Postcard 82: Changing Tack

Laugharne, home of Dylan Thomas

I have left South Wales and am now living in Suffolk, UK. Thank you for reading this blog, which I may update from time to time, but meanwhile you can follow my wildlife and literary endeavours at the links below ...

• Wild and Wonderful (wildlife and photography)

• Caroline@Coastcard (poetry plus)

Postcard 76: Save my Seal (please)!

Mother and Pup, photographed near St Davids a year ago

This is the last call for any kind person to cast a vote for my seal poem (a Lilibonelle) about the Pembrokeshire coast. My poem has been submitted to the Writelink Grape and Grain Poetry Contest.

You can cast a vote here (and you will find other contending poems by following the link below my poem - 'show all poems'. You may prefer to vote for these instead - or as well). 

The polls close on 30 September, so the clock is ticking!

Postcard 63: Festival of the Trees - The Rufus Stone

Welcome to the UK and to my Festival of the Trees post!

Summer evening in the New Forest:
mare and foal

The three-sided Rufus Stone

"Here stood the oak tree,

on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag,
glanced and struck King William the Second,
surnamed Rufus on the breast,
of which he instantly died,
on the second day of August, ANNO 1100."

The Rufus Stone, stands in a shady glade in the New Forest in Hampshire, UK, set back from the A31 road, near the village of Minstead.

The stone memorial has three faces (and is a bit like a trig point). It was erected in honour of King William II, aka as William 'Rufus', son of William the Conqueror by John, Lord Delaware (who had seen the oak tree) in 1745. The Conqueror's son died in the immediate vicinity on 2 August 1100 as a result of an arrow fired by Sir Walter Tyrrell. The killing was said to be an accident rather than a murder. On hearing the news, Henry, the youngest brother of the departed monarch, was hurriedly proclaimed king by the barons, in a bid to beat his eldest brother, Robert of Normandy, to the throne of England.

The bones of William 'Rufus' lie in a mortuary chest (press link, then scroll down) in Winchester Cathedral, along with those of other members of the Royal Family, such as King Cnut and his wife, Emma. You may be wondering how the body turned up in Winchester for burial. A man known as 'one Purkis' laid the royal corpse in a cart and took it to the cathedral city. The original Rufus Stone became defaced and hard to read: a replacement memorial was erected in 1841.

The face of the New Forest

The New Forest today is a wildlife paradise. The following species of vertebrates and invertebrates can be found: ponies, deer, cattle, badgers, foxes, donkeys, bats, mice, water voles, adders, grass snakes, owls, warblers, curlews, spiders and butterflies. The ponies, donkeys and cattle belong to commoners, who receive grazing rights for a small fee. I imagine that there is a similar arrangement for pigs and sheep.

Above: a Lapwing
Below: a forest pig enjoys a wallow

There are also many species of tree, e.g. oak, beech, holly, sycamore, alder, ash, silver birch, sweet chestnut, horse chestnut, crab apple, blackthorn, hawthorn, viburnham, whitebeam, pine, redwood and yew. Some of the trees are very special: you can read here about the Knightwood Oak, the Adam and Eve Oaks and the Eagle Oak. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the White-Tailed ('Sea') Eagles returned, albeit with a bit of help? We so enjoyed watching these magnificent birds on the Scottish islands of Skye and Raasay last summer. There was great excitement in 2009 when a new kind of fungus, a yellow form of Phellodon melaeucus, was discovered in the New Forest. The fact that this area has been managed in traditional 'commoning' ways, without the intensive use of artificial fertilizers and chemicals may contribute to the amazing biodiversity and number of rare species.

• What exactly is the New Forest?
  
• What of its history? and here.
  
• Find out about the ornamental and historic trees in the forest.
• The Forestry Commission - and the Rufus Stone
• About 'The Children of the New Forest' by Captain Marryat
• BBC Autumnwatch: the New Forest featured in a number of stories e.g. like these from 2008.
  

