Winter Wildflowers You can find on your Winter Walks

Sadeena hello and welcome to this week's.

Wildlife Matters podcast with me, Nigel Palmer.

In this week's action packed show, wildlife matters investigates, we'll be looking into the dolphins and orcas that are being stolen from the wild, just for entertainment for human purposes.

But on a lighter note, in our main feature, come with me as we take a walk in mid winter here in the UK and see what plants and flowers we can find.

We have our usual features such as nature news, and we will spend a few moments together in nature with mindful moments.

So without further ado, let's get to it.

In this week's Wildlife Matters podcast and on this week's Nature news, we're going to be looking at how the government in the UK has once again, for the third year in a row, given emergency permission for a bee harming pesticide to be used.

A single teaspoon of neonicotinoid is enough to deliver a lethal dose to approximately 1.25 billion bees.

And this comes just a few days after the Court of Justice in the EU declared that providing emergency derogations for expressly prohibited neonicotinoid treated seeds is not in line with the EU law.

The emergency authorisation comes a month after the UK government was advocating for a global pesticide reduction target at the UN COP 15 biodiversity talks in Montreal, despite a global pesticide target being significantly watered down.

In the final deal signed at COP 15, UK negotiators supported more robust action.

It is therefore so disappointing that the same approach is not being taken when it comes to domestic pesticides.

Despite UK guidance stating that emergency applications should not be granted more than once.

Last year the government handed the industry.

A second approval, ignoring the advice of.

Its own expert body, which cited potential impacts on adult honeybees, other pollinators, aquatic organisms as the reasons that the application should have been rejected.

This year, the UK expert committee on pesticides once again advised against allowing thiamathoxan to be used and likewise were again ignored by the government.

Despite significant public interest in the plight of bees and other pollinators, the process for emergency authorisation has been shrouded in.

Secrecy with no opportunity to scrutinise the application.

The authorization is another example of the government failing to follow their warm words with meaningful actions when it comes to pesticides and biodiversity.

The latest move is completely at odds with the stronger pesticide reduction targets the UK government itself advocated for at COP 15, as well as the leaders pledge for nature.

It highlights the growing discrepancy between government.

Words and actions on pesticides in particular.

And broader environmental issues.

The latest authorisation also raises wider concerns over whether the government will maintain existing restrictions on neonicotinoids and other harmful pesticides, or whether they may be overturned as part of the forthcoming bonfire of regulations that protect nature, wildlife and the communities.

As part of the retained EU law.

Bill, the Pesticide collaboration, a coalition of health, environmental, farming and consumer groups, academics and trade unions, including organisations such as Breast Cancer UK Unite and Friends of the Earth, have said that the government's decision to approve the use of thiothamoxane for a third consecutive year is a total failure of responsibility to protect a vital species and shows a lack of.

Urgency in reducing pesticide use for the sake of human health and our environment.

And that has been this week's nature news.

Coming up next, wildlife matters investigates back and on digs, wildlife matters investigates we're going to be looking to dispel the myth that all captive dolphins and whales that are in theme parks were bred in captivity, because the truth is, many captive dolphins were once wild and free.

While some water parks obtain dolphins legally, others find that doing so takes more time and money than they are willing to invest.

And as a result, a thriving, illegal.

Trade in wild caught dolphins has emerged to meet this demand.

The capture of wild dolphins is extremely.

Violent, inherently cruel and detrimental to the overall dolphin populations in the world.

You see, the dolphins are chased to exhaustion by people in motorboats who separate.

A few animals from the rest of the group before they corral them with a net.

In sheer terror, the dolphins often injure themselves as they ram the sides of the net, just trying to escape.

Injury and often death, usually by drowning, are the tragic outcome.

For the survivors, things don't get any better.

They are subjected to further trauma as.

They endure transportation, tethered alongside the small.

Motorboats before being loaded into shallow penned pools on trucks and then shipped between.

Countries or on long haul flights.

No surprise, then, that studies reveal that the mortality rate amongst captive dolphins is six times higher than natural.

Dolphins are intelligent, social creatures that in the wild live and interact within their pods working together to raise their young and hunt for food.

Their food is always fresh and they.

Have an entire ocean as their playground.

While dolphins may swim up 40 to maybe 50 miles in a day and dive to depths of many hundreds of meters.

But in captivity, they have none of this.

Social partners are restricted to tank mates, often completely unrelated.

They are fed a diet of frozen fish.

But worst of all, they are constricted by walls and have no space in which they can roam free.

