UEA International Student Ambassadors

Or will, soon enough. Or, this is an invocation.  I am doubly excited about the season because of the stellar line up at for the UEA Spring Literary Festival which will feature some of my all-time favourite writers. Many of the writers coming to UEA this time are also some of the best contemporary nature-writers of Britain.  Nature writing in 2015 isn't really all about watching flowers dance in the wind, or thinking about dark things while listening to birdsong, it's much more than describing the non-human world in all its glory or awe. Nature-writing, or good nature-writing anyway, is looking at our relationship with the land, meditating on the history of this oldest form of interaction between species and can even extend to becoming an ecological bond itself, balancing memoir and scientific facts, looking at the layers of socioeconomic interdependence with an eco-critical eye. But I'm not really going to bore you with definitions now, and if you want a fresh pe...

Common frog - Rana temporaria The common frog,  Rana temporaria , is found all across the UK. I had seen a few shortly after arriving in Norwich in September 2014, but none since; the winter months are too cold for them and they tend to hibernate. Now, with the onset of Spring, the frogs are beginning to emerge again, ready to begin the reproductive phase of their life cycle.  They can differ in appearance quite drastically and so can be easily confused with other species. I'm not so hot with my amphibian identification and had studied a few different descriptions and raked my memory of my frog encounter before coming across this useful tip. I knew this was a frog straight away because of its bulging eyes, slimy streamlined body and large back legs. For those who might confuse toads and frogs remember those distinguishing features, and that toads tend to look dry and bumpy and tend to walk instead of hop. I always get excited when I come across animals I  d...

Around the same time that we are celebrating the Pancake Day in the UK by eating lots and lots of pancakes, in Russia we are celebrating the festival of Maslenitsa - the whole week of pancaking eating fun! Maslenitsa is an Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday. In Slavic mythology, Maslenitsa is a celebration of the imminent end of the winter. The most characteristic food of Maslenitsa is bliny (pancakes or crepes). During pagan times, the round and golden shape and color signified praise to the Sun because of pancakes' resemblance to it. Maslenitsa activities also include snowball fights, sledding, riding on swings and plenty of sleigh rides. The mascot of the celebration is usually a brightly dressed straw effigy of Maslenitsa. As the culmination of the celebration, on Sunday evening, Lady Maslenitsa is stripped of her finery and put to the flames of a bonfire, a ritual that is signifying the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Happy spring ...

The Great tit is the largest bird in the tit family with very distinctive plumage. Their white cheeks stand out against their black crown and throat. Their backs are a yellowish green and their feathers a blue-grey. Their yellow bellies dashed by a black stripe down the middle. It is easy to spot and identify these once you have seen them once or twice. It is common in bird species for the male to have a more elaborate plumage than the female as it is a display of good fitness and therefore a good mating partner. However in great tits, as with some other bird species, the plumage between sexes does not differ too drastically. Identifying sexes is still quite easy, as in males the black belly stripe extends passed the cloaca whereas in females it falls short about halfway down the belly. Determining age is a little more difficult as it relies on the judgement of shades of colour on the wing. Different species of bird molt feathers at different ages and a different number ...

Hello everyone I thought it would be nice to post some amazing facts of the region I am covering. So this week its Nepal! 1) The National Flag Nepal is the only country in the world with a non- quadrilateral (rectangular) shaped flag. With blue border and red filler, the national flag has sun and moon embedded in it. The two triangles represent the Himalayan Mountains and two major religions Hinduism and Buddhism that people most follow in the country. 2) The Mount Everest Nepal is the home to the tallest mountain in the world and this mountain is known as 'Sagarmatha'. Not only this but it also has eight of the top ten tallest mountains in the world. Amazing, right? 3) Birthplace of Gautam Buddha The great and revered Gautam Buddha was born in Lumbini, Nepal 4) Namaste One of the most different part of greeting in Nepal is that they don't shake hands or hung. They join their palms and bow down and say 'Namaste'. This ...