Noticing Nature

I am sat in Leigh Woods, an ancient mixed woodland which clings to one side of the Avon gorge, facing Bristol. The main road rumbles far below. Walking down the steep path into the gorge, I came across a pigeon, face down on a log. Hesitantly, I looked closer and saw it had been decapitated, […]

I found a map published by Natural England which shows the location of all the ancient woodland in England. That is land which has been wooded for at least 500 unbroken years. I pored over the map. I thought it would lead me to everything unspoilt and mystical that was left in the landscape. There […]

I’ve just been out in Beacon Woods, Talaton. Drenched right down into my shoes. My body pulsing heat from the cycle. I stood still in the woods and let my eyes absorb the raindrops as I looked up at the dripping canopy. The fuzzy clatter of rain on leaves fills the air, so loud and […]

Bracket fungi jutting out like wooden shelves. Brown spores shower onto the trunk beneath them like a fine sawdust. Their tops are hard as bark, and strong. I can hold my weight hanging off them. These mushrooms are one with their tree, and will survive as long as their host does. They gut out the […]

I was on Salcombe Regis beach today with my sister. The sun shone and we lazed on the pebbles. A soupy, pale haze hung in the sky like a midsummers day and intensified the light so that I had to squint through my eyelashes to look out at the pale sea. It isn’t yet the […]

I’m back in Devon so I took my bike up East Hill on the other side of Ottery. It is an unusually-unnaturally- warm October evening. The softening sun lit up little puffs of clouds that were spread evenly over the sky all around me. It looked so intentional, like they had been dolloped in rows. […]

This week I’ve been working on the conservation of an old slate monument in Lamorran Church in South Cornwall. It is a wooded and watery area. The Fal Estuary and its branching tributaries divide the land into small peninsulas, which makes for winding and slow progress by road. This ambling journey leaves the impression of […]