fewer Nightingales to be heard,\u00a0 I started a 38Degrees petition to get the BBC to restart the Reith Nightingale broadcasts, (more at Nightingale Nights<\/a>).<\/p>\n

3,000 people signed the Nightingale petition. I did my own amateur live broadcasts using internet sharing technology and a mobile phone. Andre Farrar from the RSPB and friends attempted to do a streaming broadcast from Kent and sound technician Richard Fair did one from Florndon near Norwich.<\/p>\n

In the end, the BBC did broadcast a snatch of live song on a Springwatch programme and aired a string of programmes about musicians and singers performing with Nightingales but it never reinstated the annual live broadcast, citing technical challenges.\u00a0 According to a friend in PR, the real reason was that they feared it would make them look old-fashioned to critics in government.<\/p>\n

I still think it\u2019s an idea which could help efforts to conserve these incredible birds.\u00a0 Few people are unmoved by hearing the live song of a Nightingale, especially one singing alone on a quiet night.\u00a0 In the UK where their dwindling numbers are concentrated in the South East, devotees can travel over a hundred miles to stand with others and hear one.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a nature experience that should be part of everyone\u2019s culture, and a live broadcast could enable the whole nation to join in.<\/p>\n

\u2018Spectaculars\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The RSPB, and the BBC\u2019s Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch, and others, have promoted numerous \u2018bird spectacles\u2019, such as Starling \u2018murmurations\u2019 around roosts.<\/p>\n

\u2018Spectacles\u2019 are great for nature engagement as they are discrete defined moments which are socially \u2018portable\u2019, shareable, referrable, recommendable: all qualities which commend themselves to the esteem-seeking Prospectors who are the major psychological group least served by the open-ended, multi-layered, often intellectualised environmental offers shaped by the Pioneers who dominate the hierarchies of cause organisations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Put it another way, without the pyschographic jargon: spectacles are great as aspirational, mainstream people can enjoy them with confidence, without being made to feel looked down upon by smug \u2018experts\u2019.<\/p>\n

A spectacle moment which now needs little promotion is watching Starlings around their roost above the sea on the piers at Brighton beach.\u00a0 It has become a social reference point.\u00a0 The Brighton Argus<\/em> report<\/a>ed that the day after it featured in a 2023 Winterwatch broadcast, 5,000 people turned up to see the Starling murmuration.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo by Simon Dack, Brighton Argus \u2013 the dots in the sea are swimmers watching the Starlings (in 5.C water in February).<\/em>\u00a0 The Starlings roost under the Palace Pier and the ruined West Pier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Watching the Starlings from Brighton Beach.\u00a0 Photo <\/em>Redmarkred<\/em><\/a> on Reddit\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

This commercial is one<\/a> of the best videos of the Brighton murmuration.\u00a0 Google rerturns 18,400 results for \u2018starling murmuration video\u2019.\u00a0 In Brighton \u2018catching the murmuration\u2019 has become a social reference point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Folk\/pop singer Ella Clayton named her first LP \u2018Murmurations\u2019 after her wistful love song of the same name, including the line \u201cand did you see the starlings murmurations by the pier as the sun set in?\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>Youtube Video<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Less accessible than Brighton beach Starlings but treated as a bucket-list nature must-see by birdwatchers, are the clouds of Knot, wintering shorebirds who each year come to the Wash on England\u2019s East Coast. They come from Arctic breeding grounds as far away as Canada.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>BBC report incl video<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The RSPB posts advice<\/a> on seeing the \u2018spectacular\u2019 when very high tides force over 100,000 of the birds off their regular mudflats and into tight crowds on the RSPB Snettisham reserve<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other bird \u2018spectacular\u2019s include gatherings of Red Kites which are fed at Llanddeusant<\/a> in the Brecon Beacons and Gigrin Farm<\/a> in Mid-Wales, and winter gatherings of wild geese and swans at many of the reserves run by the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust<\/a>, including Welney and Slimbridge.<\/p>\n

The Night<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A non-bird moment which can deeply affect us is the first time we get a good look at the stars.\u00a0 Many people are fascinated by what goes on above their heads (and especially their homes) but which they don\u2019t usually notice.<\/p>\n