They have no mental stimulation and soon become restless.

Even in the largest captive facilities, dolphins.

Have access to less than 110 thousandth.

Of a percent of the space available to them in their natural environment.

Because of this, captive dolphins often swim in circles, and this is a sure sign that the dolphin is suffering psychologically, and this is known as stereotypical behaviour.

According to us regulations, dolphin pens only need to be 24 by 24ft and 6ft deep.

In warmer climates, shallow water heats quickly.

This is extremely uncomfortable and often deadly for dolphins, who are unable to escape the sun by diving deeper to cooler waters.

Not only is there no relief from the heat, but also the dolphin sensitive.

Skin can become exposed to the sun's scorching rays, causing blistering and sores, much.

Like we suffer from sunburn if we.

Expose our skin to the sun for too long.

In some dolphin parks, they use cement to make the pools.

Here, they add chlorine to the water to keep bacterial levels safe for humans.

But the levels of chlorine used inflict.

Pain and suffering on the dolphins sensitive skin and eyes, causing skin lesions and leading to potential blindness.

It is clear to us that no.

Captive facility, no matter how much space.

It can provide, or how good its.

Intentions might be, can adequately provide for adult vince complex needs.

Public perception is changing.

Following films such as Blackfish that look.

Behind the scenes at SeaWorld, and from.

The awareness raised by people like Rick O'Barry through his dolphin project, theme parks are quick to claim their entertainment as.

Being educational, or that it has some.

Sort of conservation value for the benefit of dolphin species.

But in reality, watching captive dolphins being.

Forced to perform tricks based on human emotions and interactions has no educational or conservation benefit at all to the dolphins.

Increasingly, more of these parks are playing the conservation card, claiming that they are.

Committed to conserving the species.

Form of wild dolphin conservation program.

Of that, 10% involved.

The finance they put into these programs.

Is just a tiny fraction of the.

Income they have generated by their activities of keeping the dolphins captive.

Some parks now promote themselves as rescue centers, saving stranded whales and dolphins.

But in reality, most marine mammals die.

After they are rescued.

A few survive to be released back to the wild, but most of the released animals are never monitored, so the outcomes of this work remain completely unknown.

What is known, though, is that some rescued animals who may have been suitable for release are actually retained and end up in parks for public displays.

Wildlife matters does not believe there is any justification in terms of conservation or education to keep highly intelligent, sentient animals in captivity, and find it abhorrent that of these animals are forced to perform tricks purely for human entertainment.

Some of these things really do have.

To change, and we should take a.

Good long look at ourselves in the.

Mirror when we think it's okay to.

See an animal made to perform for us and believe that that is some form of entertainment.

This has been wildlife matters investigate.

You know, even though I research and write and record all this stuff, sometimes it's just so shocking what us humans are subjecting animals to on our planet.

So maybe now is a good time to sit back and enjoy a mindful moment and share just a short amount of time with each other in nature.

Oh, wasn't that so nice?

How many of you realized you were listening to the sound of a dormouse hibernating?

And that's a rare one, isn't it?

So, anyway, let's keep that chilled theme going a little bit longer and come and join me for a walk as we go and see what flowers we can find in mid winter in the UK, in this week's wildlife matters main feature.

And welcome back.

And in this week's wildlife matters main feature, join me as we take a gentle midwinter walk and discover six winter plants that you can find on your.

Own mid winter walks.

Midwinter is often such a difficult time.

Of the year for many of us.

The mornings are dark, cold and they're wet.

Grey skies all over the cold, crisp, snow filled winters of not so very long ago.

The days are short.

The chances to get out into nature are few and far between.

But don't worry, wildlife matter's got a.

Great way of getting you out there and motivated.

So join me.

Get your clothes layered up, pull on your waterproof boots.

There is a lot of new life.

Out there in the countryside.

Yes, even in the middle of mid winter in the UK.

And in this episode, we're going to be taking look at the six plants.

That you should be able to spot.

Growing wild in your local area that.

Are a herald of the brighter days ahead.

The first of our six plants are.

Alexanders, or smyrnium olastatrum.

Alexanders are an edible flowering plant of the Appalachia family.

They are also known as Alexanders, horse parsley and smerealium.

They are biennial.

They're believed to have been introduced to the UK by the roman soldiers who bought the plants and seeds with them as part of their traveling food rations.

Alexanders are tall plants, sometimes growing up to one and a half meters.

They have greenish yellow flowers in umbrella like clusters with a pungent myrrh like scent.

