Tor Falcon: Diary of a Wild Place

August, A Paradise in Flowers.

The big field has reached it’s flowery peak. I defy anyone not to be moved by the joyous profusion of blooms drifting along tracks, weaving under trees, spilling through fences and blinking over the tops of gorse bushes. No human could compose such happy combinations, such billowing waves of colour, such a heavenly bounty of blooms spread out as far as the eye can see.

From the tiniest Scarlet Pimpernel, blood brilliant under delicate Hedge Parsley, which threads like lace beneath bristling grass seed heads. To the ocean swell of purple Tufted Vetch and yellow Meadow Vetchling twining up and up, and round each other in an ecstatic summer embrace. Through beds of fragrant yellow Fleabane and pale pink Musk Mallows. Over carpets of white and dusky pink Clovers, and past soft, prickly stands of Thistles. To the splendid suns of Ragwort and the pink towers of Rosebay Willowherb. Hot and holey St John’s Wort, cool, mauve Mint topped with a puff of Marsh Bedstraw.

Add to this heavenly mixture the movement of a million dazzling insects, the perpetual motion of swallows and a laughing woodpecker, and I’d believe you if you told me that this was Paradise.

Early June, A Field of Hay.

The hay field in early June is mesmerizing. Five acres of green space used by boys, for football, and by lurchers, as a race track in the winter, has become one living thing. Millions of individual plants unite in their common aim, to produce seed. Shivering and sighing at night, bejewelled and trembling in the early morning. It rolls pollen with the wind and reflects the sun’s own image in buttercups. In the evening it wears a soft rosy halo, still glowing after the sun sinks behind the wood.

The lanky plantains hold their black heads sideways, nodding, until suddenly they all come in to flower at once and the field seems to be flying. Sheeps sorrel, as mellow as old brickwork and as sharp as limes, reaching, reaching up. Each plant adds a layer of colour and texture, affecting the movement and look of the whole. And each year, as the nitrogen levels drop, new plants find a convivial home here. This years new arrival is a pink vetch, it’s regular pairs of leaflets and curled tendrils break up the verticals. A glimpse of it’s strong pink flower is thrilling.

But sink down into the depths, below the flowers, feel the spider tickle it’s way across your arm, feel the breeze gently push the stems around you. Loose count of the different types of bees, busy above your head. Watch the ants move up and down the ox eye daisies. Hear the cuckoo. See the perfect spring clouds drift through the clear pale sky and know, simply, how lucky you are.

August, A Sting in the Tail.

Standing watching bees, all six legs wrapped tightly round tufted vetch flower heads, their heads out of sight, thrust far up into the tubular petals drinking nectar, I feel an incredible contentment. Joyful. Everything’s all right in the world. It’s just as it should be. The flowers have flowered, the bees have plenty of nectar, the cycle of the year is complete. This is simple and perfect.

But, however I write this or think about it, I can’t leave it here. This moment has a sting in it’s tail. Because you can’t think about bees without being aware of their decline. About the varroa mite and the destruction of nectar rich habitats. Of greedy mankind laying waste to this paradise planet we are so lucky to be living on. Will my children have moments of bliss watching bees when they’re my age? Try as I might I can’t keep this moment pure. It doesn’t seem to exist without the sting. When was the last time someone could really watch bees industriously gathering nectar and be truly satisfied that all was well with the world?

May, Flowers

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxslips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine;

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

There’s a place under a huge blossomed hawthorn strewn with so many different flowers of such vibrant colours that I think of Oberon’s speech every time I walk through it. And when ever I walk through it I have an irresistible urge to stop and sit down. It’s impossible to hurry past a place like this and stupid not to take pleasure in such fleeting perfection. The ground is soft and thick with colour and shape. Small, blue and unblinking, speedwell. The colour of my grandmothers eyes. Complementing the waxy, yellow buttercups as they bounce the brilliant May sunlight around and around. Serrated silverweed, glinting quietly. Hot pink flashes of the first unfoldings of vetch. Dark and upright, new pin-rush piercing the electric flush of green. An iridescent beetle. Red ladybirds on yellow, on violet, on green and on silver. Huge bumble bees sounding like bombers coming in low and slow. A delicate fly with pale veined wings and translucent turquoise legs. A mad shiny little beetle that keeps falling into the lid of my pencil case and spinning round unbelievably fast on it’s back, legs wildly waving. And a thrush repeating and repeating and repeating itself, just above my head. All that’s missing is a snake skin wrap and some love potion. But I guess I can’t have everything.