James Gilbert
@jamesgilbertmr
Naturalist, ecologist, writer. “How pleasant it would be each day to think, Today I have done something that will render future generations more happy." Richard Jefferies, 1883. Location: east Northamptonshire, UK.
The subject & style is a little different than is usual for me, & so it’s with tentativeness that I share this poem I wrote about yesterday’s solar eclipse. (If there’s one person here who reads it & enjoys it / with whom it resonates, then honestly, that is enough.)
House Martin nestlings, nestled. Incomprehensible, really — soon, mere weeks after hatching, these tiny bodies will leave this quiet, quite safe & sheltered spot in rural England, & make a perilous, latitude-crossing journey to sustaining wintering grounds, via the Mediterranean Sea & Sahara Desert.
Recently read this—a fine book exploring our attitudes to nature. An excellent, engaging read—informative, honest & balanced. Had myself wishing Ian lived near to me; regularly over a coffee, we could cheer & console each other on the state of British wildlife & wild places. @iancarter67.bsky.social
This I wrote in sorrow, & as self-therapy, after visiting & walking a short reach of a precious English chalk-stream.
So fortunate to have the peregrine falcon resident in town; the fastest animal known to science, an icon of the sky. Its presence & aura enhances the place in which I live & call home. One can nearly always be seen perched on a crocket to this church’s spire (as here).
Just now, the crescent moon, hanging just below brilliant venus. (Quite a spectacle — the photo does not do it justice!)
One of my favourite colours in the whole world — the intense, yet, somehow at the same time, daydream violet-blue of meadow crane’s-bill. I’m always struck by the sight of the year’s first fresh blooms amid tall roadside grasses.
A field hedgerow, in places now dotted with the gentle shades & sweet scent of the dog rose.
Isn’t nature amazing? This avian treasure: eggs of the oystercatcher & lapwing, beautifully marked & arranged.
always with birdsong the sunlit spring verdancy of an english oak
perspective broadened lighter shoulders low mood lifted day made better like magic in the presence of this oak
Today for me, the first cuckoo of spring! — heard at the precise moment this cuckoo flower had caught my eye. A beautiful synchronicity.
The martins came, then the swallows; due any day now, are the swifts. What a time of season — of year.
Singing: blackbird, blackcap, chaffinch, chiffchaff, dunnock, goldcrest, great tit, robin, skylark, song thrush, whitethroat, willow warbler, wren. Flowering: bluebell, celandine, cowslip, primrose, stitchwort. The same path 2 months ago: really just the (lovely) sound & sight of winter thrushes.
Today — the year’s first whitethroat! Something I wrote about this sweet songbird:
Maisie, tasting the fresh Powysian air. In the gully behind, there survives a fragment of rare temperate rainforest.
A burbling clear hillside runnel; a trickle of opposite-leaved golden saxifrage.
An otherwise nondescript suburban verge, where blackthorn & red dead-nettle blooms coincide. Transient beauty at micro-scale.
Pleased to see these swift bricks. The original plans had scant regard for wildlife. Gave thoughts at consultn stage & insisted for better ecological design incl. swift bricks. Can’t claim these have appeared only because of my comments at planning applictn stage, but input likely made a difference.
My border collie, Maisie, would like this wet weather to let up — to have her ball-playing field back.