The Ranger has been sent a link to a campaigning organisation called the 'Association of Maritime Research'. They're a newly-formed association who are reporting on what they claim is a 'large fast-moving object' in the English Channel.

There's even a video showing the thing allegedly zooming along. Frankly, it's all a bit mysterious - and a little look at the Association of Maritime Research looks, well, a bit fishy.

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Bluebells eh? They're everywhere at this time of year... but even so it was a surprise for The Ranger when some popped up yesterday on Sandown Beach!

These are growing behind a row of beach huts, in the sand. You can see some sand at the far end of the huts, and the sea is just visible in the distance. I was working at the time doing something else so had to take a quick snap on the council phone - but if you don't believe me, go and look for yourself! I've always known that Sandown Beach is a great place, but never yet thought of promoting it as a place to look for bluebells.

See exactly where they were after the jump:

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

There’s been an awful lot of Darwin about this year; La famille Wildlife Gardener initially embraced the 200/150 Darwin celebrations with a passion. We’ve watched David Attenborough, Andrew Marr and Jimmy Doherty, we’ve read Alan Moorehead’s fabulous Darwin and the Beagle in instalments at bedtime, we’ve visited the Natural History Museum and the Genesis Expo to explore the other side of the evolution/creation argument.

We’ll soon be revisiting the revamped birthplace of On The Origin, Down House. Junior Wildlife Gardener no 1 is no stranger to Down House. As is the way of new parents with a first-born we took her there when she was 18 months old hoping to give her an early introduction to evolutionary biology. All she wanted to do was roll up and down the disabled ramp.

But I can’t help feeling that Darwennui is now setting in. I’ve heard and read enough about the Galapagos Islands, the birds (Finches eh? Seen one, seen ‘em all!), Captain Fitzroy, the Victorian family life with its loves, losses and earthworms. Comfortable in my beliefs that there is no conflict between religion and evolution, I’m now as bored of discussing the controversy as I am of talking about house values. In the words of Bonnie Tyler, I’m Holding Out For a Hero: someone else to be fascinated by.

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Today the Ranger had the delight of taking a walk along some of the South Downs Way, for the first time since the declaration of the new South Downs National Park.

It was a simply wonderful day. With the dry white chalky fields stark in the bright sun we walked high, high above the smoky weald. The skylarks were so loud as to nearly drown out the distant traffic; and once we gasped at the whisper of a glider sweeping past - seemingly low enough to touch.

After taking this picture - which does scant justice to the landscape - I noticed something and went to inspect it. You can just see a brown object by the old post in the foreground. Whatever do you think it turned out to be?

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener was surprised by the volume of interest in the Costa Coffee? Free actually article about making ‘coffee’ with dandelion roots.

Some of you were amused, some disbelieving, some glad that weeds could be put to good use. Faced with a quantity of younger, smaller roots dug from the veg patch, could I elevate my dandelion coffee from ‘drinkable...if I lost my job’ to ‘delicious’?

Read on to discover my new and improved recipe.

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We're pretty excited about the new British Wildlife Photography Awards, and the award scheme is now open for entries.

Between now and 31st July 2009 it's your chance to get into the inaugural year of what looks like it could become the definitive UK wildlife photo comp.

Now there is no shortage of such competitions, so what makes this one different - if anything?

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Find the Fault number twelve is here! Answers to number eleven are now online.

The rules are simple; study the picture, and find the fault. Bonus marks are awarded for faults not on the card, and for creative interpretations!

Good luck!

By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener made some of that old wartime staple, dandelion coffee today. Determined to make weeds work for rather than against me, I dug some mandrake-like dandelions out of the patch I was preparing for broad beans, then wondered what I could usefully do with them :

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Down at the sea-wall the giants have been playing Jacks:

These are tetrapods: giant four-pointed concrete structures popular in the 1970s and 1980s for sea defence. First invented in France in 1950, a huge number of variations now exist. Although in the UK they are now out of vogue, they can still be seen at many coastal locations, where their strange, jumbled structure, defiantly un-natural in appearance, has the feel of an art installation.

Elsewhere in the world their popularity remains undiminished. In Pacific countries and Japan particularly the tetrapod is a mainstay of coastal engineering: by 1993, 55 percent of the entire coast of Japan had been altered by concrete in one form or another, including any of the many different shapes and sizes of tetrapod manufactured there.

But do they work, and are they worth it?

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener’s opinion was sought this week. It was a warm day and there was a buzz of commotion going on in the school car park. An area was coned off. 'Swarms of bees' had appeared. Children would 'be hurt'. 'People' could die of anaphylactic shock. What were the powers that be going to do to get rid of them? What did I think?

I think education, not extermination in most incidences. I approached the sandy car park bank:

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By Ruth D'Alessandro, The Wildlife Gardener

The Wildlife Gardener has been performing the annual ritual of emptying and turning the four compost bins. Unfortunately I’ve been forced into the ritual because some other creatures have been excavating the scraps bin, as you can see:

Lifting the bin revealed a network of tunnels inside the matured compost:

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