The University of the Self #84

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 14

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 14
This article is a continuation of part 13, which can be found here.
Read article 15 here.

Image description: on a white piece of textured paper I have made a watercolour sketch of a Common Buzzard in flight. The bird has its wings fully open and it faces to the right. It has brown and cream speckled wings with black outstretched wingtips. It has a yellow beak and there is a blue wash in the background.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is dyed and is cream with brown splotches on it. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

26^th July…ankles and feet in a vice. My left shoulder and upper arm remains in agony. The front of my thighs and hip joints are painful. Left wrist, terrible sharp pain at every movement – am resting left hand in my lap like an ailing pet.

Mallard, Coal Tit, Eurasian Blackbird.

My mind is still suffering from yesterday’s total overload. Struggled on and completed poem at midnight (or just before). I pushed myself on, did not want poetry to yet again be a casualty of my conditions. I feel twisted and tied like a bad knot – a granny knot, as we used to call them, may years ago in Brownies. Why a Granny knot? Were grannies once famous for tying poor knots? (Turns out the Granny Knot is an actual name for sort of knot)

Eurasian Linnet. Lone, quiet Gull passing over. Rook. I must try and shower. This morning I wish for a shower seat. As I wish for a peaceful world, and an end to all cruelty. This is my morning prayer. As I make it 7.35 a.m. an incredible cerulean sky is drifting eastwards, pushing the grey onwards. I pray for kindness. Is there still hope? The combine harvester has cut the oat fields yesterday. Warmth is rising. Treecreeper again. Cetti’s Warbler (?) Sky-bobbing Goldfinches. I love you, trees and fieldscape, I love you flower-green, sun-warmth, cloud-sky. I love you wing-song, leaf-nettle, wren-plum, ochre lines of straw. 7.41 a.m.

16.25 p.m. Back – either boiling hot today or raining and cool – clothes = shorts and bare feet + jumper. Grey and blue. Sky full of House Martins. Eurasian Wren. Many white butterflies flitting around. Wren secreted in the crop, ch-chi-chi-chi a few yards in front of us. New poppies blooming. Common Wood Pigeon. Beautiful chocolate-orange female blackbird just landed on my husband’s leg, right there! Just like that! 16.31 p.m. Then flew into our hedge, followed by her mate. Common Buzzard. The trees opposite seem to be a desirable vantage point – usually claimed by the Crows. Bee landed on my foot. New information needed at some point – bee species. Eurasian Linnet. Can still hear the nestlings – unless it is another family. Eurasian Oystercatchers – 4 flying west, all crying. European Robin, Eurasian Blue Tit. Painkillers finally beginning to work. North, an oval-shaped hole in the clouds, piercing blue behind like a gem. European Goldfinch, European Greenfinch, Carrion Crow. Must go and push some more work out. 16.49 p.m. P.S. Saw Partridges (2 or 3) burst from the wildflowers – similar cry to Pheasant but different enough to notice.

27^th July, 7.42 a.m. Back. Coldest morning for a long time. Very damp after rain. Jumper and T-shirt on. Socks on. Long grey horizontal stretches of cloud. Air damp. Breeze. A lone butterfly wing just drifted down from the sky. A very sad sight. Perhaps eaten by a bird? Injured? Naturally passed away?

Common Wood Pigeon, Rook, Eurasian Jackdaw, European Goldfinch, Carrion Crow, Eurasian Blue Tit, Eurasian Linnet, European Robin, Barn Swallow.

I never knew clover to grow so high – amazing long stalks, three feet high. I always thought of clover as clinging plushly to the ground.

European Greenfinch, Sanderling (? I don’t think this is correct). Thistledown very bedraggled. Goldcrest, Carrion Crow squawking overhead, squawking north – a living portent. So many Goldfinches! Dip-babble, dip-babble. Three Gulls.

Interesting how different birds occupy the layers of sky – the hierarchies of height. The far half of this field was disced last autumn – that half was thick with Ragwort – now, there are no flowers to be seen at all – just high nettle spires – a miniature forest of them. Perhaps this is why we have so many butterflies? When humans are gone, is this what the landscape will become?

The aeroplanes are taking off a different direction today. I wonder how much the weather changes between ground and aeroplane height? Another aeroplane going south, one Black-headed Gull going north west. So many Swallows. Common Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler – pair of them just flew into the elfin apple and flew back into the wildflowers. Spots of rain falling. 8.13 a.m.

