Though I seem to have missed out on my fair share this week. Not to worry: I made up for it today, at least a bit. Sitting quietly doing nothing is one of the quintessential wild experiences. It helps to do it in the right sort of place of course – but anywhere you can sit still without looking at a screen is the most marvellous release from civilisation for most of us.
So Eddie, Cindy and I went and had a sit at somewhere not so terribly special, and then walked a bit, and then sat at a not entirely dissimilar sort of place. Very pretty and all that, but not the sort of place you’d go looking for rarities.
But it’s that thing from Orhan Pamuk, Turkish writer and Nobel laureate: “What makes the marvellous is its peculiar way of being ordinary; what makes the ordinary is its peculiar way of being marvellous.” If you spend all your time with only one of these categories, you lose the other.
So we admired the pitch-perfect nattiness of black-headed gulls, foraging at the townie end of the River Chet, and then, downstream a little way, we sat and watched the water. Wild water is the thinking person’s television. Or better still, a form of television that actually banishes thought, like the teachings of a Zen master.
There were collections of brief concentric circles as fish rose to take fragments of life from the surface, making subtle shifting patterns on the water, patterns that kept vanishing and miraculously reappearing. A Zen painter with his black ink might have captured it in half-a-dozen miraculous brush strokes: a master of haiku might have done so in 17 enchanted syllables.
But I just sat. And shared Eddie’s delight at a mallard: a female with a flotilla of ten ducklings trailing along behind her, sometimes one of them pedalling frantically to get back in line, like a member of the peloton getting left behind in the Tour de France.
We moved on. Back to the town. It was then that Eddie and I both yielded to vice. He had a portion of chips and I had a bottle of Czech beer from the Co-op: at £1.89 I felt that I couldn’t afford not to drink it.
Good stuff. Wild June and wild beer both. I stole a handful of chips; that seemed to complete the experience. Going all right, this June.
Just can’t top your day. Enchanting.
Good on you Honey.
Not attempting to top, or even match, your day, but to share the experience: walking back home from the gym in very urban North London, along a very suburban street (but not far from a park), there was, all of a sudden, a Jay, possibly a juvenile (it did look sort of fluffy, if you know what I mean): did make my morning.
Then, in the afternoon, walking through Green Park (London does have some great green “lungs”), looking for (and failing to find) something other than the usual pigeons – although there were unseen parakeets overhead – we came across the Canadian War Memorial in the middle of the Park. We’d seen it before, but it still calmed the heart.
So, even in the middle of large cities. there are these moments, if we remember to look for them.
A great ornithologist say that Jays were ‘the British bird of paradise.’
Strolled down to Pelistry bay for a last time this visit. The tide was gently on its way in and the water creeping up the sandy beach was quietly hypnotic. The seal bobbed up to say cheerio and the cuckoo called from just above the bay.
Perfect!
Eddie is becoming the star of the show. I hope you can cope with this, Simon , and well done Eddie!
Meanwhile here. In Bristol, overlooking the Avon Gorge, our bit of wild is revealing wonderful goldfinches in abundance, a array of tits,robins and wrens, with yesterday a bullfinch (a first), while sweeping across above us on a daily basis are our resident peregrines. It is wonderfully wild in the city!
Bob Reeves
Good to hear from you Bob, hope you’re June is going as well as ours.
It was a glorious night last night, so my wife and I just stood out in our little front garden not doing anything other than quietly enjoying the still of the evening. Our garden birds had all settled down, but we heard a Tawny Owl calling in the distance and decided to remain outside watching for a while on the off chance that it may fly overhead.
Less than two minutes later, we saw the shadow of a bird, silently flying towards the house in front of us. We quickly realised it was a Tawny Owl, which perched on the roof. Incredibly, it was then joined by another one – the pair only stayed very briefly, then flew off into the night.
It was such a magical moment born out of a totally normal scenario, involving a fairly common bird that everyone is familiar with. Absolutely unforgettable experience, and as good as seeing any exotic or rare species in more glamorous circumstances.
Even here, in very suburban North London (East Finchley), we do hear Tawnys from time to time: but we are close to a number of parks and not that fat fro open countryside. Still, it’s a moment of wonder. I even open the window, now and then, at this time of night, late, to see if they are near.
Also reminds me that many years ago, 3 decades or more, we had a house in a village outside Leicester, with a medium-sized garden, plus fruit trees. One night, a Tawny perched in the apple tree nearest the house. We had lights on, and so could see it. We risked putting another bedroom light on, so our younger daughter could have a good look. Fortunately, although the owl reacted, it wasn’t spooked by the extra light, and remained in the tree, facing the house for a fair few minutes more, before dropping off the branch on which it was perching and flying off into the night.
See, I still remember, 30+ years later, the magic of that moment.
You have the right of it, Simon, the beauty of wildness!
Wonderful to set eyes on a Tawney, they look like a guardsman’s bearskin that has somehow ended up in a tree.
An actual sighting of a Tawney is always a thing to treasure. They are birds of deep darkness.
I have enjoyed your pieces this week and Eddie’s contribution is such a pleasure to read, his enthusiasm is much appreciated. Regarding the art of being still and listening reminds me of an old Dorset farmer I knew a few years ago. His isolated cottage, one of a pair backed onto some stunning countryside. He told me that one night, around this time of the year a couple from London moved in next door and were standing at the top of the garden. “can you hear that?” My friend asked. “Can’t hear a thing” was the reply. “Now that my friends is the sound of silence, just soak it in and remember that it’s both rare and beautiful”.
Absolutely!
I so wanted to see the ducklings. So thank you Eddie for your illustrated blog. My walk today was with my border collie, Miss Molly,along the beach opposite Arne in Poole harbour. Lots of very large jellyfish washed up on the beach. We heard warblers in the gorse bushes along the cliff top but only caught brief glimpses. I wish birds wore large name tags. We saw mullet feeding round the boats on a pontoon and then I sat in the garden and just looked and listened.
Never mind name tags, the mystery is part of the glory of it all.