Paul Evans

Eyebright flowers in the short turf of Old Racecourse Common are described as genetically complex, partly parasitic plants whose roots tap into grasses for water and nutrients. Once valued as a medicinal herb for eye treatments and wellbeing, the plant’s future depends on maintaining short‑turf habitats threatened by reduced grazing and bracken encroachment, balancing species conservation with the ecological processes that sustain their diversity.

Scarlet tiger moths are thriving around the Gatacre allotments in Shropshire, where sunny weather, abundant comfrey and garden plants provide suitable habitat. The moths’ expanding presence around English towns illustrates synanthropy, as wildlife adapts to and benefits from human environments. The account places the moths alongside jackdaws, sheep and the ancient landscape of Old Oswestry hillfort, emphasizing that local history includes the lives of nonhuman species as well as people.

An ancient oak in Shropshire is bearing oak apple galls created by the gall wasp Biorhiza pallida. The galls support a wider ecosystem of inquiline and hyperparasitic wasps, fungi and microbes. The piece links the oak’s historic association with Charles II and the Restoration of the monarchy to a contemporary celebration of nature and the changing rural landscape.

A centuries-old common lime tree in Shropshire, likely planted in the Georgian or early 19th-century period, falls after Storm Dave. Its collapse transforms a defining feature of the landscape into an absence while exposing fragments of its history, including an old glass bottle. The tree’s structure and decay are presented as habitats and evidence of the long relationship between cultivated landscapes, ecology and human activity.

A springtime walk in Shropshire’s Marches reveals ravens, chaffinches, bumblebees, woodpeckers, chiffchaffs and butterflies returning to their seasonal routines. The renewal of wildlife is paralleled by allotment gardening rituals, as people prepare the soil and plant crops. These repeated acts of nature and cultivation offer moments of joy, discipline and attention amid the suffering and pressures of the wider world.

Paul Evans contrasts a standard English oak with a nearby coppiced oak in Shropshire, describing how centuries of cutting have produced different forms and habitats. The coppiced tree’s decaying trunk and water-filled cavities support rare biodiversity, prompting a broader reflection on trees as evolving ecological communities shaped by human activity, browsing animals and symbiotic life.

A centuries-old Scots pine in Attingham Park, Shropshire, illustrates the unusual ecology of a kelo tree: standing dead timber that can remain upright for hundreds of years. Its barkless wood is protected from decay by blue-stain fungi, terpenes and antifungal compounds, while the eventual fallen trunk can support rare kelo fungi and other saproxylic organisms. The piece presents the tree as both an important habitat and a symbol of endurance, urging people to leave standing and fallen deadwood undisturbed.

A nature diary from Shropshire describes the social life of sparrows gathering at a backyard feeding station and their interactions with other garden birds. It links this everyday ritual to a winter-solstice procession inspired by the Cutty Wren folklore, which has been reimagined as a sanctuary-building practice. The piece argues for compassion and active protection of wildlife, particularly sparrows, which are on the UK conservation concern red list, while questioning traditions that justify violence toward animals as an imitation of nature.

Storm Claudia’s heavy rainfall has swollen the River Severn, with runoff from mid-Wales filling ditches, brooks and drains and carrying debris downstream. Floodwater has submerged fields, car parks, roads and hedges across the Welsh Marches and Shropshire, while the river’s force threatens fish and other wildlife. The piece reflects on the growing power and frequency of storms and their implications for landscapes and communities.

A misty autumn walk in Shropshire’s Marches becomes a meditation on decay, melancholy and uncanny natural change. The piece describes knopper galls left on oak acorns after gall-wasp larvae emerge, explaining the wasps’ two-stage life cycle involving pedunculate and turkey oaks. Crows, fading vegetation, mushrooms and red hawthorn berries reinforce the landscape’s gothic atmosphere as Halloween and Samhain approach.

A southern hawker dragonfly’s nearly inaudible wingbeats are described as a complex combination of turbulence and percussive clicking. Its independently moving wings, rapid flight and vibration-dampening pterostigma enable exceptional manoeuvrability and quiet gliding. The insect’s flight connects an ordinary garden in Shropshire with evolutionary history reaching back to the Carboniferous era, creating an evocative meditation on sound, deep time and the boundary between humans and insects.

The expansion of the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve has tripled its size and added two sites managed by the Middle Marches Community Land Trust: Minsterley Meadows, home to thousands of green-winged orchids, and Norbury Hill, a link between important upland habitats. The project forms part of Natural England chair Tony Juniper’s “King’s series” of new reserves and reflects a shift from protecting isolated remnants to restoring larger, better-connected ecological networks. The landscape’s heathland restoration, including the earlier removal of conifers, has revived habitats for species such as the emperor moth, while the column reflects on the limits of restoring the area’s human history and the obligation to protect its more-than-human natural character.

A nature diary from Shropshire explores komorebi, the Japanese concept of sunlight filtering through leaves, as both an aesthetic experience and an ecological process. The writer describes the cooling sanctuary created by dense foliage during a heatwave, explains how photosynthesis and transpiration affect temperature, and observes the remains of a hoverfly apparently preyed upon by a wasp. The piece concludes that komorebi depends on abundant foliage and that the coming climate makes protecting and expanding vegetation across ecosystems increasingly important.

A reflective walk through the Marches in Shropshire uses wind, birdsong, insects, flowers, trees and distant hills to evoke the soundscape and atmosphere of June. Fallen horse chestnut and beech trees become reminders of storm damage, lost gardens and the ongoing stories held in the rural landscape.

A storm over Stapeley Hill in Shropshire is described as a powerful, almost living presence, with thunder explained through the physics of lightning and shockwaves. The account reflects on how earlier generations interpreted storms supernaturally, connecting the landscape’s ancient stone circle and mining history with the calls of curlews, skylarks, ravens and cuckoos, while noting the decline of many rural bird populations.

A colony of Californian maple aphids has appeared on a mature Japanese maple in a garden near Oswestry, producing abundant honeydew that supports sooty moulds. The piece explains the aphids’ life cycle and origins in east Asia while reflecting on how changing attitudes toward insects, insecticide use, global trade and climate change shape garden ecology.

A frog found trapped in a watering can in Shropshire is gently returned to a pond, prompting reflections on its uncanny appearance, spontaneous generation and the unsettling events surrounding the spring equinox. The frog’s later emergence among the ponds and vegetation of Old Oswestry hill fort becomes a meditation on the strange beauty and enduring mystery of amphibian life.

A walk across Old Racecourse Common and North Common Pond near Oswestry captures the first yellow daffodil buds emerging amid rain, wind and fractured sunlight. The sight of the flowers prompts reflections on the fleeting nature of spring, mortality and decay, contrasted with the much slower lifespan of an ancient beech tree. A passage from Robert Herrick’s poem “To Daffodils” reinforces the theme of beauty’s inevitable disappearance.

A nature diary from Old Racecourse Common in the Marches describes a rapid winter thaw, with melting ice and muddy paths revealing the heathland landscape, historic racecourse ruins and Offa’s Dyke. Ravens and owls are entering their breeding season, while a jay loudly defends its territory among beech, oak and conifer woodland.

A reflective account of the days around the winter solstice in Shropshire describes how recent storms have shaken birds and felled an old beech, while rain, waterways and ancient oaks settle into a quieter rhythm. Literary references to King Lear, Wilfred Owen and the legend of St Oswald’s Well connect the changing landscape to themes of patience, darkness, renewal and the passage of time.