This was key to the the popularity of long running BBC tv programme The Sky At Night<\/a>, started in 1957.\u00a0 The original format was fronted by eccentric astronomer Patrick Moore until 2012, and showed viewers, originally in live broadcasts, the stars that were visible over their heads at the time of broadcast.<\/p>\n

A \u2018Sky At Night\u2019 episode on BBC1 on 4 September 2013, featuring amateur astronomers in their back gardens, was watched<\/a> by nearly 1.5 million.\u00a0 Fearing modernizers at the BBC was about to axe the programme as \u2018slow tv\u2019 in the age of online, a petition to save it was signed 40,000<\/a>. The BBC transferred it to the less watched BBC4, where it\u2019s become a space issues magazine programme and lost the immediacy and home-sky connection of the original format.\u00a0 [See current BBC astronomy content<\/a> including a spin off online monthly \u2018Sky at Night\u2019 magazine<\/a> on star gazing].<\/p>\n

Of course in most places people in the UK live, light pollution makes it hard to see the real night sky.<\/p>\n

With abundant evidence that light pollution is harming human health as well multiple elements of nature, from birds and trees to insects<\/a>, there is great scope for nature groups to actively collaborate with the \u2018Dark Skies\u2019<\/a> movement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>CPRE <\/em>light pollution map<\/em><\/a> for England<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently <\/em>discovered<\/em><\/a> – <\/em>how lights create<\/em><\/a> an ecological trap for insects, who try to keep their back to a bright light at night (such as the moon), and die by exhuasting themselves flying around artificial lights, or get eaten by predators. Also featured on Springwatch.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Norfolk-based nature guide David Atthowe of <\/em>Reveal Nature<\/em><\/a> uses a uv torch to make nature visible to people at night \u2013 from lichens and fish to fungi and moths.\u00a0 His \u2018safaris\u2019 are consumable moments of discovery.\u00a0 Above \u2013 at Ty Canol National Park during the 2024 Welsh national \u201c<\/em>Dark Skies Week<\/em><\/a>\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cutting down light pollution is an easy to understand way to help nature, just by changing lighting.\u00a0 Householders can do it through the home or garden lighting they chose, and street lighting is something that Councils can control and Councillors can decide.\u00a0 As can businesses with exterior lighting.\u00a0 So it\u2019s easily available to NGOs for local, regional or national campaigns (as has been done much more in Europe, eg France, and in North America, than in the UK).<\/p>\n

The introduction of LED street lighting has accidentally made the problem worse because most Councils have chosen ultra bright cold white lights which do the most harm.<\/p>\n

Warm lights (with a light temperature rating below 2700K) do the least damage.\u00a0 A case of warm lights good – cold lights bad. (All LEDs use far less energy than old tech bulbs).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Image adapted from <\/em>https:\/\/blog.nitecorestore.com\/color-temperatures-in-flashlights.html<\/em><\/a> and Friends of the <\/em>Lake District Good Lighting Guide<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From the Cumbria \/Lake District lighting guide.<\/em><\/p>\n

Most bird migration takes place at night, with the birds feeding by day. In the United States, awareness of the harm done by lighting has also been driven by the huge numbers of migrant birds killed as they crash into windows of tall buildings, lured by lights. Campaigns have led some cities to organise switch-offs to save them, for example in Texas<\/a>.\u00a0 The organisation FLAP<\/a> in Ontario, Canada campaigns to stop some of the one billion birds being killed by flying into lighted windows and reflective surfaces in North America, every year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>This extraordinary artwork by <\/em>Patricia Homonlyo<\/em><\/a> is called \u2018When worlds collide\u2019. <\/em>She explains: \u201cThe Layout honouring birds collected in [Toronto in] 2022 when FLAP recovered approximately 4,000 birds. This annual event serves to educate the public while providing closure for the volunteers\u201d.<\/p>\n

National Migration Moments<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you live right on the UK South Coast, a few times a year you may see clouds of migrant butterflies coming in from the sea having flown from Europe. If you live on the East Coast, you may notice swarms of Ladybirds on coastal vegetation as they do the same in summer, or see Blackbirds and other thrushes, even owls, coming ashore in the late autumn.\u00a0 The birds then spread across the country.\u00a0 These mass movements of birds usually only last a day or two.<\/p>\n