Just walked back through the gate (at the back) and accidentally startled four Blue Tits from the mock orange – another…

Image description: on a white piece of textured paper I have made a watercolour sketch of a group of five Viola flowers. Each flower has five petals and all the flowers have yellow centres with tan brown lines fanning out from the centre. Some of the petals are tan/orange, some dark purple, some light purple, white and yellow. There is a green wash in the centre.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is dyed and is cream with brown splotches on it. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

…human intrusion – accidental, but I become so conscious of my huge, clumsy presence. 11.40 a.m. a beautiful dark brown hairy caterpillar with an orange stripe making its slow patient way through the grass – this is the first hairy caterpillar I’ve seen for years – but then again, I wasn’t so great at noticing back then.

“At first I was lonely, but then I was
curious…
…How could I touch anything
or anyone without the weight of all time shifting
through us?…”
(Ada Limón, The Endlessness, read in the Bloodaxe Versus Versus anthology)

It is the caterpillar of an Ermine Moth. Imagine that! This hairy fellow transforming into the Snow Queen of the night! 3.31 p.m. – went out the back to watch a small murmuration of Goldfinches (about twenty of them at a guess, but it’s difficult to count swooping flocks in the sky. The Goldfinches are really flourishing. Large numbers – wonderful to watch their synchronicity.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of an Ermine Moth caterpillar. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a green wash in the background. The caterpillar faces to the left. It’s head is dark brown with an area of light like a window over much of the head. Two of the caterpillar’s legs are visible at the front and then the rest are concelaed beneth its very hairy body. The body and head are covered in brown and dark brown hairs which stand up from the body. There is an orange/cream thin stripe along the caterpillar’s back.

19.25 p.m. Back. Lovely evening light – soft blue sky, mild warmth, thin breeze with a slight chill in it. Bith grey and white clouds. A definite band of sun touching the trees on the other side of the railway bank – a stripe of golden green anointing a few fortunate crowns.

Common Wood Pigeon, Eurasian Magpie, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Linnet.

I love the few poppies, peeping like rubies from the green, white, purple, gold. Like fairy tale drops of blood (was it the Goose Girl’s mother who put the drops of blood on the handkerchief?) European Greenfinch. Trees on the horizon, past the A69 are so clearly defined in this light. Ring-necked Pheasant. 19.51 p.m.

28^th July, 7.24 a.m. – 7.55 a.m. Standing in the back garden. Quick bird session. Left phone propped up while I attended to some necessary jobs.

Eurasian Treecreeper, Rook, Common Wood Pigeon, Goldcrest, Eurasian Wren, Great Tit, Eurasian Jackdaw, Eurasian Magpie, Song Thrush, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Blackbird, Eurasian Blue Tit, European Robin.

As I stepped out of the back gate to shake a towel, I stepped right into a Blue Tit’s flightpath and it narrowly missed crashing into my face head on. At the last second, it pulled sharply up at a right angle and I felt its wing-breeze shift my fringe hair.

I’m a bit confused, fuzzy and tired right now. Must shower. I feel so dirty.

9.00 a.m. Back. Vivid blue sky, boiling hot. No breeze. Millions of buzzing insects – sun so bright, photic sneezing. Grass damp.

9.05 a.m. incredible, unusual bird call – Common Tern (first time recorded but I know I have seen these birds over the years), Eurasian Linnet, Common Wood Pigeon, Common Buzzard, Eurasian Blackbird, European Goldfinch.

Temperature has dropped – maybe it will be a changeable day. Northumberland, July, and I’m wearing a woolly jumper. I’m wobbly today. Unsteady legs. Legs seem weak. I meant to say I had a visual of the Common Terns as they flew over. I hope these fuzzy, muddled clouds in my head clear up.

Barn Swallow, Rook, Eurasian Jackdaw. Cling thistledown, thistle cling down, thistle cloud, cloud haze, seed mist. One bay horse, one grey horse, one chestnut horse, one piebald horse on Fieldhouse Farm. Sitting here, I can believe in hope. Autumn’s periphery – hints of the next season haunting the edges of the landscape. A distant combine harvester.

