The UK's favourite nature book

I came across this earlier today – Land Lines are looking to find the UK's favourite nature book. They're all excellent, as you'd expect, but there's three in there that I'd find very very hard to separate – The Peregrine, John Clare's Selected Poems, and of course The Natural History of Selborne. But I'd have to go for JA Baker's masterpiece, in the end.

'Two ravens flew with them all the way'

Driving to work this morning, just a few miles from home, I saw two Ravens flying over the road at Napton-on-the-Hill.

Their identity was obvious from the wedge-shaped tails, the long, narrow wings, and the size, close to that of a Buzzard. As I got closer, the heavy bills were there, too, and just a hint of the shaggy throat feathers.

A few years ago, to see a Raven in the Midlands was still a pretty big deal. Then pairs started to move into many of the granite quarries around Charnwood Forest (I was living in Leicestershire at the time), where they co-habited with another species that has been making a comeback, the Peregrine. The two species often live in close proximity, and the Ravens seem to delight in annoying the raptors with close approaches and dive-bombing. I've never seen a Peregrine actually have a go at a Raven, though, perhaps because there is usually much easier prey to hand.

Now Ravens are getting reported from all over the place. They breed on the edge of Peterborough, in countryside that you'd never have associated with them just a short time ago, but which they must have inhabited in the past. John Clare, whose home village of Helpston is just a couple of miles from the nest site, mentions them more than once. Near my own home, they're regularly seen around Edgehill, but they've probably spread even further than that.

The pair this morning were flying purposefully and straight, with none of the aerobatics you often see from the species. Once, in Extremadura, I watched four Ravens flying high over the plain that stretched for 20 miles in every direction. As if to relieve the monotony of the journey, all four suddenly flipped onto their backs, then back again, before carrying on their way.

But anyway, Ravens are right up there in my birds top 10, and seeing them always reminds me of this passage from Njal's Saga, greatest of the Icelandic family sagas. The whole historical and mythological aspect of Ravens is, I think, one of the reasons I like them so much.

I didn't intend this post to deteriorate into a bout of shameless self-promotion, but I should also mention that there's a chapter on Ravens in my book A Sky Full Of Birds, which you can read about and order here.

Lolham Brigs

I was over around Helpston yesterday, as part of an ongoing project with photographer Phil Harris. We're not trying to trace John Clare's footsteps or anything like that, just to use some of the locations associated with him to spark off ideas.

For most of the time, for example, we've become a bit fixated on roads and green lanes, but yesterday we thought we'd have a look for a piece of graffiti left by Clare on Lolham Brigs, just north of his home village of Helpston. I'd heard about it a few years ago, but had always thought it might be quite tricky to find, as the bridges are pretty extensive and in a fairly marshy area.

As it turned out, we found the inscription straight away. My photo isn't very good (Phil took some much larger scale pics of it all), but it seems to read "John Clare, Helpston, 1817". The date might not be right, but it's there with a lot of other graffiti dating from 1790 onwards, and in particular concentrated in the years up to 1830 or so.

As you'll see from this poem, Clare featured the site in his poetry more than once.

Variations on the Great North Road

I've been working with photographer Phil Harris on a project involving tracing some of John Clare's travels, but we also set out to let ourselves get sidetracked, rather than following them too closely.

Yesterday, we traced the route of Sewstern Drift, a prehistoric trackway that later became a drovers' road, running parallel to the Great North Road (which would, by the late 18th century, have been a toll road).

Some stretches are now green lanes and bridle ways, but others are tarmac roads, recognisable by their very wide verges, which allowed the sheep and cattle to graze on their way to market in London. The stretch above is near Thistleton.

The route also largely avoids the centre of villages, instead just skirting round them - no one wanted noisy, smelly beasts just outside their front door.

At times the road takes a large detour round a World War Two airfield, or the only-just-closed RAF Cottesmore, with the drift itself disappearing and then resuming on the far side.