In late autumn keen birdwatchers will go out into their gardens at night when they know migrant thrushes are passing overhead (they fly low) and listen out for the high pitched \u2018seep\u2019 call of Redwings from Scandinavia.\u00a0 But that\u2019s an unusual activity.\u00a0 A few even more dedicated UK bird enthusiasts are part of a \u2018NocMig\u2019 Nocturnal Migration network, and set up microphones to capture and identify the calls of birds flying over at night ( examples<\/a>).\u00a0 In reality very few people are aware of the dramatic waves of migrating birds passing over millions of homes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [The day after I wrote this the RSPB made listening for Redwings one of it\u2019s six top Things To See in Nature for October<\/a> but knowing when<\/em> the birds would be flooding over, would help enormously].<\/p>\n

One way to change this would be to use radar, which can detect flying birds and even tell how large they are.\u00a0\u00a0 Weather and air traffic radar already detects bird migration but in the UK the data is not made available, and is \u2018scrubbed\u2019 from the images used to show rain or aircraft.<\/p>\n

In the US, Colorado State University and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology currently produce bird migration forecasts, similar to the weather forecast, using radar networks. They show predicted nocturnal migration 3 hours after local sunset and are updated every 6 hours.\u00a0 This BirdCast<\/a> system results from a 20 year collaboration between universities and government agencies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This BirdCast \u2018primer<\/a>\u2019 shows radar video of waves of birds on their autumn migration in October 2017, as they come in from Canada and head south. Some radar returns show them heading across the sea to the Caribbean, into Mexico towards Central America.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The real time BirdCast map (above) from 26 September 2024 shows 181.7 million birds in flight at 7am Eastern Time.<\/p>\n

It would be possible to do the same in the UK, if the right organisations could collaborate<\/a>. Some Dutch bird scientists do have access to radar \u2013 in the video image below, Hans van Gasteren @hvangasteren on twitter, showed a large surge of birds setting off for the UK from the Dutch coast in autumn 2022 (tech from RobinRadar<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Watch the video <\/em>here<\/em><\/a> \u2013 the red and yellow tracks indicate birds of different sizes.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Conservationists speak of the \u201cextinction of experience\u201d as nature is eroded and we live lives more insulated from nature. We are aware of air traffic above us from the sound of jet engines and contrail pollution but generally the birds migrating high above us remain invisible.\u00a0 Projects like BirdCast and the UV night walks can offer us some compensating \u201cexpansion of experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

Birding or birdwatching has transitioned from a weird and unusual past-time to a mainstream activity over the last 100 years so, for example, looking at a BirdCast style online map showing which birds are migrating over your home, would not be a social challenge.\u00a0 The awareness that could be created neighbour to neighbour or friend to friend \u2013 \u201chave you seen what\u2019s happening?\u201d \u2013 could then lead into other activities.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Cuckooflower \u2013 a plant in time with it\u2019s bird<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1994 ,for Flora Brittanica<\/em>, Richard Mabey collected reports of the Cuckoo calling and the first-flowering dates of the Cuckoo-flower, or Lady\u2019s Smock blooming, from around Britain.\u00a0 He found \u2018the first full blooming of Cuckooflower was a fairly accurate predictor of the first hearing of the bird itself\u2019.<\/p>\n

All sections<\/p>\n

1 \u2013 Introduction And Nature Ability<\/p>\n

2 \u2013 Missing The Garden Opportunity<\/p>\n

3 \u2013 Signalling and Marking Moments<\/p>\n

4 \u2013 Nature Events in Popular Culture<\/p>\n

5 \u2013 Why Conservation Should Embrace Natural History<\/p>\n

6 \u2013 Organising Strategy and Ways And Means<\/p>\n

7 \u2013 Afterword: Aren\u2019t We Doing This Already?<\/p>\n

Contact: chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Section 3 – Signalling Nature And Marking Moments download as pdf \u00a0Just Add Signs I spent a year in this building, part of UCL in London\u2019s Gower Street, without reading this, high above the pavement but a plaque to Darwin … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3271"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3437,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3271\/revisions\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}