Conversation by elephants: from Green Park to green thinking

 

Stories and ideas inspired by the lantana elephant herd in Green Park, London which are modelled on Indian elephants and made by indigenous craftspeople in Asia. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs). 

The lantana elephant herd moves through Green Park: amazing activism art (c) NB

The elephant herd in Green Park look as if they are flowing across the park out of the tube and down the hill to Buckingham Palace. Randomly cycling to explore central London with my university colleague Gracia we are both amazed to stumble on to an art safari. 

We’ve covered no air miles, read no hype but are utterly awe-struck by the size of the herd. Each elephant is individually sculpted from lantana, a rattan-like material which a volunteer in a hi-vis vest explains is an invasive weed, despoiling habitats. Lighten our footprint and wildlife bounces back says Coexistence which put up the project for https://elephant-family.org/ 

Trunk detail on the lantana herd. (c) NB

It’s clear these models are made by people who know how to look deeply. Each elephant seems to be moving. There are calves, bigger youngsters and grand old dams. In total “there are 72 elephants and they’ll be in Green Park until 23 July,” says a dreadlocked security guard who has managed to luck out with a job that involves walking around a hard to steal set of exhibits, currently moored outside under the trees of Green Park. Gracia and I wander slowly noticing lifted forefeet, curled trunks, swishing tails… We are all-seeing in this famous park deliberately planted with open vistas by Henrietta so that her famously-philandering husband Charles II had less opportunity for liaisons – though he still managed to have at least 100 illegitimate children. “Deforested for surveillance,” suggests Gracia which seems a remarkably 21st century approach. Restoration was nearly 400 years ago so no surprise that Green Park has a decent spread of avenues now, as befits a national park city like London. And it is down one of these big tree lined avenues that the elephant herd is progressing, attended by curious visitors. 

The project run by Elephant Family is called Coexistence and has an intriguing aim – to get watchers to share their stories and an attempt to reboot our nature understanding. “This isn’t a call for an extreme return to the wild. Look around you, wherever you are. Who do you share your world with? Can we increase our coexistence everywhere, and rewild ourselves. Nature is intelligent and adapting. Other life forms will meet our efforts halfway, if only we give them the chance,” writes Coexistence on the website. 

The elephants are made by craftspeople from the Tamil Nadu jungle who clearly know the way elephants move. These magnificent creatures in Green Park look as if they are walking towards tea with the Queen – trunks swinging confidently. Of course, they’re not: these are artworks on tour and also for sale raising funds for elephant protection – a baby is £6,000; adolescent £12,500 and the 7.5x12x4 foot matriarch £22,000. 

Messages from the elephant in the room - Green Park (c) NB

For years the term “elephant in the room” has bumped around environmentalists conversations as they talked biodiversity loss, population pressure and a warming planet at meetings they’d flown to. An elephant has become such a signifier of these types of reluctance to address the big picture that spotting this herd immediately makes me think they are there to raise awareness about climate change. And in fact they will be, as those not sold are taking a detour to Glasgow to help support the COP26 climate meeting run by the UN in early November. They will certainly cheer up this vital meeting. You can read more about elephants and climate change on the Coexistence blog, see https://elephant-family.org/news-views/news/what-do-elephants-have-to-do-with-climate-change/ 

Elephant stories
For almost all of us, elephants inspire us to share stories: our encounters on TV (thank you David Attenborough) or real life, our efforts to save them, our funny moments. In the 1970s I remember re-reading my little brother the story of the Elephant and the Bad Baby by Elfrida Vipont whose elephant and tiny passenger went “rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta down the road”. I always felt sorry for the Bad Baby - who was definitely tricked by the Manners Police – but also for my brother whose only experience with elephants was via these Raymond Briggs’ illustrations. In contrast I’d spent my summer as a three-year-old being used as a toddler honeytrap by our entrepreneur Dad. 

Let's think and move like an elephant. Nicola posing by one
of the lantana herd at Green Park.

Dad had acquired a life-size mechanical elephant (built in Essex and named Jessica) which could take people for rides. He’d get me on to this giant’s back to either pose for the press or encourage other families to climb aboard. I was quite a scowly little girl, but I liked being in the corner seat behind my dad on top of an elephant. He’d dress up as an elephant handler when he operated the controls, no doubt crossing his fingers that the licence plate the DVA insisted was attached to Jessica’s tail wouldn’t fall off and ruin the looks-like-a-real-elephant spell. Fun as she was, his mechanical elephant soon became a liability. She triumphed on Blue Peter then fell through the floor at Whiteleys department stores near Paddington. She was destined for Republican fundraising in the US (from an animal motif point of view Republicans are elephants and Democrats donkeys) but storms delayed the ship, so she never made it. Like my family’s car she’d regularly break down and was super hard to fix. My Dad worked from home and it wasn’t unusual for random telephone callers to begin, “It’s about an elephant…” During peak elephant crises he began to avoid the phone. The last known sighting was rumoured to be on a Birmingham allotment. My Dad died more than two decades ago but my Mum says if you happen to have news about an unusual elephant she’s not interested! 

Slowly memories of my elephant life drifted away. Then in 2000* I visited a friend in Zimbabwe and just near the garden of the Victoria Falls hotel the taxi we were using came to a halt as a herd emerged from scrubby trees and crossed the road. Their big feet didn’t prevent them from moving silently – but they left behind a torn trail of branches. One particular elephant standing apart, with flapping ears, seemed vast: my nearly two-year-old daughter looked at this massive land animal with complete composure. In contrast I felt quite weak: a flesh and blood elephant was a very different beast to poor mechanical Jessica. 

