Eco Holidays

posted by Catherine on Apr 3

As part of the ‘Making Wildlife Watching Easy’ series, here’s a nice simple wildbird guide: How to tell the difference between Rooks and Crows.

These 2 large black (and noisy) birds can be seen in both town and countryside. They are both quite heavy-looking and are often seen in groups – usually in trees. But although they look virtually identical from a distance, they have some very different features when you look more closely.

So, what are the key features to help tell them apart?

Well, the main differences are with the beaks, the legs and their habits – the easiest to spot is that the beak of the rook is larger, has 2 colours on it (black tip and cream toward the cheeks) and looks a bit scarier!

photo credit: foxypar4

Once you can spot this – all the other differences aren’t important. However saying that, I still have a bit of trouble getting them to stand still so I can have a look!

And although pictures of them side by side can clearly show you the differences, when they are flapping about or up in the air – it really isn’t that easy first few times, so this is where you can use their behaviour to help you. Rooks are nearly always in large groups and rarely ever alone, whereas crows will often be solitary or in a small family group.

Visually, these are the main differences – and I have written them down only if they are clear differences rather than ‘a slightly rounder tail’, etc. These things should be clearly noticable with or without binoculars:

Rook – Pointy beak that has black tip and is exposed right to the eye.
Rook – Ruffled looking all over with noticable spikey head and untidy leg feathers.

photo credit: foxypar4

Crow – Shorter, more curved beak which stops at the face and with feathers on top.
Crow – Neat rounded head feathers, with neat little ‘trousers’ at the top of the leg.

photo credit: dustpuppy

Obviously there are natural variations to both birds that you can only tell through experience – for example juvenile rooks are lacking the fully exposed beak and therefore they resemble a crow from a distance.

Jackdaws and Ravens are also black and really shouldn’t be confused with crows or rooks! Both are completely different sizes and it won’t take much looking to tell them apart.

Jackdaws are considerably smaller and have an almost silver sheen to their feathers and a clear black forehead that is easy to see when they land. They also have really bright yellow eyes! They are often seen with flocks of rooks so you can compare their size.

photo credit: Maxwell Hamilton

Ravens on the other hand are huge! If you saw a raven on the ground without any scale – it would look just like a crow – however, if seen next to known plants or other birds you won’t mistake them.

They are about the size of a herring gull where as crows aren’t much bigger than a magpie! They have over a meter wingspan in flight and an obvious wedge shape to the tail too.

posted by Catherine on Mar 25

The sun is shining and the lambs are hopping round their field – or are they?

When we see little lambs bouncing around in the sun – we can only think of how cute they are. Out come the cameras and the high pitched voices as we point at them with our friends and children.

But did you know that those little sheep are fighting to keep adonis blue butterflies breeding in southern England?

How? Well, it isn’t like they are waving banners about or stopping urban development in the area – they are just doing what they do best. Eating grass.

An Easy Life:
Basically, these sheep are grazing the hillside landscapes that blanket the south of England as well as other sloping grassy surfaces around the world because that is what they are good at.

Sheep thrive in these niche landscapes due to their breeding – or our manipulation of their breeding – and so they have changed the way things look around them. And as a result of that have helped to create habitats where wild flowers and insects thrive.

But these habitats are man-made (or sheep-made) and a few years of no grazing, and all the plants, insects and birds are at risk of being lost!

Without the sheep mowing the hillsides flat – including shoots from all other plants, bushes and trees – the grass would soon become covered in scrub, brambles and gorse, which in turn would become overgrown and then allow for tree growth.

How You Can Help.
Now that farming is becoming less and less profitable, sheep farmers are limited to the amount of sheep they can keep for this valuable biodiversity control – and so flocks are getting smaller and grasslands are shrinking.

So are wildflower and insect populations.

So, when you local farm invites you inside to watch the lambs, stroke them, hold them and maybe even take a ride around the farm in a tractor – he is really asking you to help make sure that the sheep can stay.

And ultimately, he is asking you to save your local grasslands and your local landscapes.

Could you imagine your local open spaces covered in prickly bramble and spikey gorse bushes instead of fields of soft picnic-inducing grasslands?

All you have to do to help keep them that way – is to pay to go and see some cute lambs; your local species and habitat saving warriors in disguise!

photo credit: Tim Pokorny

posted by Catherine on Mar 9

Does booking an eco holiday really mean you have to pay more for everything?

We all know that you can’t find a great eco holiday package for less than a ‘short hop to the sun’ type holiday, because you are comparing 2 different things: you either want to respect the environment and the people living in it, or you want to spend as little as possible to get somewhere warm.

