Microcosmic

After a couple of weeks of setting off on my patch walks in the dark – often getting back in the dark, often in the rain and not bothering to remove my lens cap, this morning was all the more welcome. A beautiful, bright, crisp morning – a classic! It’s a good job no one was in earshot as every few steps I’d let out a ‘wow!’ or an ‘oh!’. Then when I got to the top of the ridge and saw one of the best ‘sea of mist’ effects ever – a “no way!”. Top marks to the sun, sky, mist, trees...in fact nature, for a great show this morning - Classic Patch!

On my walks around the old golf course, on my patch, I always pay my respects to my favourite tree – probably in the world. I doff a mental cap to the Lightning Tree. I honour its plucky underdog-edness, its tenacity, its will to live. With innards hollowed out so that only a shell of oak remains, it was almost certainly struck by lightning. When lightning hits a tree it can have a variety of effects, some get off lightly – but not this one. The strike may well have raised the core temperature so much that the sap boiled, some trees explode, this one is burnt out. I can stand inside and survey the damage. What are now the walls of this trunk cubicle are charred to black, with a texture like the skin of a dark snake, greened in places by algae. I can look up and see the sky through a portal of burnt wood. I’m standing in the place heartwood should be – the place that fire has voided. This winter’s morning it looks to be in a sorry state. The lightning tree appears to be on i

I've created four haikus of the patch - one for each season. Although I've adhered to the structure of  5-7-5 syllables, I'm not entirely sure they'd pass muster for the strict haiku purist. Typically a haiku is an observation involving a fleeting moment in nature. These certainly concern nature, but are more attempts to evoke something about a detail - as depicted in the photo - than just the one moment. Maybe I should  describe them as short poems with the structure of a haiku. My favourite kind of nature photo are those that home into to a small detail. I think there's a certain 'haiku-ness' to this kind of photo. After completing these it occurred to me that there are some pleasing parallels between a haiku and this blog itself. The haiku writer is limited by structure of the poem. Similarly,  in concentrating on a small area of countryside - the patch  - the mind is concentrated in the same way. This is the video I made ea

I think that to be mindful when walking, especially in nature - is a good thing to be. That's to say, quietening the chattering brain - so often the source of anguish - baseless worries about the future, mental to-to's, fretting about a past that can't be changed. And instead being fully engaged in the present - fully experiencing everything the senses have to offer. It can, however be frustratingly difficult to quell the nagging and needy "think me!" of thoughts. I've found that a very good thing to focus on is the parallax effect - at least as a gateway to mindfulness. For me it can almost be like a switch - as soon as I key into it - I arrive - in the moment. Everyone will be familiar with it. You see it on a car or train journey - the way the foreground seems to come towards you then whizz by, the middle distance seems to be stationary while things in the distance - hills, clouds move along with you. It can be like the whole scene is on a h

Autumn has been officially inaugurated. It has for me at least. A skein, 110 strong, flew over the patch last Saturday - a fluxating chevron of south-bound Pink-footed Geese. By way of celebrating  I produced this track made just from samples (raw or processed) of the patch's autumn birds. The bird species are identified in the comments on the time line. The percussive sounds are made from a Robin 'tick' and a Fieldfare 'chack'. The fluity 'melody', such as it is, is Whooper Swan. I've taken a bit of a liberty calling the Whooper swan a 'patch' birds as I saw 4 flying on one occasion! Brambling, Fieldfare, Redwing, Siskin, Chaffinch, Meadow Pipit, Pied and Grey Wagtails provide flight calls of the kind you might hear on an Autumn morning when migration is taking place. I used a similar idea earlier in the year with Spring / Summer birds .  Autumn bird sound consists mainly of calls -  as opposed to spring version when there is a lot mor

Gleaming lances of shivelight  Gleaming lances of shivelight pierce the canopy - dawn’s first rays threading their way through the outstretched arms of a lone ash tree. Just before starlight meets the ground it illuminates a patch of morning mist. Solar spotlights pick out an ever changing fragment of the new day with a shimmering band - shot through with essence of firefly. This is a scene I’ve witnessed on many occasions during my morning visits to my patch. It’s an entirely accessible slice of every day magic. So can we find - awe in the ordinary - wonder in the workaday? My answer would be a resounding yes! If you don't see it look closer, or from another angle...or with a different mindset. You can look at something with a jaded ‘seen it all before attitude’ or you can choose to shift your gaze and look anew, donning kaleidoscope-tinted spectacles – the ones that infuse everything with wonder. I think my experience of patch watching has been such an exerc