Around the time I was born the world population was 2.7 billion and wilderness accounted for 64% of the world. When you compare this to 2020 the numbers seem to have been put in a shaker and jumbled themselves out of control. World population is now 5.7 billion and inevitably wilderness space has fallen to 46%. It seems amazing in a way that so much is still left. But that’s not how the elephant herds must see it. On the Coexistence website you can find stories of the Indian elephants used as models – Highway Hathis (hathi means elephant in Urdu) who have to constantly cross busy roads and railways and the Crop Raiders on the scavenge for 150kg of food a day. 

Both these herds have at least one human hero who has turned around their chances of survival. For the Highway Hathis this was Sanjay Gubbi who has imposed sanctions (slower vehicle speeds and roads closed at night), whilst for the Crop Raiders it was Dulu who came up with the idea of a buffet barrier rice field between the village and forest.  But it took a community commitment to make the changes happen.

Spending time with the lantana herd in Green Park you can get to know the characters, discuss art, activism and exhibitions. As you stare and snap for social media the volunteers gently engage you in conversation about the elephants. It’s a brilliant way of bringing the elephant in the room – in this case a need to coexist with all wildlife – into our front of brain understanding. Days later I took a train to Ash in Kent to a wedding and at the station, opposite the garage was greeted by a good view of a new Bellway homes construction site, walled by panels and ringed by a busy road. The billboard claimed: ‘Coming soon Wildflower Meadow’ conjuring up images of red poppies and blue cornflowers and not a large, tightly-fitted set of brick houses. 

Message from the lantana elephant herd: “If some people can live with elephants surely we can learn to live with beavers, badgers and bring back our fast vanishing birds and butterflies.”
Could this be possible with these housing complexes built so tightly to main roads? (c) NB

This uncomfortable disconnect between what our ever-expanding population is promised – wildflowers and meadows – and what is coming – crowded brick houses on a road - made me revisit the message the Green Park elephant herd was created to share: “If some people can live with elephants surely we can learn to live with beavers, badgers and bring back our fast vanishing birds and butterflies.” Yes, we surely can follow Coexistence’s message, but to do so, most of us need to look deeply into the way we organise our lives if we want to give those smaller animals and ecosystems a fighting chance for survival. 

When it comes to PR, being a massive elephant has a lot more impact than being a mini-beast. But at least we humans still have the power to make a positive difference. Some suggestions: 

• In the garden leave out food and water for birds and other wildlife; keep all cats indoors at night and never use slug or snail pellets. 

• Getting around aim to use your own steam (walk, scoot or cycle) or public transport. 

• Avoid food waste - farming destroys habitats so it makes sense to at least use and eat what you have bought.

• Measure your carbon footprint and aim to bring it down. There’s a fun measuring site on https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/ 

More about this herd and the thinking behind how it is supporting Asia’s wildlife at elephant-family.org The lantana elephants move out of Green Park on 23 July 2021.

FOOTNOTE

*2000- after this trip my family made a commitment to only fly every 10 years and reduce our carbon footprint. I last made a plane flight in 2011. In theory I'd have probably taken a flight in 2021 but for lots of reasons - including my own carbon budget - probably will not. I can't imagine that we'll be behaving just as we do now in 2031, so maybe that's plane trips over for me.

How wild can you be?

Wilding: the return of nature to a British farm is an amazing book with the potential to change everything about the way we manage nature and it tackles climate change. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs). 

The very beautiful cover of Wilding. Now you know
what a turtle dove looks like.

Every now and then a book shakes up your comfy ideas. Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, of course; Frances More Lappe's Diet For A Small Planet, most things by Malcolm Gladwell (I know, sorry!) and more recently Robert Macfarlane's Lost Words. And now there's another: Wilding: the return of nature to a British farm by Isabella Tree.

This fantastic book starts with Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell being forced to sell the dairy herd and all the farm equipment to keep the Knepp estate, which is near Horsham, afloat. They were £1.5 million in debt and couldn't make a living on the clay soils around their castle. The soil fertility was so dire that expensive fertilisers were making little headway, other than harm the estate's old oak trees. In many ways this is an oddity of a book - it's by a very privileged woman who marries a castle (well a man with a castle) and then the couple work hard to convince various funding bodies to provide grants to fence the outer boundary so they can return the whole acreage - bar the Repton designed park - into a wild place.

There's still public access for paid-for events (in the Repton park) and also free routes for dog walkers and riders on footpaths/bridleways. As the wilding project develops safari tourism becomes possible - and how lovely. Few of us get access to a big set of fields or understand what the owners/managers are trying to do, other than National Trust properties, so it is exciting to be taken through the wilding approach.

For starters this old idea of doing nothing to manage your land turns out to be nail-bitingly complicated. There is a place in the Netherlands, Oostvaardensplassen, that has managed to do a more extreme version, where herds of horses and deer expand during glut months and literally starve to death in the winter, but in the south-east of England that's not going to be an option in 21st century Britain. See this article about the backlash to starving animals in the Netherlands.

