The half term predictably took it’s toll on my field visits and my utter idiocy (losing the ‘new post’ button, huh?) definitely put me behind writing my blog posts. Anyway I’ve sent the kids back to nursery and school and the wonderful Robin has reacquainted me with the all important button, so hopefully I can continue without too many more bouts of stupidity.
I did manage to steal a few visits over the holidays and had some revelations. Mainly, the Red Kite is not, after all a Red Kite. It is in fact a Buzzard. The Sunday before last I caught him hoping around on the floor under the pylon, then up he swooped onto his regular perch and then again off he went over to a post on the far side of the field. No forked tail, no Red Kite.
It’s funny, because since this sighting and realising his true identity, I’ve not seen him, but his presence lives on in the persistence of my binoculars, which I haven’t left behind since.
My visits are starting to take on a bit of a rhythm. Now I am no longer a walker but am embracing my new role more as explorer, I’ve found myself taking up some strange behaviours. There’s an alternative call, away from the well trodden paths and into the shadowy undergrowth. The tights are suffering!
Two hours I spent traipsing up and down inside a thicket of trees at the bottom end of the field on Sunday. This is not normal behaviour, says the reasonable person walking by with their dog (in my head). But in the name of exploration, this is perfect relief, scratching that itch.
There’s a little path, so faint but still, there. It’s an old path maybe from a different time, before the current situation of the field or maybe there are still others that find cause to walk a path that is much more impractical and secluded than the existing one.
Finds are rife and littered amongst a covering of sticks, dried leaves and ivy, is stuff. A piece of this and a snippet of that. A pen lid, a slipper, a piece of bark, unidentifiable broken coloured plastic.
I sift through as I make my way along the path, hunched over and engrossed in the possibility of finding things, clues. Then I swear something brushes on my side and I jump a mile in the air, with my heart racing. Shit, nothing, I’m aware suddenly this place can spook me. It’s chaotic nature seems to present possibilities somehow, but the chaos and unpredictability, it’s accessibility with moderate seclusion, definitely play a part in this somewhat mild, if gently simmering, sense of self danger.
Imagination is what it seems to tempt.
