“Oh, hello!”

I’ve recently taken on an allotment plot. Already I’ve been gifted many precious encounters with wildlife that I don’t usually see in my little city garden.

Last week I finished planting out the peas, mangetout and potatoes in the top bed. Stooping down to remove the plank of wood I’d been kneeling on, I revealed a visitor. A gardener’s friend.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen an adult toad, yet within one week I’d already seen two (definitely different) toads. The first toad was slim and olive brown. I had to politely ask this one to hop along as I removed rubbish from the plot. The potato bed toad was bigger.

A round and warty body sat stock-still on the earth. I decided she was female, with her plump curves and rust-brown skin to match Bristol clay. She’d paddled her feet to create a circular depression under the plank, slightly burying her to damper depths.

Her glazed, golden eyes were enchanting. They seemed to be alive in the way that flames dance, as if actively smelting precious metals. Her strong brow line and permanent frown, coupled with a grumpy-looking downturned mouth, said “bugger off”.

I wondered if she was even aware of my presence while I gazed, until she shuffled backwards out of her hollow. I quickly, carefully, placed the plank back on top of her.

Like many well-known British animals, the common toad is no longer as ‘common’ and at risk of extinction according to the UK Biodiversity Action Plan.

This toad found a safe place to hide. Every day or two, when I visited the allotment, I would lift the plank to greet her and she would look over the peas. I imagined her hunting the slugs and keeping my seedlings from getting munched.

Two days ago, I was telling my friend Don at the allotment all about her, keen to show her to him. I lifted the plank. No toad. Nothing but a collection of woodlice and a dent in the soil where she had been hunkered down.

“Maybe she’s hunting?” I willed.

Sadness filled my heart. Perhaps I disturbed her too many times? My childlike fascination, my overexcitement, had I ruined it all for us both? Her hiding place was no longer hers, no longer safe. Maybe I should have left the plank alone and continued in the knowledge that she’d be under there, working alongside me.

Twice more I’ve checked the plank, full of hope in finding a pattern of lumps and bumps beneath. Twice more I’ve been disappointed. I hope she crawled away to find a mate and lay a string of toad spawn in a neighbouring pond. I hope I’ll see her again.

At least this encounter left me with some toad wisdom... Do we always need to see nature to know she is there with us?

My heart is pounding. Between gasping, shallow breaths I wipe salt stains from my cheeks. With a screeching cry, the air calls: “come outside”.

The light of the day drains from the horizon, as cirrus clouds drift in. Sweeping over rooftops, tumbling in groups and sounding joyous cries, swifts grace the sky.

Wings like scythes cut through the twilight in aerial displays. Soaring and barrel-rolling, they chase the sky in groups with screams that say: “look up, look up”.

Two swifts weave the air as they take turns to lead the pack. With the playground screams of children, they race past with riotous energy. It’s hard not to believe they’re having the time of their lives.

These astonishing summer visitors bring a few short months of wide-eyed, breathtaking, sky gazing. The ‘common swift’ is no longer common, having suffered significant decline in recent decades, thought to be caused by the lack of nesting sites and low numbers of insect prey.

My eyes follow until they dive down beyond the fenceline and out of view. Now they will spiral up into the sky to rest, one hemisphere at a time.

I am grounded by the air of it all, by these birds that never touch the ground. Anchored to the earth beneath my feet, by wings that dance high above my head.

I wonder what it’s like to be a swift. A life on the wing, in perpetual motion. Snatching meals mid-flight and half-sleeping thousands of feet in the air, only pausing to nest. Never to rest. Swiftlets that fledge this summer will fly continuously for two or even three years as their sickled wings beat for thousands of miles.

Perhaps I am part swift. Or have been, in some other life. My mind is always moving, even when my body has stopped. I am, too, in perpetual motion. Making an internal migration to somewhere I’m not sure of. Never fully at rest.

Each summer, swifts disappear to far away places to return here in spring. A symbol of hope to many. A signal that better days will arrive. A sign that nature prevails.

However long the journey, we will always find our way home.

They say that ‘no act is too small’ when it comes to helping wildlife. Each year I leave a handful of ragwort plants in my little city garden so that cinnabar moths can breed. And each year, they do.