Grazing power
Chapter by chapter Isabella Tree (yes, she's well-named) details how grazing animals can change habitats - actually bringing back soil fertility. At Knepp they've done this with Longhorn cattle and Exmoor ponies. She also discusses how original Britain was surely open grassland with some woodland not solid trees - a scene more familiar to Serengeti safari takers than those of us used to massive agricultural fields farmed by the barley barons. And then how de-canalising a river, basically letting it wiggle and pond and slowing the flow brings insects which bring birds and a great many bird watchers.

The cover has a secretive, zebra-striped bird I've never really considered before, the turtle dove - known to most of us from the gorgeous 12 Days of Christmas carol. And in serious danger of going extinct because its habitat has all but disappeared.

She takes on all the countryside taboos - removing fencing, leaving ragwort, letting Tamworth pigs roam on a walkers' path and, whisper it, wanting to reintroduce beavers. She's not frightened of suggesting that this leave-nature-to-do-its-thing produces better management results than just managing for a particular species. She's also clear that stopping ploughing is a good way to avoid releasing carbon which adds to climate change.

It was the chapter about rivers that made me think hard. As a stand up paddleboarder I'm accustomed to using canals which have straight concrete sides and controlled water flows. Increasingly there are loads of temptations to go out and paddle rivers which I doubt does wildlife much good (especially when birds are nesting or the young are just entering the water). But if rivers are left to be more natural (but not allowed to convert to woodland) they really aren't straight - they're an untidy mess which are no longer navigable. On the plus side this creates habitats, water storage and slows fast water flow averting flood risks. But they're no longer the rivers we know... In the same way that 3,500 acres of Knepp land is becoming a different landscape. It's a Serengeti under the Gatwick flight paths!

Isabella takes this idea of right and wrong landscape further pointing out that most British people think the yardstick for what's normal should be approximately dated from the time when they were studying. So todays' leaders (eg, Boris Johnson is 55) think of the good-old-days as the 1980s - a time when insect and bird populations were crashing. When she showed around older people they recognised the wild flowers, the birds and even some of the insects.

Me too
I would like to rewild, but how can I do this living in the middle of London? My small concession is very lax care of the tree pits along the road where I live. In fact they often win prizes for their summer appearance but the times people have said they look untidy because there's grass and other wild flowers growing at the base of the tree. My logic is that if they were weeded it would simply turn these tiny nature reserves into cat litter trays. And who wants that?

My bit for rewilding is focused on sharing the book with as many people as I can. I read a library copy. And so far have convinced one book club member to buy it, one friend to listen to a podcast about the Knepp project and given a copy to my brother for his birthday (happy birthday Drew!).  I look forward to finding out what these readers think about the ideas Isabella discusses and even more to seeing if this wilding idea gets a bigger grip on the public imagination. Maybe it already has - my first contact with Knepp Castle was on BBC's Countryfile. And wow it looked fun to explore. I can't wait to visit.

• https://knepp.co.uk/home which explains more about the wilding project and camping/visiting opportunities. From Easter - October you can join a morning walking safari for £35.
• There's an organisation trying to introduce wilding into the UK, see https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk

Blind love: Munnings the horse painter

The village of Dedham is in a sublimely pretty corner of Essex  - especially on an autumn day. Many tourists come here on an art pilgrimage seeking to find out more about two artists with deep connections to this East Anglian landscape. Many of us are familiar with Constable and his famous horse-drawn 'Haywain', painted at nearby Flatford Mill, but what about the equestrian artist Alfred Munnings (1878-1959)? Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Books about Munnings at the Munnings Art Museum shop.
Munnings excelled as a plein air painter, capturing the good times and summer light,
and starring beautiful horses, girls in frothy dresses, canvases filled with gypsy life,
backdrops of the River Stour countryside, racehorses. 

I love horses but they are horrible to draw: those sleek limbs bend so awkwardly when my pencil tries to fix them to paper. And their hooves! How does a horse stand on such a little sloping triangle? These are not questions you need to ask when you see the work of Alfred Munnings hanging at his dream home, Castle House just outside Dedham which is now an art gallery so packed with his realist horse canvases that you can almost smell the sweet hay breath of his subjects.

If you know your horses you can see the thickened tendons of a racehorse turned hunter, the tucked up posture of a horse on the first world war front line, the tail flick of a gypsy pony brushing away a summer fly. But mostly Munnings paints the most beautiful horses, at peak condition. A lot of these are his own horses. Perhaps his most famous works are the race starts (which bizarrely I find I confuse with Degas' paintings) and the colourful carnival of travellers at Epsom Down during Derby race week or at horse fairs like Lavenham in nearby Suffolk.

As a bonus the Munnings Art Museum has a wonderful cafe, which opens two hours before the exhibition. The food is terrific and the setting bucolic - green lawns, green fields, birdsong.

My wife, My horse and Myself by AJ Munnings. This painting has been criticised as
"defiantly British" so it's is quite a nice touch that the horse's name was Antichrist.  (c) Munnings Art Museum

This is easy art: Munnings had an eye for beauty with a happy focus on horses and good looking women. Even for that period he was considered rather old-fashioned, although that didn't stop him liking a party. Born on 8 October in 1878, Munnings was brought up in a mill, just like the one Constable painted in The Haywain (Flatford Mill). His natural artistic skills saw him apprenticed to a lithograph printer at 14 years old. Over the years he developed a conservative style that many art critics lampooned. At the same time he had real antipathy to modern art (eg, Picasso, Henry Moore, Salvador Dali). Indeed his resigning speech as the President of the Royal Academy, in 1949, focussed exactly on modern art's limitations. It didn't go down that well with the diners.

