Green Holidays

Travelling to big cities can be as green as you want it to be.

Take New York for example; a city of shopping and high-rise.  But it is also a place where public transport is very well organised and everything you need is right on your doorstep!

If you plan your green holidays New York style, then you won’t be disappointed with the results.  Whether it shopping you want; a taste of the culture or just a city with a difference – you would be going to the right place.

I recently added a trip to New York as part of a road trip around  North America – and I wanted to make it as eco friendly as possible while still enjoying the city for what it is.  I mean living with a green conscience doesn’t have to mean never leaving your small-holding and only wearing repaired clothes.

Yes, I enjoy wandering around the stores looking at everything new and useful, but I also enjoy people-watching and how different people and places can be even when they are all using the same space and doing the same things.  I get a lot of inspiration from other people for both activities and products I’d like to try as well as for photography and story-telling.

I love the way other people will try things that I perhaps would have overlooked – yet seeing them with it changes my mind, and I want to learn more.  Similarly with foods; I won’t buy a whole meal of something new, but tapas and the like can allow me to explore a new lifestyle, a new experience, a new me even.

Cities are good in general for a lot of things – like an interesting mix of cultures and technology.  Yes, much of it is imported in – but the innovative qualities are still there, and it is nice to see how people and businesses apply it.   And the vibrant mix of people can really make a corner coffee house a really interesting yet relaxing place to spend a few hours.

There is also plenty of ‘green space’ in the city for those of you who need to see green at least once a day.  Central Park is ginormous and you can see as much wildlife as you would in any park in any town or city – and a short journey out of town can lead you to a few wild areas, zoos and botanical gardens.

Cities like New York are a delight to visit as part of any vacation and I would recommend at least one visit in your lifetime – if only to see how pleasant and ‘easy-to-use’ a metropolis can be.

Have fun exploring…..

Let’s get down to the serious birds.

As promised here are some great tips for identifying some of the UK’s most common and widespread birds of prey.

These don’t include the owls who will have their own post later in the series, but cover some of our most well known raptors; some hunt live prey (mainly other birds) while others are mainly scavengers, searching along roadsides for their next meal.

It is always a pleasure to see a raptor soaring overhead as they have a certain menace and beauty to them at the same time. And their silhoutettes let you know that they don’t mind being seen – they don’t hide away like most garden birds…..

So let’s get started with the only hovering bird in the UK.

Kestrel:
These smaller birds of prey are often seen at roadsides and along field edges – magically floating in the air. They are the most likely of the 5 birds in this article to be seen on your commute to work!

photo credit: jim kelly3

They are reddish in colour on their back with black tips to their almost pointed wings. They fly with a long, straight tail – also with a black tip – however when hovering over it’s prey – usually small mammals – the tail feathers will be spread open in a fan.

Merlin:
Smaller than the kestrel and not so easy to see unless you are in the thick of the countryside. Rather than roadsides and fields, these birds are more likely to be over woodlands, coasts and heathland chasing their avian prey!

They have sharply pointed wings and a long barred tail – perfect for fast pursuits through the air chasing birds. However they are dull browns and greys with no really distinct features, so you have to identify them on their behaviour (fast swooping flight) and where you see them – or get a good look and rule out Hobbies and Perigrines which both have a white chin and throat.

Sparrowhawk:
As its name suggests, this bird is also a bird-eater – but does so in urban areas too – so you have a good chance of seeing one in your garden or walking through town. However, they fly so fast that you might not actually see them very clearly at all, but this behaviour alone is enough to identify them. I have witnessed many a garden bird attack without having even seen the bird approaching as they tend to fly low as they get closer and then surprise their prey (and me).

photo credit: Chester Zoo

ID wise, their pale breasts sport a concentrated pattern of horizontal stipes and their backs are very plain grey in colour if seen perched – if in flight you may spot the very long banded tail and the stripy underside with relatively blunt wings held slightly bent.

