newish natural history. not always nice.

newish natural history. not always nice.

natural history is endless, it is simply an ongoing story with many chapters still untold.
still how the ‘old’ version of natural history evolved in our ways of thinking, we still use that in our minds.nature as a good place, a nice and better place, or more fitting as a better opponent entity to cultivation.

We simply love the lovely and beautiful side of nature. the bad sides, or maybe more the difficulties caused by effects of nature, are things we must deal with, or seek solutions.

‘the deal with it’ solutions is at this time of future history slightly the preferent view, still that makes it not very easy. also it usually serves under the ‘not in my backyard’ principle.
problems from nature are not communal problems, but only reserved for others.
if we all have the same problem it is easier to agree to the eradication of it.

because we live such different lives, for many it means many aspects of nature become just the unknown, but rarely a known unknown.

nature itself is a pretty easy to understand concept when it is about what it wants, it just wants room to be. it doesn’t respect the boundaries of cultivation in any way. every step we make, will have an effect, and nature will fill that in its way. sometimes very small, sometimes with enormous effects.

even when we put a lot of cultivation together and call it cities and towns, nature would not leave us be, it is not in its nature, like it is inborn in humans to conquer nature. we do not restrict that to our own species, but just all. we proved that in our history, nature and humans alike. and humans like to forget we are just as much part of nature too.

even as we at the moment think we are the best fitted species, in the way darwin wrote it down, that is usually just a temporary moment in time. not the time of our devices, but nature's time. history tells other species been there too, done that, and are often no longer there anymore.

and what we do, as soon as you dare to look over your shoulder, nature will be there to change things. and nature is not so much a fan of looking for better, it simply has solutions to deal with all and every situation it is confronted with.

like one of the results of the old natural history, that had quite a romantic outlook on nature, we as a species became great lovers of things from far away, we did not restrict that to simply dead nature to put down in collections, made part of our arts to hang on a wall, no, we also wanted the living.

so we took all the ways of transport we could think of, and going to get it. most of the species we brought back were put behind bars, so they could not escape. sometimes we even let them a bit more room to wander, or just set them free in our own wild nature.
we did not only liked to look at all these strange and wonderful new things from far away, but many we liked on our platters too. so many had so to say dual purposes, great to look at and hunt them down to eat them worked great, at least sometimes.
but as with everything civilisation comes with preferences, we like to handle it as ‘in fashion’, or even a hype in its time. but we like the new, the better, or just the differences of others. we easily walk in the gully of thinking we know it and want new ones to explore.
and again nature just waits to deal with that time after time.

so besides what already ended up around us, nature deals with what we brought as an extra when we no longer like it, let it escape or just still like it a bit. not always successful so many meet a silent ending. but when they make a success of it, it is usually a sound one, and what once was the mysterious or beautiful unknown becomes too often just a plague.

i am in a personal view quite fond of how nature exploits our invasions, how that all comes together, and as a side dish how unintentionally stupid we as humans react to it. i like the ecology in true nature too, but that human species walking through that has its own charm.
for me, civilization is not really an opponent of nature at all, but just part of it.

it is even quite arrogant to think, when we have a hand in it, it becomes ours as a concept.
we hardly keep enduring concepts, we already did much, but always find new ways, and many that we left behind we see as nature now. but i do not see a sharp line that divides both each to their own field of influence. civilisation is mostly in my opinion our way to deal with nature. most is just a continuity battle against aspects of nature, it has its peaceful pauses, but not even that long. stop doing what you did and nature walks in and takes over again.

our species have a lot of difficulties with that, because we have preferences in what nature we want and what not. we like the beauty of the full colour, the soft coated furry ones and the ugly ones, in our eyes only, get attention only when they at least are rare to find.

the existence of group terms like weeds, plague and pests means we never are fond of all nature, but just a personal selection, and some we agree more on as others, but it has quite a broad spectrum in preferences.