Munnings was embroiled in the hunting set and made a good deal of money doing expensive portraits for the Belvoir Hunt followers, and others. His first big London show was in 1913, Horses, Hunting & Country Life at Leicester Galleries. By the 1920s he could charge £500 a canvas, which is £21,000 in today's money.

He met his second wife Violet McBride, who loved to hunt, at Richmond horse show. They married in 1920. She clearly brought him social status and many equestrian commissions.

He bought his first horse when he was in his 20s and kept riding until the end off his life. Munnings knew how much he owed to his horses (quoted in the book pictured above AJ Munnings by Stanley Booth on sale at the Munnings Art Museum): "Although they have given me much trouble and many sleepless nights, they have been my supporters, friends - my destiny in fact. Looking back at my life, interwoven with theirs - painting them, feeding them, riding them, thinking about them - I hope that I have learned something of their ways. I have never ceased to understand them."

Munnings Museum is in this yellow painted house. When AJ Munnings moved
here he called it his "dream home".

At the collection my friend Eugenie and I quickly found favourites. Eugenie loved Shrimp, the young traveller man often painted on a cheeky grey Welsh pony called Augereau.

I fell for a showstopper, painted in 1932 - My Wife, My Horse and Myself. It's a conceited but beautiful painting of Lady Munnings riding sidesaddle on a stylish English thoroughbred outside her beautiful country home. To the side her proud husband smiles by a canvas of the same painting. It's a show off portrait of Munnings' possessions, capturing the swank (albeit horse-centred) lifestyle of this miller boy-made-establishment. It also owes plenty to the then popular hunting writer, Surtees who barked (surely he must have barked!): "Three things I never lend - my 'boss, my wife and my name". It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1935, a rocky time in British finances, which might well be why it's also been dubbed: "the most defiantly British picture of the 20th century". Strangely it's the sort of insult that Munnings would have been taken as a compliment.

Painters Constable and Munnings would still recognise the River Stour at
Flatford Mill, just in Suffolk. It's now a very popular tourist spot.

I'm a huge fan of dog and horse portraiture, so it's always been painful to me that the late Victorian and early Edwardian animal painters, in particular Munnings but also Landseer (who painted Monarch of the Glen) and the stunning equestrian artist Heywood Hardy, all fell out of fashion as the shock of the new art exerted its magnetic pull. Country life may not have ended in the 1930s, but these days it feels as over as the time when families crowded into the mill cottages, six sharing a bedroom, and never left the county, never mind the country. You can see exactly what I mean if you also have time to visit little Bridge Cottage, now a National Trust property (free entry) a few miles over the fields at Flatford Mill.

But that doesn't stop a real sense of joy when you see Munnings' wonderful paintings - this collection has more than 4000  - in his old home in this elegant Georgian family house. It's a visual delight to go into every room, and the studio, and see pictures which such a strong sense of place (there are around 150 on display).

I've been longing to see Munnings' paintings, but took my time figuring out
how to get from Manningtree train station, Essex (seen here with a glowing sunset).
 

Munnings' work can be written off as sentimental or chocolate-boxy (if you really don't like horses that is) but he had such grit. Next year expect a complete rehang as Castle House is taken over by the portraits Munnings did in 1918 of the Canadian Cavalry Brigade as a war artist on the front line in France.

Munnings, by then pushing 40, has been blinded when he was just 19. For most of us a thorn striking your eye would be a life disaster. For a teenager starting out on his artistic career, without much money behind him, this should have signalled the end. Somehow Munnings overcame the disability forcing his sole good eye to let him paint well - damn well - again.

Gallop over to see his paintings in the house where he lived if you get the chance. And don't forget to take a break at the Garden Cafe.

How to get there: An early autumn day was perfect for the four or so mile walk across the
water meadows from Manningtree station via Flatford Mill (plus 20 more minutes from Dedham village). A friend with a car was a bonus. There are also taxis from Manningtree and a bus (see Munnings Art Museum website, then double check with coach provider).

• More info at https://www.munningsmuseum.org.uk 
• Address: Castle House, Castle Hill, Dedham, Colchester, Essex CO7 6AZ. Admission £10. Currently on show, permanent collection and wonderful paintings of days out in wooden row boats, Munnings and the River.
• Munnings Art Museum closes for the winter on 31 October 2018 and reopens on 23 March 2019 with Alfred Munnings' WW1 Canadian Paintings (admission £8).
• Check Garden Cafe opening times cafe@munningsmuseum.org.uk, tel: 01206 322127 (option 5) 

The joy of lists & travel wish lists

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Here's a quick piece about the joy of lists written as a result of five long walks around East Hertfordshire that made me think about wildlife. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Which country has the most dangerous wildlife? (Namibia?) Which has the most animals? (Costa Rica) Which is most likely to start World War 3? (Depends on your politics). Have you seen the Big 5? (said on Safari whilst looking for elephant, lion, Cape buffalo, leopard, rhinoceros.. .). The internet is crazy for Buzzfeed style lists - and I love them too. So while I was in Hertfordshire for the xmas holidays I kept a little list to share with you. Here's what I saw, and wish I could have shown you:

Late afternoon shadows while walking the dog with
one daughter and one husband.

Plaque at the farm shop.