Common Buzzard:
These birds are becoming more and more numerous in the countryside and just on the outskirts of towns too. They are large birds in flight and tend to fly with their broad long wings held outstretched – you may only ever see them gliding.

photo credit: Lip Kee

Usually seen in pairs, they scout the landscape from on high looking for carrion – and as a result are commonly seen being harrassed by crows – who they loosely compete with for this food source. If you get a closer look, you will notice the single primary feathers sticking out of the wingtip (the fingers) as well as a noticable change in patterning between the main body and ‘forearms’ and the longer primary and secondary feathers.

There are plenty of other large birds in the UK with these 2 key features, but without binoculars you can never tell and so always assume it was the most likely suspect rather than a Golden Eagle! With binoculars look out for the black outline to the wings and the paler band across the coverts!

Red Kite:
One of the most majestic of ‘common’ birds of prey in the UK – and so large and brightly coloured that you won’t mistake it once you have seen it.

Even if it is high in the sky and you have only the naked eye – once it has fanned its tail and you have seen that unmistakable deep fork – there is nothing else it could be.

photo credit: Noel Reynolds

With a wingspan of over 1 and a half metres and with a reddish appearance this bird a real joy to find – and that isn’t always so difficult these days with red kites being spotted over most of the UK – I even saw one in an industrial estate car park on the ground. However they aren’t so common in the south-east yet – but they do make the odd appearance!

So, how many of these have you already seen and can now identify almost everytime? There are of course 11 other raptors in the UK which share some of their features and can look very similar to the novice bird watcher – like the rare Hobby and the elusive Goshawk – but it is very unlikely that you will see one in the first place. But even if you did – experts probably wouldn’t believe you anyway; I mean do you know what a carpel or a supercilium is? How about an alula or a tertial tip?

How about Seagulls next time? Surely they are a lot easier…..

See you soon…..

Would you rather plan several small parties – or one big one?

We all know how difficult it is to get loads of your friends or family in one place at the same time. Planning that office party, family trip or surprise ‘passed your driving test’ party is never easy – and to be honest – not very green either!

We seem to find ourselves trying to ‘big up’ virtually everything these days – and mini celebrations are cropping up all over the place.

It’s nice to be invited to BBQ’s and afternoon teas all the time, but isn’t it rather a waste of resources to just keep celebrating quite normal things?

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but these celebrations are becoming big business, and can cost quite a lot of money to set up – not to mention the things that we buy for these parties are normally not so green either.

Shiny banners, balloons and disposible party accoutrements are not top of the list for their green credentials – nor is a pile of processed food, crisps and cakes!

Think Big:
So, why not stop planning for the tiny things and think of something immpressive, like renting a huge property in the woods, in the countryside or even in a lighthouse?

There are a huge number of absolutely stunning and amazing properties that you can rent out for the weekend or fortnight that will be a lot better than the corner of the office canteen or a few seats in a local pub.

photo credit: Kenski1970

Now don’t let the £2000 a week price tag put you off either, as these places usually have around 10 rooms or more, so that is going to be less than £200 each for a week board and lodgings in a place so unique that you wouldn’t be able to stay in it by yourself.

Not to mention it probably has tennis courts, sun rooms, terraces, a beautiful garden, secret rooms, spiral staircases, cellars and roof terraces. Now, you won’t get them down the social club!

It All Adds Up:
By planning something big like this for your family or friends means that you probably won’t need to book another holiday that year – have this one at home.

You can all car share, buy and eat in bulk and generally spend more time talking and playing with each other that you don’t drain on other resources elsewhere.

Perfect for that green holiday you have been thinking of – and a perfect way to have a green adventure!

And it saves time, money and tinfoil for all those cakes and cards!

Cod & Chips; Tuna & Sweetcorn and Salmon and Cucumber sandwiches – Just STOP!

Of course, as humans in a developed nation – we can eat whatever we choose; but should we be a little more picky?

As consumers, we can demand whatever we want from retailers and manufacturers without donning placards, signing a 10,000 people petition or starting any riots.

How? you may ask – How else can you get people to listen to your opinions?

It’s called: Your Choice.

By choosing to buy a certain product, we are also choosing to leave something else behind – and it is what is left behind that forces retailers and manufacturers make big changes.

If 40,000 people all chose not to eat cod this week – there would be plenty of it left on the shelves of shops or in the fridges or restaurants. And this means that they probably won’t order any more of it for a while.

