The University of the Self #87

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 17

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 17
This article is a continuation of part 16, which can be found here.
Read article 18 here.
Saying goodbye to one notebook and hello to another…

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of a Blackcap bird. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a brown wash in the background. The bird is facing left and standing with its wings folded close to its body. Its head has a black top of feather and it has a black eye with a dot of white in the centre and a white ring arond it. Its cheeks, neck and underneath are pale grey cream. Its wings and tail are striped with shades of brown.

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. At the bottom of the page I have sellotaped a piece of Snowberry hedge that I have pressed. It comprises of a two long brown stems from which small green leaves grow. There are a number of small pink flowers on the stems. On the left of the stems are one oval green leaf and one small pink flower.

Content warning: the following short section contains mention of spiders and their feeding habits, flies, wasps and injury.

…gentle. 9.30 a.m., rain ceased. Must get myself together. It may not be too hot and sticky for me today. Back in the house, 9.11 a.m. A tiny spider has captured a fly on the kitchen table – I watch it plucking silk from its back end with one right back leg to bind the prisoner. It holds one stationary front left leg high in the air like an aerial. The fly is as big as the spider – the spider is about 1cm from leg to leg. Maybe 1.5cm. This is the moment a nature programme would play perilous music – instead the radio plays ‘Rock DJ’ by Robbie Williams. The spider now has the fly pinned on its back – perhaps feeding on the soft underbelly? I thought it would carry the fly away to its lair. Perhaps this is a spider which catches by hunting, rather than web-sitting patience.

9.20 a.m., spider is now waggling all its legs, pausing, waggling all its legs. I changed position – I can see mouthparts moving – the spider is definitely feeding. I must stop now – I am so sick and dizzy and have awful pins and needles in my arms.

9.24 a.m., spider still feeding.
9.56 a.m., still eating.

Poor neighbours two cottages down discovered a huge wasp’s nest in their garden in a wood pile. One stung over 100 times, one 50 – both taken away in an ambulance. Thankfully, both okay.

10.10 a.m., spider still there, clutching the fly.
12.47 p.m., got back home. The fly was lying on the table. No sign of the spider, so I cleared away the fly. The fly must have been on an invisible thread, as the spider rushed forward to reclaim its prey!

16.22 p.m. Back. Blue sky, fat white clouds, breeze. Finally I am sitting alone. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful for company, but loneliness is my constant, my usual, my default. So much human chatter. Like a hammer in my brain. I can’t seem to find myself today. I am in so much pain with my left arm. Indescribable sick waves. Bowels problematic. If D.W. could mention them in her journal, why not I?

(Dorothy Wordsworth, in her Grasmere Journals. “Birds sang divinely today. Bowels and head bad… Sate in the sun, Coleridge’s Bowels bad, mine also.”)

I can’t settle. I’m roaming On the tender tilt of tears all day. So many Rooks and Carrion Crows. Long-tailed Tit, European Robin, European Goldfinch, European Greenfinch, Eurasian Linnet. I think I am still quite disturbed somehow by the sight of a piece of the giant wasp nest that resulted in my neighbours being so badly stung.

Closing my eyes and breathing to a count of four in, four out. Opened my eyes to the white glimmer of the Castle’s empty flagpole – I love the way it can’t always be seen – it is as if the Castle is communicating with me in secret semaphore. Barn Swallows in the sky. Whispering breeze in the plum tree. Eurasian Jackdaws, Common Wood Pigeon. A gust of wind from the east – I am sure I could smell the beck on its breath. Many white butterflies, one dark one.

I have been unpicking a pair of curtains today for the fabric – haven’t finished. Waves of negativity – how I do fool myself into usefulness. A good few Peacock Butterflies – I love the way their wings are black underneath, like concealed velvet. 16.43 p.m.

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I have now finished one notebook. This is one of my handmade notebooks, produced using home-dyed paper and reclaimed cardboard and papers. It appears to be upside down - this is because I had already half-filled the front half with other notes and decided to turn it over and start from the back when I began my nature diary. It is always bittersweet to complete a notebook - it means that you have written enough to fill one, but feel sad that you will be leaving the book behind when it has been your constant friend for a while.

