30 Days Wild: Mindful Beginnings

I was looking forward to getting a little wild in June, finding great excuses to get out into nature and getting back in touch with everything it had to offer. Unfortunately, as I’m sure many others across the country have experienced, the weather hasn’t been on our side. Clouds and blustery gusts have made the first few days of June seem more like Autumn than early Summer.

Looking back on my diary from last year’s 30 Days Wild I see that we were treated to similar conditions but once again I haven’t let it entirely get in my way of enjoying the natural world around me.

I haven’t wandered out much but every now and again over the last few days, when I have the time between working, I stare out into the garden or the street and take the time to absorb what is out there.

The variety of birds which frequent our garden is enchanting. Even now as I type I can see one and then another darting past in the reflection of my laptop screen. In the one of the trees at the bottom of the garden a pair of wood pigeons have created a little nest.We’ve already had two fledglings grow and leave and now another couple of eggs have taken their place. As lovely as it is to peek at them now and then, when we wonder down the garden, I do have to question the parents’ thoughts as they’ve built the nest only a little higher from where our German Shepard can nuzzle her snout into the tree. Not that I think Molly would do anything even if she could reach them, but she does like to make a racket.

Other than the pigeons we have a flock of starlings, pairs of house sparrow and goldfinches and all the other garden regulars. As I watch them I try to just absorb myself into the moment. They distract from all the other worries of the world around and I loose myself to engaging with and enjoying these charismatic little creatures.

For me this is a lot of what being wild and letting nature into our lives is about. It is probably quite appropriate that at the same time as beginning this experiment I have also begun an online Mindfulness course.

Being wild isn’t always about going out of our comfort zones and out of our way to become a part of nature, it is often about finding out what is there and coming to appreciate how much nature is already part of our lives. We can realise this by just observing and, as is practised in mindfulness, letting ourselves be just entirely aware of the present and push aside worries of the future and past.

Many of our fellow living beings exist in the moment and have needs which are more or less immediate. By observing them with a similar mindset we realise we aren’t such different creatures and that nature always has been something much closer than we think.

Starlings & Vision

While the tremulous dark clouds of stress and worry, built from the ridiculously insignificant and the absurdly unrealistic, sometimes seem to overwhelm my every thought it can often take merely a glance outside the bring some clarity. A great source of comfort for me recently has been the simple satisfaction of watching the various birds in our garden. That burst of the wild world that is open to all.

 

 Starlings have been a particular favourite recently. A small flock of them seems to have taken to alighting on the lawn almost every day. The grass had been left to its own devices for a long while and with alternating episodes of heavy sun and bursts of rain has turned into what must seem like a jungle for those birds standing only a few inches tall. Perhaps I can hear the murmur of their chirps or can sense the mass of the flock as it falls to the ground in near harmony, but every day something will call me to the window and there I’ll see one or two bobbing among the blades. Suddenly I’ll spot another and another, little beaked heads catching my eye wherever I look, barely giving me a moment to count them all. There’ll be at least 15 of them out there, darting between the tallest patches of grass. They’re everywhere, but before I know it they’ll all of a sudden, as one, fly up and away. Then a magpie, seeming enormous by comparison, might take their place.

I think those little creatures are perfectly symbolic of the beauty hidden in Britain’s wildlife. It’s not in-your-face or overwhelmingly majestic, like an eagle, an elephant or a blue whale or any other of the many awe inspiring animals that roam the other corners of our earth. It’s that type of beauty that takes some time to appreciate or, sometimes, even just to notice. It has subtleties and unique characteristics that once you’ve seen you can’t turn away from, they stay firmly with you.

 Just like my starlings. To look at them absent-mindedly it is just a brown birds with some unremarkable specks across it’s wings. But one day you’ll see it clearly. Perhaps you’ll catch it standing perfectly in a bright beam of sunlight or simply see a photograph that magically captures the hidden, spectacular nature of the birds. Never again will you be able to miss those purple, green and blue shimmers that cover every feather, like a gem shining out of the cracks of a stone.

Not only do it’s subtle shades make the bird a unique beauty, every individual different depending on the angle or intensity of light with which you see it, it also gives us a glimpse into another world of sight. We cannot even imagine how the birds see the world, they master a spectrum of colour beyond the tri-recpetors of the human eye. Ultra-violet light brings another dimension to a world that we see as dull by comparison; many birds’ feathers will reveal another shade of colour and some avian predators might be able to see into the past with the trails of their prey shining in ultra-violet brilliance.

 Their world of light might be outside of our cognition but, even if their full beauty might be hidden to our eyes, they can bring simple flashes of relief and colour into our lives.

All of the photos displayed here are the work of the lovely Michelle Terri who kindly gave me permission to use them as it was her photos that made me realise the wonderful colours that cover the starling feathers. Please check out the rest of her work here: https://www.facebook.com/michelleterriphotography?fref=ts She is very talented and takes very beautiful and original photos of wildlife (in the UK and beyond). I think she has a particular eye for bringing out the beauty of many aspects of the natural world that people take for granted.