Pineapple weed

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Pineapple weed

Pineapple weed is another plant that is labelled as a weed to be eliminated at all costs. The reality is that this plant is a forgotten treasure given to us by nature and that has many uses for food and medicine. The plant has yellow, cone-shaped flower heads that resemble small pineapples. Interestingly enough, the crushed flowers, give off a slight aroma of pineapple, as well as the aroma of chamomile, hence the name.

The cone-shaped flower heads are a valuable part of this plant, as they are used either dried or fresh, most often in pineapple weed tea, which has a clear pineapple scent when brewed. You can also eat the dried or cooked flower heads for an energetic burst. The flower, more so than the leaf, tastes sweet and like pineapple. I can still remember my sister as a young child picking and eating them like sweets. The flower heads are the best part of this plant and can be a quick high energy snack. The leaves can be added to salads or nibbled on as you walk.

Flowering Pineappleweed
Pineappleweed Wild Manchester

Food Uses

Because pineapple weed is in the category of an invasive species, you should be careful where you harvest from to be sure that no spraying of toxic chemicals has taken place. It commonly grows on or along walking paths, trails, roadsides, and in disturbed areas. I wouldn’t recommend harvesting in these areas as they are typically polluted. Try to harvest in areas that are away from heavy use by humans, pets, and vehicles.

Recipe ideas for using pineapple weed

Here are 4 quick and easy ideas for using pineapple weed;

  • Pineapple weed in salads—use the flower heads and leaves in salads to add a fruity bite.
  • Pineapple weed syrup—just use the flower heads to make the best syrup. Cover the flower heads with water, simmer for 5 minutes, and strain. Measure the water and combine every millilitre with a gram of sugar, or every cup of liquid to one cup of sugar. Combine the liquid and sugar and heat slowly while stirring until the sugar dissolves. Dilute for drinks, cocktails, or salad dressing.
  • Pineapple weed salad dressing—mix half the pineapple weed syrup with olive oil, vinegar, and a little wholegrain mustard. Combine well and drizzle over salads or cold meats.
  • Pineapple weed tea—simply pour boiling water over dried or fresh pineapple weed flowers and leave to infuse for 5 minutes.

Health Benefits of Pineapple Weed

Pineapple Weed Harvesting

Pineapple Weed’s Benefits

Like chamomile, pineapple weed, a relaxing herb, is great for calming nervousness, agitation, and anxiety, and for promoting restful sleep. When we have digestive troubles of any kind that are caused by nervousness, this can be a great remedy. It is reported to help relieve stomach cramps and intestinal cramps, but it can also help with menstrual cramps as well and can be a good aid for painful periods.

New mums have often found it beneficial to take right after birth to help get a healthy supply of milk started for the newborn. And as an extra bonus, the effects of this herb can pass from mom to her baby through the milk, providing some digestive support for the baby as well. It’s a gentle herb that’s great for babies and children with colic, gas pains, and teething. It’s even used for children’s colds, especially in children that are warm-natured, have flushed cheeks, and usually don’t like to wear warm clothes

Historical Uses

Pineapple weed in written records has been in medicinal use for thousands of years by indigenous peoples in North America and Northeast Asia. Some of these uses include being brewed in a tea, topically applied after solvent extraction, eaten for its internal benefits, and cultivated to repel insects. Tea: Dry flower heads of pineapple weed, used to brew herbal tea, still remains the most popular use of this herb. You only need 5-6 flower heads, and you can add honey to sweeten the flavour or dilute the taste of the pineapple.

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3.9/5

The Holly Tree

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The Holly Tree

The Holly Tree is a popular sight in Europe and very easy to identify due to its evergreen prickly leaves and red berries. Hollies that are dioecious have separate male flowers on one plant and females on another, but you need both for pollination, resulting in berries. The female plants produce berries, but only if fertilized by pollen from a male plant.  In other words, to produce berries, it requires two plants. So if you plan to buy a Holly tree and want berries, it’s a good idea to buy two, a male, and a female.