this tread will be dedicated to some of these preferences, and also what can go wrong or right from it. with my personal bias and of course as a result of my own selected preferent matter. feel free to join in. our history proves you can have quite the debate or even battle without getting physical wounded from it, ego’s are at risk always, but maybe that is why we have them.

let's take off with some green stuff. weeds.

weeds are quite a simple concept, it is just all plant life and what we from unlearned knowledge accidentally call plants too, that grow in a place we do not want them.

so it is not so much a kind of plant that is a weed, but just when it is in your opinion growing in the wrong place. we do not even agree fully if it is just weed or weeds, that also seems to work mostly from your personal preferences.
and we can not leave out that our habit to use exactly the same words for very different meanings can get all understanding lost in an iffy.

so there is or are also weed or weeds, that are just one specific species of plants, but only the varieties that contain certain, or better even have specific chemicals in them, to get high.
that kind of weed is only reserved for the species cannabis sativa.
the same plant can also be there as hemp, but that is for making cloth, sailing cloth and ropes. you can use it high, but not get high from these varieties, at least it is not meant to be.

it has not found europe by accident or other natural causes, humans found out other humans used it and just imported it, and cultivation on the home turf was cheaper and pretty easy, they never would have done it , if it was not, and just left it in eastern asia where it is part of nature’s botanical's.

no, our weed or weeds we can try to deal with, are just the plants we do not like to see in the space they found with their own roots.
the majority is quite a mix of plants from ‘the indigenous collection’, with imported species, often already so long ago, and fully integrated that they are accepted as belonging here too.
others we remember their introduction still. but as long as they can reproduce themselves and not in a way we can not conquer them well enough, they end up on the list of botanical's belonging to a specific region , or country even. not that plants do have respect for borders, very little in nature has.

we cultivated many plant species that they become even new species in their own right, but only when they just grow where we tell them to, they are cultivated products or cultivated species.
so some wheat plants from last seasons crops growing an a potato field are also to be called weeds, both came from far away places, both are cultivated and both can be crops, but not together in the same field, so they can end up to be weeds too.

and do not make the mistake, that if you decide a plant is in the space or place you do not want it to be, you can do what you like. sorry , you are human, you have to play it by the book of rules, or at least the online version.

the smallest risk to keep it within the law, and no, the law do not care much it is your own piece of earth, is just grab the stuff and pull it out. most times you can get a free pass for that. but if you become a bit greedy and want to opt for the chemical solution, also called crop spraying, o boy, you have to learn a thing or two, three, and many more.

first know what you are dealing with, species is meant, the life stage the plant is in, and also know the species of your crops, what life states they are in, then you have to survey the list of chemicals that say they can deal with the species of weed, and give the answer if you crop will survive that too. then you have to see if you have your paperwork in order, for some you have the need of an accreditation to work with the chemical solution. or you must hire another that has. find your identity card to buy the stuff, hiring others solves that at least.
go buy the stuff, read the instructions, keep some reading glasses at the ready.
follow the instructions and hope you can do that all before the weeds reach another stage of growth and you have to use another chemical and go over it all again.
or decide to go organic and hope for the best.

this above is what we could call the modern farmers' way to deal with weeds. now you understand why the farmers of modern times usually have quite a lot of education, before they can be one.

for a professional dealing with weds in a setting we can call the council greens and gardens, parks and other we keep just for fun, beautification or functionality this process is almost the same, only they have to know what extra rules there can be for specific places, communal areas are more and more in the no chemicals allowed zone.

you can no longer call the all to easy simply gardeners, they can still be true gardeners, but because cheap is always better, so all that can handle getting hands dirty are more and more replacing the educated ones. for some situations it works, for a lot not. but usually that can be solved to put in a gardener as a overseer.

