nature writing
-
Nature Notes
Athene noctua. 10pm and a joyful revelation. A pair of little owls sit side-by-side on the whitened, papery branch of the stag-headed oak overhanging the field; then fly in opposite directions to resume hunting. As I creep past their oak, with its hidden hollow and ancient girth, I hear the insistent psssssht, psssssht of chicks. […]
-
Nature Notes
Thunderlight on the Plough. Heavy downpours cause the winterbourne, sunk since January, to rise and flow wide and fast through the pasture and across the road, ignoring the culverts built for it. I stop the car. Skylarks row vertically upwards through the rain, but they are not singing; I wonder that their nests may be drowned. […]
-
Nature Notes
Wild Writing On Freeman’s Marsh, for Hungerford Literary Festival, 14 children have come seeking literary inspiration from nature. We begin by tuning in our senses, discussing the smell of dogs’ paws and listening for the thin, needling call of redwings arriving from the frozen north. And then we are out with our new notebooks, collapsing […]
-
Nature Notes
Margherita Pizzas and the Six Hundredth. I am compelled to come here each autumn. I never know quite when, only that it is misty and the woodpigeons are chorusing and the jays are screeching. For the rest of the year, I tend to avoid this particular footpath and its permanent, orange, sucking clay. It is mud […]