I tentatively decided to try pressing some of the plants around me and have stuck my earliest attempts in this notebook.

Image descriptions from top left: four pressed Lobelia flowers - three blue and one purple, all with wispy green leaves under them, thin green stalks and white centres. 2. A Valerian floret - a head of flowers made from many little purple flowers on green stems 3. two viola flowers - one yellow, one pale blue/lilac 4. three Bird'sfoot Trefoil bright yellow bloms on green stem with one green leaf. All the flowers look squashed as they are pressed. All sellotaped onto paper with brown tones

Here are two photographs of the new notebook.

Image descriptions: these two photos show a very old cook, which is actually a stamp album. It has a faded blue/black fabric cover which is made to look like crocodile skin (but isn't). At the top is a faint remnant of gold gilding and on oval which contains the words 'The Victory Stamp Album' and on the bottom, the words 'Spaces for 6,600 stamps'. There is black tape down the left-hand spine. The second photo shows the book lying upon a brown wooden table, and the signature can be seen, which is faded browns and cream papers.

Here is a photograph of the inside cover. I have blurred the address just in case. As you can tell, this is a very old book, from 1936. I will describe it here: it is a mainly cream blank page which is stained and darkenened browner with age. At the top left, in pencil is written, very fadedly, 562, underlined. Next to it, in pencil is written 3/6.
Beneath that, the name Roland Thatcher and beneath that, the address, which I have blurred, apart from the word ‘Sunderland’. Beneath that, ‘June 1936’. All written in faded black ink using a fountain pen - the handwriting is Copperplate-ish in appearance and is neat and swirly, very beautiful. Underneath that, in black ink I have written ‘Jane Burn, 2025’.

On the left side in the centre, is a box drawn in pencil which contains the following: ‘245 cor’, underlined. Under this line, ‘17 (the 7 is written over a 5) JE’. Next to this box is a thinner box in which is written ‘L’ underlined. Beneath the line, ‘9’. I don’t know what it means but is it fascinating. Along the right side I have sellotaped four wings from an Orange Underwing Moth (which I found dead, and hope this does not offend anyone) and one blue-tinged feather from a Blue or Great Tit which I found in my front garden. I did add black Gaffer Tape to the spine and the top and bottom of the inside cover as there was already silver Gaffer Tape there in a state of disrepair, so I repaired over the repair.

Writing in this book is a very different experience as I have been writing around the album’s printed text and the notes and additions made by the book’s original owner. It is an altogether wonderful experience – I really feel as if I am participating in the next stage of the book’s life, for books do have lives. Many lives if they are fortunate, as they pass from temporary guardian to temporary guardian. I hesitate to say ‘owner’, as I often wonder about the concept of ownership.
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Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below. Top left, the original guardian has written in pencil ‘1049’ and I have written around it.

8^th August. Back. 7.33 a.m. Breeze, boiling hot already. Almost cloudless blue sky, with an area of bright whiteness. I have started a new book – about four years ago I bought this wonderful old album at the car boot sale and knew one day the right project would occur to me. As Roland Thatcher (the original name written on the back of the cover) once collected precious stamps, so I mount my memories here, of value only to myself, my private stash. Nature’s living stamps.

Ankles, hips and knees very painful and loose-seeming this morning. The enormous Goldfinch murmuration is more alive than ever – since we came out here, they have swooped up, down and around, back and forth, amazing choir of voices. Perhaps activated by the sun, perhaps simply joyous.

Goldcrest, Common Chaffinch, European Robin, Eurasian Linnet, European Goldfinch, European Greenfinch, Common Wood Pigeon, Willow Warbler, Carrion Crow, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Redpoll, Red Crossbill, Eurasian Jackdaw, Ring-necked Pheasants, Common Chiffchaff. Wonderfully busy with birds today.

Been a while since the Oystercatchers were here – I wonder if they have set out to sea? I am sweating already, so sensory difficulties today. I wish I did not suffer this way. Goldfinches still whizzing overhead. Eurasian Tree Sparrow. In the end, all we have are our memories. I really do want a fountain pen. 8.11 a.m.