• 1 kite hovering
• 3 dead deer on the roadside
• 1 farm shop (I adore farm shops and Pearce's farm shop between Buntingford and Puckeridge is fantastic, and has a cafe!)
• 2 great sunrises
• 3 gorgeous sunsets
• 1 frost and fog (frog) filled day
• 1 herd of deer - utterly beautiful as they crossed a field of winter wheat (about 20)
• 2 red kites (a moment of joy!)
• 1 toad kept me awake calling for girlfriends (i didn't see him, just heard the noise)
• 1 farm of alpacas (llamas have banana ears, alpacas look as if they were put together wrong but they have great colourways - the photo shows them in cream, black and chocolate)
• 1 dead deer on the roadside (another)
• 40+ ducks quacking on the river

An alpaca farm in Buntingford, Herts run by Herts Alpacas (farmed for their fleece and as breeding animals).

List champions
Even if I think my list of holiday wildlife spots is pretty good, it pales into insignificance compared with my mum's list abilities. Even the list of what's in the deep freezer (1 packet of peas - 10 servings) is considerably more detailed and more often edited. Perhaps better attention to list making could be my 2017 resolution... I still need to visit more of the countries of the world without leaving the UK and adding to climate change.

Over to you?
So, what do you write lists about? Is it the mundane - shopping lists, what's for dinner? Or is the sublime - all those magical animal sightings or, better still, wildlife connection. Or is it the wish list - the places you long to travel whether by mechanised transport or via books, films and you tube? Let me know. And here are some belated seasons greetings too.

Why camels give me the hump

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. Spotting an unusual van got me thinking about underwear...Words by Nicola Baird 

For the past few weeks a large white van emblazoned with the magical worlds "Camel Milk UK" has been parked near where I live. I've seen this van around the area before although I've yet to find a bottle or carton of camel milk on sale. It's not that hard though, you can just pop to www.camelmilkuk.net to organise.

Waiting for Callback by Perdita and Honor Cargill tackles
camel toe without using such a derogatory phrase.

Rude

I know very little about camels, so I was surprised when I mentioned to one of my daughters that in the hilarious YA book I was reading, a character told her teenager to change their outfit rather than going out in an outfit that looked "gynaecological", that my daughter immediately translated this dress mistake as "camel toe".

Camel toe is slang. Slang for the outline of a woman's labia should they be wearing super tight clothing such as leggings or very tight shorts. It's in surprisingly common use. Today I read it in the Guardian's fashion column.

If you look on wikipedia you can compare a woman in hot pants (pity the jobs some models get) with a camel's toe. Or you can search for Kim Kardashian in her allegedly photoshopped flesh-tone Yezzy outfit (designed by her husband Kanye). Either way scrutiny shows that women and camels are different. 

I guess a whale tale - when thong underwear gets exposed thanks to low rise jeans - doesn't look much like a whale either. It's just another of those creepy expressions that belittles what women do and wear.

There are so many animal expressions used to knock an outfit choice, no doubt from all around the world. I can think of two more - dog's dinner; and mutton dressed as lamb. 

What about you, do you know any expressions like this used in other parts of the world? And are they used kindly or with intentional cruelty?

How to go on safari in the UK & find the big 5

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. How about going on safari and looking for the Big 5. I've offered a few choices below (six!) plus some places you might find them. But you could create your own Big 5 list... Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Safari lodges for glamping on the Isle of Wight at Node's Point. The Isle of Wight
is a good place to see red squirrels and seals. (c) Park Resorts

If you ever imagine a safari in South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana or Namibia you'll know that soon you will be looking for the "Big Five" by day. By night you'll be back at your tent sipping sundowners discussing the ones that got away, or planning the next day's sightseeing. The original Big 5 list was for big game hunters armed with a rifle not a camera. The popularity of big game hunting has meant that grand old homes in the UK invariably have some forgotten ancestors' big game trophies attached to the wall. Strange to hang a decapitated animal hung on the wall for generations.

I also puzzle about why those five choices.

Lions make sense, so does an elephant, leopard and rhinoceros but how come a buffalo is on the list? Surely a buffalo is just a big sort of cow?

Of course hunting the big five has changed. It's mostly done with binoculars and a camera. If you spot them all you have boasting rights, for ever. But you don't need to trek around the world to try and find impressive, elusive animals.

In Scotland people reckon the big five to spot are red squirrel, red deer (stag), grey seal, otter and golden eagle.

My own Big 5 list is reasonably tough to complete - but not only do you get to look for interesting British wildlife, you also start to think about healthy habitats as you visit beautiful places in the UK.

Here's some help below to get you spotting the British Big 5. Please let me know what you've seen, and where to find them.

On the hunt for hedgehogs along a Yorkshire lane Nell finds a huge puff ball mushroom.

HEDGEHOG (our lion)

• Critically endangered
• Squashed hedgehogs on the road indicates a population boom, and bust

Spotting a hedgehog is harder if you live in a town or city as they tend to be lined with solid fencing. But at St Tiggywinkles in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire you can see recovering hedgehogs and listen to hedgehog talks the whole year round.

Hedgehogs hibernate when it gets colder - so in the autumn be sure to leave undisturbed cosy piles of leaves where a hedgehog could warmly over-winter.

My friend Hugh Warwick is Britain's hedgehog expert. He wants us to rip out garden walls and other solid fencing and to pay far more attention to these utterly cute beasties, pointing out that they do good stuff for us too by eating up garden pests (so there's no need to use chemicals). His first book was called A Prickly Affair, and one of the next was Hedgehog. Have a look at his website, and if you meet him, insist on seeing his hedgehog tattoo.

