Wildlife Wabi Sabi and the Opposite

Great Bustard called Fergus

What do a Great Bustard (above), a Japanese concept (wabi sabi) and a butterfly have in common? Lots I think.

I've just spent two wonderful days on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire recording for wildlife programmes for Radio 4, and each day spoke volumes about us humans and our sense of the wild . Day one was on Martin Down on the Hampshire border, a beautiful area of chalk grassland surrounded by a sea of agriculture.

Martin Down

It was a lovely, sunny day with a gentle breeze that made the grasses swish and rustle. As we walked through it clouds of butterflies flew into the air, joining many skylarks who sang their hearts out above us. It is a magical place if you like life in miniature - because the grass is alive with all kinds of insects - and scattered all around are tiny but incredibly beautiful flowers. Ladies bedstraw, hay rattle, orchids of many types, wild carrot, fairy flax mixed with fritillaries, marbled whites, small blues and a whole host of others.

Wild Parsnip covered in insects

There is something heart stoppingly lovely about a butterfly on a summer flower. Both are so transient, so gorgeous for such a short time. They invoke a sense of yearning or longing for the unknown, something I think that is uniquely human.

Dark Green Fritillary on Greater Knapweed

The Japanese call this Wabi Sabi - a Japanese understanding of beauty that acknowledges that everything is impermanent, imperfect and incomplete. The transience of the butterfly and the flower combined with their natural imperfections create a sense of yearning that is hard to capture in words. This sense of beauty also brings about feelings of protection and respect. I wish we felt this all the time about life around us.

Martin Down and other chalk grasslands have a sense of balance that is worth contemplating for a while. They are so varied and diverse because the soil is quite poor in nutrients, nothing is allowed to dominate, especially tall, overpowering grasses that block everything else. The plants have just enough to survive, not too much, not too little. Quite a good model for society I think. At the moment our western societies are like over nutrified, over fertilised mono-cultured fields that have way too much pesticide - so diversity is suppressed and only those plants which like those conditions thrive. On the other hand a chalk grassland is much more egalitarian, each has what it needs and no more. I am sure there is some new principle for founding society in this!

Martin Down - areas of waving grasses are mixed with short, grazed plains full of small but immensely varied plantlife

But back to wabi sabi - he Victorians obviously didn't experience it when they looked at a Great Bustard, which wandered the plains of Salisbury, East Anglia and Yorkshire in the 19th C. Despite being a magnificent and awesome bird, the English answer to an ostrich, the Victorians only saw in the Bustard only posh hats and, some say, a good dinner - although this is strenuously denied by Dave Waters who started The Great Bustard Project which is reintroducing them right now. According to Dave's research Victorians would rather have eaten badger! But whatever - they became extinct 177 years ago.

Tail feathers of the Great Bustard, much coveted by hat loving Victorians.

The Great Bustard - wonderful.

But this year some of the introduced birds have bred for the first time - and the babies are doing well - see the website for some special photos. The location is secret to protect them from potential egg robbers next year (bustards are site faithful, so if they know were the young are now they will know where to get eggs next time).

We have a chance of bringing back the Great Bustard to our plains and hills, unlike the Great Auk or the Dodo or the Passenger Pigeon which have slipped over the edge and only now inhabit our sense of regret.

A Great Bustard on Salisbury plain has Wabi Sabi, try a trip with the Bustard Project and see if you agree.

New Encyclical

Short thoughts on the new social encyclical for ARC website...

Caritas in Veritate was released on 6th July 2009 and is an in depth look at human development and flourishing. It is this Pope's view of Catholic social teaching, often described as the Catholic Church's best kept secret! Catholic social teaching examines our relationships in all their complexities, social, political, sexual and crucially in this encyclical, it includes our relationship with the natural world.

Pope Benedict recognises the interconnectedness of our actions - if we mistreat the natural world we mistreat ourselves, because everything is bound to everything else. He links nature not only to the environment but to "human ecology"; all of our relationships speak of the moral tenor of society, we cannot distinguish one from the other. He stresses that our lifestyles speak of our mental and moral state and hedonism, consumerism and disregard for other life can - and does - have harmful consequences for all. He urges the Church to assert her responsibility in the public sphere and defend the natural world, linking environmental stewardship to protecting mankind from self-destruction.

This is an encyclical that firmly places care for the natural world at the heart of Catholic teaching and action. No longer is concern for the earth something that is only of interest to "greenies", if you are a Catholic then you care about the world around you because it is fundamentally related to justice, peace and human development. Development of the human person in charity and truth now includes a deep concern for the gift of creation.

The Holy Island of Steepholm

Herring gull and chick on cliff

This isn't a wild island off a remote coastline, this is a cliff on Steepholm island, 5 miles off the Western-Super-Mare beach, look carefully and you'll see the grunge brown water that is so typical of the Severn estuary.

Steepholm from the boat

Chris Sperring and I spent a day on the island yesterday and when I realised we were being dropped off at 12.30 and not collected until 8.00pm I have to admit I felt a little daunted, Steepholm isn't big! But as we walked around with the Tony Parsons, head of the Kenneth Allsop Trust , who own, manage and run the island it was clear it was a place to spend lots of time (if you like natural history, archaeology and views that is).