The shiny green leaves are too arranged in groups of three at the end of the leaf stalk, and they smell a little bit like celery.

The round fruit is ridged and ripened.

To a blackish color.

They can be confused with cow parsley, but they are generally much larger and thicker stem.

Alexanders are commonly found in the coastal areas of England and Wales.

In fact, they're pretty rare in Scotland.

Being a mediterranean native, they have little resistance to frost.

Alexanders can be found on cliffs, hedge banks, roadsides, quarries and other generally uncultivated areas.

They are often often found by the ruins of old castles and abbeys.

Alexanders have been used as food since the roman times.

They were cultivated for centuries as a tea vegetable and were once a common sight in ancient gardens.

It is now, though primarily a wild plant.

Like many of its relatives in the appeasea family, Alexanders exude aromatic oils that have a pungent but sweet smell, and this attracts a wide range of pollinating insects.

It got its botanical name because of its distinctive myrrh like fragrance.

Alexanders were once known as the black pot herb because of its black, spicy seeds.

The leaves and stalks can be blanched or steamed to add to soup, broths and stews.

The plants taste very similar to celery.

The flowers can be added as a spice and decoration to your salads.

Every part of this plant is edible from the young flower buds which were pickled like miniature cauliflowers.

It has a unique taste but is similar to Angelica, a soup called lenten potage made of Alexander's watercress and nettles back in the 18th century.

The fruits are a rich source of protein, carbohydrates and fatty acids, and the plant contains flavonoids and other bioactive compounds.

Apothecaries used Alexanders for cleansing the blood and as a digestive herb for strengthening the stomach.

Seafarers used it to treatise scurvy and herbalist who often use it to relieve stomach and urinary problems.

It was also a remedy for headache, toothache, swellings of the body, cuts and bruises, asthma and even tuberculosis.

Did you know?

In Latin, the name means the parsley of Alexandria.

And in the Middle Ages, the dried stalks were bundled and used as couple fodder or fuel for their fire.

The second plant we're going to take.

A look at is the common hazel, or coriolis avellana.

The common hazel is a small tree or shrub found in woodlands and hedgerows.

It is native to Britain and grows throughout Europe.

The tooth leaf is heart shaped and soft to the touch.

The leaf has a sharply pointed tip.

The underside of the leaf is covered in white hairs.

The bark is shiny and has horizontal lines of breathing pores, known as lenticels.

In old woodlands, hazel is usually multi stemmed, having been cut repeatedly on an eight year rotation for many centuries to produce poles, and this ancient craft is known as coppicing.

Male catkins open from December all the way through to April, and hazelnuts ripen by roughly the end of September.

Hazel is monoecious, which means that part of the plant has both male and female flowers, but must be pollinated from other hazel trees.

The yellow catkins appear before the leaves and hang in clusters in late January to mid February.

The catkins are male flowers that hang down, ready to release their pollen onto the wind.

In fact, there can be over 200 unisexual male flowers on a single catkin.

After it has released its pollen, the male catkin drops off of the tree.

Female flowers are red and their very small.

You will find them in a flower bud on a branch above the catkin.

Each flower has two crimson stigmas that stick out at the top of it.

These stigmas are receptive to the pollen released from the male catkins.

Each flower bud, once pollinated, will develop into a cluster of one to four hazelnuts.

Today, hazel coppice has become an important management strategy in the conservation of woodland habitats for wildlife.

The resulting timber is used in lots of ways and hazel leaves provide food for the caterpillars of moths, including the large emerald, small white wave barred umber and nut tree tussock.

In managed woodlands where hazel is coppiced, the open, wildflower rich habitat supports species of butterfly, particularly the fractillaries.

Coppiced hazel also provides shelter for ground nesting birds such as the nightingale, nightjar.

Yellowhammer and the willow warbler.

Hazel has long been associated with the dormouse, also known as the hazel dormouse.

Not only are hazelnuts eaten by dormice to fatten up for hibernation, but in spring, the leaves are a good source of caterpillars, which dormice also eat.

Hazelnuts are also eaten by woodpeckers, nuthatches, the whole of the tit family, wood pigeons, jays and many, many small mammals.

Hazel flowers provide early pollen as a food for bees.

However, bees find it difficult to collect and can only gather it in small loads.

This is because the pollen of a wind pollinated hazel is not sticky and each grain actually repels against another.

Hazel trunks are often covered in mosses, liverworts and lichens.

And the fiery milk cap, mushroom or fungus, grows in the soil beneath.

Hazel's value as a food is for the hazelnut.