Sadly, the fields alongside are often the sort of arable desert that typifies much of lowland Britain these days - it was hard to find a bird other than a Woodpigeon in this open country. The lane itself, though, was much more lively, especially on its unpaved sections, with the hedges holding good numbers of species such as Yellowhammer. These stretches also had more trees nearby, either in little French-style avenues, or copses such as the one below, near Buckminster, where a water tower sprouts from the centre like an enormous mushroom.

By The Way

Work from seven artists and photographers from across the East and West Midlands features in By The Way, an exhibition running at the Bohunk Institute, Nottingham, for the next two weeks.

Photographers David Severn, Sian Stammers, Julian Hughes, Phil Harris, Helen Saunders and artists Shaun Morris and Wayne Burrows have produced works that meander through landscape peripheral to the city - the fringes, edgelands and wasteland of contemporary Britain. Work from Midlands writers and poets also features, with text writ large on the gallery walls, and I'm among them - I've been working with Phil Harris on a project relating to John Clare's travels, and some of our work in progress is included.

The Bohunk Institute, at 2 Fishergate Point, Nottingham, is open 1pm-7pm Thursday and Friday, and 11am-5pm Saturday and Sunday.

Postcards from Berlin

I spent a few days in Berlin last week, and arrived there just about the same time as spring did. The sun shone, the avenues and squares were crowded, and all in all it was a good time to sit at a pavement cafe with a beer, or to toddle from museum to museum.

Of course, I can't go anywhere without doing at least some birdwatching, and I'd heard all sorts of good things about Berlin, not the least being how easy it was to see Goshawks. Relatively easy, I mean - in this country, their locations are often closely guarded secrets, but in the German capital, there's thought to be up to 90 pairs, often nesting very close to buildings.

So, on the morning of my first full day, I started by looking in the Tiergarten. I'd had a quick look there the evening before, and the first thing that struck me was how wild it was for a city centre park. Instead, it feels like a chunk of forest dropped into the middle of the city, so the thought that it might harbour Goshawks, Buzzards and Wild Boar suddenly didn't seem so strange.

So, at 8.30am, I'd just crossed the road from the Brandenberg Gate, and was maybe 50 yards into the Tiergarten (in the photo above, just to the right of the trees on the right). A rusty-brown bird was rifling through the leaf litter a few yards to the right of the path, and even without binoculars it was obvious that it was a Nightingale.

This in itself is unusual - I don't think I've ever seen a Nightingale before without my attention first being drawn to it by its song. As I stood and watched, it fluttered to a low branch on a bush, and started singing, although in a more subdued, quieter fashion than you'd normally expect. 

When I eventually walked on a little way, I heard two more singing the same way, presumably in answer, and by the end of the morning I'd heard half a dozen or so throughout the park. I did catch up with a couple of Goshawks, too, but to be honest, the Nightingales would have been enough by themselves.

So much so that the next day, I couldn't resist having another look. This time, three near the Brandenberg Gate were in full voice, their songs audible from the far side of the road even over the traffic noise. It reminded me of this John Clare poem - I suspect the subdued singing was down to the birds having just arrived after their long migration.

I'll be posting more about the non-birding aspects of the trip soon, as well as a few more bird pics, but for now I'll just mention the one very slight disappointment about the Berlin Nightingales, discovering that their name in German is Nachtigall, nothing like as interesting as the Spanish name for the species, Ruisenor, literally, 'the noisy man'.

Emmonsails Heath In Winter: an update

Sam Ward kindly emailed to point out that John Clare did, in fact, see kites around Emmonsails Heath, and Helpston.

He adds: "Identifying which bird Clare's referring to isn't always easy, as puddock can mean kite or common buzzard. In his bird list, though, he notes differences between the flight of the buzzard and the kite."

That suggests that he was familiar with both, so the gamekeeper-accelerated decline of both species must have really set in a little after his time. Buzzard, incidentally, is another bird name that was applied across several species, all of them large and with an appetite for carrion, at different times, which is why it's used as a name for vultures in North America.

Emmonsails Heath in winter

Well, Ailsworth Heath, as it now is, this morning. It's part of Castor Hanglands National Nature Reserve. The weather was glorious, but it was relatively quiet, with no sign, surprisingly, of John Clare's "coy bumbarrels" flitting down the hedgerows. No Woodcock or Grey Heron, either, and only one or two Fieldfares and Carrion Crows.