SEALS (our elephant)

• grey seals have a double chin
• harbour seals look as if their head has been flattened (if you are looking at them head on)

There used to be an old bloke selling fish at Eyemouth, a fishing town just on the Scottish/English border. Tourists would buy a fish and then dunk it into the harbour where it was eaten by a spectacularly lucky, rather chubby seal.

In Norfolk at Blakeney Point you can take a boat trip to see a colony of seals. Several companies run these trips, leaving from Morston Quay.

There's also a small population of harbour seals in the Eastern Solent which can be spotted between Southampton and the Isle of Wight (see the report here).

It is a joy to see living seals - like all wildlife, look well but don't touch.

A safari tent at Node's Point holiday resort on the Isle of Wight.
You could structure your holiday around a Big 5 animal hunt on the
island - it's got seals and red squirrels, plus beautiful woods and beaches. (c) Park Resorts

RED SQUIRRELS (our leopard)

• grey squirrels are non-native and seem to be everywhere (foresters and some gardeners find them very annoying)
• red squirrels are native and rare

Our dog really dislikes grey squirrels
(this is his 'I've seen a squirrel face', now I will bark)
which may be why our family Big 5  list
is still missing a red squirrel.

I love the way grey squirrels chirrup, jump from tree to tree and are still crazy enough to be hand fed by people in city parks. But red squirrels are rather different, almost mythical creatures that revel in their secret hidey-holes. The best way to spot a red squirrel is to find a place where there aren't any grey squirrels - like the Isle of Wight. The National Trust woodland of oak and beech trees at Borthwood Copse has a red squirrel hide

A few years ago my family spent a day looking for red squirrels at Cragside, the huge Victorian pile in Northumberland. The estate is vast but there are meant to be lots of red squirrels here, even when it's raining.

However we couldn't find them and the website says if you are in the hide near the formal gardens and do see a red squirrel please tell the staff - so I guess it's pretty unusual.

Nell (left) isn't as keen on cows as her sister, Lola, or Dad.

POSH COWS (our buffalo)

• Worldwide there are 800 breeds of cattle
• Most dairy cows in the UK are Holstein-Friesian crosses
• Native cows suit particular areas best - Aberdeen Angus (Scotland), Dexter (SW Ireland), Jersey, Guernsey

Talking to cows at an ice cream parlour
and tea shop in Yorkshire.

The Dinefwr white cattle have been at Dinefwr Castle, Wales for more than 1,000 years. With their long horns they look very different to the sweet-faced Jersey cows who are so good at creating cream - and they inspired novelist Eva Ibbotstone's wonderful children's story The Beasts of Clawstone Castle.

Visiting a farm that's set up for visitors is a great way for young children to see cows up close. Try seeing how many cow breeds you can identify if you are driving through farmland, or on a train.

Stumps arranged to encourage stag beetles to breed.
This is in a London park near Arsenal tube.

STAG BEETLES (our rhinoceros)

• The vegan king of the mini-beast world (and able to fly, just)
• People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) is asking the public to join their national great stag hunt, see how here.

In the south of England, especially in cities you can find stag beetles - as long as there is standing, rotting wood (stumps or piles) where they can oh-so-slowly metamorphosise from larvae into stag beetle and emerge above ground to look for a mate. I've spotted them in Brockwell Park, Lambeth. They may be living very close to you, so long as you aren't a compulsively tidy gardener. Allowing things to rot, and having wood and leaf piles helps wildlife so much. Ask your local nature park if they have a stag beetle site and if you do see one, take a photo on your mobile and send it the PTES.

Read a cute encounter with stag beetles here  and an informative one here

WOODPECKERS (our eagle)

• All answer to the name Woody.
• Boasting rights if you find a greater spotted woodpecker's feather (black, white & red).

Here the rat-tat-tat or the wah-wah-wah-wah cry in a wood and you need to look towards the sounds until you spot your woodpecker. There seem to be many more green woodpeckers, perhaps because these are often seen feeding on the ground where they will be looking for ants. Here's an ID guide to the three native woodpeckers.

WHERE TO STAY on a British Big 5 trip
Traditionally safari goers stay in a very posh tent - in the UK this is now known as glamping. And it's fantastic. Look around on the web to find places that offer glamping.  Of course you can still camp with a tent, but as Lola, now 17, explains, we don't camp much any more:

"When I was seven years old my parents took me on a camping holiday in the Lake District. That was camping with a C not a glamping trip. Whilst we had a very good time, every morning when we woke up it seemed as if the lake we were camping beside had got a little closer. And it had - we eventually had to abandon our tent! That's why I'd like to go glamping in the Isle of Wight - no lakes creeping into your tent, running water and comfortable beds without rocks under your sleeping bag. In fact it is the only way I'd consent to go on safari again!" Lola, 17

SPONSORED: Lola and Nicola were guests of Park Resorts on a day trip to see the new glamping facilities at their holiday resorts on the Isle of Wight:

• The Isle of Wight can be reached in about two hours from Waterloo station, then take an Wight Link ferry at Portsmouth to Ryde (with its long sandy beach) or Fishbourne. http://www.wightlink.co.uk/iow/
• Park Resorts has 48 UK holiday parks including the Lake District, three on the Isle of Wight and also along the Essex and Norfolk coasts. www.park-resorts.com

Over to you
Do share your family's big 5 adventures - and also any suggestions on where to find the animals, and where to stay. Thank you.

