Category: Uncategorized

The Beauty of Close Encounters with the Long Mynd Ponies

I was privileged to find myself within a few metres of these beautiful animals today, 1st June 2022.

The intimacy of the mother and foal was so moving.

On my return, the foal had decided to have a nap in the warm June sunshine.

And then a wonderful comical moment as first the father rolled about, then his foal copied him!

The wonderful things about the Long Mynd in Shropshire is that you never know when you are going to have your next close encounter. On my drive home, I came across another family group, this time with an even younger foal.

The beauty of close encounters with Long Mynd ponies!

Long Mynd Peace

This afternoon

The buzzard soars

Beautifully

And soon

There are more

Larks and pipits

Than I can tell

Their song

Reassures me

That nothing is wrong

Here

All is well

Such gentle release

And I know

For some passing moments

Blessed passing peace.

All photos from the Long Mynd, Shropshire, May 2022

Trembling of the Steady Air

I have always loved to watch kestrels and their amazing ability to hover in the air. On a recent visit to Bettisford Moss, a visiting kestrel was a highlight, and this poem I wrote was inspired by another poem about a kestrel by Gerard Manley Hopkins, called ‘The Windhover’, which you can read here.

~

I caught that day

In his hovering over

~

Of the stillness lake

And my heart stirred

~

Simply for that bird

In flight

~

As if suddenly

I had joined

~

His light

Motion and unceasing

~

Trembling of the steady air

All captured

~

In moments

Of enraptured stare.

~

Bettisford Moss itself has a bleak beauty, with the occasional shrub and pond adding some variety to the landscape:

I was only able to capture a rather distant of that day’s kestrel:

“Experiment in Green”

How do you describe the outburst of greens, yellows, blues and other colours in the spring?

Mary Oliver said this:

“The vivacity of ‘what was’ is married

to the vitality of ‘what will be’…”

from ‘Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness’ by Mary Oliver

And I’ve come across two beautiful phrases by Emily Dickinson in the last few weeks that also seek to capture the magic of spring:

“…experiment in green”

from ‘A Little Madness in the Spring’ (available to read here)

…and…

“express from God”

from ‘Spring is the Period’ (available to read here)

I hope they have inspired you!

This photograph, simply of a bud on a tree, was taken at Dudmaston, in Shropshire, where the bluebells were out early in April.

It certainly looked like “vitality“, an “experiment in green” and “express from God” to me!

Brother Bluebell, Brother Bird and Sister Deer

Over half of the world’s bluebells are to be found in the UK, I recently learned, so it is very special indeed when these beautiful flowers come into bloom in April/May.

Bluebells, in Ercall Wood, Shropshire, April 2022

When seen in abundance, as in this photo, I’m sure you’ll agree they are breath-taking!

And you might be wondering why “Brother Bluebell”… It’s a reference to Francis of Assisi’s beautiful poem sometimes known as “The Canticle of the Sun”, where he praises “Brother Sun”, “Sister Moon”, and so on. He feels a kinship with the natural world.

And there’s something like that sense of kinship when your heart beats a bit faster, on seeing bluebells, or suddenly coming across wild deer (they had retreated to the top of the field in this photograph…

…but as I continued through the wood I had a much closer encounter!…)

And at the end of this day’s walk, I was delighted by another tiny goldcrest (see the post ‘Grateful for a Little Thing’ for the last time I encountered one of these, here )

And also a nuthatch…

…who went on, true to its name, to “hack” (“hatch”) a nut into the bark of the tree – this photo captures the moment when the nut was still in the beak…

Our kinship with flora and fauna is precious indeed.

I hope you are inspired to get out and seek some brothers and sisters of your own!

If you live in Shropshire, parking for this walk is beyond the main Wrekin car park, driving away from Wellington. Pull in by a barrier, head off left through the bluebells and follow path up. When you eventually walk alongside the golf course, look out for a path up the bank to the right after 100m or so, then go left at the junction (i.e. not down into the valley), which will take you round to the right eventually where get glimpses of the open field where the deer were. Keep following the path through the wood, then, eventually, right again at a T junction to take you down the hill and back to the road to where you parked.