Ragwort has a bad reputation for being toxic, but that’s only a problem if you cut hay for horses or livestock to feed on. It is a vital plant for dozens of insects, including the cinnabar moth.

These day-flying moths flutter like butterflies when flushed from long grass in late spring. Two pairs of wings dance together in air. Jet black forewings streaked with red perform a Paso Doble, flashing rich crimson underwings like a matador’s cape.

In the coming weeks, caterpillars resembling miniature black and yellow striped stockings will hatch and smother the plants. These stripey wrigglers strip the golden, daisy-like ragwort flowers, and their feathery foliage, right down to the stalks.

Despite the healthy patch of ragwort I supply, the moths inevitably end up laying on the smallest plants that have seeded between cracks in the patio. I give the hatchlings a helping hand (and stop them from being trampled underfoot) by gently collecting and escorting them to a more bountiful feast. As a defence, they roll into pinwheels in my palm. Then I place them gently on raggedy, lobed leaves and they swiftly uncurl.

I follow the caterpillars’ progress like an expectant parent and watch them grow visibly fatter by the day. Until one day they perform a disappearing act, retreating to ground level to transform into pupae. There they sit out the winter, emerging as adults the following spring.

The rhythm of ragwort and cinnabar moth is one example of nature’s cycles that ground me to this crazy world. The small act of not mowing the edge of my garden path allows these tiny lives to thrive, and in turn gifts me immense joy. Each year I hold the first sighting of a cinnabar moth close to my heart, enchanted with child-like wonder.

Those of us lucky enough to have gardens must remember we are custodians of land that we share with other living creatures. If we combine our tiny garden traditions, they cumulatively make a huge impact. The total area of gardens across the UK is a whopping three times larger than all our National Nature Reserves.

Taking notice of your non-human neighbours and getting to know their rhythms and cycles will always, always enrich your life. It undoubtedly does mine. Leave some ragwort to grow this year, and you too will be rewarded with dancing crimson wings.

Share The Everyday Wild

It’s a cold, but bright, Saturday morning in mid-March. I’m hurrying through Arnos Vale, a glorious Victorian garden cemetery in Bristol that I use as a cut-through. Horrendously late.

“Look, Mummy!”

I march past a family just as a young girl in a powder-pink onesie holds the plucked head of a dandelion out towards her mother and older sister.

“Well, I don’t want it,” her mum barks. “They’re weeds, ain’t they.”

The girl’s face drops.

My heart sunk like a stone. What could have been a touching gesture from a child to her mother was dashed by one word:

Weed.

My legs continued speed-walking, but my soul had stopped in its tracks and I was flooded with thoughts and feelings.

Maybe I should have told the girl that her dandelion was beautiful. I could have taken the flower myself and thanked her for appreciating it.

Maybe I should have let the mother know that dandelions are not weeds, they’re wildflowers. And that at this time of year they’re vital for nature, as one of the only flowers that bees and butterflies and beetles can feed on.

Maybe I should have said they’re actually a natural soil improver, breaking up heavy clay and tapping into nutrients deep down, making them available to surrounding plants to use.

Maybe I should have said dandelions are a cure-all in traditional medicine, and have been used for thousands of years. That all parts of the plant are edible and packed with vitamins. And that you can even make ‘honey’ from them.

But all these things I did not say, because by now I was already out of the cemetery and charging down the main road.

This much-maligned ‘weed’ simply unfurls its sunshine yellow dome, bringing a spray of colour before the rest of our parks and gardens wake up. They bring joy to many, and that little girl felt it.

Yes, I’ve pulled dandelions in flowerbeds. I’ve dug them out in places where the lawn is all dandelion and no grass… But this year I gave a little more appreciation to the first dandelion that shone in my garden.

Admire the fresh flowers bursting open like paper decorations. The first bee with its face buried deep, bottom up, enjoying golden nectar while getting dressed in yellow pollen.

Notice how each petal ends in serrated teeth, giving the plant its name ‘tooth of the lion’ in French: dent de lion. Discover how the head of a dandelion is a collection of smaller flowers, called florets, all packed in together.