Postcard 61: Chris Kinsey, BBC Wildlife Poet & Greyhound Laureate

Above: Chris Kinsey reads from her book,
Kung Fu Lullabies
published by Ragged Raven Press

(photography: courtesy of Chris Kinsey)

Below: Greyhounds in the snow

I was delighted to receive a package from Romania this week. This time it was the special issue [Anul II - Nr.9 (14)/Nov.-Dec. 2009] of 'Contemporary Literary Horizon' magazine/'Contemporan Orizont Literar'. The publishing concern responsible for the venture is a media partner of MTTLC at the University of Bucharest. I am very grateful to Daniel Dragomirescu, editor-in-chief, and his team of translators: they do a terrific job in producing a publication that is always thought-provoking and highly 'international' in outlook.

The current issue contains features and poems from writers in Romania - of course - like Mihai Cantuniari (Director of CLH); from India (Vinisha Nambiar and Venkata Ramanan); from the USA (Michelle Brooks, Bert Rashbaum and Mike Essig); from Slovakia (Allan Stevo); from Nigeria (Abiola Olatunde); from Mexico (Marina Centeno) and from Australia (Mark William Jackson) ... to name but a selection.

Wales is not forgotten: this issue contains my interview, 'The Otherness of Creatures' with Greyhound Laureate and 2008 BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year, Chris Kinsey. My thanks go to Chris for her informative answers - and to Daniel for publishing them! If you are thinking of taking out a subscription to this innovative magazine from Romania, you will find a poem by Chris in English ('One February Night'), with a Romanian translation undertaken by Roxana Mindrican-DRĂGUŞIN. Thank you, Roxana.

There are a number of arresting pieces in this issue: I found myself pausing over a poem called 'At the Laundromat' by Mike Essig, mulling over the shades of whiteness, the stories, the silence... Daniel Dragomirescu has written a substantial review article, translated by Alina-Olimpia Miron, entitled 'Poetry and Logos', in which he touches on the part played by suffering in the creative process, with reference to Dr Theodor Damian (Philosophy & Ethics, Metropolitan College of NY and President of the Romanian Institute of Theology and Orthodox Spirituality, NY).

Why not visit the C&LH site: you will find out a bit more about the current state of international culture - from a Romanian perspective!

Postcard 58: Calum's Road on Raasay

I wonder if you are still trying to find that last minute gift or to secure a little holiday reading for yourself.

We are devastated that our Borders store is closing down, but back in the summer I stumbled across a book by Adam Nicolson called 'Sea Room'*, all about the Shiant Islands, with their wild and rugged beauty, their puffins and their rats. I loved some of Nicolson's descriptions, but did not feel on balance that the puffins had as good a press as I would have liked (but then I may be biased, as those of you who have read my puffin posts will have realised!).

However, this book prompted me to seek out other books about the wild corners of Scotland's highlands and islands. If you like out-of-the-way places where the sea meets the mountains, you might enjoy the following books, too.

• Calum's Road by Roger Hutchinson (Birlinn Ltd), RAASAY (near Skye)
  
• I Remember: Memories of Raasay by John Nicolson (Birlinn Ltd), RAASAY (near Skye). I am just coming to the end of this fascinating memoir.
  
• For the Islands I sing by George Mackay Brown (Polygon An Imprint of Birlinn Limited (30 Jun 2008). I knew virtually nothing about George Mackay Brown until 'A Poet's Guide to Britain', the television programme presented by Owen Sheers earlier this year. I have not been to the Orkney Islands, but maybe one day I will venture out in that direction... THE ORKNEYS
  
• Sea Room by Adam Nicolson (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd) THE SHIANT ISLANDS

I thought you might like to join us on our tour in the footsteps of Calum of the road...

We left Sconser and the Cuillin mountains on Skye in misty sunshine, and thoroughly enjoyed the short CalMac ferry ride to Raasay...

... where - wonder of wonders - we were greeted by White-tailed (Sea) Eagles.

We drove along the road, passing this glorious inland loch...


... until we reached the eastern shore, and the landmark of Brochel Castle. David ran down to explore while I got out my watercolours and did a quick sketch.


We had not realised that we were so close to the start of Calum's Road, which is marked by the sign above and the cairn below.


The inscription on the cairn explains that the footpath to Arnish, a distance of one and three-quarter miles, was 'widened to a single track road with passing places and prepared for surfacing by Malcolm Macleod B.E.M. (1911-1988)', (aka Calum), who carried out the road-building work over a period of ten years. It was an extraordinary feat.