Alder Leaf - munched by larvae of the alder leaf beetle Last year I wrote a blog piece entitled " why do things look like other things ". Well things are continuing to look like other things!! I'm going to post a series of what I would call "picture essays" if I were very pretentious. As I'm only moderately pretentious I'm calling them "essays in pictures" (that might actually be more  pretentious - ed). A stained glass window is undoubtedly one of those things that it's seen as good to resemble (unlike, say squashed chewing gum or a dog turd). It's a simile that denotes beauty - of a specific kind. The quality that appeals is the mosaic of translucent sections or panels. Every now and then I think to myself - 'that looks like a stained glass window' ....and I like it. Rippling water Wing of the Gold Spot Moth More rippling water Stained Glass window (Salisbury Cathedral)

You quite often hear things like “what’s the point of…” followed by some despised form of wildlife – wasps and slugs are contenders for top of this list. You might as well ask ‘what’s the point of humans’ – I don’t think other species should be viewed solely as things that serve our purposes – they didn’t evolved ‘for us’ – they simply evolved – and like everything else they fit into an ecological ‘niche’. None of us would be here if it weren’t for say - wasps. Imagine a world with an alternative history in which wasps didn’t evolve. The effects would cascade up through the millennia to a present which would be different (to an extent we can only guess at) – humans would probably exist in some form, but I’d suggest that given individuals wouldn’t. Insects aren’t very popular with a lot of people but without insects our ecosystems would collapse – life is interconnected and interdependent. The tabloid press fuels a view of nature as the enemy – with lurid headlines linkin

‘Chiff chaff' those two notes change everything. From about the second week in March, I strain my ears – willing those magical notes to come out  of the dawn.  My wildlife highlight of the year is hearing the first chiffchaff – every year. it’s a ritual with me. What makes it so special?  The Chiffchaff is usually the first of the summer migrants I encounter. It’s heralds a mass immigration.  A glorious influx of avian biomass from the South. Small feathered  creatures that maybe only days earlier were sharing African savannahs with Attenborough-bothering mega-fauna. As bird songs go, it’s not much to write home about –  monotonous in fact. I can’t help thinking that if I'm reincarnated  as a Chiffchaff, I might mix it up a bit – throw in the odd ‘Chuff'.  Maybe even do a remix. Still, magical it remains.  The patch isn’t quite the same.  What was wintery and grey is given a sheen of spring. The world is suddenly brighter – replete with possibilities –

AKA Rose Hip Hop I got the melody by placing staves on the photo, so hips become notes. ALL the sounds were produced by the rose (with my help) - samples of dropping hips, hitting & sloshing branches, striking a guitar etc - changed pitch of samples, put samples through effects etc. Here's what they didn't say about Shrubstep "It's the freshest new genre around ..based on small trees and/or shrubs" The Sunday Times of Flnnnrff "This music will tear a big hole in the fabric" Bricking for Pleasure & Profit "Who'd have thunk it, etc" The Thinking Mans's Crumpet's Friend "naa mate!!" Hansard

These posters are available as downloads and as prints in my online shop microscosmic.shop Leaves of British Trees Buds of British Trees Bark of British Trees A Hawthorn bud , bursting over the course of two weeks Sycamore from bud to budburst . The stem of the bud begins to elongate and the bud scales are pushed apart. The leaves unfold and spread out their surface, as the stem grows in length.  The bud scales curl back and then after a few weeks fall off. The chlorophyll in the leaves develops fully on exposure to light, then photosynthesis begins. The leaves are available almost at once having already formed in the bud. If buds are an arboreal version of a bird’s egg, then the miniature shoots are the chicks encased in eggshells.  All over patch these embryonic shoots are breaking out. It’s one big beautiful budburst! The explosion of fresh green foliage is a such a notable feature of springtime that it’s easy to forget that the bud