Witness ragged flowers fade and disappear into a tight bud, only to burst again. How they emerge transformed, in a translucent globe of tiny seeds each with their own individual parachute to drift away and start a new life.

So next time you see a patch of dandelions, drink them in. Give them a little more love to make up for those who do not see their beauty. We owe them that much.

It is as if I’ve stepped into spring. Crossing the threshold, a celebration of chiffchaff song rings out. Hedgerows are smothered in floral snow, a confetti of blackthorn blossom. Warm, sweet air fills my lungs.

A primrose yellow brimstone brushes past so close I perfectly make out the leaf shape of its veined wings. Two speckled wood butterflies dance skywards, spiralling into the blue.

Circling high on rising thermals, a mewing buzzard soars with broad wings. I scan the electricity pylons for perching peregrines or kestrels; the perfect spot to survey the meadows. None today. Three long-tailed tits flit to the tip of a tree, chirping to keep contact.

Meadow grasses are star-studded with celandine that will soon give way to dainty umbellifers, golden buttercups on tall stems and a smattering of nodding bluebells. The ancient woodland indicators are as they should be here; mixed among the wildflowers and not dominating in a monoculture.

I stoop through a gap in the hedgerow, a living archway where blackthorn and bramble shake hands. Creeping through the oversized mammal run, ducking my head to avoid thorny branches, it is as if I’ve been shrunk to the size of a field vole tunnelling through the meadow grasses. The canopy is dense, and the path is at an incline and on a slight bend, so you can’t see the end until you reach it. When I emerge, a goldfinch twinkles with every wing beat as it flies over my head.

In the corner of the bottom field, metal signage has been wrenched from the ground despite the bucket of concrete designed to anchor it into the earth. It reads “Homes England. Private Land. No public access or right of way”. Black sans-serif text is smeared with muddy footprints stamped on the sign’s white face.

This is Brislington Meadows, nine hectares of historic fields, hedgerows and trees in south-east Bristol. A designated Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI), the meadows are an important open space for wildlife and people alike. Yet for the past decade, this idyllic space has been a battleground for a controversial housing plan.

I’m here to speak with Dougal Matthews, a founding member of the community group Save Brislington Meadows. We meet at a coffee van serving workers on the trading estate. “Until the 1960s and 1970s, the whole of the Brislington trading estate was farmland, this was all fields,” Dougal shares.

Crossing over the road lined with parked vans, we enter the meadows through a brand-new gate. Galvanised metal glimmers. Raucous comings and goings of the industrial estate fall away into birdsong.

“You get some good views up here,” Dougal declares. “You’ve got the 5th biggest city in England just there, but you can feel like you’re in the middle of the countryside.”

Dougal gestures towards the view. Lush hills rise on the horizon and the famous suspension bridge spans behind a cityscape just 2.5 miles away. In the foreground, the tower of St Luke’s church rises above semi-detached roofs; a 600-year-old village church now in the middle of a busy suburb.

Just over one hundred years ago, Brislington was still a rural village within Somerset. Agriculture was a key industry, the area having no less than 16 farms and several smallholdings. The turn of the century was a time of great change, with the development of a high street and many hundreds of new homes. By the 1930s, Brislington was a popular suburb of Bristol.

Scanning the field margins, I admire trees that tower over the hawthorn, hazel, blackthorn and elder. Grand oaks and lofty ash, what have you witnessed? I ponder the stories that could be told by fissured bark, the generations of change beneath drooping branches. Surveys on the meadows indicate medieval ridge and furrow plough-lines. Brislington’s farming history stretches much further, with evidence of agricultural activity since Roman times.

“This hedgerow we can date back over 400 years. We know that there was a hedgerow here and we’ve been able to take some of the individual trees back to the 1650s.” We stop and survey the scrub.

“The arboriculture expert the council brought in said that they were some of the oldest hawthorns he’d ever seen.” Hard to believe from first glance, Dougal explains these trees have been traditionally coppiced.

“When you get right in to the trunks of the original tree, they are enormous.”

Continuing our circuit, he points out the location of a satellite badger sett within the scrub. A path of flattened blades emerges in the grass and leads into the undergrowth. A badger run. I picture the low, waddling creature heading out into the open meadow to dig for earthworms at twilight.