Hollies are easy to grow and will grow in sun or partial shade; they prefer moist but well-drained soil. The variegated varieties keep their colours better in full sun. They require minimal pruning, but a good practice is to remove any diseased or wrongly placed branches in the spring. Trim holly hedges in late summer. If you are cutting holly as a festive decoration, pick some sprigs early in winter, before the berries get eaten by birds.

Holly Tree Wreath
Holly Tree Berries

symbolism, mysticism, magic, and lore.

The Holly Tree, renowned for being associated with symbolism, mysticism, magic, and lore, are all based within the realms of nature and are pre-Christian. The Christian symbolism of the Holly tree that is widely used today is of course Christmas, symbolically the blood of Christ turned the Holly berry red as it reportedly was white.

My favourites, the Holly King and Oak King, are personifications of the winter and summer in various folklore and mythological traditions. The two kings engage in endless “battle” reflecting the seasonal cycles of the year: not only solar light and darkness, but also crop renewal and growth. During the warm days of Midsummer, the Oak King is at the height of his strength; the Holly King regains power at the Autumn equinox; then his strength peaks during Midwinter, at which point the Oak King is reborn, regaining power at the Spring equinox, and perpetuating the succession.

Another folklore is to bring Holly into the home at Yule (The Pagan celebration of Winter Solstice); this invites the faerie folk to shelter with you in the cold of winter. But these greens must be burned on Imbolc, also called Saint Brigid’s Day,  in order to ensure they don’t stick around causing trouble all year. But a small branch should be retained and hung outside the house to protect it from lightning.

Also rumoured is that Hollywood gained its name from the Holly Tree. The Holly tree wood is a common wood for making wands, and Hollywood the masters of illusion and capturing the imagination, which when all put together are attributes of magic that are also associated with the Holly tree. Is it true? I don’t know, but it does kind of make sense.

The Holy Tree Holy King Oak King
The King Oak and King Holly

Value to wildlife

Around the base of the Holly tree, where the leaves are thick and extra prickly, it provides good dense cover and good nesting opportunities for birds. Dry leaf litter under the tree and around the trunk is ideal for hedgehogs and small mammals for hibernation.

The flowers provide nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinating insects. The leaves eaten by caterpillars of the holly blue butterfly, along with those of various moths, including the yellow-barred brindle, are a vital food source. The smooth leaves found at the tops of holly trees are a winter source of food for deer. The berries are a vital source of food for birds in winter, and small mammals, such as wood mice and dormice.

 

how to tell male from female holly

The Holly Tree

Myth and Lore

The Fairy Tree

The trees stand on the threshold between our world and the Otherworld. They’re under the protection of the fairies, so you risk punishment if you cut them down. The only time you could bring the branches indoors was on Yule. It spelt disaster to do so at any other time.  No one wants to uproot them without the fairies’ permission.

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3.9/5

Common House Sparrow

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The common house Sparrow

The common house Sparrow is a familiar sight; in fact, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who does not know what they look like. Like most common animals in the wild, they are labelled as a pest, and it is no surprise to see most pest control businesses have a sizeable list of creatures they consider to be pests. The Sparrow is no exception. Despite the dull colour of the Sparrow, they are still beautiful and interesting. Only the other day after watching the Sparrows on the bird feeder did I witness them hovering and flying backwards, which surprised me, as I have never seen them do that before.

Songs

Every morning, the Sparrow greets the morning with an orchestra of cheep cheep’s which are the males trying to attract females and to announce that they possess a nest. Females rarely use the cheep cheep song, unless it is to announce to the male that they are seeking a new suitor after losing her previous mate.

Click play to hear sparrow song.

Calls

Male and female House Sparrows make single cheep notes to indicate submissiveness in flocks, or between pairs as part of courting or copulation. Females make a short chattering sound when chasing off other females, or when her mate approaches.

