Nature on your doorstep in December

It’s been a quiet few weeks for our project, as the nights are drawing in and the rain falling - but one milestone we’ve reached is that now over 50% of our entries are research grade. This is fabulous! Interestingly, while fungi have featured very heavily in the last month’s entries, they are hard to identify simply from a photograph, so we’ve had fewer definite IDs among them.

Our favourite observation this month was taken by Cecily on Devonshire Avenue in the car park of Street Lane GP Practice. It's on our webpage https://www.reap-leeds.org.uk/projects/neighbourhood-nature - check it out! We think it's from the fabulously named Family Physalacriaceaea.

Instead of a challenge, this month I’m offering an invitation to consider the wonder of leaves. Much of my garden is covered with fallen leaves right now! If, after reading, you decide to photograph and identify the tree your leaves have come from, all the better.

Here’s some words about leaves which I’ve enjoyed, taken from a YouTube video called 'The Sleepy Scientist: The Secret Life of Plants': “The leaf doesn’t boast. The tree doesn’t brag, but moment by moment, day by day, plants are capturing sunlight, making sugar, releasing oxygen, and keeping the whole show running. Even in urban environments, photosynthesis is quietly at work on balconies, in parks, in rooftop gardens, and cracks in the pavement where weeds take root and reach for the light. Every patch of green is a tiny solar engine humming along, keeping the planet habitable and the air fresh. And perhaps most poetic of all is the idea that sunlight, which we can’t eat or drink or breathe, is transformed by plants into something we can use. They catch what we cannot hold and turn it into fuel for life. Glucose in an apple, starch in a potato, oxygen in your lungs, all made possible by the silent invisible labour of leaves. So the next time you sit in a patch of dappled sunlight, or notice the way a leaf falls from a tree, take a moment to thank the humble chloroplast. It’s a tiny factory that never clocks out. A solar powered chemist that makes life possible one photon at a time. Photosynthesis is not just a process. It’s a promise. A promise that even in stillness, even in silence, something vital and vibrant is always at work. The leaves know how to turn light into life. And they’ve been doing it for over 3 billion years.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPnZZW6d_g&t=2970s

THIS MONTH'S TIP comes from Wildway: https://www.wildway.info

Try to keep many of your fallen leaves in your planting areas. Don’t tidy them all up into a compost heap or brown bin! For soil to remain nutritious enough for plant growth, it needs about 2-3cm of organic matter each year; in the wild, leaves produce the bulk of that material. The leaves are a mulch that powers your garden’s ecosystem; and a home for the decomposers who will gradually break the leaves down. Frogs and toads shelter under damp fallen leaves and enjoy the slugs; blackbirds patrol them, flipping them over looking for the same tasty morsels. And decomposed organic matter acts as a sponge, locking in water which we will need in the dry summers ahead.

FIVE FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT AUTUMN LEAVES
~ Leaves have 3 pigments which give them their colour - green, yellow and red.
~ The depth of colour of autumn leaves changes from year to year. If temperatures stay above freezing, like this year, production of the red pigment increases and the leaves become redder.
~ If the weather is dry, again like this year’s summer, sugars become concentrated in the leaves, and more of the red pigment is produced, and the leaves become redder.
~ Leaves fall in the autumn because a layer of cells grows where the leaf stalk joins the stem. As temperatures fall and days shorten, these cells begin to fracture and the leaf can break away.
~ Trees benefit from losing their leaves because in the winter they are in a state of dormancy and need less energy to stay alive, and can tolerate winter storms better as winds can move through their branches more easily.

These facts come from the Woodland Trust

THIS MONTH'S LINK is to:
The Woodland Trust’s Nature’s Calendar. https://naturescalendar.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ This lovely citizen science project uses seasonal observations sent in by members of the public to help scientists understand the effects of weather and climate change on wildlife. It’s also a great way to make use of your observations of things which you might see during the winter and think or suspect are unseasonal.

Enjoy your month of nature spotting! All comments and questions are welcome, as always.

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