The field line diverts. Not yet hidden by foliage, I peer in to find a coppiced hazel stool marking where the original hedgerow should be. A German bomb was dropped in 1942, creating a crater that was never filled in. A new hedgeline just grew around it.

Electricity pylons stretch across a vast sky as we wander through to the next field. I ask Dougal what brings him the most joy from watching wildlife here.

“This time of year, there’s a pair of kestrels that hang out on the wires together. They’re both boy kestrels, they could go and sit on opposite ends of the pylons, but they sit next to each other like a couple of dudes just hanging out.”

Last winter, the two birds treated me to a magical encounter. I was greeted by a proud kestrel perched in the bottom meadow on one of the young oak trees, likely planted by jays. His golden-brown chest and bright yellow feet glowed as the low afternoon sun enhanced the warm shades. His talons clung to the pencil-thin, swaying branch that was little more than a twig. His tail counterbalanced desperately in a strong breeze.

Darting, arrow-like, a second kestrel appeared. Skimming the grass with wings pointed and tail long. Black-bordered feathers fanned as he landed in the same tree. The kestrel pair moved between perches, testing out all the young oaks and hawthorns in the field.

The saga of Brislington Meadows is a long and confusing one. Back in 2014 the meadows were added to the Local Plan for housing, despite the fact the site had been designated as an SNCI a decade before. In 2020, Bristol City Council declared an ecological emergency and the Mayor of Bristol asked the city to come together to help wildlife recovery. However, that same year Homes England bought the land from the council to the tune of £15 million. In the run up to the May 2021 elections, MP Kerry McCarthy and the Mayor Marvin Rees announced the meadows would not be developed, as Avon Wildlife Trust advised the land is too important to be built on, and promised a new Local Plan will remove the site.

Yet the land was now in the hands of the Government and out of the mayor’s control. Plans for 260 homes were shared and consultation began. The planning application received almost 800 objections, including the local councillors, the MP, local experts and hundreds of residents. With the decision delayed, and the council due to refuse planning, Homes England appealed to the Planning Inspectorate for an inquiry in 2022. In 2023 it was finally ruled the development has permission to go ahead. Despite compelling environmental evidence, the inclusion in the Local Plan and demand for housing outweighed the decision. Residents have called it a catalogue of errors.

Dougal reflects, “The meadows haven’t gone yet, but I don’t walk in it very often anymore. I’ve lost the enjoyment I had of that space.” His disillusionment shows.

“I put in a huge amount of time and effort on the appeal, worked stupid numbers of hours and became physically ill, because I was trying to hold down a job. It affected my health. I had a heart attack. So, it’s come at some serious personal cost.”

Two days later I’m back up on the meadows and spring is on full show again. The air is alive, colours of the season shine in bright sun. Cloudless, deep blue skies contrast the blackthorn blossoms, and chiffchaffs continue their bouncy song. This time I’m meeting residents Hillary Rydon and Jan Wren to discover what this space means to them. They’ve lived in the area for 33 and 41 years, respectively.

Hillary tells me of the living history on the meadows.

“When we first moved in, there was a tenant farmer that used to graze cattle. You used to see him around in his long farmer’s coat and flat cap. Sometimes the cows used to get out and once they were in my neighbour’s garden. When the farmer came, they leapt over the wall and out. I never knew cows were so nimble!”

We stop to appreciate the blackthorn flowers fizzing around us. “Amazing isn’t it. You have all the noise of the trading estate and roads and yet you come up here, within 5 minutes of walking and...” Birdsong fills Jan’s silence.

We’re interrupted by two enthusiastic lurchers bounding towards us. I give one a smooth and she leans on my leg as a man holding dog leads marches towards us. In a distinct Bristolian accent, he interjects. “Admire it while we can innit, until they start building houses on it.”

We nod solemnly. He continues. “Disgusting. Why they gotta touch places like this?”

Between them, they list several large sites in the area being developed. 18,500 homes are reported to currently have planning permission in Bristol, waiting to be built. With so many other, more suitable places due to begin construction, the community feel strongly that Brislington Meadows is the wrong location.