But if you are planning to find travel deals that can help you to plan a more independent holiday – then you shouldn’t have to pay more to get there and back for example.

If you are planning to spend 3 months travelling across Europe, or spend a year moving around South America – there is no need to pay full price for your transport if you can get it at a reduced price.

I mean why would you offer to pay full price for a train ride from New York to Los Angeles if the person behind you in the queue was only paying a fraction of that cost? There is nothing you can do to stop a company from offering a promotional rate – however you could always refuse the offer and pay full price if you want – but I’m sure nobody would really do that!

Your Long Trip:
So if you are planning a long vacation somewhere – you may still want to search for the best deals on transport, food and accommodation – so that you can travel for longer.

You will of course still have your normal eco standards, like no ‘bush meat’ or no meat at all; no consumer products from giant stores; no hotel chains; etc – but you can find the best vacation discount for whatever it is that you are looking for.

You still need to sleep somewhere, buy products, eat food and travel from A to B – so why not use the Internet to help you find what you are looking for with link-filled sites like TravelFinders.co to help you find specific travel websites that could help you.

People you meet will also have reduced prices to offer you when you arrive somewhere – maybe 1 night free if you stay a week, half price trip if you book another trip through the same agent, etc. Deals are all around us and taking advantage of them doesn’t need to go against your eco thinking.

If you saw 6 free range organic eggs for sale for half the price of another brand of free range organic eggs – I’m sure you wouldn’t opt for the more expensive ones. Same thing with everything in life.

And there may be times when you do need to book a ticket on a plane for those longer journeys or in times of trouble – so why not look for a cheap flights going the same way?

Being eco friendly doesn’t mean you have to pay more – it means you won’t settle for less than what you believe in.

posted by Catherine on Feb 22

Why not take an extended eco holiday to a part of your past?

These days you can buy yourself a genome-realted DNA test that may well help you to see where your ancient ancestors came from or travelled through on their journey to becoming you!

It is currently believed that around 60,000 years ago the first humans started to move away from their original homeland. Theories still abound as to why they moved and how they managed it – but basically from those first steps – they sowed the seeds for all the thousands or cultures, languages and peoples that we know today.

Some of these groups are still very isolated such as island communites, whereas others are now highly mixed up including many capital cities like London and New York.

Over thousands of years of migration, settlement, working and trade; cultures have met, mixed and moved on. But where does your history come from – where has your distant family been living all this time?

Genome Testing.
It is now possible to buy a testing kit for yourself or a friend that will tell you about the journey of your ancestors as far as we know it.

There have been many studies over the past few decades that have found certain ‘markers’ in human DNA which can be plotted on a map of the world based on where these markers are found within indigenous populations still living in those locations.

For example, certain markers found in indigenous people living on Island A will be identified as different to all other marker combinations, so if your DNA is found to have most or all of those same markers, then you can almost guarantee that your ‘family’ were there too at some point.

And as humans moved from Africa across Asia, Europe and the Americas, they left a trail of these similar markers – and it is these markers that the DNA test can highlight for you.

These markers can be found for both your maternal linage – through your mother and then her mother and then all the mothers for ever; or paternally through your father, then his father, then all your family’s fathers (however only males can follow their paternal lineage due to the ‘Y’ chromosome – as ladies don’t have one!).

This tracing backwards doesn’t give you a list of all their names and addresses of course, it just tells you whether your markers are found in certain populations over time and in which areas and countries.

Wow!
This is of course something that could change your life. Especially if you have no idea what your ancestry is and find out that most of your past relatives were from a totally different continent to what you thought.

I know skin colour and your direct relations might give you a clue to more recent family ties over the past 100 years (like the last 3 generations of my family were all from Europe) – but they can be hiding a whole host of other relatives over the past 59,900 years that are hidden within our genes!

And finding out that your history is focussed in a whole new landscape could be the very input you needed to find a new path in life. What if you could travel back to that place for an extended period of time; learn about who still lives there and past events.

And if it is still a developing region – there may be volunteer or teaching opportunites close by so that you could actually be helping people still living in that very place who share a similar past to you.

If you are interested in learning more about yourself, then maybe take a look at one such Genome Project and take it from there?

photo credit: Lordcolus

posted by Catherine on Feb 16

As part of the ‘Making Wildlife Watching Easy’ series, here’s a nice simple wildbird guide: How to tell the difference between Blue Tits and Great Tits.

These 2 garden birds are both small, both love feeders, both look blue and yellow and both sing pretty songs – so how can you tell them apart?

Well the answer is ‘easily, if you know what to look for’.