It also means that they are selling out of all the other fish products that you are buying, and so need to buy more of those to suit your needs.

Basically, your shopping choices can help to make big changes – and save threatened species.

Cod, Tuna and Salmon:
Of course you can still chose to eat any of these threatened species if they are available for sale when you eat out on holiday, but it is interesting to know a bit about what makes them so attractive to fishermen.

Firstly, they are big and live in shaols or behave in a way which makes them easy to catch; and due to their size and tasty flesh, they make more money per fish than the same weight of sardines (tuna can weigh up to 200kg and are mostly muscle – but the same weight of sardines would be riddled with bones and guts – even if they are still just as tasty).

The only downside here is that the reason they get so big is because they live for so long – and living a long time generally means that they reach sexual maturity later in life. Ultimately, if we catch more adults than can be replaced by reproduction then we have a serious problem.

A second downside to these ‘higher’ fish, is that they are predatory fish and so have to eat lots of other smaller fishes to get so big themselves. And as happened with Tuna recently, they can accumulate very high levels of toxin (a little bit from each of the smaller fish they ate over the years) and can actually became dangerous to humans if ingested.

The Answer?
We need to do the opposite to what we do now.

By aiming to eat all those little tiny fish we could not only help the larger fish numbers to recover, but we could also eat more sustainably and more healthily!

Smaller fish like herring, kippers and sardines reproduce very fast – so catching the adults doesn’t affect the number of young still in the water; and as they are not predatory fish, they will not accumulate high levels of toxins and heavy metals through their feeding habits.

And, as they are not normally caught by the big trawlers (who want to save all the space on their ships for the larger species), these fish can be caught by more sustainable and small scale fishermen making the most of the oceans along our coasts without affecting fish stocks.

So, next time you pull over in a small village for a travelling lunch – try something different!

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Now, things are hotting up! You should now be able to identify some of the UK’s most common birds, and it is hopefully making you not only look forward to going out and looking for these species – but also making you want to find out what the other ones are….

So let’s not disappoint you with this next bunch of the more noticable birds – and lets have a bit of fun today.

The following 5 birds really can’t be mistaken for anything else as they are unique in their appearance – however, they are rarer than the average bird and can be quite shy:

Kingfisher:
This one is so easy to spot with it’s bright blue colouring in flight.

There is no other bird in the UK that is aquamarine in colour and that you will normally only get a flash of as it darts along a river bank.

When they alight on a branch or twig, you get to see a whole different side of them with their bright orange breasts and patterned heads.

photo credit: neal young.

They can sometimes be found near beaches, estuaries and other waterways, but a quiet river with a steep sandy bank is their prefered habitat.

They are a protected species though, so do not disturb them in or around a suspected nest or if they have young present – otherwise they could abandon the nest and you could get into hot water if publishing or sharing any of the images!

Hoopoe:
Not a commonly seen bird – but one that you won’t forget as these birds have got a very unmistakable head crest as well as a bright black and white wing and tail patterning.

photo credit: Alan Manson

They also have a very long curved bill which would only normally be found on wading species – but this bird is rarely ever found near the coast – or infact any water.

They feeds on insects and worms in orchards, agricultural land and vineyards only in the summer (if at all), and are really only seen in passing and alone. They do not breed in the UK.

Puffin:
Do I even need to describe this one?

I think virtually everyone could tell a puffin from any other seabird – and even any other auk – by their crazy patterned beak and comedy face!

photo credit: Joanne Goldby

Golden Oriole:
This bird will make you think you are on holiday in the tropics with it’s rich yellow and black colouring.

photo credit: brian.gratwicke

Although very secretive you can still get a good look at these birds if you know where to look for them; namely poplar plantations in Suffolk, of flying along the south and east coasts on migration around May and August.

These birds are best searched for by song – so get used to their distictive call before you head out looking for them!

Avocet:
This slight black and white wader is the emblem of the RSPB – and for good reason.

It was virtually wiped out in the UK, and the RSPB managed a great conservation project that saw them bounce back. Now you can see them all over the east coast in the summer and down in the south-west over the winter.