House Sparrow Behaviour

House Sparrows hop rather than walk on the ground. They are social, feeding in crowded flocks and often squabbling over crumbs or seeds on the ground. House Sparrows are a common sight at bird feeders; you may also see them bathing in street-side puddles or dust, bathing on open ground, ruffling their feathers, and flicking water or dust over themselves with similar motions.

From living in such close company, House Sparrows have developed many ways of indicating dominance and submission. Nervous birds flick their tails. Aggravated birds crouch with the body horizontal, shove their head forward and partially spread and roll forward their wings, and hold the tail erect. This can intensify to a display with wings lifted, crown and throat feathers standing on end, tail fanned, and beak open. Males with larger amounts of black on the throat tend to dominate over males with less black. When males display to a prospective mate, they fluff up their chest, hold their wings partially open, fan the tail, and hop stiffly in front of the female, turning sideways and sometimes bowing up and down. Sometimes, other males who spot such a display in progress will fly in and begin displaying as well. In flocks, males tend to dominate over females in fall and winter, but females assert themselves in spring and summer.

Hovering Of House Sparrow

Save Sparrow Birds

Are Sparrows Good Luck?

House Sparrow Myth and Lore

In many cultures, sparrows are seen as good luck. In Chinese culture, the sparrow is an auspicious symbol of happiness and the coming of spring, while in Indonesian lore, sparrows signify birth, marriage, rain and other good tidings.

More articles here

House Sparrow in flight
House Sparrow Bathing

Look at the sparrows; they do not know what they will do in the next moment. Let us literally live from moment to moment. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Wildlife camera project

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Wildlife Camera

Wildlife camera project

Wildlife camera placed at Blossom Wythenshawe Park Horticultural Center Yesterday 11/05/2022 marked the first day of a new joint project with our friends Blossom Health Through Activity. The project involves the filming of plants as they grow in greenhouses from seed to full maturity using time-lapse wildlife cameras. Setup of a trial run using a Basil plant and one of Wild Manchester’s T300 Cameras started yesterday and will run for a full week. The basil plant is a relatively fast grower, so a picture taken every thirty minutes will be enough to capture the growth and movement of the plant throughout the week.

Wildlife Camera Project Rear View
Wildlife Camera Project Sandra

What is the project?

Well, a number of ideas have been in discussion, and if all goes to plan with the current project that we can implement the other ideas too. The project we are working on at the moment is to film runners growing from seed to harvesting using time-lapse. Sandra at Blossom suggested the Runner Bean because it is a fast grower and will be an interesting plant to film due to the way it winds, twists and crawls its way upwards, whatever is supporting it. Growing Runner Beans every year myself. I agree with Sandra. Once the plant establishes itself, its vines entangle anything in its way and very quickly.

Wildlife Camera Project Greenhouses
Wildlife Camera Project Setup

About the Wildlife cameras

When I first arrived, it had been raining, and was overcast, but even so, the greenhouses were still warm inside. As the day progressed, the sun came out and the temperature began to rise, making the air hot, wet and sticky. Being outdoor cameras, they are designed to withstand variable temperatures and are also waterproof, so this makes them ideal for the project with Blossom. Wildlife cameras have come a long way since their first appearance and have an endless amount of uses for the Wildlife enthusiast. At Wild Manchester we use them for all kinds of scenarios such as night filming, time-lapse photography, motion detection photography, and video.

Why use trap wildlife cameras.

Wildlife trap cameras are great resources, especially for us because we can have three or four out at a time, and they can provide a good quality result. They are not easy things to master, as there are numerous things to factor in to a shoot to have any real success with them. Of course, you can just point switches on and leave them on in the hope you catch something, but planning and patience are the key to getting success every time. The trap cameras are tough and can withstand any kind of weather within reason of course, and this makes them perfect for nature filming. We do have other types of cameras suitable for nature filming like live-streaming and high quality images. Unfortunately, these are nowhere near as robust and are 5—10x the cost, which is why we use the tanks as we call them for projects like the Blossom greenhouse.