large areas and even larger spots are not that easy to keep weedfree, that is quite time consuming if the just pull and pick out way is used, and time is not cheap. the knowledge to do it in a good working and effective manner asks educated people, but it is sustainable as long as enough people are there to do it. it is an very old, you could call it a traditional way of getting away of weeds. traditional because it was for millennia the only way to solve the problem, we still have not solved it, it is just a repeated traditional habit. but traditional, non chemical is much easier to sell to citizens nowadays.

there even is a section of minds that changed that to ‘let nature take its course’ hype. well we cannot leave our hands of nature in that system, so we usually put some extra species in the mix, to give it some colour and tell it is good for the bees.
and the energy is put into keeping that damn nature in that same stage of evolution.
because the educated mind already knows nature always is in favour of making woods, but that takes some stages in between, and that first is usually absolute chaos, so much more weeds, because that attracts birds that poop out the seeds of the trees needed for the wood.
and birds have simply to share the bird feeding stations elsewhere, this let nature takes its course is for bees, the odd butterfly and maybe some insects too.

birds also just wait till the natures with extras for the bees makes seeds and eat them to, to fly to other places and poop then out there. it is all nature doing its course, but o boy, we can make our problem with weeds put over a much larger area.

and the lets nature take its course is pretty easy, all that topsoil and layers beneath it that been used for millennia before, do have quite a collection of seeds, a so called seed bank, a very effective collection of plants to keep the dirt covered, because natures knows that open dirt leaves it open to erosion, and nature do not like that, because the nature preference to make woods can be hindered by erosion.
even slightly disturbances, wakes up the army of the pioneers, with one goal: cover the dirt quickly and make seeds for next time. and they do.

amateurs and weeds have it even worse, they need at least a subscription to one or two magazines, always chose another one than the neighbours have, you can lent them for free, or just say yours tells you your solution must be the better on.
you have to pick a stance too, become a advocate of do absolutely nothing at all, put some extra relics of civilisation in it, like an old car, bikes do well to, maybe some empty beer cans and a bottle or two, empty, for some colour maybe a garbage bag or 3.
or you enter the world of amateur gardeners. still you have to pick a stance from what that side offers. the lazy ones, just choose less work than the do nothing, because you do not have to find all the junk to decorate it. just go for the green look in spring, the yellow for summer, brown for autumn and bare for winter.

but if you want to keep at least bee known as polite in the community, it means more work and getting hands dirty, or just buy an apartment without a balcony, except some green algae, what are not even plants, you have much less to deal with nature and its weeds.

and there are many choices, and all these different plants, that means or making a garden plan, or hoping for the best so your brain can store them long enough to get recognizable as chosen species again next season.
type of garden and next how to keep it in that state, your stance about how to eradicate all else and weeds of course can bring on your stage on the social standing a bit. if you go old school just chemical. you would easily be seen as conservative, or when over 45 a boomer.
a mixed version of pulling out and chemical assistance, you can be seen as someone who cannot make a choice for just one approach. the one that cannot makes the mind up.
or the just go on the knees and pull with effort. you have to combine that with the right choice of wanted to keep plants before you can be noticed as green. but this is actually the most easy one, all plants can have at least one very ugly and rare specimen from the animal world that needs it, so very easy to make a claim for the biodiversity, certainly when your choice is of the quite unique type.

still in the end it does not matter, nature always will win the war on weeds, it has so many fitted species available, there always will be one to become a nuisance.

and from the view of economics that is very nice, the magazines and gardeners paradises shops can always find something new to sell to you, that will promise to win this season.
so next time, it will be another mulch, another type of wood chips, maybe with that ugly hard to handle plastic, with or without holes.

or for who gives up, nice tiles to put over it all, maybe some pots for space control of a wanted species. no worries, nature can deal with those too, they just throw in the very small plants, they have very small ones in grasses and some herbal stuff that looks like moss, but isn’t. moss will come to assistance and also algae, or even the odd mould can do something.