Local Beauties

It’s easy to miss the everyday wonders.

Small brown birds are so common in the UK (and perhaps beyond!) that many birdwatchers call them “LBJs” (“little brown jobs”!), but on a recent early walk around the Rea Brook in Shrewsbury, the sweetness of this drab dunnock caught my attention, and he was so busy singing he let me capture his plain beauty:

Everyone knows a blackbird, but their song can be so magical in the dawn stillness, empty of all human noise. This one was really pouring out his heart!

And finally, the humble woodpigeon. They look chubby, comical, and are easily dismissed as common-all-garden – and yet the rays of the sun highlighted the iridiscence on this bird’s neck as it sat beautifully framed in spring blossom:

What are your local beauties?

Or do you need to go looking and listening with fresh eyes and ears?

Grateful for a Little Thing

The goldcrest is the smallest bird in the UK, at just 9cm long and weighing as little as a 20 pence piece! And they are very tricky to photograph as they don’t stay still for long and seem to enjoy staying as hidden as possible, as my first two attempts below show!

Goldcrest, Anglesey, March 2022
Goldcrest, Atcham, March 2022

But recently a goldcrest has been visiting my garden – presumably there is a nest nearby – almost always to the same paving stone, to look for food, hop around quickly, and then, again quickly, fly off!

I couldn’t believe the opportunity one morning when I had my camera to hand. The shot isn’t brilliant as it’s taken through a window. And yet what an excting moment it was, to capture the lovely goldcrest in full view, with that wonderful bright yellow crest on its head.

I was very grateful for this experience, even though it was such a “little thing”!

Gratefulness

David Steindl-Rast is not a well-known writer in the UK but his book Gratefulness is the best I’ve read on this topic. He shares a childhood experience, surviving bombing raids in Nazi-occupied Austria:

“…Unable to find an air-raid shelter quickly, I rushed into a church only a few steps away. To shield myself from shattered glass and falling debris, I crawled under a pew … I felt sure that the vaulted ceiling would cave in any moment and bury me alive…A steady tone of the siren announced the danger was over … And there I was, stepping out into a glorious May morning … My eyes fell on a few square feet of lawn in the midst of all this destruction. It was as if a friend had offered me an emerald in the hollow of his hand. Never before or after have I seen grass so surprisingly green.”

p.10

Recently I was commuting to work on a quiet spring morning, and I passed the most extraordinary scene shown in the photograph. You do not always need a near-death experience to feel gratitude! But how many people drove out of Shrewsbury that morning and did not stop to gaze in awe at the sunrise?

Mist was rolling mysteriously down the river. The trees were silhouetted. And a bright March sun illuminated the whole scene, rising over The Wrekin.

Brother David Stendl-Rast helped to set up a beautiful website devoted to gratefulness, and you can visit it here.

And look out for those surprising moments that fill our hearts with gratitude!

Whose Are The Hills?

Spring surrounds us with life, with wild life, and of course with wildlife!

On a recent visit to The Long Mynd in Shropshire (Townbrook Hollow), each encounter seems now to ask the question – whose are the hills? There were people about, and yet really the hills belong to the other inhabitants, some of whom feature below.

A red kite glided into sight, wheeling around dramatically in front of a distant Wrekin:

Looking the other way, a group of wild ponies were galloping across the slopes:

Lambs were everywhere – this was April, after all. Their curiosity is so winning: this one bravely stared at me as I snapped a shot:

But the best was saved till last: a large group of wild ponies, gathered picturesquely, firstly with Brown Clee behind them:

And then with Caer Caradoc behind. There was a very young foal in this group, still rather wobbly on its legs, still feeding occasionally from its very protective mother:

Whose are the hills?

On this occasion, I think, they belong to the ponies!