The University of the Self #99

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 26

Birdsong, Botany and Betterness Part 26
This article is a continuation of part 25, which can be found here.
Part 27 can be read here.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of a Willow Warbler. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a red wash in the background. The bird is facing to the left and is standing, side-on. The birds head, wings and tail are shades of green and brown-green. Its chest and lower neck are green and cream. Its eye is black with a white dot of light. The bird clings to a twig.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it. At the top in black ink is printed Belgium and Europe. Bottom left had side and bottom centre are two black ink stamps - one of a young long-haired person with a bow in their haor and a bag over their shoulder and the other the words ‘thank you’. Written around the pre-printed text and images in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

25^th August, 7.43 a.m. Back. Incredible bright sunshine, too bright to look towards. An entirely pleasurable mixture of fresh chill and blissful warmth – a an experience of sensory joy. Going to be a hot one today, and then I might not be so happy. Blue expanse of sky, a few long swipes of transparent clouds south east. Trees richly patchworked in bottle green shadow and bright grass green. Field absolutely sparkling with dew – it looks frosted, like sugar on a bun.

Struggling a little with breathing this morning – can’t seem to get enough air, voice feels wobbly. Pelvis hurting too much for comfort last night – I know I am affecting my breathing with slumping forwards but I must try to relieve the pain of sitting. Shooting pains right hip. Fatigue huge, overwhelming, but in my mind I feel content enough. Choking a little on my tea. But my heart feels filled with love.

I am so worried about the developers hooking their claws into Field House Farm. I can’t help but feel hopeless about it – I will lend my history and nature notes to the campaign but these large-scale developments always seem to have a air of sad inevitability upon them, as if there are foregone conclusions, with the pretence of allowing objections. I must hope. I must hope.

I wonder if there is a specific name for closing ones eyes and facing the sun? Sunfacing. Seeing your own red blood behind the eyelids. A positive charge. The horizon still soft and blue – misty. Here is almost impossibly alive with birds this morning. Long, spider-silk threads swung between thistles and nettles – natures telegraph wires, sheening with light as the minimal breeze swings them. I thought just now about Kathleen Jamie writing about wires hanging low like pig’s bellies.

“Walked beneath the power lines
(sagging like pig’s bellies in the sun)
between the desert graves and gravel mounds,
scared the crows with open black beaks, walked”
(from ‘3’, ‘The Autonomous Region’, by Kathleen Jamie)

I can hear the neighbour’s tea spoons tinging against their cups – the small bells of human worship – the cradling of the cup, the glitter of rising steam, the first cautious, grateful sip, the devout sigh. In our cups, the religion of tea. A little pond of blackberry-tinted bird poo lies fresh on the wooden outdoor table. App has detected both Bank Swallow and Barn Swallow – are they still here? The sky is too bright to look into still, but I thought I caught a swoop of them flying over but I cannot be sure.

Eurasian Wren, Common Wood Pigeon, Great Tit, Eurasian Blue Tit, House Sparrow, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, European Robin, Long-tailed Tit, Eurasian Jackdaw, Meadow Pipit, Eurasian Magpie, House Finch (I don’t think so, bird common in North America), Eurasian Treecreeper, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dunnock, European Starling, Common Chaffinch, European Greenfinch, Eurasian Linnet, Ring-necked Pheasant, Rock Pigeon, Little Ringed Plover (I don’t think so, as mainly a few southern recordings), Eurasian Blackbird, Eurasian Skylark, Eurasian Siskin.

A small flock of Gulls are flying north west – app ignores them, though their cries were strong and beautiful. I heard Geese earlier too, when I was still in bed, down by the river I think. Am breathing a little easier now. 8.35 a.m.

11.53 a.m., front. Absolutely boiling hot, as predicted this morning. My skin feels as if it is burning as soon as it is exposed to the sun. Suddenly, a number of close-by Common Buzzard calls. There were three of them – two very high in the sky on the other side of our home, one lower down. All circling. The two together are playfully buffing one another – a pair? One lower down this summer’s chick? A loner seeking company? Wonderful to see them, curling their flight into the blue day. Now someone has arrived to spoil the peace with thumping techno (music). Thankfully it has mostly stopped.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it. At the top in black ink the bottoms of two drawings of two postage stamps. Written in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