all because we can not risk to be called too lazy to conquer nature, that just want a nice wood in that garden of yours. no worries if you let nature take over, other humans just will conquer you first about trees that throw leaves on their plot, takes sunlight from their windows.

the old stuff.

it is not so much in fashion any more to keep these large collections of dead animals, it still is done, but today we call it before we start already educational, where it long before just could be a sport, memorabilia to illustrate true , half true or just made up stories how they came to hang on a wall. what is changed is that it was before more a hunt for the animal itself too, just to have it in a collection, of find a hunter to do that for you. nowadays most are just found dead, roadkill of the second hand shop to get them.

and i know some collections that are out there to be only educational in today's world, still it is remarkable how fond people of all ages are easy playing their minds and mouth into, i would love to have that too.
part of a collection i well know, because i was one of two silly people who put a hand up, when asked for who would take on that collection, in our spare time of course. i learned one thing quickly, never not on my walls or in my home.

and the older they are, the more risky business. i was never the type that was fond of working with gloves on, there is little that cannot be solved with a bit of soap, hot water and a hard brush. but we made the mistake to put some of the animals through some testing. the nice outside you see is still dead animal, the skin is usually under the fur or feathers stil original, claws and nails too, some bones are still there. so if the taxidermy, as the art to conserve them is called, is done with quality and a good eye for the original form of the animal, picked the right fake set of eyes, and paint used on the more nacked skin is chosen well, they can look very real. but it does not tell what is done on the inside and how.

and that asks quite a lot of work, because all that is dead, nature likes to shred into much smaller pieces, until it is fully reusable to others. we found none that could fit the title of a organic preparation. o, natural substances been well used, but not very nice ones.

so when we had some small helpers of natures cleaning up department paying a visit we had to do something. both of us has quite a lot of experience in working with chemical stuff. at least the kind that are not to be seen as harmless to anything.
but we had some doubts about possible reactions, the oldest been already at least dead for over 70 years. the youngest just a week. some been already so far eaten away, so they had to be disposed of, we decided to make use of them to see what the taxidermist has used as a system and what chemicals been used. the oldest part was done by the same pair of hands.

the first ended up with numbers so high in arsenic compounds, enough to poison at least 5 mother-in-laws. but also quite high numbers still for the good stuff from the old days, ddt, parathion,and the rest of the family. ddt was not really surprising, that was a commonly used household compound. usually in a kind of massive syringe to blow it over al and everything, that maybe could have some critters living in it. most had hang in the study of a doctor in medicine, some on the wall, others on shelves.
and a weekly dose was very common practice. the others must have asked a little bit more imagination, but at least it kept them very dead for many years.

so keeping gloves on was a decision quickly agreed upon, and a full face shield and an extra mask too. and an absolute rule of not leaving their shelves behind the glass. and a do not touch policy. and that last seems very hard to get in the minds of the onlookers, there seems a special attraction to touch them, pretty careful but still.

but some had even quite a lot of the original animal in them, a bit too much, luckily long dried out, but critters do not mind an mummy with arsenic poisoning that much.
we also decided the trick we learned from a real taxidermist, to just use the air compressor and took one after the other outside and give them a good blow was no longer a good idee, it answered at least where the brown very dead patches in the lawn most likely came from.

of course we had to put some moderner chemicals in the mix. maybe over 25 years someone else test again and start writing a bit about how daft they must have been to use these on such an object. and the first year we could still use some not very nice organo phosphate compounds, and some of the sturdier of the permetrine family.

but it was quite surprising what was used in the inside to stuff it, very old newspaper pieces, chewing gum with still some tooth markings of the user, at least we hoped. toilet paper, horse hair, wax and plasticine. and as most have hanged on the walls, in a time smoking of tobacco was still seen as healthy, and doctors did that still when the patients came to their offices, the nicotine was very high too, and it even was in al the paper used to stuff the birds and animals.

