Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

A SURE sign that East Lancashire has become a healthier place to live in recent years is the increase in the amount of lichen growing in the area.

Lichen is a combination of two plants.

There is a fungus partner which grows on stones and trees and a green alga - related to seaweed - which cannot anchor itself but provides food for the partnership.

This is an example of what we call symbiosis.

Lichens can live for hundreds of years but it is easily killed by atmospheric pollution.

By exploring our towns it is easy to spot lichens, which look like stains on stones or trees.

Some are brightly coloured and in the early days of the textile industry they were used as dyes.

Most, however, are greyish and can easily be missed. Until the 1950s the East lancashire atmosphere was too poor for lichens to grow but now they are present on walls and festooned on many trees.

This is very good news for all of us who breathe the local air.

Home-birds on the Nile

I HAVE just returned from a visit to Egypt and had two days of bird-watching along the River Nile.

I had one real surprise - many of the birds we find on and around Lancashire's rivers were also there on the Nile.

I saw great crested grebes, black-headed gulls, herons and cormorants.

There were hundreds of house sparrows just the same as at home but the swallows, although the same species, were slightly different. The Egyptian sub-species has much more red on the underside.

There were, however, some species which we seldom see in England except on rare occasions. I was able to see and photograph white storks and pelicans. Soaring high were several ospreys and pied kingfishers seemed to be everywhere. The kingfishers are black and white and have huge, powerful beaks.

The Nile is full of fish and in Egypt all birds have been left alone since time began. They do not seem to be afraid of people and this makes bird-watching easy.

Next week I'll be following a Lancashire river, hoping the English weather will improve.

Once the experts started predicting a drought we should have expected one of the wettest summers on record.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.