They can be mistaken at a distance for gulls, but through your binoculars you will see their noticable black and white markings, their delicate upturned bill and their long blue legs!

photo credit: spencer77

I know these were all a bit less common than some of the other birds covered so far in these guides – but sometimes it is noce to see the most striking of our birds to bolster your interest.

Yes, its great to be able to identify those smaller garden birds that you see regularly – but it is such a thrill to see something so different, bright or elusive!

Next installment will be the most common birds of prey…..

Your actions alone can make the countryside a better place for yourself and others.

By sharing your adventures – I don’t mean inviting other people along to your picnics, dog walks or countryside rambles – I mean allowing them to have as much fun as your yourself would expect.

Your actions can directly affect other people who are within a few feet or even a few miles of you while you are outdoors – but they can also affect people who follow in your footsteps a few weeks or even a few years after you.

How you may wonder? But it is all quite simple.

The Countryside Shop:
Every inch of the countryside is owned and managed by someone. Whether it is a private landowner, a charitable body or your local council – someone is looking after the land and using it or maintaining it according to their needs.

You are however, permitted to walk through their land, fields, forests, glades and even gardens on footpaths (or for a small fee) if they are on a footpath, bridleway or other right of way. But you are only a visitor.

Imagine the countryside as you would a high street shop. You are allowed in – even welcomed in – but there are unspoken ‘rules’ – like a society code. For example you can just go in and break things, scream and shout, play loud music, drop litter, let your dog run wild, allow your kids to climb on display areas or run into ‘private’ areas or eat their food and scare of other customers.

Yet people do this in the countryside all the time.

What Happened Next?
Well, firstly in this shop – you would be seriously affecting their profits – and just like any business they react to problems and can’t afford to lose money.

But how can they make money if you are scaring off their other customers and have left the shop in such a state that they have actually spend money to fix things and replace broken stock. However, some things are irreplacable – so they may never have them in the shop again.

And secondly, they may well introduce a few rules to make sure that these things don’t happen again, like not allowing children or dogs, closing off certain areas at certain times, charging people to go in to get some money back and changing what they sell.

In the same way, landowners who suffer from vandalism, injured livestock and crop damage may put up extra fencing and funnel the ‘humans’ down a thin footpath rather than allowing them free access to the land.

photo credit: Crystian Cruz

Other Changes:
They may also be forced to lock gates, block entrances to farms and other buildings that aren’t actually on the footpath but were a beauty or were of great interest to walkers like yourself.

They may have to introduce entrance fees to car parks or other areas to re-coup some of their lost funds – which you will have to start paying if you want to visit the area – or maybe close off the ‘free parking’ that they had allowed on their land until all the rubbish that was dumped their was costing too much to have removed!

And damage to certain rare plants or wildlife species may be too much for that species to survive there anymore – so it will be lost forever just becasue you wanted to take that unusual plant home with you!

So noise and vandalism can affect more than just other walkers on that day – and carelessness, selfish actions and laziness can change the very landscape we love over time.

The countryside can’t keep going in its current state if we don’t do everything we can to preserve or improve it. If landowners can only run their business by shutting out humans – then that is just what they will have to do!

This is a great way to learn about local wildlife – and entertain the kids!

Why don’t you spend a short time devising a nature key that can be followed local to where you live. For example a key identifying local plants, leaves on trees, animals at a zoo or even breeds of dog in the city!

It doesn’t take long to gather the information to get started – and then setting up the key can be quite a puzzle in itself – enough to keep you entertained as well as teaching you the information too!

Yeah – you can use a printed guide or photographic aid – but they will include all the plants ever! You only really need 10 to 20 to cover your local patch in a season, so yours will be more relevant to you. Your key doen’t need to incldue every single plant, tree or animal in the country – just those most common – the ones your kids will see almost every time they go out.

And they don’t have to use microscopes to tell them apart – just their eyes and your guide!

Breeds of Dogs:
If we use breeds of dogs as the test mode it should be easy to follow as we all know the most common dog breeds around town. Let’s use the following examples: Dalmation, Great Dane, Bichon Frise and Jack Russel

Now, with a key – it’s good to get rid of the obvious ones first, as they need no further description. So for example the Dalmation can’t really be confused with anything else – so that is your first step: ‘Is it white with black or brown spots all over?’