Wildlife Camera Night vision filming

What will be the result?

The project at Blossom will roughly take a month to complete; during that time we will take weekly progress pictures and put them on this page. At the end of the month, we will take all the pictures and put them in a special software program. There can be up to two thousand images, which we will then make into a short five-minute mp4 video. The completed video will be on the Blossom social media, and their Website, as well as Wild Manchester.

Foxes in City of Manchester

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Fox looking very sly with a smirk.
Foxes in Manchester

Manchester's Urban Fox

Catching four individual foxes on night vision cameras and after doing some research this week, it was a surprise to learn that the Urban Fox is more numerous than I imagined.

The trip cameras we use filmed them eating bread that we originally left for the birds. The goal was when we set the cameras for night-time recording that we may catch a hedgehog or two, but we never imagined catching one Fox, let alone four.

Four individual foxes visiting one garden in a single night, I thought was very impressive and something we never expected, and so this prompted me to do some research. What I learned was unexpected, and that the Fox truly is an impressive animal and an expert survivor of man’s concrete jungles.

What is an Urban Fox?

The urban Fox is a direct result of man developing the world into a concrete jungle. To survive this new world, foxes have become scavengers.

The Fox has always been opportunistic when seeking food and as a result will eat almost anything. Another surprise to find out is that Foxes according to some sources only live 1 -2 years. The reason for this short life span and why it is so hard for them to survive in nature is because of the constant threat of predators and natural obstacles.

The urban fox as we know them today are survivors. However, part of their existence in the urban world is also due to them becoming dependent on humans. For food mostly. In the wild, a fox will only make a kill once or twice a week.

Foxes caught on out night vision cameras.

Above is the night-time recordings we took of the foxes, and on the right is one of our Trip Camera’s that we use. Trip cameras are just one of many ways we capture Wildlife on film. We have had great success so far and keep an eye open for the article about Cyril Squirrel who made a star performance on camera.

At night, the Manchester streets come alive with movement from foxes. The Fox is nocturnal, and the urban fox takes advantage of the emptiness a late-night provides. They feed from gardens, rubbish bins, and back porches if people leave out scraps for them.

Trap Cameras in Action

Wild Manchester Trip Camera
Wildlife Camera

What Does an Urban Fox Eat?

Since the Fox is a wild animal that hunts and exhibits wild behaviour, a lot of people worry they can be dangerous. People will sometimes report foxes as being dangerous to their pets. While there are some cases where a fox might kill a house pet like a cat or a small dog, it is extremely rare.

Foxes in urban environments mostly hunt and feed on rodents. This is one reason large cities are a place where they thrive.

A fox that has an easy meal, like rats and rodents, will not go through the trouble of fighting and killing a cat or dog.

Pets that are allowed to free-range are more likely to get killed by automobiles than they are by wild animals.

Are Urban Foxes Dangerous?

Being the opportunistic animals that they are, what they eat varies greatly. Some foxes will eat from gardens. Some eat out of rubbish bins. They will hang around restaurants, waiting for them to throw out waste food.

Foxes will sometimes build their dens in empty areas that are adjacent to places that throw away food, such as supermarkets and restaurants.

A fox eats rodents such as mice and rats and other small mammals.

They can have a larger home range too, hunting on the outskirts, and returning to the urban cities for easy access to other types of food.

Some people feed urban foxes. Leaving them their food scraps, sometimes leaving out dog food and cat food for them. While this seems like a good way to help foxes, it can sometimes cause them to become dependent on humans and gain excess fat from rich tinned pet food.

 

Summary

So having learned a little more about Foxes, I am looking forward to their next night-time visit’s. A great video to watch about a man befriending a Fox can be found here.

3.8/5