Feel Good Saturday

Everyone is hooked on Britain's Got Talent, I personally can't stand that feeling you get when you squirm with embarrassment for someone who is obviously short of the mark, I have to leave the room.  But when you do see those incredibly talented people stand up and stand out it really does make me smile.  We've been boxed in by A -List celebrities for so long and when only a handful of people that get all the attention it can seem like everyone else is second rate, dull and uninteresting.  Many of the people who take part seem so self effacing, which just adds to it. But what BGT and its ilk show is that there is a wealth of creative and talented people out there who are just as worthy of our appreciation.  And it helps put in perspective that life isn't just about financial crisis, climate change and crooked MPs, we can sing, dance, be daft and have fun as well.    So good luck tonight - you should all win.

No More Fox Night

The fox has gone - haven't seen him/her for weeks now and a neighbour put a note through all the doors on the street complaining.  Apparently it killed their pet one evening and wants the fox eradication unit to be called if anyone ever sees a fox here again.  It is sad that the neighbour has lost a pet and really sad we can't live next to wild animals.  But it highlights it for me that our relationship with the natural world isn't all misty-eyed sunsets and pretty flowers.  We are competitors in a harsh world and we compete for space, food and resources.  So bye bye fox - it was really fun to see you while you were here.

Farnes, Fish, Eiders, Terns and Saints.

Last weekend was one of those fabulous times that will stay in the memory.  I was making a Radio 4 documentary on the state of seabirds and had the joy of revisiting  a seabird colony off the coast of NE Scotland near Inverness with ornithologist Bob Swann, and then onto the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland. The presenter was Chris Sperring.

You can see more lovely photos of the seabirds on Chris's blog - and this is one of his puffin pics.

It was very wet and rainy on Sutors Cliff near Inverness!  Thanks to Prof Sarah Wanless for taking the photo.

Me, Bob and Chris in the pouring rain.

 

Chris, Bob and Prof Sarah Wanless in a gun battery in the cliff

The incredibly steep path down to the seabird colony

Sutors cliff is wonderful to visit but tells a tragic tale of the decline in kittiwakes over the last 15 years.  Bob has recorded a drop for a peak of about 700 pairs to just over a hundred.  Something is going on.  

What a contrast to the day on the Farnes.  It was touch and go whether we would make it as the islands had been cut off for four days because of storms - but we did, and it was wonderful.

It was fascinating on the Farnes - and thank you to National Trust Warden David Steel for taking us round..  Seabird numbers have been causing concern for about 5 years or so now, the numbers of many species are dropping and for some like the Kittiwake, it is a dire situation.But the good news on the Farnes is that Arctic Terns are doing really well, and we saw the first egg laid this year.  This is great because they are doing so very badly in many other colonies.

Arctic Tern with fish - Chris Sperring

Climate change (more spring and summer storms), intensive fishing, warming of the seas are all playing their part in the lives of seabirds and it is a complex picture.  The birds are either failing to rear young because they can't feed them enough fish like sandeels or sprats, or adult birds are starving to death in the winter months out at sea.  Sometimes the unpredictable weather we seem to be getting now is killing the chicks and storms can literally wash nests off cliffs.

But it isn't all doom and gloom, there is a lot we can do so listen in to NATURE on Tuesday June 2nd at 11.00 am or Wednesday 3rd at 9.00 pm to hear all the ins and outs, including details of new guillemot behaviour that Sarah has observed.  The website above will take you to the Listen Again page after it has been broadcast on the 3rd.

I was very interested to find out that St Cuthbert lived on the main Inner Farne Island and he was famous not only for his piety but for introducing laws to protect the seabirds that must have been all around him in the spring and summer.  He is thought of as the first conservationist, and eiders are called cuddy ducks in Northumberland in his honour.  Nice story.

St Cuthbert's chapel on the Farnes.

Male eider on the Farnes - thanks Chris for photo.

Sony Gold Award

I won Gold for Best Internet Programme last night at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in London and the link takes you to the webcast.

 It was an amazing night and I am thrilled.  The judges described the programme as:

 “A beautifully and subtly crafted programme which used the simplest materials to tell a compelling story and deliver profound emotional impact.  It was perfectly adapted to the medium, breaking genre boundaries to deliver its message to the target audience with perfect pitch.” 

Clifton Diocese entered the award on my behalf and here is their write-up.  Thank you to Tom and the Diocese for entering me.

