A night in the cemetery

York Cemetery is a great place to be after dark. If, that is, you’re looking for moths. Which is precisely what we were doing on Wednesday night.

The night began with me performing a special Buzzing! Moth Show in the beautiful chapel at the Cemetery.

Performing my Buzzing! Moth Show, 24 June 09 (Photo: Paul Rhodes)

After this, moth expert Dr Dave Chesmore took us outside, where he’d rigged up his moth trapping equipment. We clustered round and, over the course of the next couple of hours, we saw a  total of 25 different species, all identified for us by Dave.

Moth Trapping at York Cemetery with Dr Dave Chesmore, 24 June 2009

Our finds included several Straw Dots, a Large Yellow Underwing and a beautiful Swallowtail.

Thank you to everyone at the Cemetery for making us so welcome, especially to Paul Rhodes for the photo of me performing above. Thank you too to everyone who came along. I hope you enjoyed the event.

Guess who’s coming to dinner …

Walking round my garden here in York yesterday, what did I come across but my old friends (and world-first insect discovery), Berberis sawfly larvae (Arge berberidis)! Munching away at my berberis. For the fourth consecutive year.

Recently hatched Berberis sawfly larvae, York, 23 June 09

They looked like they’d hatched only recently – as you can see here. Which is just about the same time as they hatched last year. (Read all about it)

I looked around carefully, and found some leaves with Berberis sawfly eggs laid in ‘pockets’ inside them. (Click here to watch my video of how they do this.) As in previous years, the adult sawflies seem to favour laying more than one set of eggs on the same leaf.

Berberis leaf with Berberis sawfly eggs, York, 23 June 2009

And talking of adult sawflies, I looked around some more, and saw two skittish adults. Who seemed to be casing the berberis bush, trying out different leaves to find one that took their fancy for egg laying.

Adult berberis sawfly (Arge berberidis), York, 23 June 2009

Interestingly though, when I checked up on the larvae this lunch-time, they were gone!

Nibbled berberis leaf with no Berberis sawfly larvae left, York, 24 June 2009

So, looks like they have a predator.

I asked Andrew Halstead of the Royal Horticultural Society what he thought had happened to the larvae, and he replied:

‘I don’t know what happened to the missing larvae.  Sawfly larvae that feed in exposed positions on the foliage, such as those of berberis sawfly, ought to be easy targets for birds. However, they evidently survive in large numbers, which indicates that there are no effective predators.  Some other caterpillars, such as those of the mullein moth and large cabbage white butterfly also feed in exposed positions on their host plants with apparent impunity. All of these larvae have prominent yellow blotches on their bodies, which may be a warning sign that they don’t taste good.’

So, I’ll have to keep a very beady eye out and see if I can spot any birds eating the next larvae that hatch.

Meanwhile, if you see Berberis sawflies – adults or larvae – in your garden, the Royal Horticultural Society would like to know about it. You can record your sighting with them here.

Beautiful Lealholm!

The children of Lealholm Primary School in the North York Moors National Park are extraordinarily lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country.

The view from Lealholm Primary School

And I was extraordinarily lucky to be invited to spend a day with them yesterday.

Anneliese at Lealholm Primary School, North Yorkshire

After a Buzzing! performance for the whole school in the morning, the infants and I went on a Rhyme Time Ramble round their playground and field. The beady-eyed children spotted bees and a 7-spot ladybird and a painted lady butterfly, amongst other wildlife wonders.

Then in the afternoon, I revealed my Top-Secret Photography Technique to the juniors, and we all went outside to take photos. And what amazing photos these children did take! Photos of bees and flies and beetles and flowers and snails …

Here are a few of the photos that Mattie, Charlotte and Emma took. Aren’t they great?

All the children were very observant, and found a fascinating variety of creatures to photograph. Charles Darwin would have been proud of them!

Lord Deramore’s Science Week

Thank you to the staff and pupils of Lord Deramore’s Primary School in my own home village of Heslington for their hospitality last Friday. I spent the last day of their Science Week with them, and was very impressed by how much they knew about Charles Darwin and his discoveries.

I was also very impressed by the fabulous poems they wrote (and in some cases performed) during the course of the day about all sorts of minibeasts, including ants, bees, butterflies, dragonflies and beetles.

The whole school got in the poetry mood – including Teaching Assistant Jane King, who not only found my coat for me at the end of the day, but has also since written me a wonderful poem about it! Read on …

Anneliese has lost her coat!

Where it lurks, she’s no idea.
Gone forever is the fear!

Has it sprouted legs and walked?
To find it is her only thought.

Perhaps it flapped its arms and flew
-         is it hiding in the loo?

Maybe it has wrapped around
Someone else and ‘Gone to ground!’

Then she asked one in the know,
Who knew the very place to go.

“Look”, she pointed over there,
“It’s just been sitting on the chair!”

by Jane King
Many thanks, Jane!

The new Poet Laureate – and me!

Congratulations to Carol Ann Duffy on being appointed the new – and first ever woman – Poet Laureate.

To mark the event, the BBC commissioned a selection of poets – including me – to write a poem offering the next Poet Laureate some advice. You can read our poems here.

I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Andrew Motion for the fabulous work he has done as Poet Laureate over the last 10 years. He has touched many many people with his poetry during that time. I was particularly touched by the poem he was commissioned to write recently for BBC Radio 4’s BH programme. Read the poem here I adore his image of crocuses as gas jets …

I look forward to savouring the poems Carol Ann Duffy writes as our next Laureate.

Teaching Pack published for ‘Compost! The (mini-)Musical’

To mark Compost Awareness Week next week, I am launching the long-awaited Teaching Pack for ‘Compost! The (mini-)Musical‘, my BigBuzz eco-musical, which can be easily learned and performed -  indoors or out – by children and adults alike.