the paint used on beaks and legs mostly was also not very innocent, lead white is not an empty name, but also all kinds of petroleum and formaldehyde and copper compounds used on the inside of the skin.

we concluded that we had to have quite a lot of respect for the latest batch of critters, to lived quite a full life on the things, and looked not has any impairment in the fertility department at all.

let say, it is not all gold what is shining when you look at such collections, and these little signs with warnings do not touch, are not only there to keep the fur and the feathers on the dead bodies, but it is really a lot safer too.

and maybe an air tight covering for the great find in a second hand shop is a great idea too.

knowing better than nature…

we love to think we are simply better than nature, and from that we have fallen into thinking that we not only can destroy and eradicate nature, but we can make new nature too.

actually it could be much easier, because when we simply step back, just keep our distance, nature will still take care by itself.
but we can’t. because we just like some nature of many others, it is still nature, but with the wrong taste. so we breed from the ones part of the old natural history heritance just more of a species, and with a lot of difficult wording, because why would you restrict it to setting free, if rewilding, reintroduction can be used instead.

we know it can ‘work’, we already have many very successful escapes, well they became more a larger burden, because they have been the wrong species, so that can not grow into real nature. plants can be more horrible than the animals section, so we call them exotic with a nasty tone.
but the strangest things happen, we think exotic species walking free is not okay and even quite harmful, and you would think when we are offered something to eradicate and destroy, we would take up that challenge, but we do not. o, we like to talk about it, write about it, but doing something against it makes us utterly lazy.

it is better to score with indigenous species, even when we have eradicated those long ago, often with quite sound reasons, we try with effort to get them back, and if they do not want on their own, we just catch them somewhere they wanted to be and place them in their supposed better place. real wild ones seem to work better than the offspring catched many years before. so the collections often stay the collections, in zoo’s, they do sometimes a bit of gene swapping, but there often are not that much species that have lived so near us , we do pay the entry fees to look at them.

sometimes a country is a bit lucky and it can happen a so called protection plan at the neighbours works great, so great they walk in on their own seed umbrella’s, of feet.
there always can be the naughty citizen or two, that illegally put a bit of extra help in, but that is marginal, and they are mostly of the stupid kind, because they always pick the wrong variety, if they at least get the species correct of course.

we can hardly say with did not notice these wild plans, it is usually in effect with a special pr stunt, there is always a royal or vip to find who want to wear some old rags to open up a crate or box. and it is not for the ordinary people, often such events ask to put a fence in between your usual walk way and the rewilding zone.

the walk in on their own is also seen as a special treat. there is usually already a harsh protection plan in place called the law, even the brits have been quite lazy, and have little independent laws made after brexit. so many adventures are simply photoshopping the eu logo from the paperwork and done they are.

and in europe we still have a lot of eu, and with every country that enters the zone, there is the risk an plant or animal has to be put on the list of indigenous species of the eu.
all is ready when they are ready.
only no one in europe , or the uk, or the eu ever seems to be able to think ahead about the ‘what ifs’ when the plan goes pretty wrong. and yes they simply do.

at least all have taken a measure to cancel that, they always knows how to find so called experts in the species. some even had some weeks training abroad, usually where the species wanted to be by their own choices. or what often looks to be more concrete, they have at least seen pictures of a species and read a book, maybe two.

but time after time they must have mist the chapters about successfully reproduction, something that can be very different from the real natural setting, as lots of humans around, and even more activity by human hands, where humans want that.

together with the silent reintroductions, often well meant, but a bit sloppy, or because the law was changed and a species no longer could be part of your private collection. so talking from the netherlands we are quite good in reintroduction of geese, the first try out was end of the sixties the egyptian goose. well that became a exotic, but as an extra handicap you could catch them, but they do not well cooked or fried, that story will make it later into the lawless kitchen topic i think. but i did try it myself without success.
when the hunt on wild geese was mostly ended that came together when the waterfowl collecting was out of fashion. so all kinds of geese been set free. the problem they been of the original species of europe so protected by law. and they are quite productive.
species like the canadian goose, in all its variety, are protected too, because some once upon a time made a mistake and found europe, no human hands in that , so protection served. and the geese must know that mingling together, they really like that will protect the exotic kinds too. so today it is even hard to escape them. even when you build a new residential area, they just stay.