So, what is the difference between a Blue tit and a Great tit?
Well, there are many differences, but the easiest thing to spot at the feeders is that the Great tit has an almost entirely black head and neck apart from a giant white cheek pouch – see below:

Once you can spot this – all the other differences aren’t so important. However saying that, I still haven’t got it spot on yet. I have to watch them for a while until I am sure.

And although pictures of them side by side can clearly show you the differences, when they are upside on a feeder with 10 other Blue or Great tits – it’s not so easy, so you can also look at their behaviour too to tell them apart.

photo credit: Mostly Dans

Blue tit on the left and Great tit on the right. Did you get it?

So, based on your observations outside – I have written down the main differences below as they are ‘clear’ differences – things that you can see in a second – rather than saying Species A has ‘a slightly bigger patch of white’, etc. These things should be obvious to you, with or without binoculars:

Great Tit – Totally black head and neck with giant white cheek patches.
Great Tit – Wide black solid line from chin to underbelly in adults splitting the yellow breast in half.

photo credit: ahisgett

Blue Tit – Light blue ‘cap’ on top of head – seperated by a white band around the head.
Blue Tit – Dark line running through the eye, with white feathers above and below it.

photo credit: chapmankj75

Obviously there are natural variations on this like juvenile Great tits don’t have the solid black chest line or bold white cheek patches, but still don’t have the dark eye stripe of the Blue tits.

What If It Looks Like A Great Tit But Isn’t Blue Or Yellow?
Coal tits are another common garden bird and can look a bit like both the Great and Blue tits, but for a few observable differences.

They have the same black head and large white cheek patches of the Great tit but have a seemingly longer flatter head giving them the appearance of having ‘no neck’. They do have a grey/blue back, but do not have a yellow chest at all, it is normally buff to brown.

posted by Catherine on Feb 8

If you see ‘poisonous’ Ragwort alongside a footpath – would you destroy it?

After all, Ragwort is known for it’s toxic nature – and is always destroyed on equestrian land and is generally unwanted on cattle grazing land and in hay meadows.

Eating it over a period of time will usually cause permanent liver damage, but this is very, very rare in reality. However, some walkers take it upon themselves to snap off the ragwort stems as they pass them by – for reasons only known to them.

However – I bet it didn’t oocur to them that the land owners or reserve wardens may in fact be actively encouraging the ragwort to grow there.

photo credit: MGSpiller

Who’s Land Is It Anyway?
Many countryside walkers assume that the land is unchecked, not cared for and little visited by the owners – but they would be wrong in nearly all cases.

All land is ‘owned’ by someone and they would either look after it themselves or have someone else look after it for them (usually with some financial incentive).

And if you studied any biology or geography in your life you would know that there is a natural pattern of succession in the plant world, starting with bare rock or dried riverbed, leading up to mature forest.

(If you are one step ahead of me now you will know what I am about the say.)

As a result of this natural pattern – if land wasn’t tended to or ‘controlled’ by somebody – then the very grassy patch or field where you just snapped that ragwort in half in wouldn’t actually be grassy – or even have any ragwort in. It would be a mature forest.

And as with your own land (generally just your garden) – even if it looks a bit messy and you are at work 5 days a week – you really wouldn’t want someone to walk through it while you were out and then take it upon themselves to cut down your only tree and uproot your rhodedenron bush.

Understand Nature’s Way:
By cutting down young or densly growing trees down to create a glade, or patch of open grass in the middle of a woodland can be a fantastic haven for dozens of butterfly and moth species – and some of them just love Ragwort!

The day-flying Cinnabar Moth (a bright red medium-sized moth) is most renowned for this association and has bright yellow and black striped caterpillars that feed on the ragwort plants. Many other moths also use the plant for parts of their lifecycle.

photo credit: MGSpiller

And strangely enough – bearing in mind how horrible the plant tastes – sheep tend to love an appetiser of Ragwort amongst their normal grasses and flowers. It is believed to kill off internal parasites for them!

Woodlands all over the country are managed to a certain extent – even though they tend to take care of themselves most of the time – but if you want to attract any birds, mammals or insects that don’t live in woodlands, then you need to cut them down.

And that is just what happens throughout the year on the very land you are walking on.

Some plants are best cut down at certain times of the year – and of course you can’t disturb a nesting bird over the spring – so rather than taking on the role of dangerous plant destroyer (ivy cutter/squirrel scarer/dead wood clearer/or anything at all that isn’t agreed in advance with the land-owner) – just walk on by.

If you have anything you would like to share with them about their land, then contact them in the appropriate fashion rather than just sabotage their property.

So, when you are out exploring the countryside – think of their trees as you would of your garden fence; their plants as you would of your rosebush; their gates as your own front door.

