This is a Syringa vulgaris ‘Sensation’.

Syringa vulgaris alone is the common lilac plant.

I knew the ‘Sensation’ was a lilac from the shape of the four-petal flowers and the shape of the panicle.

A panicle is a botanical term that describes a loosely branched, compound cluster of stalked flowers arranged along a stem.

The flowers at the base are the first to bloom, which is why towards the end of the flowering season you might see only small flowers at the tip still in bloom

Back to the Sensation: When I saw it in the local park, I wasn’t even sure it was real.

The next flower in the park I saw is Rhododendron ponticum.

Believe it or not it is considered an invasive species in the UK.

It is rated as a ‘severe problem’ in parts of Scotland and Wales because it squeezes out native trees.

I am divided over whether I care that it squeezes out the natives. Imagine a hillside covered in rhododendrons in full bloom. We have heather in autumn, and in some years we have red autumn foliage, but it’s not as though the British Isles are blessed with lots of stunning colour in nature.

So hurray for the invasive rhododendron.

Actually, I realise I am sublimating something that I read about recently, which is to dramatically lower the grey squirrel population in England.

The plan is to give the native Red squirrel a chance to repopulate where it has been pushed out by the greys. Greys were brought over from the USA in the late 19th century and early 20th century – and they are just much better at life than the reds.

The Red Squirrel Survival Trust (patron King Charles) aims to eliminate or drastically reduce Britain’s invasive grey squirrel population in order to protect native red squirrels. The plan is to shoot some, feed contraceptives to some, and trap some.

But note this: The fact is that if you were to ask almost anyone what non-domesticated wild animal they are likely to see, they will say the grey squirrel. Some people see deer, foxes, and badgers, but the chances of people in any of the cities seeing any of those are far less than the chance of seeing a squirrel.

Every park has grey squirrels, and we all stop and look because they are heartwarming.

Imagine if they were all gone.

There are just 40,000 Red squirrels in England – in Dorset and the Lake District, with more in Scotland and Wales.

Even if it is possible to eradicate greys, how many years would it take to fill up the space that greys occupy?

And meanwhile – no animals.

I was thinking of a simple poll asking people if they would like to see most grey squirrels killed, or not.

This was April 2025 and the man in the photo had been convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance in breach of the Air Navigation Order 2016 and was appealing against conviction. His case went to the Appeal Court, where he lost his appeal.

He had a background in disruptive actions, having been previously convicted In 2022, along with five other Just Stop Oil protestors, of causing a public nuisance by digging and occupying tunnels under the approach roads to an oil terminal in Essex.

The aim of the 2022 protest was to draw public attention to the climate emergency and to demand that the government did not issue new licenses for the extraction of coal, oil or gas.

The 2025 conspiracy charge was when he and others flew small toy drones at about head height within the restricted area of Heathrow Airport but away from the flight path of any aircraft.

The action was intended to disrupt the airport when traffic control sensors picked up the presence of the drones. And that is what happened.

The intention behind the action was to draw attention to what the defendants saw as an offence against the public good – the building of a third runway at Heathrow.

Laxey has devoted a considerable amount of his time and effort to objecting to State policies and behaviour that in his view and the view of his co-conspirators stand to worsen the climate outlook.

It’s hard to say what the effect of his actions and the actions of others has been, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil were active and in the news for a period, but they have faded from view.

Was it just fashionable to protest? Were the actions well founded or naive? Were the protestors concerned citizens or were they out to be the centre of attention?

Did they make enemies of fiends of the public whose opinion they wanted to sway?

The news is full of matters that seem to ignore the threat of global warming. We see it is no longer fashionable to make threats to the climate centre stage even on news reports. Other things crowd out the stage.

Do we just have very short attention spans?

Behind the scenes, change is happening and the move to solar and wind power, and stored battery power is happening. California, Texas, the UK, and China are making big advances in clean fuel.

Yet somehow the fundamental problem of how to take our collective foot of the accelerator of more and bigger and faster, is elusive.

And it is not just a question of burning up the planet, but of satisfying the human demand for fulfilment in a world where everything has just a tinge of ‘been there, done that’ and of not quite hitting the spot.

We are grown collectively old and wise and we badly crave meaningful direction. No doubt it will come.

About the Photo

Sometimes I go out to photograph a march, and sometimes I come across a march, like this one when I was just out photographing with a few other photographers. As was normal, we got separated, and Michelangelo and I were walking down the road and these people were marching for climate action.

I was testing a camera and I processed it at the time with Photoshop. But just today I processed it with DxO PureRaw4 and I’m impressed with it.