Then you can divide on size – so ‘Is it shorter than a Dalmation?’ The answer ‘No’ takes you straight to Great Dane and the answer ‘Yes’ then follows to the final question: ‘Is it white and fluffy?

Obviously this is only simple – and there are many other dogs that are shorter than a Dalmation – but you only focus on what you are most likely to see – let the more unusual ones dangle the carrot for further learning.

photo credit: Tanja de Bie

Getting Outdoors:
Most plants or animals have a specific feature that is unique to it that can narrow down your options when trying to identify something. So by getting to a general point you are halfway there – then by looking for these ‘individual’ things you can find the exact species.

For example, the early dog violet and the heath dog violet look very similar from head height – but they have very obviously different colour spurs if you get closer. And location can make a difference in the case of the cowslip and an oxlip. Both look quite similar – but the oxlip only occurs in the East of England.

So find plants/trees or animals that you already know are very common where you live and start from there!

Obviously the seasons change and bring out different plants or things to look for. Like deciduous trees don’t have leaves in the winter, and many trees and bushes have blossom in the spring. Seasonal plants only last a few weeks and sometimes look very different when they have ‘gone to seed’.

And birds and mammals don’t always hang out in the same continents let alone the same woodlands – so you can watch them come and go – as well as the young growing up and moving on.

All this change means that you can have the same activities running throughout the seasons in the same locations – but with different plants and animals to look out for. And it is a great way to connect to the landscape and to see the changes through time.

It can also make you feel like you belong to that area.

You know how to pack a rucksack properly – but what about save a life?

We all learn to pack our racksacks top heavy, learn which wildfood we can eat, how to get our tents back in their tiny bags, how to purify water and how to run away from a bear.

But what about help another human being?

When was the last time you took a first aid lesson? At school, in your teens or because your workplace told you to go?

Why do we wait – when our friends or family could get injured at any time!

Things that we learn on these courses could save other peoples lives – as well as our own, so why don’t we sign up in droves?
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What are you going to do?
Things change all the time in medicine and first aid – so some things your parents told you or that you learnt over 5 years ago might not still be current – like laying a person who fainted on their back with their legs raised. Wrong.

How about pinching the top of the nose and tipping the head back to stop a nose bleed! Wrong. Putting soothing creams or lotions on a burn – WRONG!

You don’t even check for a pulse anymore – there are better, more effective ways to save a life.

Obviously we all hope that we never have to deal with an emergency – but if you like to travel a lot – especially out in the countryside, emergency first aid could be your only chance of survival.

Call The Emergency Services!
It is all well and good to assume that the emergency services will come and save the day – but if the casualty isn’t breathing or is bleeding heavily – then 10 minutes is too long to wait. And you will probably be out in the countryside or up a mountain!

photo credit: Adam Tinworth

So, you could save someone by starting first aid straight away.

Immediate Action:
I can’t teach you first aid in this article – but I know that making sure that someone is breathing is more important that calling 999 in the first instance. The time it takes you to make the call is more time that they aren’t breathing.

By first checking the airways are clear and listening for breathing you could have done all that was needed to save a life. People who are unconscious and on their backs can suffocate on their own tongue – so by you moving their head to free the tongue – you can help them breathe again. Then, by putting them in the recovery position – and knowing that they can still breathe – you could have just saved their life.

However, if you make the call first; all the while you are trying to describe where you are for the emergency services to find you – they will be getting worse.

First Aid is about dealing with the most critical thing first – like not breathing. There is no point stopping them bleeding if they aren’t breathing, and no point moving them into a more comfortable place if they aren’t breathing either.

And an Emergency First Aid course can help you understand why things are important and when they are not. The course will help you gain confidence in your actions even if they seem rather odd and ‘different’ to what other people are saying.

You would have taken the most up-to-date course (to protect your friends and family) so it will be the best you can do for a stranger too!

And thank you for caring.

Buying a dog can be one of the best experiences for a family or individual – but take care!