Thank you so much to Robert King for your gentle insights, Gareth Davies-Jones for the beautiful music and of course Les and his budgie.

The First Swifts of Summer

Out for a run at 7.30 am and heard a familiar sound  - the scream of swifts as they wheeled overhead.  It stopped me in my tracks and I shouted SWIFTS! The poor man walking past me gave me a strange look and a wide berth.  This is what Richard Mabey wrote about swifts in his book Nature Cure

“As a relationship my thing with swifts is so one sided as to be hardly worthy of the name.  The birds don’t give a fig about me or any of us.  Yet they are connected with us indirectly, even when we are not aware of them, through the environments and senses that we share.  We respond to spring, to the lift of fine weather, to the basic biological urge to play… On Ascension Day I was sent this short poem out of the blue:

May, Just into

Double figures.

Everything green

And brilliant-

The first warm day.

Soft shoes, no socks,

Then you call out

The swifts are back!

Listen.  Look up!

Listen.  Look up!  Did birds like swifts arriving mysteriously in the spring, reappearing from nowhere at dawn, play their part in the generation of resurrection stories?  Do they still register at the corners of our vision and reason, something immanent?  Despite our science and our humanism, our whole culture is infused with myths and symbols of landscape and nature, emblems of the seasons, of decay and rebirth, of the boundaries between the wild and tame, myths of migration and transmigration of invisible monsters and lands of lost content.”

Welcome back swifts - you gladden the heart.

Wobbly Tables, Big Ideas

Gave a talk in the Cotswolds last night, I love eccentric English events.  No one had a key to get into the village hall so we all sat outside while the vicar, Methodist minister and Catholic priest made panicked calls on mobile phones, so when we did get in no chairs out, screen had to be balanced on wobbly table, no cups of tea ready etc.  All very good notes for a novel if I was a writer, and I'm always delighted at how lovely people are in mini crises.  But what I have noticed recently is that ideas which seem so second nature and obvious are new and revelatory to others who are not versed in ecology and environmental issues.  Two people recently have said how they had never thought about how interconnected we are with all of life and not just observers on the outside.  Others wonder if nuclear testing underground is shifting the earth on its axis and causing climate change.  One lady asked me once if we are leaving huge holes that collapse under the sea when we extract oil - did that cause the Tsunami?  Many others have asked why it matters if animals go extinct because we have survived very well without the dodo.  And from a faith point of view a clergyman wondered how a right relationship with the natural world could be "sold" from the pulpit, it seemed such a strange idea.  There is so much information out there about everything now, people can look up, find out about, immerse themselves in any subject but it is so hard to make sense of it all.  I feel overwhelmed by the amount of politics, history, literature, the arts, I feel I should know,  but very few can be polymaths, not me for sure.  It is easy to be confused.  But many people are talking about these issues now and that is great.

Fox Night

Last night the fox woke me up, it was calling - a cross between a howl and a bark. It looks just like this one and comes  into our garden every night and works its way down the street.  There is something wonderful about a wild sound that cuts through the city noise.  We live right in the middle of Bristol and the fox moves through the streets as easily as through any woodland.  I love it, I love the wild in the city, the occasional peregrine and sparrow hawk, the garden birds, the fox.  Just seeing it gives a shot of excitement I don't get from buildings and shops - lovely.

Radio 4 - Nature Programme

Just broadcast today - NATURE on Radio 4, a programme I made on the Future of the Amazon

It is repeated tomorrow on Wednesday evening at 9.00 pm.

Another one on Seabirds - Canaries on the Cliffs will be broadcast on June 2nd.  Go to my radio page on my website for more details about radio programmes.

Swine Flu

My 7 year old is very worried about this.  Big questions - no answers:

If pigs can't use tissues how will we ever stop it spreading round the world?

How are we going to protect him because he is too young to die?  I told him don't worry, we'll all be fine and anyway we are all too young to die.  "You're not really" he said.

Hmmm

Moving Home

Hello

I have moved my blog to Google, welcome.

Back to work today after a great weekend - there is a lot going on this month, so you can check out what is happening on my personal website: www.curlewmedia.com

You can also see past blogs on the blog page www.curlewmedia.com/blog/index.php

including some recipes for wild garlic soup, pictures of Spring in the West Country and general stuff that has been happening recently.

In case you missed it - here I am on Songs of Praise...(but only available for download until Sunday 10th May)