Would you want someone to leave your front door open, break down your fence and snap your rosebush in half?

I didn’t think so…….

posted by Catherine on Jan 29

Michel Thomas Language Series – The 8 Part Course For Beginners.

Format: 8 CDs

Style: This course is completly reliant on you listening to his voice and the efforts of his 2 students. He basis his teaching on ‘No Books, No Writing – Just Confidence In Hours’, so just sit back and listen your way to a new language.

Language: Latin/Roman Script – (My Language: Same)
Have I Tried This Language Before? – Yes, but I have only learnt basic phases – Michel promises to teach you how to use the language rather than just repeat it.

General Comments:
I love it! Seriously – it wasn’t the same old things as all the other language courses.

There was no ‘Hello my name is….’ or ‘I am from….’ or even ‘Where is the tourist office/train station/chemist’, infact we hardly learned any nouns at all.

So how can you learn a language without pages and pages of fruits, vegetables and furniture? With ease! These can all come later as Michel Thomas teaches you how to use verbs to express yourself.

Once you know a verb – you can use it to mean dozens of different things; and use these verbs alongside ‘it’, ‘that’ and ‘this’ and add in a ‘here’, ‘there’ and ‘tomorrow’ and you can say what ever you want.

If you only learn the nouns you can only ask the same question or state the same thing to use any number of nouns (for example ‘I like dogs/cats/cheese’ or ‘I want a sandwich/coffee/room’) whereas I can easily now say plenty of more interesting things like ‘I don’t like that’, ‘I don’t want to go there today’ and ‘Will you buy that for me tomorrow as I can’t buy it myself today’.

It really immerses you in the very heart of the language rather than skirting you around the edges. And although every single thing he said hasn’t stayed stuck in my mind and I get some of the verbs mixed up – I feel so much more confident about the language.

And it’s great to listen to other people trying to learn at the same time as you on the CD – almost like you are in a classroom. That way you can feel that you are doing as well as or even better than the students in the recording – or huff at yourself when you can’t remember the verbs and they say it for you! The number of times I said to myself ‘oh I knew it!’.

There were times when a whole section went over my head the first time, but then I just went back over that section again a second time and more of it slipped into place!

I have learnt so much more than I expected on this course as it is so different from the other approaches that I have reviewed on this site. You really have to try it for yourself.

So if you are bored of the ‘standard’ approach of ordering food and taking directions at the start of every language course; then maybe it is time you tried the Michel Thomas way!

Ease Of Use: 5/5

Result: Finished And Confident

Reason: Perfect Layout For Me

posted by Catherine on Jan 23

Nothing beats actually doing something – so book yourself on a course.

If you are one of those people who says ‘oh, I’ve always wanted to do that…’ then you need to start doing them!

Sometimes they are such simple things, like going to a local castle, walking along a certain coast, climbing a certain mountain – all of which are usually free, but we never seem to fit them in, even though they are so simple to do.

Other things people might not get round to are new skills – or improving existing skills – where courses can be free, or the cost going to a great cause.

You will never learn how to identify fungi unless you get out there and actually search for them; learning bird calls is impossible without listening to the birds themselves and you certainly can’t learn how to manage a woodland, divert a stream or grow your own food from just reading a book!

Local Courses:
So, by booking yourself on to a course with a local agency, charity or organisation, you will finally get around to achieving something outdoorsy and eco friendly – and have a great time learning!

Build You Own Bug House

Here I have listed some courses and talks that I have found available in local advertisings – things that you could easily do:

Sustainable Building Talk – Local Permaculture Group:
Spend the morning listening to a talk by a leading local expert with a Q&A session – and then have a tour of an existing sustainably built and run eco house and get to see what is working where inside and outside.

Make Your Landscape Photography Come Alive – Local Wildlife Trust:
An intensive 1-day course for landscape photography for beginners and improvers. A few hours in the class room first thing to cover the basic settings, composition and equipment – then out in the field to experiment with emotion, light and adding your own style.

Basic Bushkraft – Local Independant Adult Ed Centre
Covering an array of outdoor skills – you will spend the day with adults all experimenting with basic survival skills. These skills include; green wood-working, shelter building, fire lighting, knots and cooking.

A Weekend With A View – Local Youth Hostels
Stay for 2 days at a local Youth Hostel in a picturesque location – with activites and walks planned throughout. Explore the local area and landscapes with your guide before settling down for group dinner and stories in the evening. Wake up to fresh air and a great breakfast and then head off on more adventures till hometime!

There Is Something For Everyone:
Even if none of those sound like your kettle of fish, then hunt around for other adventures to get you outside and exploring – and hopefully learning a new skill along the way.

