Record shot from near Hale Lighthouse of the white-tailed eagle’s location on the banks of the Mersey 220623
When I started this blog in June 2022, I questioned whether the world really needed another one. I had also seen blogs that had been started but not updated for a while, and I didn’t want this one to go the same way, with no public acknowledgement of an ending – permanent or temporary. Continue reading
Bee in clover
Although the emotions I felt last week on the allotment were mainly caused by a negative outlook brought on by recent personal events, the growing sense of unease about the negative changes I and many others are witnessing in the natural world around us also played a part. This feeling was termed ‘solastalgia’ by Glenn A. Albrecht, and it is a concept that seems to be spreading, so I decided to make it the focus of this blog post – which explains it in very simple terms. Continue reading
The sunlounger as viewed from the allotment
Or a wallow in the mire… Look away now if misery memoirs aren’t your thing… (Normal service will be resumed…) Continue reading
A river runs past it – the River Conwy
At the end of June 2022, I spent a few days on a birdwatching course at the Field Studies Council’s Rhyd y Creuau centre near Betws-y-Coed. On the final evening, I was determined to visit a place I’d not been to since I was a child so, despite the pouring rain, that’s what I did. After a 30-minute walk along the verge of the very fast main road – the Sappers Suspension Bridge short-cut being closed for repair – I found myself in the churchyard of St Michael’s Old Church watching a song thrush feed a plump juvenile amongst the ancient yews and old gravestones. The peace and tranquillity of that early evening in the churchyard made a strong impression on me, and I resolved to return. Fast-forward to May 2023: Eurovision is in town, delighting many thousands of people, but it’s time for this ‘bah, humbug’ individual to get out of Dodge. Where else but to Betws-y-Coed? Continue reading
Looking towards the jetty at Speke-Garston Coastal Reserve May 2023
As I walked around Speke-Garston Coastal Reserve recently, I noticed the difference in the birds occupying both the soundscape and the landscape. Residents had given way to visitors, the latter muscling their way in to sing their own songs and raise their own families. So that observation became the basis for this blog post. Continue reading
Dull conditions but great birding at Oglet 140423
I learnt a very helpful piece of information during a recent weekend’s birding (14th-17th April): bird for spring migrants on a rainy day with a south-east wind blowing. It seemed counterintuitive to this fairly fair-weather birder and walker until the science behind it was fathomed: if it’s sunny, passage migrants from southerly climes will probably just keep on going, talking advantage of the good conditions to continue to their breeding grounds further north – Scottish mountains for the ring ouzel, upland areas for the whinchat, and sometimes even further, to Greenland for the wheatear, for example. However, on a rainy day, they might decide to stop at a suitable ploughed field or thick hedgerow where they can wait out the weather and refuel. Continue reading
Ditton Brook
On a glorious Good Friday, I visited a new (to me) birding site with a friend. Target species: yellowhammer – another species in rapid decline, as I’ve mentioned before on this blog (https://wordsanddeeds.co.uk/not-the-bird-we-were-looking-for/). The reasons are numerous: farmers sowing crops in the autumn rather than leaving stubble for the birds to feed on during winter, and/or not leaving a field margin for wildflowers to grow – which provide more food in the form of seeds and insects; developers being allowed to build on green- and brownfield sites, eroding the countryside as surely and swiftly as a flash flood; and more. So going for a bird walk these days has, for me, a sense of sadness about it: I revel in the open air; the blackthorn bursting with blossom; the jaunty lesser celandine with its heart-shaped leaves. But I also lament the losses: where are all the birds? Continue reading
There is a harbour porpoise out there – somewhere – 040423
Today’s blog post celebrates the River Mersey, and is a combination of a wonderful wildlife encounter I experienced earlier this month and a poem written in response to Lancaster LitFest’s call-out for its ‘From Source to Sea’ poetry co-creation project to celebrate the rivers of the North West of England, to be permanently displayed on the website’s special poetry map (https://litfest.org/fromsourcetosea/). Continue reading
The allotment April 2023
This piece provides a contrast to an article I was invited to write for MONO literary journal on how walking informs my nature writing (Words Made by Walking, https://www.monofiction.org/post/words-made-by-walking-an-article-by-debra-williams), as I am ‘fixed’ in one place – although still thinking! I wrote it in response to a prompt to ‘put yourself in a domestic outdoor space, think about something wilder and worry/ask questions about it’ during an eco-writing workshop earlier in the year. Continue reading
The Mansion House in Calderstones Park – image by Raymond Knapman, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Looking through my notes on the various talks I have attended in the last few months, I found that I had not written about the very interesting one that took place at Calderstones Mansion House last October, as part of the 2022 Gravity Festival organised by The Reader Organisation, so today’s blog post aims to put that right. Continue reading