I love pigs - and I love unusual 'wildlife' road signs. This really made me smile! We didn't see any pigs, though, except...

... this one on another Raasay road sign. (Click the picture for a close view of the spots!).


We got out at the point where the road became impassable to motor vehicles, and found this spade propped up against the rock face. We just wondered if it might have belonged to Calum...

Do let me know if you have any favourite books about wildlife or off-the beaten track destinations.

I would also love to know what unusual animal road signs you have encountered on your travels.

* The expression 'Sea Room' is a nautical term.

Postcard 39: Oxwich, Gower and Wesley

'Is this picnic only for humans?'

We had a 'holiday-at-home' yesterday, when we packed a picnic lunch and headed for Gower. My heart lifts when we cross the cattlegrid at the start of Fairwood Common: I always feel at that point that the town is truly behind us. Our first port of call was the new Wildflower Centre. If you are in the area, do drop in for a cup of coffee. The Italian bread looked amazing. I have rarely seen such a splendid display of deep blue cornflowers.

We had our picnic on the edge of Cefn Bryn, before heading on to the south coast of the peninsula at Oxwich Bay.

Sadly the beach was full of wasps and looking very 'grey', but we were about to head off in a different direction. Oxwich is a pretty village, known for its wide stretch of sand and for the wildlife habitat of its extensive dunes. It is not widely known that the preacher and founder of Methodism, John Wesley, came to the village and stayed in one of the beautiful cottages in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Oxwich was once a haven for smugglers. Oxwich Castle, a ruined manor house, was built in 1541 and the delightful 12th century church of St Illtyd nestles in the trees on a rocky ledge above the sea.

Along the boardwalk
Eggs of some sort or a seed pod from something like a birch tree?

On this occasion, we were heading for a nature walk across the sand dunes and over the short marshy boardwalk. The area of reedbed and fen was once a saltmarsh. Thomas Mansel Talbot of Margam claimed it from the sea in the 18th century.

Burnet Moths

Caterpillar
I.D. gratefully received!

Looking up from Oxwich to Cefn Bryn on Gower

Sadly, it was not a bright sunny afternoon, so it is not very surprising that we failed to find any lizards, grass snakes or adders on the dunes. We had a good time all the same: I hope you enjoy these photos of some of our sightings...

Chrysalis
ID gratefully received!

The waymarked paths over the nature reserve are marked with white cockle shells. Cockles are a key part of the Gower scene.

Common Blue Butterfly - I think...

... and query Meadow Brown Butterfly

Red Admiral

To be identified!

Brown Lipped Snail?
(it looked very pink to us!)

Postcard 27: Spurn Point Surprise

Views of Spurn Head
Do click the second picture for a closer view (not for the squeamish!)

Those who have read previous postcards will know that I enjoy visiting places linked with literature. This postcard is a bit different, because it links a peninsula with a composer.

I had long wanted to visit Spurn Head, with its wild beauty. It is in many ways a liminal place on the edge of nowhere, and yet it is so close to Hull and the busy shipping area of the Humber.

Ralph Vaughan Williams composed 'Spurn Point', his Andante sostenuto, in 1926 as one of Six Studies in English Folk Song for Cello.

We drove through low-lying land and eventually spotted the black-and-white striped lighthouse. As we headed out along the spit of land, with saltmarsh estuary on our right and the open sea on our left, I spotted web after web on the furze bushes that lined the road. When we had parked the car, I went to examine them, thinking that perhaps they were going to be nests for an unusual species of bird. It became all too apparent that my assumption was way out, for they were utterly heaving with young caterpillars. I asked a man sporting a deerstalker and a pair of binoculars, who told me that I should have read my Yorkshire Wildlife Trust ticket, since it contained a warning about the toxic nature of the barbed hairs of the caterpillars of the native Brown-Tail Moth (Euproctis Chrysorrhoea).

Our ticket informed us that the creatures emerge in spring from their white webs to feed on sea buckthorn. Apparently they shed their skins, releasing the hairs before 'pupating and flighting' as adult moths.