Gulls, Herring mainly, but also Lesser and Greater Black Backs scream in the air making it as much an audio as a visual experience. The adults, and at the moment the gawky young, are everywhere, on old gun emplacements, skulking under bushes, wheeling overhead, it is a wonderful assault on the senses.

Gulls on the WW2 battery

Gulls screaming over the heads of visitor who are just a bit too close to their young

Steepholm isn't magnificent, it isn't astonishingly beautiful, it isn't very wild - but it is a welcome and much needed haven in an incredibly dynamic, violent even, estuary.

The strong currents that constantly rip up mud and carry it miles throughout the estuary - beware the naive swimmer!

What makes the Severn estuary unique is the sheer energy that piles through it everyday, all day. Vast quantities of mud and water rip up and down, unpredictable currents make the waters treacherous, the tidal range is up to 44 feet - but Steepholm and Flat holm stand rock steady in a storm. They also do what I love - celebrate the ordinary.

Herring gulls are a pest in many seaside towns and cities, but the RSPB has published results that show a dramatic delcine in numbers - shifting them onto the Red list, meaning they are of high conservation concern. Like sparrows and starlings, what was once so common and taken for granted may now become a rarity

On Steepholm herring gulls are the special bird, the one where you get to see the chicks up close and fall in love with them, where they fly freely over the water and perch high on cliffs - you see them as they are meant to be - Steepholm is their haven.

Herring and Greater Black Back gulls flying over the estuary - and rain on the way

Other common things somehow seem more special - commas, red admirals, dunnock - on Steepholm stuck out in the estuary they take on a different hue. And in the Spring and Autumn the island is a welcome stop over for literally thousands of passage migrants who find shelter and rest.

Huddled on the roof of a cave at the waters edge cling beautiful bead anemones. They are quite common in clear, oceanic places but rare on the estuary, too much mud chokes them. But in the more settled conditions of a cave they manage to hang on and look like jewels left behind by smugglers.

Mud, mud, glorious mud - no place for an anemone, except on the roof of a cave.

Bead anemones on roof of Steepholm cave

Another traveller who found rest and recuperation on the island was St Gildas who spent many Lenten seasons in the 6th Century, living in a hermitage. The remains of the hermitage are not known but probably lie under the priory of the Augustinian canons who lived on the island in the 12th C. I'm not surprised the island was a place of peace and prayer, everything about it is secluded, yet still close enough to remind you that civilisation with all its trails and tribulations is only a short distance away.

I'm sure St Gildas did what I did and sit on the cliff tops listening to the gulls crying overhead and staring peacefully over to Flatholm, another holy island, pondering life. Over on Flatholm was his friend and fellow saint St Cadoc. What was he was thinking about I wonder? What was his world like, what were his concerns? Perhaps he worried about the violence in society, the poor, the gap between rich and poor, the injustices that seem to always favor the wealthy. And perhaps he also loved the wildlife that buzzed and flew and rustled all around him, and hopefully he found peace in their very nature and the way life goes on whether we are waging war or not.

View of Flatholm from Steepholm, another holy island with an ancient priory

Steepholm is a very special place not because it is amazing but because it is there, it is a haven and it confidently and quietly protects life no matter what madness (human or otherwise) swirls all around it.

Oh - and The Guardian also seem to have visited Steephom recently...

Methodist Ladies and Cave Women!

Ever wondered what a Methodist lady and a cave woman have in common?  To find out read an article I wrote - which has just been published in the Methodist Recorder...

Rock Steady

I spent a few lovely hours at Steart Point on the Severn Estuary today recording for a natural history programme for Radio 4 - about the Severn Estuary funnily enough.

The island in the heat haze is Steepholm and we'll be going there in a few days time as well - a rock steady island in a very dynamic river.

It was so hot in the middle of the day and the atmosphere still and tranquil. The tide was very far out and about 1500 shell duck sat on the mud flats just where the sea formed a faint white fringe to the glistening mud. A bright red linnet sat on a fence post just below the hide, I'd been listening to it singing away for ages, then it popped up and perched on the wire looking gorgeous - but would it sing when I pointed my mic at it? Of course not! Painted lady butterflies skipped amongst the hedges and along the grassy lanes, lovely to see them all the way from Africa. How do these delicate fluttering wisps of insects make it all that way?

I was with naturalist Chris Sperring and BTO man Aonghais (Angus) Cook. We were talking about the amazing variety of bird life that uses the estuary, summer and winter. Winter is the spectacular time to come here and see thousands of waders roosting and feeding on the mud. The flat expanse can seem so harsh at that time of year but the freezing winds and biting cold of a winter wader watch seemed a long way away this afternoon, it must have been over 30 degrees. I felt very privileged to be watching birds in this peaceful, beautiful place.

A very happy cow seemed to be having a good day as well.

What will the proposed Severn Barrage do to the birds and butterflies here? Lots of research is being done to find out, but I suspect the harsh truth is that if we keep using energy at the rate we do now we will have no option but to build it, no matter what the consequences. So for now I am determined to make the most of this wild estuary, a glimpse of how things looked thousands of years ago around so much of our coast, and try not to imagine a shiny barrage stretching to Wales. I'm just glad the mud and the birds are here now and try to do everything I can to keep it this way.