But there are plenty of half-rotten trees, just as Clare described, and that's what makes it a good place for Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, Marsh Tits, and the like. This morning there were only Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming, plus a couple of Nuthatches noisily explaining their name by hacking away at hazelnuts that they'd wedged in tree crevices.

There are scrubby, messy meadows like the one above, too, making it a haven for warblers in spring, plus otherwise hard to find species such as Nightingale and Cuckoo. Redstarts go through on passage, too, and around the fringes there were a few Yellowhammers present this morning. All of them birds that Clare wrote about again and again, and evidence of at least some continuity.

I got to wondering whether Clare would have seen Buzzards there (one was mewing loudly today), or if their persecution had already driven them out in his day. The Red Kites that are overhead now would certainly have been an unfamiliar sight to him, having long before retreated into upland fastnesses.

And finally, I'm betting he didn't have to deal with these fellas. They were more than a little curious. Handsome, though.

From Clare to here

I've mentioned this John Clare poem - Emmonsails Heath In Winter - on this blog before, because it's probably my favourite piece of his. But, what with the wintry weather and the fact that it's just a brisk walk away from the office, it bears repeating.

Emmonsails Heath is now Ailsworth Heath and Castor Hanglands, and it struck me this morning that the birds mentioned in the poem would probably be there today - certainly there are large numbers of Fieldfares on the move everywhere this week, and Woodcocks are becoming more visible, as they always do after snow, as they move around in search of food. Long-tailed Tits, too, the "bumbarrels" of the poem, are plentiful in most areas now.

That all sounds quite positive, but it would be interesting to know how the number of species and individual birds there compares to Clare's day - not very well, I suspect. In fact, it's a little task I'm going to set myself, to investigate that further.

NB "Bumbarrel", the Northamptonshire dialect name for the Long-tailed Tit, apparently comes from the barrel-shaped nests they build.

John Clare Day

It was nice to see George Monbiot, in The Guardian, talking about the greatness of John Clare, his role as chronicler of the enclosure of great swathes of the English countryside in the early 19th century, and as elegist for what was lost.

I'd have to seriously take issue with his opening sentence, though, in which he claims that Helpston is now situated in one of the most dismal and regularised tracts of countryside in Europe. Now, the mania in this country for 'tidying up' every bit of countryside people can find is a personal bugbear, and it's undoubtedly true that in most parts of England (and parts of the rest of Britain, too), there's a depressing lack of the patchwork of habitats that would have been common back in Clare's day (although it's also worth noting that many of them would have been manmade, too).

But Helpston is no worse than most places, and a lot better than many others. It's just at the edge of the Fens, so although there are prairie-style fields in the vicinity, it's far from being unbroken expanses of intensive farmland. Just to the south, Castor Hanglands is a National Nature Reserve, and along with neighbouring Ailsworth Heath (the Emmonsails Heath of Clare's poems), retains some of its former glory. There are several woodlands, Maxey Gravel Pits (a working quarry, but a breeding site for a lot of birds), and a little further north, the lakes around Lolham* and Tallington. Regularised? No, far from it. Dismal? Not really - I think George is trying far too hard to bring Helpston itself into his argument about Clare. He really doesn't need to.

* Clare's name can be found carved into one of the arches of the bridges near Lolham that carry the East Coast mainline across one of the streams. The bridges, Lolham Brigs in his poems, have been around in one form or another since Roman times - nice that Clare left his mark on them.

Up for grabs

Fancy being the Poet Laureate of Stamford? There's details here of a competition with that as the prize. It's a wonderfully historic town, and of course has a poetic pedigree, with John Clare having grown up and lived a mile or two down the road at Helpston, so it could be very interesting.

Voices for Nature

For the last couple of years, a month or so before Christmas, I've gone along to a gathering of writers, artists, poets, musicians, historians, scientists and film-makers, all of whom have one thing in common – they draw some or all of their inspiration from the natural world.

The first event was at Oxford University, and last year's at the BTO's Thetford headquarters - both were by invitation only.