As if the moths weren't interesting enough, we learned that an apparently unringed white stork had been spotted that afternoon.

• Spurn Point on www.absoluteastronomy.com
• The Spurn Head Lightship
• Spurn Head, a cyclical landform
• Some great shots from the air (scroll down to Spurn Point)
  
• The Observatory (for birds)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (Hyperion records site)
  

Postcard 18: Monarch of the Isle

You are invited to view the February Seal Card Sale on my Coastcard site.

Speaking of seals, I photographed this magnificent and comfortably curious creature on the Isle of Skye. There are wonderful seal colonies and it is a joy to travel by boat in search of them. Many make their home on the skerries or reefs of little rocky islands that abound around the coast and sea lochs in this area. The word 'skerry' comes from the Norwegian language. A 'sker' in Norse is a rock in the sea. The Gaelic form is 'sgeir', and in Norway, the uneven rocky edge of an island fringe is known as 'skjærgård'. The Scottish coastline around the Western Isles, with its indentations and offshore skerries, is the outcome of a relatively recent submergence. The Scots term for fjord is 'firth'.

I grew up in East Anglia, where there are seal colonies along the North Norfolk coast. Occasionally a seal runs into danger, and it is always heart-warming to read of cases like this story form the Eastern Daily Press in which a sea creature has been successfully rescued, restored to health and returned to the ocean.

I was thinking about seals in literature. It is easy to name poems and prose pieces about a number of our sea creatures (notably The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll), but how many seals can you recall from literary sources?

For a veritable marine menagerie I would recommend the poetry book, Creatures of the Intertidal Zone (scroll down the linked page) by Susan Richardson, published by Cinnamon Press. The poet follows in the footsteps of Gudrid, an eleventh century 'Viking heroine'. Within the pages of the volume you will encounter not only seals but also whales, the hermit crab and a colony of penguins.

Sea Creatures on the web

• Creatures of the Intertidal Zone (poem) by Susan Richardson on the Sea Stories site
• Be sure to visit Susan Richardson's amazing new website
  

• Irish Seal Sanctuary page: Releasing Seals by Gary Jermyn
• How the whale became by Ted Hughes
• A selection of sea creature poems from the can-teach site
• My Helford River poem, Sea Horse Song
  

Postcard 15: Otters!

Top: Meeting 'otters' at the Moors Centre, Yorkshire
Middle: Plaque to Gavin Maxwell's Teko (Kyleakin, Skye), beneath a sculpture by Laurence Broderick
Bottom: Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge), lighthouse keeper's cottage & home of Gavin Maxwell

'Looking up the river, they could see Otter start up, tense and rigid,
from out of the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience,
and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to the path.'

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame (chapter 7)

There is a buzz of excitement in South Wales at present as otters have been seen on Gower (AONB). An otter has also been caught on camera at Aberglasney in Carmarthenshire. I am hoping to see one before long! When I was on Skye last summer, I looked and looked. I think I saw a couple, but it was like looking for Nessie: it was hard to be sure. David definitely saw one on the beach.

Dr Gareth Parry from Swansea University was giving a talk about local otters (of Gower and Pembrokeshire) at the Science Café in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea this evening. Unlike the otters in Scotland which can be seen during the day, the 'Welsh' otters tend to move around under cover of darkness. It seems that they may be adopting a 'marine lifestyle'. The Aberglasney otter must prefer the fresh-water oxbow lakes on the River Towy.

Professor P. Brain has posted a blog entry about Dr Dan Forman and the Gower otters. Back in 2005, naturalist, Iolo Williams was asking people to record their otter sightings in the Principality. I am delighted that their numbers seem to be on th increase.

• Gavin Maxwell and Eilean Bàn (under the Skye Bridge)
• The Maxwell Society: Gavin Maxwell
  
• The Tarka Project (North Devon)
• The Henry Williamson Society
• Tarka the Otter's Devon
  
• BBC: The animals of The Wind in the Willows
• BBC: Otter spotting
  
• Otters at Ogmore
  
• Eels at Aberglasney

My thanks to the Weaver of Grass for her comment below, and for reminding me about the Kathleen Raine link.

Postcard 11: Looking Glass Land? The lion and the ...