The nut is a staple for squirrels and hazel dormice, who use the nuts protein and fat to build up reserves for the winter.

Of course, many people enjoy hazelnuts too.

They were widely cultivated in the UK until the early 19 hundreds when demand just dropped.

Kent is the main area where the cultivated hazelnut, also known as cobs or cob nuts, are still grown today, despite the resurgence of hazelnuts in vegan dairy free milks and chocolate products.

The majority of these are actually imported.

Did you know?

Hazel has a reputation as a magical tree.

A hazel rod is supposed to protect against evil spirits as well as being used as a wand and for water divining.

In some parts of England, hazelnuts were carried as charms, the ward off rheumatism.

And in Ireland, hazel was known as the tree of knowledge and in medieval times, it was a symbol of fertility.

The third plant we're going to take.

A look at is the green hellebore, or helleborus viridius.

Green hellebore is a native species of hellebore found in the UK and widely across central and western Europe.

It is a relative of the garden varieties, which you might be more familiar with as late winter early spring flowers in an ornamental setting, hellebores are actually a member of the buttercup family.

The arrangement of petals and sepals, as well as the shape and structure of the leaves, gives this away on a more careful inspection.

Flowering type is very early in the year, usually February, into the very early part of March, making it one of the earliest flowering spring species.

Plants grow to around 60 centimetres high and often form stands, thanks to their rhizomatous roots.

Found in the southern parts of the UK and common throughout Europe, this plant likes damp places and can be found in wet meadows or beside rivers and streams.

The green flower buds appear first and.

Are then followed by the leaves.

Sometimes the stems are tinged with purple.

The entire plant can grow up to.

A 1 meter in height.

Green hellebore contains a toxin common to all members of the buttercup family.

It's called protanmonin, produced when the plant is wounded or crushed, causing side effects such as skin irritation and blistering right through to poisoning if ingested.

Historically, this species was used to treat worms, but such are its toxic properties that inappropriate administration pose a significant risk of harming the patient as much as any parasite would.

All parts of the plant are poisonous, leading to severe vomiting and seizures.

Green hellebores provide a much needed nectar and pollen source for honeybees that are out foraging on one of those nice, warmish, early winter days.

Did you know that the hellebore name is derived from the greek helleboros, meaning to injure?

All species are poisonous.

One very interesting folk story is about an english herbalist misses Maud Grieve, who claimed that the powdered helicopter scattered in the air or spread on the ground would make you invisible when you walked upon it.

Fourth plant we're going to take a.

Look at is the leciceladyne, or ficaria verna.

Laceicelodyne is a small, low growing perennial herb in buttercup family.

Lecithelendine has bright yellow, star shaped flowers.

Each flower is about 3 cm across with eight to twelve petals.

It has rosettes of glossy, dark green, heart shaped, mottled, long stalked leaves.

Look out for it on the edges of paths in early spring.

Leciceledyne loves damp woodland paths and tracks, as well as stream banks and ditches.

You can also spot it growing in gardens, meadows and under shady hedgerows.

Lesser celandine is also known as pile wort, which hints to its primary medicinal use as a treatment for hemorrhoids.

This was based on the doctrine of signatures, which suggested that knobbly tubers were thought to resemble piles.

The leaves are high in vitamin C and are often used to prevent scurvy.

As one of the first flowers to appear after the winter, they provide an important nectar source for queen bumblebees and other pollinators emerging from their hibernation.

Did you know it was once thought that you could use lecitheldine to predict the weather as they close their petals before raindrops?

Wordsworth was such a fan of lesser celandine, he wrote three poems about them.

The small celandine to the same flower and to the small celandine.

The 21 February is known as Celandine Day.

The less selendyne is said to be the floral equivalent of the swallow, as both reappear around the same time each year and herald the coming of spring.

In fact, the word celandine comes from the greek celidon, meaning swallow.

They also gave the the celandine the name spring messenger.

The next plant we're going to take a look at is one of my all time favorites.

It is the snowdrop, or Galanthus nivalis.

Galanthus is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennials, herbaceous plants in the family and Maralidacae, listed as near threatened on the global Icun Red List of endangered threatened species.

Perhaps the first sign that spring is just around the corner is the snowdrop poking its way through the frosted soil of a woodland.

Snowdrops are able to survive the cold winter months and flower very early because they grow from bulbs.

Snowdrops have white, bell shaped flowers at the end of an erectile flowering stem with two or three leaves.

Snowdrops don't have petals.

