5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS MONTH

Snowdon has a new (old) name

The national park authority has announced that Wales’ highest mountain will now be known by its Welsh name, Yr Wyddfa (pronounced Er-with-fa) and the national park as Eryri (Eh-ruh-re), instead of Snowdon and Snowdonia. Naomi Jones, head of cultural heritage, says: “By referring to our most renowned landmarks by their Welsh names, we give people from all over the world the opportunity to engage with the Welsh language and its rich culture.”

Also in Eryri, drones will be trialled to help with rescues. Developed at the Snowdonia Aerospace Centre at Llanbedr, the ‘Dragon’ drones will carry a 4G or 5G mast and be able to fly above the scene of an incident to allow rescue services to communicate with those in trouble, and each other.

Twitter(ing) makes us happy

A new study from King’s College London has shown that birds make us chirpier. Participants were pinged by an app three times a day, asking if they could see or hear birds, then asking how they were feeling. Wellbeing scores were consistently higher in avian company, with moodlifting benefits lasting a few hours, and the researchers concluded: ‘Visits to habitats with a high degree of birdlife could become part of social prescribing schemes, playing a role in preventing mental health difficulties and complementing more traditional interventions.’

A LIVING LEGEND HAS WON TOP TREE

Its roots twined into the ruins of Waverley Abbey in Surrey and at 500 years old, a spectacular yew has won this year’s Tree of the

Year. Thousands of people voted in the Woodland Trust’s contest, and this Taxus baccata will now be entered into a Europe-wide competition. See woodlandtrust. org.uk and download a Waverley walk guide at walk1000miles. co.uk/bonusroutes

The north is uniting

You’d think north is north, but there are three kinds, and the Ordnance Survey reports the trio are aligning in Britain for the first time in history. True north tracks lines of longitude to the top of the Earth; grid north traces vertical grid lines to the top of your map, but because Earth is round and maps are flat, the two converge along only one line in Britain: two degrees west. Then there’s the line your compass needles follows to magnetic north.

This north is a bit of a maverick, moving about with changes in the Earth’s magnetic field – leading to this rare triple convergence in Britain. The historic point of alignment made landfall at Langton Matravers in Dorset in November, will pass through Poole by Christmas and travel up through Salisbury Plain, the Cotswolds, Birmingham, the Pennines to Berwick-upon-Tweed, for a quick dip in the sea before hitting Scotland, and leaving last British landfall at Fraserburgh around July 2026. Stand on the point and you won’t have to puzzle over magnetic deviation or ‘grid to mag add’ – and to find out more about walking this line of longitude, see Nicholas Crane’s book Two Degrees West.

There are tiny hooves in the woods

For the first time in thousands of years a bison has been born in

Britain. These ‘woolly bulldozers’ are superb ecosystem engineers and three females were introduced to West Blean and Thornden Woods in Kent this summer as part of the Wilder Blean project. Then on September 9th a calf arrived; bison are secretive about pregnancy so it was a surprise. ‘This cute calf already has bundles of personality,’ reports project partner the Kent Wildlife Trust. ‘She loves to play in the rain.’ Find out more and support the work at justgiving.com/team/wilderbleanproject