I was fascinated to read in this week's edition of the Times Higher (22-28 January 2009) about the review (Times online) by Rosemary Hill of a new and intriguing book. The book, just published by Granta, is called The Natural History of Unicorns. It is by Chris Lavers, associate professor of environmental and geomorphological sciences at the University of Nottingham. The book apparently covers an overview of what I would call the 'perceived development' of the unicorn from a nursery rhyme character to the 'co-dependent' creature we find in Alice through the Looking Glass.

As I was thinking about unicorns, I happened to click a link through to Seabrooke Leckie's blog ... and there was not quite a unicorn but an amazing and distinctly unicorn-esque creature. Do take a look.

• Interview with Seabrooke Leckie
  

Postcard 9: Moth Art at Aberglasney

Above: Aberglasney, Wales
Below: Six-spotted Burnet Moth, Cornwall

Most wildlife photographers (and enthusiastic amateurs like me) have taken photographs of butterflies, but how many of us have taken moths? I had to think quite hard to remember when I had last caught a moth on film. The above burnet moth was taken near Rinsey Mine in Cornwall, although I have also watched the species closer to home at Mwnt in Cardiganshire.

I was back at Aberglasney at the weekend, and it was there that I visited a most unusual and exciting exhibition of Moth Art, In a Different Light. The artistic exhibits are the work of Julian and Fiona Wormald, the 'Garden Impressionists'. The Wormalds were very inspired by Monet's Garden at Giverny, and hoped to encourage the rest of us take our own gardens more seriously as places of beauty and wildlife habitats. The Aberglasney exhibition includes images of an amazing total of 190 moths seen at Aberglasney in 2006. There are also larger pieces of Moth Art on display, which incorporate wing patterns and colours in the designs.

Back in the 18th century, the poet John Dyer lived at Aberglasney, the garden subsequently 'lost in time'. He loved the landscape, and wrote about 'the face of nature' in 'all the hues of heaven's bow': I feel sure he would have been amazed by the number of species of moth on his home turf.

• The Moth Man blog

Postcard 8: Dim Pysgota!

We visited the Centre belonging to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) at Penclacwydd at the weekend, as you will know if you read my previous postcard. There are always hungry birds about; and every time I go there, I am always mildly amused by a sign in the water (left) in front of one of the hides. On my previous visit there was actually a kingfisher in close proximity to the sign. Back in August 2003, Ronnie Goodyer published my poem on the subject, Loughor Estuary, in Reach Magazine.

On a more serious note, the WWT undertakes marvellous work: it was founded at Slimbridge in Gloucestershire in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott. His godfather was J.M. Barrie (1860-1937), creator of Peter Pan. Sir Peter was the son of Antarctic explorer, Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912).

• I have just signed up to Birdstack (see Birdstack listing widget on lower right) in the hope that it will help me to record sightings.
• On the subject of things 'polar', the Weaver of Grass has written about Shackleton's compass.
  

Postcard 4: Kilmuir, Skye

Above: Plaque in Kilmuir
Below: Gate to the cemetery at Kilmuir

Jen Hadfield has just been named as the TS Eliot prize winner. She lives on Shetland, so it seemed appropriate to focus on something Scottish for today's postcard.

The cemetery at Kilmuir on Skye's Trotternish peninsula boasts an outstanding position, looking out over the Minch towards the Outer Hebrides. The cemetery is famous on account of the grave of Flora MacDonald, but she merits a later entry in her own right, and is by no means the only person worthy of note.

Seton Gordon's memorial lies just outside the confines of the graveyard. His favourite bird was the golden eagle, and he spent part of his life at Duntulm on Skye. He was given his first camera when he was seventeen in 1907, and was also a talented piper. In 1935 he bought out a book called Sea-gulls in London (link to WorldCat).

When we visited the Kilmuir graveyard, the light was amazing. We looked out over the Skye Museum of Island Life to the sea beyond.

• Seton Gordon on the site for Highland Naturalists
• Seton Gordon's Scotland - an Anthology reviewed by Roddy Lumsden
• Seton Gordon on www.thepeerage.com
• Seton Gordon on the Undiscovered Scotland site
• Photographic portraits in the National Portrait Gallery