What's ahead this year for the natural world?

Happy New Year everybody!

Looking back on 2011 - my two most popular blog posts were both about the River Nene project!   Nature, walking and foraging will continue to be hot topics here.  And other things have recently popped up to do with the author "BB" (who inspired the River Nene project - see previous post).

Warm October sun on a footbridge over the River Nene

Michael McCarthy wrote about BB's influence on him in The Independent (thanks to Steff Lee for drawing my attention to it - Steff is creating an animation for the project)

People actively foraging are cropping up everywhere (the windfall apple chutney turned out really well, by the way), and I will be starting a new series of walks for 2012 in various places in Northamptonshire to include foraging, planting, guerilla gardening and so on with my collaborator Carole - follow the Undiscovered Networks blog for details.

So perhaps on our walks we will be able to keep an eye on what is happening in the natural world in 2012.  With the weather continuing to be mild, foraging has been good this year but how is the weather affecting other wildlife? 

I came across a worrying report of the weather's effects on insects such as the Purple Emperor butterfly, a key character in Steff's animation and an important species found around Fermyn Woods and the Northamptonshire area.  This amazing butterfly catches the imagination, it is spectacular and elusive with strange habits, there is even a website dedicated to trying to catch sight of it!

So on into 2012, there are some concerns about the way things will pan out, but on the whole I'm really looking forward to getting my teeth into the new things I have planned.  Which, of course, you can continue to read about here!