Find out more

Listen to an excerpt

Order your copy

Read feedback

Find out more

Order your copy

Order your copy

Raucous Rhymes and Wonder Tales

Thank you to all the people who crammed into Jacob’s Well on Saturday night and joined in the singing and storytelling in our York Literature Festival show, ‘Raucous Rhymes and Wonder Tales‘, exploring childhood around the world and across the centuries.

Preparing for our Raucous Rhymes show (Have we got enough chairs? No!)

Story-teller Catherine Heinemeyer (aka Nettlefoot Kate) and I really enjoyed your company, and your wonderful imaginations! The story we all made up together included contributions from children as young 5, right up to septegenarians.

Winding down with Catherine after our show

It was a realy ‘family event’ – and included a poem I’d written inspired by my father (called ‘Laura’ – which you can watch here), and fabulous buns made by my mum, which were much enjoyed by all!

My mum with her delicious Raucous Rhymes buns!

We were privileged to have Wishart Malinga in the audience too, who told us a bit about the school he’s founded in his home village in Malawi, and about how they need people to sponsor children’s education there. (Find out more) (You may remember my Christmas cards last year were sold in support of Wishart’s school.)

The feedback we’ve had from the audience has been wonderful – e.g.:

‘Just wanted to say HOW much Celestine and I enjoyed last night. Thank goodness we decided to come!’ (Janice Brown)

‘We all [4 adults; 2 children] thought it was delightful! The way you’d planned it and performed together was great, really ‘professional’ but also warm and informal. A really nice atmosphere. The poem that stuck in David’s [age 12] mind and Katharine’s most was the neglected girl with the big sister ‘Hi-i, can’t talk now…’ which we had in the car all the way home!’ (Jenny Gwynne)

This was the world premiere of ‘Raucous Rhymes and Wonder Tales‘, and we’re now looking forward to performing the show elsewhere.

Thank you very much indeed to Verena for taking all these photos (and for her invaluable assistance before and after the show). And thank you too to my husband Mike for being on the door (amongst many other roles!)

Busy Bees at INTECH

John and I were Buzzing! in the UK’s largest capacity planetarium on Saturday, at INTECH Science Centre and Planetarium just outside Winchester!

theBigBuzz was Buzzing! at INTECH

We were invited to perform a special bee version of our show as part of the Busy Bees ‘Save Our Bees” event being held there for National Science and Engineering Week.

Buzzing! at INTECH planetarium

‘The feedback we had was excellent!’
said Dan Richards of the British Science Association, who was organising the event.

Thank you to Dan, and to Angela Ryde-Weller of INTECH, for their warm welcome to what was a very worthwhile and enjoyable event at  a fantastic venue. John and I were really impressed with the facilities at the planetarium. If you haven’t seen a show there – go!

We were also very impressed by Dan and Angela’s ‘bee’ outfits. They really got into the spirit of the day!

Dan, me, John and Angela - at the 'Busy Bees' event at INTECH (photo by Kate Luke)

We look forward to performing at INTECH again some day …

Wiggly worms in West Bank Park

We wiggly wormed into the wood last Thursday as part of my York Literature Festival event for pre-school children in West Bank Park.

This ‘Mad March Hares’ Rhyme Time Ramble took us right to the top of a Very Tall Tree (in our imaginations), and also all the way underground (for real) to where the worms live. The children enjoyed digging up all sorts of worms, from long fat brown ones to thin little grey ones.

Digging up worms on our Rhyme Time Ramble

We all enjoyed watching the different sorts of worms we’d found, especially when they wriggled themselves up into a big ball.

Looking at the different worms we'd dug up

I performed my special earthworm song for everyone.

It was a very exciting Rhyme Time Ramble. We marched like ants and we buzzed like bees. And one girl even saw a pink dragon!

And we were all very lucky because the Story Tree gave us a rhyme time story at the end of our ramble.

One of our successful worm hunters

Molly’s mum wrote to me afterwards:

‘ It was a great session – such a good idea to inject a bit of magic into nature like that, because it got them all going – Molly got really into it, and didn’t want to leave!’

Conor’s mum wrote:

‘It was a truly wonderful morning … I loved watching them all staring up into the Very Tall Tree and really, really WONDERING what they would see from up there. Conor said to tell you his favourite thing was doing the ‘we’re off into the woods’ rhyme walking round the flowerbed in a circle!’

Thank you to everyone who came along, to Catherine Heinemeyer for her organisatorial skills, to the Friends and Very Young Friends of West Bank Park for their support of the event. And to Clare for the lovely ‘digging up worms’ photo above.

And if, like us, you enjoy digging up worms, then check out OPAL, who are running a worm survey across the country, and who need you to join in! Find out more

South Otterington Primary School

What a wonderful school South Otterington Primary School is!

South Otterington Primary School

I spent a very special day there today. The Head Teacher is Mr Dolman. When I was at school, Mr Dolman was my Year 6 teacher. He was very good at inspiring children to write poetry. He inspired me to write poetry, and I’ve been writing it ever since.

I hadn’t seen him since I was 11 years old … It was wonderful to meet up with him again, and to see that he is still entertaining, educating and inspiring children today.

With Head Teacher Mr Dolman

I performed my Buzzing! poetry show for the children in his school. Afterwards I put on some poetry writing workshops. The children wrote some great poems!

I hope the staff and pupils enjoyed my visit there as much as I did! And that it inspired them to carry on writing great poetry. Not that they need much inspiring from me, when they have Mr Dolman as their Head Teacher!

Read sample feedback from South Otterington pupils (pdf)

Mr Dolman at South Otterington Primary School