20 east

Today’s nature moment comes courtesy of Zosia who noticed this wren (troglodytes troglodytes) outside the study window. It is looking a bit nervous because we’re getting close to December 26th.

In the European folklore the Wren is the King of the Birds. According a fable of Aesop, long ago the birds held a contest to see who could fly the highest; this one should become the King of the Birds. At first it looked as though the Eagle would win easily. But just as the Eagle began to tire, the Wren, which had hidden under the Eagle’s tail feathers, crept out, soared far above and shouted: “I’m the King!” Thus the Wren proved that cleverness is better than strength. The Wren’s majesty is recognized in such stories as the Grimm Brothers’ The Willow-Wren and the Bear. Aristoteles and Plutarch called the Wren basileus (king) and basiliskos (little king). In Japan the Wren is also calling King of the Winds.

It was a sacred bird to the Druids, who considered it “supreme among all the birds”, and used its musical notes for divination. The shape-shifting Fairy Queen took the form of a Wren, known as “Jenny Wren” in nursery rhymes. A Wren’s feather was thought to be a charm against disaster or drowning.

The Wren also features in the legend of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who supposedly was betrayed by the noisy bird as he attempted to hide from his enemies. Traditionally, St. Stephen’s Day (26 December) has been commemorated by Hunting the Wren, wherein young Wrenboys would catch the bird and then ritually parade it around town, as described in the traditional Wren Song. “The Wren, the Wren, the king of all birds, St. Stephen’s day was caught in the furze. Although he is little, his family’s great, I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.” The tradition, and the significance of the Wren as a symbol and sacrifice of the old year, is discussed in Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough.

This mythological association with treachery is a probable reason why in past times the bird was hunted by Wrenboys on St. Stephen’s Day. A captured wren was killed and tied to the Wrenboy leader’s staff pole. Wrenboys no longer practice this aspect of the Wren, although the event is still referred to as Hunting The Wren. Devoted Wrenboys, with their colourful straw costumes and masks, and with the accompanying céilí bands, continue to ensure that the Gaelic tradition of celebrating the Wren continues to this day.

I’m going to be bold and declare autumn in Młociny as starting today!

It is 09:30, overcast and damp with a temperature of 11C. The grass is heavy with dew making my slippers and trouser bottoms wet as I tramp around the lawn checking for signs of the Shaggy Ink Cap mushrooms I had spotted earlier in the week. They have disappeared already, earlier than last year, but I manage to find another variety and take a shot of those instead. I’m accompanied on this stroll by the feint sounds of megaphone-speak drifting across from neighbouring Młociny park where they must be holding another Sunday event and by the birds flitting around between the feeders I filled yesterday.

I found some easy to purchase peanuts, by the way. Carrefour “Happy Nuts”, unsalted and relatively cheap peanuts for about 5 zlots a pack with one pack filling a pretty big feeder. Certainly keeps the birds happy. Hallelujah!

The early dropping trees, such as our very old Black Poplar, have already shed their leaves and others are now joining in with only the oak showing no signs that autumn is here. Oaks must naturally have their time clocks shifted somewhat later than the rest as the oak was also the last to get its leaves this spring by quite a margin. The squirrels and jays have already stripped it of acorns and hidden them in one of a multitude of hiding places that their tiny little brains will remember months later when the need is greater.

Weather such as this morning always reminds me of England, primarily because it is damp and chilly. It’s only when you’ve been away from England for a long time that you can truly appreciate how liquid the weather is over there with heavy/light rain, drizzle, dew, wet fog or ice being the norm and dry sunny days few and far between. A maritime climate warmed by the influence of the Gulf Stream is a very characterful and memorable thing, like an old friend who’s always there and can be relied upon even though he’s a bit annoying most of the time. Very different to the continental climate we have in Warsaw where it rains very infrequently but when it does it tends to be stormy with a lot of water coming down in a short time.

So it is that a morning like this reminds me of England and has me reaching for the appropriate clothing, the Barbour jacket and wellies. Except I don’t possess either of them nowadays. I did notice a Barbour shop on Emilii Plater the other day and as wellies are now a hot fashion accessory in Warsaw I think I shall pop in and buy a pair soon. They won’t be extravagantly decorated, as is the current trend, but they will do the job and last for ages.

One last nostalgia trip never before encountered in Poland was the sight a while back of Polish families throwing sticks at horse-chestnut trees to gather conkers! It is perhaps too much to expect that they were going on to thread them onto a piece of string and try to smash their opponents conker to smithereens; or to pickle them in vinegar and bake them in the oven to make them even more indestructible (AKA cheating), or to call the flatter shaped ones with a cutting edge “cheese cutters”, or to lovingly take care of their “sixer” (the one that has won six battles), or even to have those nervous moments when you’re up against an opponent who’s swing is so wild that he’s more likely to smash your knuckles than your conker but you can’t twitch because he’ll just get another go. Too much to ask, I’m sure. It was probably just an assignment from school and they now nestle as a feature in a display of autumn leaves and twigs. It brought back memories though of me doing the same many years ago, somewhere along Salmon Street, a short bus ride from Wembley Stadium, here:

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I wonder, as this part of London is now an outpost of Bangladesh, whether the locals still gather conkers and play the game as we did? I hope so but if not the game of conkers must surely be alive and well in other parts of that green and pleasant land.

Toads possibly?

For a while now we have been serenaded regularly and loudly by what we assume to be either frogs or toads living somewhere around the lake. This evening we decided to go look for them, which was very good of M because she has what one might call an “irrational” fear of frogs. Unfortunately, they were well hidden somewhere around the border of the lake in the reeds so we were not able to get any shots of them but we did get the sound they make just in case anyone is able to identify frogs/toads by their call?

This is just a short clip because they could obviously smell/hear/see us and were chatting for only a very short time and at significantly less volume than normal.

Finally, here’s the very brave M trying to de-sensitise herself from amphibic things by picking up the only one that crossed our path, a tiny little froglett that must have been born yesterday!

Latest addition to the ’spotted in the garden’ list is the Fieldfare Turdus pilaris (Kwiczoł).

These first came to my attention when a couple were seriously harassing a Magpie with a furious chattering noise. The Magpie buggered off pretty quickly and in recent days these birds have been the ones strutting confidently around digging out the best worms. According to my bird guide Fieldfare are prone to pursuing crows of all kinds and bombarding them with excrement. Nice! Perhaps that explains the “Turdus” part of the Latin name?

It’s snowing again in Warsaw but this time it’s snowing tree fluff and not frozen water.

There’s an incredible amount of it about at the moment blowing in the air and getting caught in the grass.

I suppose a consequence of living where we do with so many trees around. I’ve been trying to work out where it is all coming from and the best I can establish is that it’s coming from trees like this one;

Which are producing enormous amounts of super-fluffy ‘catkins’ like this;

It is nothing more than a way of dispersing seeds, each one wrapped in its own little cotton wool flying machine. You can see the seeds in this close-up;

Exactly the same method of seed dispersal as the dandelion, as Zosia now demonstrates!

M said this is called in Polish “Babie lato” (or something that sounded like that) but I can’t find any references to that on the web. Perhaps it’s a very colloquial thing and given different names in different places?

Anyone know what the tree is?