It’s not just about buying from a reputable breeder, or making sure that it is vaccinated and wormed – it’s about what that dog can do for you – or what it can never do.

For example – if your dog is prone to skin problems and needs cream applied, you can’t take it for water-filled days out. If it get out of breath quickly with its short ‘bulldog’ face – you can’t go cycling with it or for long walks with it – or take it anywhere that it might get too hot!

And if it is prone to digestive upsets, takes certain medicines every 6 hours, has sore joints, patches of fur missing or can’t stop scratching – how much fun is he going be when you take him on holiday with you?

Your Dog Breed:
Some dog breeds are just the wrong shape to be outdoor active pets – for example any dog with a very short nose, dogs which are longer than they are tall, dogs with really droopy skin and dogs that have no fur!

photo credit: Jen and a Camera

Most dogs like this will have some sort of problems when you take them out over their lifetime. Now I am not saying that dogs with normal faces and skin won’t suffer from problems – I’m saying that these types probably will.

So if you want to run, swim, cycle, climb and basically spend hours out in the sunshine (and rain) with your dog – then think about getting a hardy average-shaped breed – like a pointer/retriever/terrier type. And avoid Great Danes, Bassett Hounds and Pugs!

Extra Un-Green:
In addition to choosing a dog that suits your lifestyle – you will also be choosing a dog that demands less from the environment.

For example, endless trips to the vets, tablets, treatments, therapies and operations can’t reduce your eco footprint can they? Even if you are insured (which I recommend) that only covers the money for treatment, it doesn’t buy carbon credits for all the fuel and chemicals you will be using!

Dogs which need extra grooming and clipping add to their footprints too – as well as dogs that have to be on special diets.

But, if you want a pet dog that can enjoy the outdoors as much as your – then consider all these things, and plan for the dogs lifespan (10-20 years).

They might not have any problems when they are young, but they will soon catch up with them as they mature.

When you see those cute baby lambs running around the fields – what do you think?

Cute? Fluffy? Adorable little clouds? What about biodiversity lynchpin? Wildflower saviour?

These last 2 might not immediately spring to mind – but this is what sheep do, and have been doing for hundred of years. And these cute lambs are the next generation of grassland guardians. It’s all part of the countryside cycle.

Even if the lambs won’t live long enough to see next Spring – they are an essential part of the lifecycle of the farm and the surrounding grasslands. Without the lambs, there would be no grasslands – and maybe no farm either!

How Come They Are So Important?
Well, it’s important to first realise that grasslands are a man-made environment – or sheep-made as it happens! Without mans intervention there wouldn’t be grassland habitats.

And it is because of the sheep that the grasslands exist today.

photo credit: anemoneprojectors

They mow their way across hillside areas that can’t effectively or economically be farmed by other means – and they eat almost everything low to the ground in their paths. This includes the shoots of trees, scrub plants and bushes – and as a result the grass stays as grass.

If you take sheep off of a meadow for a few years, it will be covered in prickly bramble, spiky gorse and possibly some small trees.

And wildflowers don’t grow underneath brambles.

It’s Not Just About Flowers!
Without the flowers, there wouldn’t be any food for butterflies and other insects – which in turn are food for birds and mammals – which in turn are food for larger birds and mammals. So basically the whole food web of a grassland habitat would be lost. Possibly forever.

As grasslands shrink due to the low cost of meat and the rising costs of running a farm – these habitats are split up and become a fragmented mosaic of restricted areas – useless for breeding wildlife and wind pollinated plants. So one by one the plants and animals start to dissappear from the fields until they are all gone.

Imagine your local open access lands covered in bramble up to your knees? Don’t you want to be welcomed into a picnic-inducing field of pink and yellow wildflowers in rich deep grass? Well there is an easy way to make sure that you can – go see some spring lambs!

By supporting your local farmers – you are supporting your local landscape – and ultimately protecting the habitats that attracted you to the countryside in the first place.

I couldn’t bear to think of the South Downs, Exmoor or the Lake District without its rolling fields of grass and sheep!

All it takes is for you to coo over the cute baby lambs!

photo credit: jpockele