9.28 a.m. the pair of Buzzards cruise by, wheeling, silent, huge-winged drifting – they have vanished from sight but their voices return. The Buzzards are back – I believe they might be driving out the Crows from the Crow Trees – huge flock of Crows flying above and around, Buzzards wheeling into them. Will they share territory? Dust is floating low over the field behind the school. Dunnock. 9.39 a.m…

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is dyed and is cream with brown splotches on it. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

…28^th July, 17.51 p.m. Back. Mild blue sky, chilly breeze. Beautiful stratus clouds like a fish’s shimmering skin, soft cumulus. Clouds of dust spilling from the cut oat fields to the north. The sound of the baling machine, chump, chump, click, um-chump. European Goldfinch, Eurasian Linnet, Common Wood Pigeon.

22.27 p.m. – Front. A clear, cool, still night. Not completely dark – a moon-blue lightness – The Seven in clear silhouette, a golden tone to the sky on the horizon. One clear, bright star/planet – is it Jupiter? A goods train, heavy diesel sound, heavy on the tracks, going west with a deep-voiced toot of the horn. Tawny Owl. The app, confused gives me a Black-bellied Plover – I think this might be a dream. I think of my son as I always do, too far away from my arms. I heard a Mallard, one brief quack. 22.35 p.m. The night has too many tendrils tonight.

29^th July, 6.46 a.m. Back – searingly bright sun – difficult to look east at all. Huge trio of contrails dividing the electric blue. Hot. Grass sodden with dewdrops.

6.52 a.m., a Gray Heron soared over westwards, its long legs written in two stiff lines behind, its neck kinked into flight position. The Common Buzzard cries into the air.

Common Wood Pigeon, Song Thrush, Eurasian Magpie, Redpoll, European Goldfinch, Spotted Flycatcher, Great Tit, Eurasian Blue Tit. Female Blackbird hops onto the grass nearby and chitters crossly at my being here – she likes to perch on this bench. European Robin, Common Grasshopper Warbler (? Possible, they show up on the map), Eurasian Wren.

A bit of a sleepless night – unbearable arm and shoulder pain, right ankle. Have so many worries – worrying what will happen to me if I am left on my own. I don’t think I would be able to cope – so much of life – its mundane intricacies – are beyond my brain. So much of me is still a child.

House Sparrow, Goldcrest, Eurasian Blackbird, Common Chaffinch, Eurasian Jackdaw, European Greenfinch.

I have the sudden notion that I can smell mint. The tips of the long grass are now a white-golden. Yellowhammer. The distant rumbling of farm machinery. Eurasian Linnet, Eurasian Siskin, Common Chiffchaff.

7.10 a.m. – the first Snowberry! This seems so early. Sitting there, plump and milk-white in front of a spray of the delicious, minute pink flowers. The insects love this shrub – the hedge constantly thrums with their busy humming. 7.14 a.m.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of the first Snowberry. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a green wash in the background. On the left is a mostly round, plump white berry with a tinge of ochre around the calyx. Attached at the top od the berry is one small green striped leaf and one small, damaged leaf with rusty brown edges. To the right is a brown stalk with a bunch of pink flowers smaller than the berry. Three of the flowers are open and eight are still oval buds.

8.14 a.m. Back. – still hot and bright. Nice balmy breeze, but much heat for now. House Martins swooping, Goldcrest. Bank Swallow ([the app] always mistakes these birds), Common Buzzard. The sun now so bright it seems as if it has bleached the colour from the landscape. Eurasian Treecreeper. Peacock and White butterflies. Eurasian Linnet, Eurasian Siskin, Common Chiffchaff. 8.27 a.m.

14.38 p.m. Back. Hot but nice breeze. Blue sky, grey clouds. Common Buzzard, European Goldfinch – examining the nettles for caterpillars (me not the Goldfinches) – so many holes in the nettle leaves but no caterpillars. Birds going endlessly back and forth with caterpillars in their beaks. Western House Martin, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Linnet, Great Tit.

Spindly tall Purple Vetch trembling in the breeze, hoisting their heavy heads upwards. Eurasian Jackdaws going west in quite a group – two corvids holding on to the Crow Trees. My eyes have never felt clear today – ever since this morning when I couldn’t look sunwards – my eyes feel sticky, dull, as if something has aggravated them. My sight keeps worsening. A little bird is cheeping in the plants just in front of the bench. A nestling? Eurasian Wren, Eurasian Blue Tit. Big heavy rain clouds overhead now. Barn Swallow. No Poppies flowering at the moment…

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