This racehorse life from Newmarket to Qatar

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. At the National Stud in Newmarket you can coo over this season's foals but also get a sense of the international pull of horseracing. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Foals at the National Stud. All racehorses are said to have their birthday on 1 January, so
February to March is the ideal time for a brood mare to foal.

To celebrate my mum's birthday the whole family decamped to Newmarket for a tour of the National Stud. Thoroughbred racehorses - thanks to a mix of the fleet Arab and sturdier English breeds - are some of the most expensive, fastest horses in the world. It's quite a passion: racing fans in the UK can enjoy an all-year round racing calendar thanks to the traditional summer Flat season (eg, the Derby run at Ascot) and a winter of National Hunt racing over fences (big jumps and ditches like the Grand National, or more flimsy hurdles). Now there are all weather tracks even frost doesn't stop race meetings.

A very pampered Dick Turpin ignores my family.

Although racing is popular in the USA (remember Man of War?), Australia (for the Melbourne Cup) and France (eg, Longchamp - half of all European race meetings are held in France) it is the Arab communities that seem to love horse racing with a passion. And so they go to Newmarket: a town built on the horse economy and very much bolstered by the money various Arab owners have poured into the sport of kings, such as Sheikh Fahad from Qatar. Judging by the Polish delis  - Eagle Polish Deli and the Polonia Club - and restaurants there are also plenty of east Europeans also involved in the racing industry. Racing isn't quite as stuffy as it first seems.

The statue outside the Jockey Club is of a world famous stallion Thoroughbred (TB, called Hyperion.

The Jockey Club has the best location in town, and as the Jockey Club Estates owns all the gallops (see photo right showing you which gallops are open). There are innumerable racing yards which means that up to 5,000 horses are stabled here. No place in the world is so centred on racing.

I'm told that in the mornings - when the strings of racehorses go out for exercise - the sight is quite magnificent. It's sobering to think that this Suffolk town has had separate horse and vehicle traffic lanes for years. If only the same could be done for cyclists in other towns.

Horses are wonderful and clever, except when it comes to traffic, seeming to be more terrified of a random crisp packet than being struck by a vehicle. So those designated racehorse lanes are essential.

Gregorian is a gorgeous iron grey 16.1hh stallion standing at the National Stud (2015). His blood lines include the amazing Northern Dancer, and Mill Reef.

Spring is the time the foals are born, and a lovely place to learn about bloodlines and admire the new babies is the National Stud. You can book a trip here. It's serious stuff - for a stallion to cover your mare expect to pay £4,000+. If the stallion is proven and producing colts and fillies (half sisters and brothers) winning at two or three years you might be able to sell your yearling for £70,000. However much I oohed and ahhed over the foals I was also aware that racing is good for your maths and geography. It's quite good for talking about sexual reproduction too, very earthy!

Having a go in race riding position at the racehorse stimulator at the National Horseracing Museum - it's hard on the legs. You have to keep your back flat and your heels down.

While in Newmarket we did a whirlwind tour of the National Horseracing Museum. It's a manageable collection of art, trophies, stuffed TBs, triumphs and documentary - due to go to a new Newmarket home in 2016 when it will be opened as the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art. The new five acre site will include stables and paddocks, allowing visitors to meet real racehorses.

Newmarket is  approximately a 20 minute train ride from Cambridge. Definitely spend as much time as you can there, maybe even see the racing or watch the horse sales at Tattersalls (in July & October). Newmarket has so much history - it was gambling-fan Charles II's bolthole - but it also gives you endless opportunities to enjoy watching the most beautiful, and possibly most expensive, horses in the world. How strange to be in the 21st century and still in a town where the horse is king.

• National Stud (10min taxi ride outside Newmarket). Book tours in advance.
• National Horseracing Museum, family ticket lasting one year is £15. Address: 99 High Street, Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 8JH.
• Book a tour of Newmarket via www.discovernewmarket.co.uk, or call 07437 188350.

Glastonbury god and goddesses

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post finds a way to feel like a deity - and then gets a bit mixed up with rabbits and religion (in Melbourne).  Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Glastonbury's presence has been even bigger than usual thanks to the amazing Olympic opening ceremony with the green hill far away brought to London (well a removable replica). By luck our family was visiting Somerset the next day and on the hunt for a picnic lunch ended up in Morrisons supermarket under the shadow of the Glastonbury tor. It felt all wrong.

A day or so later we're back at Glastonbury, this time to look around. The market - selling clothes you just don't see anywhere else, lots of hippy stock, tie dye and crystals - was on. Every lamp post was festooned with a yellow plastic bunch of sunflowers. At the meeting room there's a Goddess Conference - this theme's colour seemed to be yellow as all Goddesses were kitted out with something of that shade (they wore blue in 2011). I wanted to find three rubber two-headed dragons, but they didn't seem to be available despite a huge number of hard magic and priestess kit shops. Want a bird's wing, a dragon cup or a wand? Easy. Vegetables were also impossible to find.

At Glastonbury Abbey - which hogs one side of the main street behind a row of crystal, green man booklets and incense selling shops - a wonderful gentleman kitted out in black Tudor garb introduces himself as Robert Pollard. Glastonbury is billed as the earliest Christian sanctuary in Britain - possibly Jesus was brought here by Joseph of Arimathea... (I think this is rather a big possibly). It's still a place people like to make pilgrimages too - for god and goddesses.

