To everything there is a.....

Season of Misses....

Walking by the Wash, I can almost feel the tug of that harsh mistress (Artemis, or Selene, sometimes known by other names) the moon, as she slips toward the west in the early light.  Even though she was at her fullest last Tuesday, in combination with the sun she still has the power to flood the world until it is out of its depth:

The moon's a harsh mistress

She's hard to call your own

Jimmy Webb

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

(As sung by Joe Cocker)

This exceptionally high tide has driven flocks of waders to feed on the few remaining slips of beach, and feisty sanderling skip and splash as the waves splutter and suck.

Dunlin skim the wave tops in tight formation,

 

while turnstones, 

 

curlew and oystercatchers strut up and down at the water’s edge, less keen to get their feet wet.

A kestrel skims low across the waterless marsh, a dark shrew clamped in its talons.

Then a family of swans beat past, their necks stretched toward the shore,

and I remember Yeats at Coole:

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

W B Yeats

Wild Swans at Coole

On the lagoon thousands of knot are resting until the tide ebbs again, having performed their synchronised whirling for the morning crowd.  

I walk past a field where over a hundred curlew seem also to be taking a breather. I wonder what they are thinking? Which turns my thoughts around..... It seems only the other day that we swam off, and walked along, these beaches; where did the summer go?

And now there is no one - just empty shells; not even a footprint to show the tracks of time....

 

Then, across the grassy marsh the last camomile and ragwort still attract bumblebees and add some welcome colour,

but the cracked earth yearns for some consistent rain. Young greylag geese burst from the reeds alongside a still-wet drain as I approach, upset at my intrusion.

In the woods the Ken Hill Tamworths are rooting and snuffling, and the path is prickly here and crunchy there according to the mix of trees – now shedding their fruits:

sweet chestnuts, beech mast and acorns in vast quantities this year as the drought has triggered survival procedures.

 

The bracken is fading, although, having dropped redundant leaves earlier, most trees are still green, despite being torn by the wind.

It is a strangely slow autumn, though the poplars and the birch are beginning to turn, catching the low streaming light:

 

I stuff my pockets with crab apples from the hedgerow, to make delicate jelly:

and taste the few remaining blackberries,

though I leave the sloes,

and the rose hips for others with more patience. On the way home, avoiding fungi I don't recognise:

I pick a couple of parasol mushrooms: 

for an omelette lunch, and collect some of the larger chestnuts to boil with fennel seeds for afters. The season has its plenty and we are lucky that nature provides; it certainly is, as Keats would have it, a

Season of misses, and fellow moodfulness

However you see it:

Only lovers

see the fall

a signal end to endings

a gruffish gesture alerting

those who will not be alarmed

that we begin to stop

in order to begin

again.

Maya Angelou

Late October

And so I walk on upon this glorious autumn day, stealing images that hold the time, though time inevitably trickles on. As soon as the shutter clicks, the moment is gone, and the world turns, the moon falls, the dew evaporates and the day draws to night. It is what it is, and that is all there is to be said just now.....

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Questo è dedicato.....

Whirling Waders

Standing Room Only.....

September and it's officially "Autumn!" Where did the summer go?

But here we are, and at Snettisham the waders are back, and the tides are high. This morning, Saturday, September 2nd, I got up early and at 6.30 I was trudging along the two kilometre path to the RSPB Reserve, which, as the RSPB website informs us, consists of a variety of coastal habitats including lagoons, tidal mudflats, shingle beach and saltmarsh. These habitats form part of the wider Wash which is an internationally important area providing refuge for vast numbers of wildfowl and wading birds.

It is a lovely morning.  The sun is already above the horizon, and, though the dawn was not very colourful, it is good light, catching the underwings of the whirling waders as they lift from the incoming tide.

There are tens of thousands of birds out there, feeding on the mudflats of the Ouse Estuary.  By 25 past eight the tide will be tugged up to 7.8 metres high by the combined forces of the sun and the blue moon - that is 25.59 feet higher than mean sea level, and, though waders can swim, they can't feed when they are out of their depth so they come ashore to rest.

The majority of these birds are Knot (which, if you say it quickly, doesn't make sense, so don't.....) and there are around 265,000 of these on the shores of the British Isles during the winter months, having spent the breeding season in the Arctic (one could learn a thing or two there....) Knot are dumpy, short-legged, stocky wading birds (no comment). They form huge flocks in winter which wheel and turn in flight, flashing their pale underwings as they twist and turn. Some call these murmurations, though that word is more usually connected with starlings. A rather cute name for the flocking of Knot is "A Tangle," though one source refers to "A Cluster."

Whatever you like to call them, they fill the sky, almost covering the sun, and they fly overhead with a whirring of wings and excited peepings and twittering.  (Not unlike politicians at the Division Bell....)

They aren't the only birds in these vast flocks though. Handsome white and black Oystercatchers, with their red beaks and scarlet stockings, abound as well, and at this time of year there are also thousands of Godwits, mainly bar-tailed, but also black-tailed, (and a name for them in profusion is fittingly "An Omniscience.") 

The bar-tailed godwit is a long-billed, long-legged wading bird which breeds in the Scandinavian and Siberian Arctic, and hundreds of thousands of them pass through the UK, on their way further south, or stop off here for the winter.  (Flying, as opposed to surface travel, being their preference....)

The waders come off the Wash as the tide rises, and hurry to find a spot on the shingle banks of the lagoons here.  They hustle and shuffle and bluster and snuggle and soon they smother all available resting places.

They aren't the only ones having a rest though. Spoonbills and Cormorants may have picked the best spots, and there are geese, ducks and egrets around as well. All very cosmopolitan. Migration is a fact of life here, and ethnic diversity is accepted by all.