“We understand about the housing issue. It’s impacting our kids and our neighbours and their kids.” Jan exhales, “but the houses planned here aren’t going to solve that problem.”

“With all the major roads around here, we need this. This is the green lungs of the area. We’re told to get out into green spaces, yet this one is being dismissed as having no value.” Jan gets increasingly animated.

Speaking with Dougal, Jan and Hillary a theme emerges. Democracy has failed this community. They feel the odds were always stacked in favour of wealthy developers.

With frustrations released, Hillary reminisces.

“When my children were young, we used to just walk out the house and down through the fields. They used to come out here and they were free. I’ll always remember when Amy drew a picture that said: I go to the fields.”

We amble towards the back meadow, overlooked by the playground of the local primary school.

“If this goes and those kids look at photographs they’ll say, ‘Why did you let it happen, why did you let it go?’” Jan reflects.

Set away from the hedgerow, standing in the field, a scramble of brambles form a clump several metres wide. We unanimously agree how sweet and juicy the fruits taste from that specific patch.

“For me it’s sharing the enjoyment with other people. Everybody that comes for the first time says ‘Wow! This is amazing. I didn’t know this was here’,” Jan stops herself.

“Well, probably, the first thought is ‘I’ve taken a wrong turn here’ as they come up through the side of the trading estate...” We laugh. “But then they walk in.”

Gesturing to the landscape, we follow Jan’s gaze and head back up the hill.

“All the harshness and straight lines and hard surfaces over there. You just walk across the road and it’s like nature is saying ‘actually, we can balance that out’. We can have both, and we should!” Jan rallies.

“What do we do, put a sign up for the wildlife saying, ‘Site closed’… how are you supposed to replicate this? Give us 400 years?!”

Closing her speech, she declares: “It’s unique, it’s irreplaceable, it’s ours.”

One week later an email pings with an update. My heart sinks. The reserved matters are being discussed by the planning committee on 1st April (no joke), and the site is recommended for approval. I won’t be able to attend.

My thoughts turn to the people I’ve met, the battles they’ve fought, the toll it has taken and the memories they so kindly shared with me. Despite a decade-long fight, it seems this may finally be the last spring that the meadows are allowed to display in their full glory. It may be the last year wildlife takes precedence here, and the last time people are free to enjoy the whole of this special place.

Brislington Meadows is the place I go when there is a storm in my mind. The wide-open space, big skies, distant views and feeling of being above it all; everything gets put into perspective. Just me and the meadows, nothing else matters. In all seasons and all moods, I lace up my boots and trudge up the hill. I can understand why Dougal doesn’t like to visit anymore. Even without experiencing the huge sacrifices he has, these fated fields are tainted with sorrow.

Nature will continue her cycle for as long as she can. Each season, the wildlife lives in innocence. Today chiffchaffs will waltz, and blackcaps will improvise. Goldfinches will sparkle, and great tits will shout. Jays will screech, and magpies will chatter. Blackbirds will play flute, and wrens on piccolo. Robins will reassure, and woodpigeons will lullaby. All along the margins of oak and ash and thorn.

If these meadows are lost forever, they will become another housing estate named after what it erased. Hedgerows, trees and fields will yield to brick, concrete and tarmac. Ghosts of hovering kestrels will cast shadows over rooftops. Butterflies will no longer dance with the brambles. And children will not go to the fields.

Despite the challenges it brings, being neurodivergent (Autistic and ADHD) has enabled me to notice the things others don’t. Beauty in the everyday is what I live for.

I lived with serious neurodivergent burnout for years, gained two late diagnoses and experienced what I guess is termed a nervous breakdown, triggered by a sudden trauma. Slowly putting myself back together again, and better understanding my neurodivergent brain, I’m now prioritising more time for nature and writing in my new life.

I’m based in Bristol and have always been a city-dweller. I grew up in South East London, moved to Bristol for university in 2007 and never left. I don’t think living in cities should prevent, or change, a relationship with nature. Access to nature is for everyone, and we are a part of her.

When away from my desk, I can be found pottering in my small city garden or walking from my doorstep to local woods, parks and meadows (more on that in my second post) - always with a keen eye, and ear, out for wildlife.

Thank you for joining me here,

Jen