This year's symposium, however, under the banner of Voices for Nature, is open to all, and takes place at Stamford Arts Centre on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th November. It's organised by New Networks for Nature, a recently-founded alliance whose goals are to challenge the low political priority placed upon wildlife and landscape in this country and to celebrate the central roles played by nature in our cultural life.

Voices for Nature will run over two days, and the first features talks from the likes of poet and novelist Ruth Padel, Pete Cairns (founder of the 2020 Vision photographic project), and the author Richard Hines, who trained the kestrels used in Kes, Ken Loach's classic film. There'll also be presentations by sound recordist Geoff Sample and Professor Tim Birkhead the author, academic and co-founder of New Networks for Nature.

On the second day, Voices for Nature will shift just down the road to Helpston Church, in the home village of John Clare, for another day's events in association with the John Clare Society. Speakers will include poet David Morley and the celebrated artist Carry Akroyd, much of whose recent work has been inspired by her exploration of 'Clare Country'.

I'll certainly be going to the Friday's events, and hope to be there on the Saturday too, but that will depend on the travel arrangements for a trip I'm going on the same day.

If you wish to attend one or both days the charge is £30 inclusive. Bookings will be handled by the Stamford Arts Centre, on tel: 01780 763 203, or by clicking here.

For further details or information, you can email [email protected] or [email protected]

Birds in poems

Thanks to Caroline Gill for bringing this to my attention over at the Poetry Society's website. I started off pretty well, but struggled quite a bit later on.

Still, there's a few of my favourite bird poems in there - The Sandpiper, The Windhover and Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird among them.

Other favourites of mine include Bernard O'Donoghue's The Nuthatch, any number of John Clare poems, and the Anglo-Saxon elegy The Seafarer, which includes such specific bird references that at least one expert pinned the location down to the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth in April.

John Clare

If you didn't tune in to Radio 3 on Tuesday night to listen to The Essay, in which Alison Brackenbury talked about John Clare's influence on her work, you still have four days left to catch it here.

It was excellent, I thought, and I especially enjoyed hearing the poem The Cuckoo. And it all set me thinking about Clare. He's very difficult to get away from here, around Peterborough where I work, because his name gets attached to all sorts of public buildings, streets and even businesses. And it was when I lived over here in the late 90s that I first really got into his poetry, out of curiosity more than anything, I think. I lived in Bourne, and used to get the bus to and from work, and it wound its way past Helpston, where he was born and raised, and through Northborough, to which he was moved, unhappily, later in his life.

While both villages have so far resisted being swallowed up by the city, the countryside is pretty unrecognisable from the one Clare wrote about, intensive agriculture having put paid to it. Emmonsails (now Ailsworth) Heath, for example, subject of one of my favourite Clare poems, is now pretty much farmland, and elsewhere roads and gravel pits have carved up the landscape.

And that, I suppose, is why Clare has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity, and a critical reappraisal. It's not merely nostalgia for an imagined England of days gone by - it's the fact that in his exact and first-hand writing about the natural world, he was making the now extremely relevant point (without ever trying to hammer home 'a message') that no one part of it exists in isolation.

Finally, I just found this article on Clare, particularly interesting for what it says about how well read he was.

Brackenbury on Clare

Alison Brackenbury tells me that she has a short talk on John Clare being broadcast on Radio 3 next Tuesday (December 2), at 11pm. A bit late, but I like a bit of radio last thing at night. Far better that than in the day, too, when it's difficult to listen.

The talk contains extracts from a poem called The Cuckoo, and the great storm scene from The Shepherd’s Calendar.

The programme will also be available (during the rest of the week) on Listen Again, at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc_radio_three
(Look under E for The Essay).

The other Essays during the week also sound excellent. They are:
Monday, 1st December: Michael Symmons Roberts on David Jones.
Wednesday, 3rd December: W N Herbert on Edwin Morgan (including a recording of Morgan performing his Loch Ness Monster poem).
Thursday, 4th December: Menna Elfyn on T Gwynn Jones.
Friday, 5th December: Fred D’Aguiar on Wilson Harris.

Enjoy!