Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy

A FEW weeks ago I attended a conference on the environment and the subject of bluebells was discussed.

The United Kingdom now has around 80 per cent of the world's bluebells.

Because we are such a tiny island our bluebell woods are threatened. Rogue dealers are now advertising in magazines and they offer to "thin woodlands".

They do not mention bluebells but while they are pretending to thin the trees they steal the plants and sell them to garden centres at home and abroad. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, anyone selling "illegally picked bulbs" faces a fine of £1,000 - but this does not seem to be enough. Now that the dust is beginning to settle after the election there will be stricter legislation. Both major parties agreed in February to protect our wild plants.

This week bluebells are to be seen at their best and I strolled through Spring Wood, at Whalley, to have a look at some.

It was early morning, the sunlight shone through the trees and the bluebells looked like waves of blue mist. The smell of bluebells is one of the joys of spring but it is soon replaced by the strong garlic-like smell of ramsons.

In medieval times, when garlic was expensive, the ramson - still known in some areas as wild garlic - was used to add taste to food.

We take frozen food for granted but it was not very long ago that fresh produce soon "went off". Garlic helped conceal the fact that the meat was beyond its sell-by date.

On no account should ramsons be used these days.

Spring Wood is one of the most beautiful woodlands, especially - as its name indicates - at this time of year.

On the day of my visit the sun soon burned off the morning dew. Bird song was everywhere and I heard the drumming of the great-spotted woodpecker blending with the song of willow warbler, blackbird, wren and robin. I got almost close enough to a treecreeper crawling up the trunk of a tree to touch it.

Try not to waste a single day while the bluebells are in bloom.

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