You’ll be pleased to know that the fine art of chucking sticky buds is alive and sticking.
You might have a different name for them but sticky buds are what we always call the seeds of the burdock plant. And there are plenty of them at the moment on the reserve.
Don’t know how true this is, but Wiki says, that Swiss inventor George de Mestral became curious about the seeds after they had attached themselves to his clothes and to his dog's fur during a walk.
Under a microscope, he looked closely at the hook-and-loop system that the seeds use to hitchhike on passing animals aiding seed dispersal and it dawned on him that the same approach could be used to join other things together – the result was Velcro.
Anyway, none of that bothered young Sam from London when he visited the reserve recently. He was just happy to throw them at his Gran and Grandad. Who, as Gran and Grandads do, didn’t seem to mind a bit.