The flower is composed of six white segments, also known as t pals.

They look like petals.

The inner three t pals are smaller and have a notch in the tip, with a green upturned v pattern clearly visible.

Snowdrops are found throughout the UK.

They favor damp soil and are often found in broadleaf woodlands and along riverbanks, but can also be seen in parks, gardens, meadows and scrubland.

The species normally flowers in January or February, but there are an increasing number of December flowerings being recorded and even an occasional November sighting.

Despite its long history in the UK, it may not actually be enough native here.

It is a native of damp woods and meadows on the continent, but was not recorded as growing wild in the UK until as late as the 18th century.

Nevertheless, it has certainly become naturalized and can now be seen across the country.

Snowdrop bulbs are poisonously beaten, but traditionally snowdrops were used to treat headaches and as a painkiller.

In modern medicine, a compound in the bulb has been used to develop a dementia treatment.

Snowdrops do produce seeds, provided there are pollinators around.

Early emerging queen bumblebees will help spread them if the weather is warm and dry enough.

However, as they flower so early, snowdrops do not rely on pollinators to reproduce.

Instead, they spread via bulb division.

Did you know?

In the language of flowers, the snowdrop symbolises chastity consolation, death, friendship in adversity, hope and purity.

The flowering of snowdrops is one of the first signs that winter is drawing to a close.

As a result, the flower has long been viewed as a symbol of hope for better times ahead.

However, to see a single no drop flower was once viewed as a sign of impending death, and it was considered bad luck to take one into the house.

Christians dedicated snowdrops to the Virgin Mary on Candlemas Day.

The 2 February snowdrops were once scattered in place of her image on the altar.

Avid collectors of snowdrops are also known as galanthrophiles.

Winter aconite the winter aconite is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family.

Native to calcareous woodland habitats in France, Italy and the Balkans, and widely naturalized elsewhere in Europe, the winter aconite is a hardy, tuberous perennial that forms golden carpets of jewel like flowers.

It glows in the sunlight above ruffs of bright green leaves in late winter and early spring.

The plant's official name, oranthus hymalis, comes from the greek er er, meaning spring, and antho, meaning flower, combined with the latin himalis, meaning winter flowering.

The common name winter aconite alludes to the leaf shape, a characteristic bye which plants were classified in the 16th century.

Winter aconite has similar foliage to plants in the aconitum genus, which includes monkshood and wolfsbane, and it belongs to the same family wherever you find it.

It has probably escaped from a garden or cemetery, but it's well naturalized, typically in shady or wooded areas dotted all around the country.

All members of the ranunculacea family are toxic, although they don't all have the same chemical composition.

Substantial ingestion of any part of a winter aconite causes symptoms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, colic, disturbed vision and even a cardiac arrest.

You don't want to be eaten that, then.

Winter aconite contains pharmacologic chemicals such as Klin.

Kelin is a vasodilator, but because of its toxicity it is rarely used therapeutically.

It can be converted into sodium chromogylate, which is used as a prophylaxis against asthma attacks, which has anti are hyphen actions and is used for arterial fibrillation and other are fermi, the nectar and pollen rich flowers of the winter aconite are a magnet for early insects such as queen bees.

Now is a great time to get out and enjoy the wildlife in your local area.

Walking for just an hour a day can bring physical and mental benefits, whilst the fresh chill air will help boost your immune system and help to keep your body active.

We all like hiding away more in the dark days of winter, but a world of intrigue and beauty awaits those who venture from their warm houses.

If you do spot any of the plants we've looked at in this vlog, it would be great to hear your comments.

Or you can leave us a message on our social media pages.

We are wildlifematters.org, on Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter, and that has been the main feature of this week's Wildlife Matters podcast.

Thank you for listening to this week's Wildlife Matters podcast.

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Wherever you get your podcast, you know what to do, and you know how much it really helps our podcast to grow.

I'd like to say a huge thank you again to the new listeners that are joining us on every episode.

We really welcome you and would love to hear your thoughts, your comments, or any content that you may like to hear on upcoming podcasts.

You can get in contact with us by email.

Our email address is hello@wildlifematters.org that's hello@wildlifematters.org and don't forget to visit our website, which is www.wildlifematters.org.

and on the next Wildlife Matters podcast, we are going to be looking to the long running saga here in the UK of badgers and bovine tv, and also into the despicable sport that is known as hare hunting.

That's all coming up on the next Wildlife Matters podcast.

But for now, that's it from me, your host, Nigel Palmer, wildlife matters, signing out.