we also have muskrats, and nutria’s. walked in, and escaped after the fur fashion was no longer acceptable. you can even become a muskrat catcher, they do nutria’s too.

but we had our great ideas too, with a lot of pr, we got some beavers. caught somewhere on the border of germany and poland. many of the given back to man made new nature reserves, they loved it, the first had still the need of a live stream to se them, but now they are everywhere in wet parts of the netherlands, only we forgot to educate them. so they do not understand they supposed to eat only trees planted and growing in nature, and not a complete apple orchard, or tree nursery.

and together with the muskrats, the nutria’s, the beavers seems to be quite harmful to our dykes, and it seems that is just a bit too much nature to risk.

many other species that accidentally but usually by intent are set loose can be a bit of a nasty affair too, exotic sweet water and marsh turtles, including the ones that eat the real indigenous species with effort, some could even bite humans. known in english as snapping turtles, who just when little been pets. do like it to dig holes in dykes and smaller keeping water out or in man made structures.
bull frogs been another one, but they are no longer much in the news.
always nice when people see one of these species and think it is a very good idea to call the police, and say deal with it. and it is not in their handbooks how. catching is a adventure in itself, but where do you leave them. killing them is not acceptable, and people stay around to look how you catch them usually. so most end up in a old style collection or a zoo.

after the reintroduction of the beaver, the otter has its turn. very successful, but not jet made it into a new plague, but that still can happen. at least one of them preferred to lay on a coach in a home.

and it is quite sad that all these new arrivals decide not to stay in the new nature reserves, but choose to live in the more residential areas. and by law most are the untouchable species.

but it can always go more wrong, because of the eu rules and the heavy set of regulations we have some species that are even more protected than others, no not humans, well this week one of them tried to get entry to ter apel’s asylum center for humans, and no idea why, they do not even need paperwork to stay wherever they want.
it is the most hot species of the moment, everyone have to be for it or against it. and of course have an opinion about it and put that online.

the first was not a correct one, it had used human helping hands and a car to get her, so that one does not count for a real one, it was never alive either, but it made it at least to the museum. no, but the next one followed soon, not even a shy one, no walking through a village in broad daylight, out first wolf.

and wolves are a bit of a problem, they have no idea where they need to get their feed, or where they are supposed to live, so they just live everywhere.
nothing to worry about, the government found some great experts, sadly they are maybe experts but not in the subspecies that wolf now is growing into, in that little country on the north sea, where every square meter has his dedicated function, we are now selecting the wolf into the netherwolf. this one does not have a problem with wolf restricted fences, likes sheep, cattle and horse flesh over the wild stuff we have. and it is now studying how to eat the earlier sidelined dna of their own originals the dogs. and on these dogs is usually a human connected, so it is just waiting to see, why our own ancestors liked the wolves better dead as a doornail.

and it has something very sad, that top predator species, is now growing into a kind of park animal, walking the streets, the field and recreational areas full of humans. humans that means traffic that kills them.

and it was all hoorah when they came, but no one had put any effort in a bit of regulation, when wolves are a problem in certain places how that can be successfully resolved.
last week there was a kind of a standoff, 5 police cars and one wolf, so the road was simply closed to the public, well in the a bit lesser populated areas of the country that could work, but think when wolves go on, and no, it is not jet researched if they can swim or row to the other coasts. but there is nothing that can keep them out of larger populated areas, the so called cities. they do not mind high fences, so who knows why your next flight cannot take off. and by law if they choose by their own free will to board a plane, nothing that can hinder that at all.