It's always a jot to start a new book, knowing you used every inch of the previous one. Sadly, a dead Orange Underwing Moth on the floor this morning. I kept its wings – I hope this is not wrong. It seemed too sad to throw them away.

9.10 – 11.53 a.m., at my friend’s farm. We talk of many things, maybe inconsequential, I don’t know. She told me about the time her father found a dried-up, long-dead Adder’s body in one of the old sheds. I have never seen an Adder in Stamfordham but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. So much Wild Mint growing down where the boggy, wild, unkempt area is. As we walked, each careful footfall released its delicious scent. Self-heal grows in profusion – all its beautiful names a litany of the meadow – Heal-all, Woundwort, Heart-of-the-earth, Carpenter’s Herb, Brownwort, Blue Curls, Prunella Vulgaris. Yellow Rattle has gone to seed, its pods brown. Blue gems of Forget-me-not still pierce the thick mass of green, Field Speedwell, Lesser Spearwort, Hawkweed, Red Dead-nettle, Ribwort Plantain, Celandine. I frightened a hen Pheasant with her chicks – I did not mean to. Maybe five chicks – so exquisite – so tiny – they flew on their little half-grown wings.

So much pain in my left arm, left thumb and middle and ring fingers on my right hand. Fingers feel as if they are twisting, trying to twist off.

Rejection came today – I tried again for a PhD, with scholarship. Generic rejection, no feedback, but do I need to read again what is wrong with me? I am the fool for putting myself out there again. I must learn my lesson this time.

19.21 p.m. Back, mild. Light breeze. Dry. Grey and ice blue sky. Eurasian Kestrel drifting about. Eurasian Magpie crossing low over the field. Common Wood Pigeon, Goldcrest, European Greenfinch, Eurasian Jackdaw, Rook.

Nice ribbon of evening sun lying across the far half of the field. A wasp searches around the hedge. Eurasian Linnet, Eurasian Wren. Pleasant, tuneful flush of Goldfinches.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of a Globe Thistle. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a green wash in the background. The single bloom is built from prtals which look like rows of spikes in shades of dark to light lilac-blues.

19.30 p.m. Looks like rain is gathering in. Wind completely dropped! Huge stationary cloud, dark mauve blue underneath, crisp, white and sharply defined on top. Birds, tell me what I am meant to do with my life. Beak me your best advice. The harvested fields to the north are beginning to turn brown, as if the green is fading at the edges, which it actually is. I do love the trees muted green against the pale ochre-buff of the cut fields to the east. There is a delicacy to late summer colours. If this was a watercolour painting, I’d keep my water grey, and touch the edges of everything with ash tones.

9^th August – 8.05 a.m. Back. Boiling hot, grey blue sky, very little breeze.

My son stayed over last night so my heart is singing. Do you ever stop missing your child? I think the answer to that is no.

Eurasian Linnet, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Jackdaw, Willow Warbler, European Greenfinch, Rook, Common Chiffchaff, Common Wood Pigeon, Eurasian Blue Tit, Dunnock, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Ring-necked Pheasant, European Robin, Common Buzzard, Common Chaffinch.

Temperature has dropped a little. Pair of Buzzards wheel, separate, come together, repeat.

8.19 a.m., Goldfinch flock swoops past. Eurasian Blackbird, Eurasian Magpie flying east. Suddenly feels like rain. Great Tit, Goldcrest. Wind has picked up, become more overcast. I can hear the Jay, screeching from the west, at the front. Eurasian Wren close by, in the hedge behind trrrrrrrrrrrrrr trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I am always unsure what human letter to use to begin the sound of bird calls. I think they are very tricky to translate. Eurasian Collared Dove. I would love to be able to get up close to the Goldfinch flock and see so many of them together – like spilled treasure – the sort of treasure you imagined as a child, filled with outlandish jewels, strings of giant pearls, shining cold coins the size of a jam jar lid. 8.38 a.m.

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