Disconnect With Nature

A friend (Stewart) shared a link to a powerful poem on his Facebook page, and it is well worth a read. The poem is also a book, and it is by Tom Hirons, who is obviously a very talented 'Word Smith'. I read it to myself, and it got right into my soul. I read it aloud to Gail, and as I was reading it to her, I noticed that she had stopped what she was doing, and was transfixed listening. To me, the poem emphasises how we are part of nature, and perhaps how many of us in these troubled times, have lost that connection, and how important it is for us to immerse ourselves in nature, and try to repair those broken links. I hope Tom doesn't mind, but I have reproduced the poem in full below. Anyway, see what you think. And if you like it, maybe buy Tom's book.

Sometimes a Wild God

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

I was reminded again this week about our disconnect with nature via the words of Aldo Leopold, an American writer, philosopher, naturalist, scientist, ecologist, forester, conservationist, and environmentalist. In his A Sand County Almanac, he said:

 

 “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.” 

 

These words resonated with me, and sums up perfectly how I feel. Our disconnect with nature saddens me every day. 

 

Since my last post two weeks ago, it has remained cold, and I have been particularly worried about our insect population, especially butterflies, as they have seemed very thin on the ground. On 2nd July Gail and I headed to the dunes at Fleetwood in the hope of a few insects, but it was overcast, with a cold north-westerly wind, so we turned our attention to the plants. One of my favourite plants, Sea Holly, was flowering profusely, and it was a joy to spend an hour wandering in its' company. In addition to the Sea Holly, other plants in flower included Sea Bindweed, Sea Rocket, Common Restharrow, Sea Spurge, and Biting Stonecrop. 

 

Mondays are the day that we look after our grandson, Alex, and if the forecast is okay, I run my moth trap overnight Sunday into Monday, and check the trap with Alex, in an attempt to get him interested in the natural world, and create that connection, sadly lost with most people now. Alex is 21 months old, and last Monday was the first time that he really showed an interest, urging me to turn over the egg cartons to see what we had caught.

We caught 24 moths, of fifteen species, as follows:

Riband Wave - 1

Bee Moth - 4

Grey Pug - 1

Dark Arches - 6

Common Rustic - 1

Heart and Dart - 1

Garden Carpet - 1

Lesser Yellow Underwing - 1

Light Brown Apple Moth - 1

Buff Ermine - 1

Rustic - 1

Eudonia lacustrata - 1

Codling Moth - 1

Bright-line Brown-eye - 1

Brown House Moth - 1

 

Buff Ermine

 

Dark Arches

Grey Pug

Riband Wave

 About a week ago, Gail and I had a walk along the Quay and the Wyre Estuary, again hoping for a few insects. It was mid-afternoon, but it was overcast, and that north-westerly breeze was there again, cooling things down. The only insect we had was a Yellow Shell, a sort of day flying moth, in as much as you can often flush them during the day, but they are more active at night. A Common Sandpiper and a Little Egret later, and we were back at the start.

 

 

Little Egret (above & below)
 

The following day we completed the sixth and final breeding bird survey of an arable site near Burscough. It was very quiet bird-wise, but we did record a few arable plants, and I've posted a few pictures below.  

Common Fumitory

 

Field Pansy
 

The humble spud

 

At weekend, we had our first ringing session of the autumn at the Nature Park. Gail and I got there just before 5:00 a.m., just as the Starlings were stirring from their overnight, reedbed roost. 

The birding was quiet, but the ringing was promising, with 41 ringed as follows:

Chaffinch - 1

Blackcap - 6

Reed Warbler - 7

Sedge Warbler - 5

Robin - 3 

Grey Wagtail - 1

Goldfinch - 1

Blue Tit - 1

Greenfinch - 2

Dunnock - 1

Great Tit - 1

Chiffchaff - 5

Willow Warbler - 2

Wren - 2

Lesser Whitethroat - 1

Blackbird - 3

 

Blackcap - male

 

Out of the 42 birds that we ringed, 31 were juveniles, which is what you would expect for this time of year. However, based upon how poor the breeding season has been in our boxes, we were expecting the worse, and thought that the ratio of juveniles to adults would be lower. It wasn't, which is good news, and fingers crossed that subsequent ringing sessions in August, when migrants from further afield move through, will show similar positive results. 

 

We were particularly pleased that out of the six Sedge Warblers we ringed, five were juveniles, as in recent years they have struggled at this site. The adult male Grey Wagtail was a surprise. We do catch them later in the autumn, but 13th July is probably the earliest that I have ringed one in the autumn. 

 

I've mentioned recently about the seemingly, alarming, lack of butterflies at the moment, and this morning was no different. As we were on site until late morning, I would have expected to see some butterflies on the wing, but all we recorded was a single Gatekeeper. We had another species of Lepidoptera, in the form of a gorgeous Drinker moth that Gail spotted in one of our net rides.

 

Gatekeeper (above & below)

 

Drinker

 

This overdue catch-up finishes with the results of a moth trapping session overnight last night. This morning when Alex, and I checked our garden light trap, we recorded 29 moths, of 12 species:

 

Riband Wave - 7

Small Dusty Wave - 1

Codling Moth - 5

Single-dotted Wave - 1

Scalloped Oak - 1

Dark Arches - 4

Lesser Yellow Underwing - 1

Cabbage Moth - 1

Miller - 1

Common Rustic - 4

Dot Moth - 2

Common Plume - 1

 

Miller

 

We also recorded a Cinnamon Sedge caddisfly. 

 

The forecast is a bit mixed this coming week, isn't it always, but I'm sure I'll be out somewhere. 

 

Over on the right, you will see that I have updated the ringing totals for Fylde Ringing Group up until the end of June. Four new species for the year were ringed during June, and these were Reed Warbler, Sedge Warbler, Willow Warbler and Kestrel.

 

Below you will find the top 2 ringed in June, and the top 7 'movers and shakers' for the year.

 

Top 2 Ringed in June

 

1. Blue Tit - 22

2. Reed Warbler - 11

 

Top 7 Movers and Shakers for the Year

 

1. Siskin - 112 (same position)

2. Blue Tit - 78 (same position)

3. Tree Sparrow - 34 (same position)

    Goldfinch - 34 (same position)

4. Chaffinch - 29 (same position)

5. Great Tit - 27 (same position)

6. Reed Warbler - 11 (straight in)