But Pollard (see photo below) has a different story. He did the dodgy dirty work for Henry VIII and his adviser Thomas Cromwell to ensure that the abbey was closed. Obviously Henry wanted the cash, not sure what Cromwell's motivations were - power I suppose - but the result was the unfortunate Glastonbury Abbot, already in his 80s, was given a traitor's death. He was hung, drawn (your guts are slipped out and dipped in boiling oil), then quartered. It made nobody look good, but also made it clear that no one was to mess with Henry VIII.

Years later the ruins were included in businessman James Austin's garden  - which still has the most lovely views. Austin is infamous for introducing rabbits to Australia (he wanted better sport). He has another legacy - his Oz property was named Avalon (another Glastonbury link as the abbey grounds also boast the legend that King Arthur's bones were found there, see pic). Avalon is now part of Melbourne.

Over to you
What's a place you've visited that's offered a terrific tour?

New Holland in Essex (without lions)

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post takes a tour of Essex taking in Holland and Australia.  Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Essex: it's got spray tans, hair extensions, wicked heels, new gleaming teeth and can boast at being the county with the (arguably) longest coast line in the UK. Pete writes endlessly about Essex (expect a new book in October) so sometimes the family is caught up in his Joy of Essex research. Turns out this stop off is roughly where the non-lion of 2012 August bank holiday was hanging out... see here

If you go to that mostly North Sea coast line you can be in all sorts of worlds and enjoy:

• Wildlife - from seals to wading birds - see here
• End of the pier attractions at Southend, Walton on the Naze and Clacton
• 1950s beach fun on the greensward at Frinton
• The best fish grazing (winkles! cockles! fish and chips!) at Leigh on Sea's pubs and fish stalls
• Oil refineries at Canvey Island
• Tasty English wine at Mersea Island

Pete, Nell, the dog and I took a little trip to flat Dutch landscapes at New Holland - midway between Clacton and Frinton (reach via a train to the seaside towns and then take bus 7, 7x or 8 on to alight at the Roaring Donkey pub). Once in New Holland it's really not got a cliche Dutch feel at all. Instead the bungalows, neat gardens, low walls and big vehicles parked in most drives give a strong sense of being in olde worlde Australia, a Perth suburb like Scarborough.

If you're in Australia then you'll expect really good food. So get back on the bus and head to Frinton where the Mouse and Hat Restaurant (pic of menu sourcing board above) offers stunning deli treats. Stunning for the UK that is. It's midway down Connaught Avenue (once known as Essex's Bond Street, but now rather more like a Country Living magazine fantasy of bookshops, galleries, material stores, ice cream parlour and a friendly green grocer).

Ride like they do in Mongolia

Nell bareback on George in Wales.

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This post is about how taking a ride on a horse just might make you feel as if you are away from it all in Mongolia. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my eco-friendly books and blogs).   

I was lucky to be allowed huge freedoms as a child - from the age of eight I was riding a 13hh pony around the Hertfordshire lanes and fields. Telstar had almost no brakes and turned into a bolting wreck if we met a tractor. Two ponies later my bigger 15hh mare, Cassiopeia, was traumatised by the sight and sound of pigs. Unfortunately there was a pig farm on two of my favourite routes. If we were attempting to walk on hind legs past the pigs and a car came too fast there could have been a disaster. Indeed riding today on roads is far riskier - people drive faster, in bigger vehicles and there are so many more people driving. Strangely I don't remember ever being frightened by my horses' behaviour - but people drove slower then so I was at less risk of being damaged too.

As a result of the hours I clocked up with horses I took a professional riding qualification (BHSAI) back in 1982 (just before going to university). But nowadays to escort a hack at a BHS approved riding centre - through woodland with no roads at all - I need to upgrade my knowledge with two more exams (one a tourist leisure qualification, the other on Riding and Road Safety.

It's good that riding safety is taken so seriously, but an absolute pain to have to don hard hat, tweed jacket and jods for another exam in order to be allowed out riding in the woods again.  Meanwhile, when I go to stay with friends who have ponies, sometimes I get to take my children out riding on very quiet roads and tracks (see pic of Nell bareback above borrowing Hannah's pony, George).

Me in front, Lola and Nell in Wales. Possibly like Mongolia?

It's not like that in Mongolia. There people are still brought up with horses and have what appears to be the most marvellous roaming life across the huge steepes as they search for fresh summer grazing. My friend Anna has recently been visiting and says that the closest equivalent would be to go on a riding tour across the mountains of Wales. I've had a taste of this in Powys and it really is lovely - high up, stunning long views and often across wild country. Anna recommends Equitours as the place to hire a horse and go for a long, fast, Mongolian-style trek. Actually you could fix up your own style trek across Wales as the British Horse Society has worked hard opening bridleways, see info here on riding holidays.

If actually riding a horse is too much - try the great book by Rupert Isaacson, called Horse Boy (it's a film too) which charts his family's journey to Mongolia to try and help his severely autistic son through contact with horses and life in the vast outdoor safe space of the steppes. It's a really good read.

Over to you
Where in the UK is a lovely place to go for a ride and feel as if you are far from overcrowded Britain? Or what else could I do to get a feel of Mongolian life - besides take a mini-break in a yurt (though that sounds fab)?