Not so many birds out in this heat. There is a breeze, but not enough to cool anything down. Nice whispering sounds through the trees. Went to bed and there was an Orange Underwing Moth battering itself around the bedroom so I caught it inside a small cardboard watch box that I keep my watch in and sent it back outside. Watch has needed a battery for a couple of years. One of these days I’ll get around to remembering. A large part of me quite likes that it is frozen in time, yet still gets to be right twice a day. A little bit like me.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and marks upon it. The page is divided up into rough assorted rectangle sections with cream cotton stitches. The page is covered with cellophane. Under the cellophane is a selection of flowers and leaves I have pressed, including Goosefoot leaves, lavender heads, Lobelia, Hot Lips Salvia, Bird’s Foot Trefoil and two rise leaves. Written around the stitching in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

26^th August, 8.02 a.m. Back. Been raining through the night – ground and everything wringing wet – forgot to bring my bath mats in from the line, so I am trying to think of them as having had a second rinse. Bath mats always take a week to dry at the best of times. Lovely mild morning however – bright blue and white clouds to the north, bleeding into blue-grey with solid grey clouds to the south. The pink neon stripes are there, low on the east horizon – even a few sunbeams to the right of the castle. Some very bright lemon-white jewels of light south east. Clouds all cross-hatched, vertical, horizontal, diagonal – maybe it is this that leads me to believe I can see the Earth’s curve? I’ve only just begun to notice this phenomenon over the last few days.

“Heather in August. Here I sit with the heather all about me, purple, glorious, spread like a cloak over the moor. All around it swirls and tosses in the racing silky wind, lilac and amethyst and Tyrean crimson, like a coloured, foaming sea, bewildering the senses with the ceaseless whirling movement. The honey-sweet scent of it, wonderful, wine-like, warm in the sun, blown in one’s face by the west wind, is intoxicating, and an elixir to body and spirit alike. I stretch half sitting, half lying, and looking up see the host of exquisite amethyst sprays tossing against the blue sky like revelation in light and colour. For one transcendent moment the colour is a voice and the moment all eternity.”

(From ‘Living on Exmoor’ by Hope L. Bourne, 1962)

Snowdrifts of Rosebay Willowherb seeds wrapped around their tall stalks. The north fields have golden brushstrokes of morning painted down them. 8.21 a.m., sunlight and heat bursting through, rays now extending far left of the castle – smoke rises from behind the trees to the right of the castle, as if mist is offering up her sensuous body to the scalding light. Nature’s deities.

8.25 a.m., the Carrion Crows have just hounded a Common Buzzard across the field, all flying low – two Crows especially harassing it, bumping it from above. The Buzzard was screeching in distress and switching to evade them. I wonder if this is the third Buzzard I saw away from the pair yesterday – the one I thought may be their chick? Has it been ousted from the kindness of the nest and thrust into the merciless world?

8.28 a.m., definite sound and sight of a small flock of Western House Martins swirling in the sky. They are most definitely still here. All also gave me Barn Swallow, but I think it is only Martins. Only Martins? I don’t mean it like that. Very pungent green-rot manure smells. All grey cloud mostly shifted now (8.46 a.m.), just a last trace of it south. Blue, blue, blue. The dairy cows are in full-force choir. Barn Swallow flashing up again, not Martins. Still swirling the sky. Maybe it is Swallow? I turn my head back to the north and in only three minutes, grey clouds have gathered there. Surprising that the sky has brought them along so quickly. Perhaps a day of changes – but aren’t most days exactly that? Now both Martin and Swallow are flashing up. Whichever they are, there are so many of them now.

Two White Butterflies are dancing together – they rise up, then spin back down together as if they are trapped in an invisible whirlpool. Grey clouds are spread all over now, and it has become suddenly dark, as if the clouds are a lid over the sun’s eye.

Terrible pain from left arm and shoulder. I fell on it 11^th May, and still no sign of healing. Left ankle flapping and hurting, legs feel like jelly. Dark bay horse crossing the field. Dark as an otter, no white markings that I can decipher. Everything currently sunk into an early dusk. I am filling page after page with everythings and nothings. Blue trying to hatch from the sky’s grey shell. So many wasps around – I am trusting them not to hurt me. The wildplants have a smell of onions about them. I do think rain is due.

Image description: this is my watercolour painting of half of a split-open conker shell. The painting is done on white textured watercolour paper and there is a grey and brown wash in the background. The open shell is facing to the right and is cream coloured. One of the twin conkers has come out and one remains in the cream flesh of the inner shell. The conker or red brown and shiny. Some of the green spiky outer shell is behind.

Image description: a page from a notebook - the page is cream with faded stains and age marks upon it. The page is divided up into rectangle sections with cream cotton stitches. Written around the stitching in black ink are lists of birds and some notes - these birds and notes are listed below.