Whether its an evening with badgers or bats, woodland or heathland ecology, an introduction to beekeeping or butterflies, or maybe rock pools, painting, basketry and bryophytes! You can always find something you like.

So, no more excuses – do what you have always wanted to do!

posted by Catherine on Jan 6

Your empty car could cause charities to lose money and reduce visitor numbers!

Thinking about what your car can do when you aren’t using it is one of the first step towards eco friendly living and the right attitude.

Anything that limits the chances of other people enjoying their day or makes them have to try twice as hard to get to where they want to go – isn’t very eco friendly.

And in the case of your car – your decisions can make all the difference.

Let’s say that you parked your car in a local viewpoint car park – but you only noticed that you were taking up just over 1 space after you had got out the car. There weren’t many other people in the car park, so would you leave it there or would you move it?

If you aren’t going to be there long, you might be inclined to leave it there – but how do you know what might happen while you are away? What if you are longer than expected or it suddenly fills up. You are preventing someone else from parking where you are.

photo credit: Blyzz

You might be having a lovely walk out there – or a delightful picnic with friends – but there could be a whole family wanting to do the same – but instead they are left in the car park staring at three-quarters of a parking space and no doubt a little bit annoyed as well!

Long Term Effects:
Yeah, that might only be a one off for you as you live close by and go there all the time – but what if that person you prevented from parking had come a long way to see your local coastline or woodlands – and they never got to see it because of your actions.

What if they were going to spend their holiday money in the area – your area? But instead they drove off to a town further down the way and spent it there. Their loss or yours?

What if the car park was a pay and display car park funding the very location you love to visit – and you just lost them some money as well – paying once but using 2 spaces and driving of another customer to boot!

And do you think those people would recommend your viewpoint to their friends back home who are planning a road trip or will they just say ‘there wasn’t enough parking’. How can they tell them about the beautiful countryside near you if they didn’t get to see it – they will just have to say how wonderful the other place they went to was instead.

Your loss again I think!

posted by Catherine on Dec 31

When booking your vaccinations – make sure you turn up on time!

Everyone needs to have their vaccinations for foreign travel – as it prevents expensive treatments and days or months or illness.  And of course, if you don’t catch these viruses or diseases – then you can’t pass them on to others at greater risk than yourself.

However, you will be amazed how many people don’t bother to turn up for their appointments – creating a delay in others receiving their boosters and protection.

Vaccinations:

Many vaccinations for travel need a certain amount of time to work in the body before you are 100% protected – so ideally you need to get these in advance of your travel – however, sometimes you just don’t get that much notice.

But what if when you went to book your appointment – they didn’t have any spaces?

Many appointments are left to run empty by people who fail to call ahead to cancel.  It only takes a second to do it – but multiplies up into a huge delay for all those people waiting afterwards.

I know my surgery only offer travel vaccinations 1 afternoon a week with only a handful of appointments each time – so around 15 in total for the month.

Your Jabs:

Now say you were travelling in a few weeks and were told that you had to wait 3 weeks for a space – even though unbeknown to you the first appointment tomorrow is going to be missed on purpose because the person had changed their mind and didn’t think it was important to call as they weren’t going to be charged for it anyway.

photo credit: Daniel Paquet

Of course the surgery can’t be expected to call you at a moments notice and offer the appointment to you instead – so you will have to wait until your appointment even though the nurse won’t be doing anything for that 15 minutes.

There is, unfortunately, no way that the receptionist on the day you called, leave all your details out for the different receptionist working tomorrow morning with a note to say that if anyone doesn’t turn up to call you immediately as you are only working around the corner.

Needless to say, even if you were available at short notice there is no way that ‘notes’ can be left around the surgery ‘just incase’ something happens. 

I mean if they took a note for you – they would have to do it for everyone – and as you can imagine, if everyone thinks that they are a priority the reception would be covered in notes and they would need a whole other receptionist just to be in charge of sorting out all these notes and then calling them all up as and when!

Best Prevention:

Obviously, keeping you jabs up to date in the first place is a great way to prevent these last minute worries – but please be considerate when you are the one unable to get to your appointment.

Just because you are in no hurry to get things done yourself – it doesn’t mean that there isn’t someone else working to a tight schedule at the same time and who could really appreciate you making a decision either way.

Think about when someone who isn’t in a rush to get home stops right in the middle of the shop doorway to check their receipt – even though you are rushing about on your lunch break and haven’t got a moment to spare!

You might not think that all your everyday decisions can be so important to other people you don’t even know – but they are.

So think ahead, and you are helping out a lot of other people without even trying!