Hello, it’s been a mixed-up old week, both weather and me. Some sun, lots of grey, some energy, and a couple of days of mostly being horizontal.
But that’s life at the moment and thankfully as I’m at my parent’s house, I’m so much more immersed in nature, waking up to birdsong, seeing trees out of the window and only two steps before being on grass.
Noticing
Brief noticings - Fluffy male willow catkins ready to pop, first blackthorn blossom, a conversation with two female mallards, lots of amazing lichen, more first sightings of spring flowers, and lots of birdwatching.
Monday dawned bright and sunny, just the trick after my mood resembled the weather on Sunday. I gathered my art bits to sketch outside (more of that in creating) and ended up sitting there half the day, soaking up the sun and birdsong. I alternated between paint and binoculars. My parent’s house is only 20mins away from mine, over the other side of the downs, but importantly out of the city. It’s an entirely different nature experience. From my spot by the house, I looked out at hedges full of blue tits and sparrows, a pond, and a copse that will soon come alive with celandine and then cow parsley.
Sitting there is like being bathed in birdsong, a natural sound bath. A constant “there’s no TEA Betty”* of the Wood Pigeons provides the bass undertones and the twitters, chirps and pweees of the general chorus rising above. Occasionally a single voice will ring out, a robin or a blackbird. After hearing my first “teacher teacher” last week, at one point it was almost constant. There is also another song that is evading recognition at the moment, which is frustrating me. I don’t have to know what they are to enjoy them, but matching bird to song deepens my connection, it lets me into their world rather than just listening from afar. If you want to start learning some birdsongs, there are many resources out there, RSPB, British Birdsongs and also people like Simon Barnes whose excellent books I’ve recommended before and Lev Parikian, another excellent and very funny wordsmith, is currently reposting his birdsong threads on Twitter.
*at least that’s my attempt to put it into words!
I took B down to the beach as she loves running around on the sand, but as I sat having a mindful moment in the sun I noticed, what I thought at first was a sea snail shell. But snails do not have indentations running down like pock marked lines of longitude - it was a fossil! As I held it, my mind ran through the wonder of the creature it could have been and the geological transformations it had been through to sit in my hand.
While simply admiring it is enough, it is interactions like this that spark my curiosity, I want to find out more, to learn what things are, and what place they held in the world. It helps me understand the intricate web of the world we live in. Maybe not everyone needs to disappear down internet rabbit holes or into identification books to connect with nature, noticing and appreciating is a good start.
I’ve decided to aim to visit the community orchard once a week. It was one of the places we went to regularly during the first lockdown and it meant we witnessed spring unfurling in a way I’d not done before. The close study of a place over time. This week, I hadn’t expected much more than a nice potter in the sun. But close noticing of the trees meant I noticed my first blackthorn blossom and the progress of hawthorn buds (I think!) now swelling and starting to turn pinkish.
And of course, I hadn’t considered the birds. At the bird feeder tree, I was wondering where they were, when a Kerfuffle and squawk from the top of the tree turned into two birds of prey, they then moved their conversation to another tree before one skirted my head to land back by the bird feeders. It evaded my best stealth creeping attempt to get a decent photo and flew off. I gave up, but just as we were leaving, my eye was drawn to a large shape high in the branches. This time my creeping skills were better and I got a better look and some photos (not easy with B on her lead, carrying a poo bag and trying to zoom in on my phone camera!) A flick through the bird book once home and they were identified as a kestrel pair. I’d not realised before that males and females have different colouring as I usually only see them in flight. We see them on a regular basis here living up to their folk name of wind hoverer (there is also a ruder version!) searching for food around the traffic lights next to the racecourse. They are totally unfazed by the cars, and we get a front-row performance of their amazing aerial abilities.
Hold the front page! This may be my butterflying moment of the year! Just as I was about to press publish, Dad came down from the shed cradling something in his gloves. An exquisite Peacock just woken up after a winter tucked up amongst the tools. He’d rescued it from a not-very-sensible location on the shed’s doorframe. I gently (very gently, the tiny scales on a butterfly’s wings are exceedingly delicate and any damage can render it unable to fly) persuaded it onto my finger to fully wake up. Eventually, after some sunbathing and shivering to wake up its flight muscles, it took off around the garden trying to remember how to do the flying thing.
(And then, just as I was typing that, a bouncing flash of yellow in the garden caught my eye - a Brimstone! My butterflying year is off to a very good start!)
Creating
I set myself the challenge in last week’s letter of doing some green sketching every day I’m at my parent’s house. And I can report, I’ve mostly managed it. Even on some of the grey days I’ve dragged myself out to find an interesting looking leaf or something. So even if the art wasn’t particularly great, the quality nature time has been, especially when a robin came to be nosey and noisy only a half metre from my head! I’ve drawn lichen sat crouched next to a hawthorn hedge and seaweed on the beach while B sunbathed.
The sun made all the difference on Monday. As I said, I’d thought I’d just do some quick sketches and then head back inside, but the warmth of the sun meant I didn’t just sketch but got my inks out too. It was so warm the ink actually got claggy! It was so wonderful to be able to take time to study the shapes of the trees, to see them in different lights. I’d already painted backgrounds in my sketchbook, so used them to do a series of studies, playing with different tools (I rarely use brushes, but things like pipettes, ruling pens and a bamboo pen). These quick, small paintings are helping me see what works, playing with different colour combinations and positions of the ink splats. I know we are still in winter, there are bound to be days of rain, gloom and frost to come but that day brought hope of warmer days sketching and painting outside, rather than brief snatched scribbles. I felt so good after a day of art and nature, just need to work out how to keep the ink from drying so quickly!
Reading
I’ve succeeded in starting two books this week, but only a few pages of each! My brain has been too much like scrambled egg to read much, hopefully, that will pass quickly. One is Finding the Mother Tree I mentioned before but a trip to the library meant I’ve added Life between the Tides by Adam Nicolson to my MBR (Must Be Read rather than To Be Read) pile. I couldn’t leave a book about rockpools on the shelf! I’m liking the few pages I’ve read so far so I’ll report back on which one gets read furthest first!
Instead, I’ve been reading more substacks and articles. I mentioned Simon Barnes earlier, he is also a great encourager of bird noticing and wrote a blog doing just this, describing how to fix the Song Thrush forever in your mind. Then have a read of Nicola Chester’s piece on Blackbirds in Countryfile magazine. It beautifully discusses how "The blackbird is a gateway bird to social and nature cohesion." It’s so true, noticing and engaging with our garden birds brings so much joy, I’d also like to give the robin an honourable mention for this role. As I seem to be almost entirely talking about bird-related reads, I’ll recommend a substack I came across to help with my bird brain
particularly as this week's was one of my favourite birds - the Wren, tiny but mighty and one of the things I miss most about leaving my old school as there was a wren that flitted about outside my classroom window.So, there we are, a mixed week health wise, but plenty of nature joy. The sun is back out now, so I want to get away from the computer and out to top up my nature battery. The sparrows are doing their best to distract me having a loud conversation in the hedge.
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Enjoyed reading this from a cable car going into Switzerland