It's just that, for an hour or two, it is standing room only.....  Every now and then there will be a crazy flurry of activity, and one lot will flap up and off and turn and return, and then it will be all ok again....

Then there'll be another alarm....

Then it will be calm again....

All snug

All tight in there - standing room only.....

While the human factor is kept in a glass box, quietly snapping away, wondering at how all these different creatures get on so well together.....

Pip!  Pip!  Some of us (?) really do have a lot to learn......

RSPB Snettisham, Beach Rd, Snettisham, King's Lynn PE31 7RA

And, as the RSPB says on its website:

On the biggest high tides from late summer onwards, tens of thousands of wading birds take flight as the incoming tide pushes them off the vast mudflats. We call this the 'whirling wader spectacle', a special event which doesn't happen everyday. Before travelling to the reserve to see this spectacle, we'd highly recommend you check our Snettisham Spectaculars Dates and Times Guide found in the downloads section below [on the website, y ken?]

From late summer to early winter tens of thousands of wading birds gather on the mudflats where they roost overnight. During an incoming tide, these birds are pushed closer to the beach and on a high spring tide vast flocks of knot, dunlin and oystercatchers take to the air en masse [excuse the French] as the high tides cover the mudflats. The commotion of thousands of wingbeats, excited calls and swirling flocks creates an exhilarating nature spectacle.

Arrest my case.....

Well I know 'cause I think about it all the time

I know that real love is hard to find

 Maria Louisa McKee

Winter into Spring

At the still point of the turning world

It's a cold winter dawn. Thousands of Pink-footed Geese rise from the wastes of The Wash.  The air is full of their sounds - voices wink-winking while their wings strike the resistant air.  You feel for them.  The water, and the air, is cold, though they are well covered.  But families have to rise, and with what seems to be a sense of reluctance, they work their muscles to lift.  They are directed to the sugar beet fields where they will spend the day chomping rapidly on the greens, before heading back at dusk in their ragged skeins to the relative safety of The Wash.

A winter special.

On another day, the chilly air tinged toward dusk, thousands of Knot darken the horizon as the tide seeps in.

This is an astonishing spectacle.  Depending on the tides, and the winds, the time of day and your availability, you can watch while thousands (maybe even tens of) of birds explode into the air, distant ships and trees along the far coast taking no notice.....

Oystercatchers remain grounded, seemingly unperturbed by the whirring mass of Knot above their heads.....

Later in the day, however, I catch a spray of them (the Oystercatchers) heading across the waves in their turn......

Meanwhile, uncertain, skipping the incoming waters, a group of Sanderling (and a trio of Turnstone) gather on the shoreline to-ing and fro-ing like clockwork as the tide advances.

At the same time (correct me if I err) a squabble of Dunlin probe the mud, less worried about the incoming waters....

And occasionally you can see Knot as individuals - their winter plumage not unlike so many others - stabbing at the muddy shallows.  

 

While a pair of Bar-tailed Godwits (hard to believe, but.... a Bar-tailed Godwit sets world record with 13,560km continuous flight from Alaska to southern Australia - is that why they are called God Wits?) strut their stuff in the shiny shallows.....

Then a Curlew, once a common sight but now sadly diminished, whistles past, its colours again the winter camouflage as so many waders, but the downturned beak a giveaway....

Meanwhile, on the sheltered lagoon behind the sea walls a male Teal floats as easy and majestic as a tiny galleon, proud and unsinkable as can be......

As a shady Goldeneye also trims his sails and respects his plimsoll line.....

And a pair of Wigeon coast past in winter harmony.....

On the beach, flitting nervously about, bright and fancy, I espy a Snow Bunting.....

And then there's an eruption of them, springing their energies across the shingles.....

Their flights are excited and trilling, like a shower of notes from something by Liszt or Chopin - too quick to stop, but light and thrilling....

Inland, a male Stonechat, brightly takes off to evade my view......

And on a frosty fencepost a delicate Meadow Pipit poses for me....

Before realising the risk and taking flight

Though I am not the real risk.  Here a Marsh Harrier prepares for his plunge into the reed bed....

And within sight of the golden cockerel wind vane above the spire of St Mary's a Red Kite parades with the remains of some hapless chicken.....

Down to earth, a Little Egret rests on the edge of the marsh.....

And a Grey Heron stalks quietly to find a fishing hole.....

I love the world of birds - constantly uplifting, brilliantly alive. I am not twitcher, no ornithologist, nor even a birder.  I just love to see the disciples of St Francis take the air, and I love to hear their shrill calls, or their mellifluous songs.  I take solace in sharing this planet with so much diversity, so many individual lives, though I worry that today is not tomorrow, and sadly fear that we are gradually destroying what could have once been paradise.

And it is not only for the birds.  I face a gentle red-poll heifer in the frosted field, her look of bemused trust an accusation that I have not used all my power to make things better....

And later, in the shallow sunshine a hare sits softly in thought, unaware of the dangers around the corner.  What a mad world this is.

And as I slowly creep back to my overheated home, to restore my pampered bones with a bath and a glass, a tiny Wren shrieks at me to remember to love the world, and not just myself.....

And then, breaking the air waves, a swan wings over me, majestic in its sinuous agility. If only I could fly like that! If only I could walk like that! If only I could be like that......

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

William Butler Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole

The nights are cold, but the sun has been shining, warming the air.  Winter will be gone, though the passage to Spring is never without surprises.  The birds in my garden watch for my scattered feeds, hungry to keep themselves alive, though with gleams of the snowdrops and the rising daffodils the sap is rising in everything.  I have seen Harriers dancing and Kites prancing - it won't be long before the Hares are mad.....

At the still point of the turning world, neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

Burnt Norton

T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965)

Let us dance.......