Goldcrest, Long-eared Owl (I know, I know?), House Sparrow, Meadow Pipit, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Eurasian Collared Dove, Eurasian Linnet, Reed Bunting, Spotted Flycatcher, Eurasian Jackdaw, Dunnock, Rook, Willow Warbler, Common Raven, Common Chiffchaff, Eurasian Magpie, European Goldfinch, Eurasian Blue Tit, Common Wood Pigeon, European Greenfinch, Common Chaffinch, Eurasian Wren, European Robin.

9.07 a.m. I don’t know if it is right to collect feathers – I imagine my mind is a Long-tailed Tit’s nest and I am lining it with them, as they do. Eurasian Jay.

16.24 p.m., back. A very brisk wind to soothe a hot day. Humid, heavy air now dancing coolly around us. Plenty of huge fluffy, tall fat clouds, a little grey underneath, blue sky. The tall nettles are waving and bowing. Some butterflies and a particular kind of pale-winged, tiny flying insect – moth or butterfly – which I keep seeing around and must look up (a Small White Wave maybe?). Scarcely a bird to be seen or heard. A couple of Eurasian Jackdaws flying around, and the Common Wood Pigeons. Perhaps the wind is keeping them grounded. A lovely Hoverfly dandles around the Violas, grazing the pollen from their faces. Carrion Crows drifting to the north.

27^th August, 7.35 a.m. Front. I don’t know why I’ve never thought to record the day’s temperatures on my thermometer, so I suppose I ought to begin. 15^◦C. No breeze. Bright blue – ice and baby blue sky, white clouds smudged with grey. Great Spotted Woodpecker knocking on a tree nearby, very politely. As I opened the front door, I disturbed a Dunnock, pecking around the paving. A Gray Heron rasped a couple of times down at the river. The trunks of The Seven are dappled with a lacy pattern of small, coin-like shadows. A few House Martins have just flown over. Bindweed has engulphed one of the Elderberry Trees and proclaims its victory with many large, wide open trumpets – it is solid as a castle wall – a wall of green.

This is a watercolour painting of a landscape. This is some of the view from our back bench. In the foreground, there is a yellowing crop of grasses from white, to tan, to green in places, which fades into a yellow field behind. Then there is a dark green line of hedges, then a paler brown/green tree line, then two layers of obscure trees in shades of pale blue/grey/lilac. Then behind that is an indistinct hill in pale grey. Above that is a beaming white sun, low on the horizon, surrounded by yellow and ornage light. Around the sun the sky is a swirling cloudy mass of light and dark blur, pink-orange and grey.

I have a wonderful sense of human vanishment and bird foregrounding this morning. Close eyes, breathe, close eyes, breathe – listen, deeply, listen and allow this new day to settle its layers upon you. Masses of apple and pear-shaped eyes blink at me from the trees two doors up. I mut get some of the pears. A Eurasian Bullfinch just flew past, heading south. Right now, the light seems so perfect and clear that I can see the colours of the bird’s feathers as they flit about me. Beautiful whiit-whiit-whiit of a Eurasian Kestrel in the trees down the hill to the right.

A group of six Martins / Swallows is in the sky to the right. App has them down as Barn Swallows but from here, I cannot be sure. A Common Wood Pigeon roosts in a branch of one of The Seven – smooth grey and silver, the pink of its breast – the needle-covered branch sways and bounces under its weight.

Carrion Crow, Eurasian Treecreeper, Eurasian Blackcap, European Goldfinch, European Greenfinch, Eurasian Magpie, Long-tailed Tit, Eurasian Jackdaw, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, House Sparrow, Eurasian Linnet, Coal Tit, Eurasian Wren, Common Chiffchaff, Great Tit, Eurasian Blackbird, Eurasian Blue Tit, European Robin, Goldcrest, Ring-necked Pheasant.

I could detect an unusual call, a quiet one from down by the river – di-di-di-di-di-di – spoken in rapid succession. I was trying to lean into the sound when a dog down there began loudly barking – not the dog’s fault, but can’t help but feel aggrieved. Greater White Throat, Redpoll. Little Ringed Plover shows up again. Perhaps the unusual call was a different species of Plover? Or another water bird? A breeze has begun to test all the stalks. For the first time, the app detects Garden Warbler – UK map shows it as widespread, orange for breeding. I am sure I have seen them. Common Chiffchaff. I am wholly addicted to this nourishment. Nothing else seems important anymore. Of course I am expressing myself badly. Of course so many things are important. I find that…

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