The buds on the ash have burst at last, but the leaves are mere tufts: the long stems with their four (or so) matched pairs and the singleton at the tip, they’re still a week or so away. There was, then, plenty of sky available for the contemplation of a hammock-swinging naturalist.

My new book is out. In recent days I’ve done two chunks of radio — Private Passions on Radio 3 next Sunday – and two talks so I felt entitled to a bout of hammock. The book is called How to Fly: and there above the ash, through the branches and the quickening buds, I could see a marsh harrier, male, his wings picked out in sable, argent and chestnut. All flying is enviable – that’s why I wrote the damn book – but perhaps the trait we envy most of all is aerial nonchalance.

Harriers are great gliders, often holding their wings in a shallow vee, a dihedral, a formation that not only gives stability but also a tendency to return to straight and level flight after a wobble. Next time you get on an aeroplane, you’ll probably notice the same configuration; it’s there for the same reason.

Speed always looks spectacular: but flying very slowly is much harder. Everything that flies has a stalling speed: if you get any slower the air passing over your wings no longer supplies the lift you need and you simply fall out of the air.

But harriers are masters of slowness, cruising, often at low level at the very edge of a stall, but always staying up with small adjustments and acute awareness of the changing speed of the wind. The harrier over the ash at 200 feet was as relaxed as I was in my hammock, a mere two feet above the unforgiving ground.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-fly/simon-barnes/9781526687548

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Fly-Taking-Insects-Humans/dp/1526687542

My next talk is at Sheffield Central Library on Wednesday https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1987541351686?aff=oddtdtcreator