Wake up to birdsong

David North, Head of People and Wildlife

Song thrush, photo by Alan Price

Do you have difficulty getting out of bed on these cold, dark winter mornings? Well it may be cold and grey but I’m sure you’ve noticed that its getting just a bit lighter each morning and with the lengthening days comes a natural wonder worth celebrating – bird song. I may still be struggling out of bed in the dark but now there’s a song thrush singing when it’s still pretty much night, at least to my sleepy eyes at 6am. The merest hint of a lightening in the eastern sky and the full-throated voice of a male song thrush – the sound of life, pure notes each repeated two or three times, is a clear sign that a new day is dawning. In my rural garden he is the first bird to greet the morning. What a lust for life. What passion. While I’m still half-awake, cleaning my teeth, he is singing his heart out, staking his claim to life, to territory, and reminding me that the dance of a New Year is there to be joined.

In my nearest wood the snowdrops have already pushed their way through leaf litter up into the light. Most are still small, sharp white spikes, unfurled, slowly swelling, but a few are already open, white flowers dangling, each with its inner script of green markings. 

Snowdrops, photo by Neville Yardy

 Above them yellow ‘lambs’ tail’ catkins of hazel are hanging pendulous, swaying in the winter wind and just waiting for a touch of sun to release their individual dust-clouds of yellow pollen. Next time I visit I must look more closely to see if any of the red star-like female hazel flowers, tiny but exquisite, have appeared. In the early morning great tits make voice with piercing disyllabic ‘teacher, teacher, teacher’ calls, though each male has a subtle variation on this theme. Robins are singing their quiet, sweet songs from song perches high in branches above me, a trickle of notes like water running over stones. Dunnocks are also beginning to provide an unassuming background of quiet but rapid warbling from the undergrowth – often singing from ground level and never loud, strident and repetitive like the great tits.

Today in Norwich I heard my first chaffinch of the year sing, hesitant as if not quite sure of its voice yet. On Castle Mound, in the heart of the city, collared doves were ‘coola cooing’. The doves have been at it all year of course but now there’s just a bit more verve and passion about their coos.

Jackdaw, photo by Dave Kilbey

There are other signs of activity to look for in the natural world – rooks are rebuilding nests and busy raucously complaining about stolen twigs and noisy neighbours in their highly social worlds. On my local village green there’s a glint in jackdaws eyes (yes, I know they always glint a bit) but it could be love as they all seem to be in twos and that pair on the chimney pot are attentively grooming each other’s neck feathers. Wood pigeons in my garden are like-wise sidling up along the bare apple tree branches, to end up as pairs, and with apparent affection indulging in a spot of mutual preening.

You don’t have to travel anywhere special to see these signs that the world’s still turning. The season quietly moving forward in the up-thrust of a daffodil here and a woodpecker’s drumming there. In the first crazy chase of a hare in my local fields, now greening with winter sown barley, or the simple fluty voice of a blackbird in your garden.

Open your ears and enjoy the sound of nature waking up to new beginnings in a new year.

One touch of nature: 50 wildlife resolutions for 2014

 David North, Head of People and Wildlife

There’s learning about nature and then there is learning from nature. Two very different things I think. Learning about nature can be done from books, from television programmes, from websites and of course from other people. Most importantly it can also be achieved by spending time outside simply observing. Learning about nature is great. I take great pleasure in identifying birds, plants, mammals and a rather small number of invertebrates and fungi. My ignorance is massive. So much to learn! Knowledge of nature and natural processes is of course crucial when it comes to conservation. We can’t protect species or habitats without this kind of knowledge. There are of course lots of opportunities to learn about nature with Norfolk Wildlife Trust during 2014 so why not come on one of our many events?

Trees, photo by Brendan Joyce

For me, and perhaps for anyone who draws inspiration from the natural world, there is another kind of learning, a more personal approach. When we talk about reconnecting with nature, for me this is more about learning from nature than learning about nature. Learning from nature can’t be done from books or television screens - it comes from personal direct experience of the natural world and what we learn is primarily about ourselves; our place in this amazing interconnected world. Learning from nature is primarily about self knowledge, a personal sense of perspective, how the changes I observe in nature are part of the same processes of change in myself. Heady stuff perhaps, and not to be taken over-seriously, but with a light touch and a sense of fun, adventure and discovery. The quest of self-knowledge, like all good quests, demands an adventurous spirit and an open heart.

I have put together a list of 50 challenges for myself in 2014. Ways to directly experience nature and hopefully ways to learn from nature, though I’m sure during the course of trying these things out there will be lots of learning about nature too. Many of the things on my list are not that original but it’s the doing that counts! So here is my personal list of 50 challenges for 2014. Ways of connecting to the natural world. Why not make your own list but be sure to stay safe and only take on challenges you feel comfortable with.

1. Sleep outside under the stars
2. Swim in a river, a lake and the sea (quite tricky in Norfolk!)
3. Take a night walk along the sea-shore (on a full moon night)
4. Spot a shooting star
5. Take a long barefoot walk
6. Make a bush fire and cook a meal outside on wood I have gathered
7. Listen to a nightingale
8. Feed a wild bird by hand
9. Watch the moon rise
10. Watch the sun rise

    

    Evening sun on Heigham Sound, photo by Craig Humphries

11. Watch the sun set
12. Lie on a spring woodland floor and really look at the leaf canopy and its colours
13. Lie against the wind in a storm
14. Drink from a spring
15. Shower under a waterfall
16. Hug a tree (the old ones are the best!)
17. Listen to a dawn chorus at dawn on my own
18. Listen to the wind in tree tops
19. Lie on my back and cloud watch
20. Watch the wind – observing wind patterns in crops or long grass
21. Watch cloud shadows moving across the landscape from a high vantage point
22. Find silence and listen to it
23. Listen to waves breaking on shingle
24. Watch a rough sea and breaking waves
25. Watch soaring birds
26. Find a spider’s web covered in dew
27. Explore a natural place with my eyes shut
28. Watch swifts screaming
29. Sit by a pond
30. Paddle in a stream
31. Smell honeysuckle or jasmine on a warm summer night – night smells
32. Go beachcombing
33. Walk in mist – and watch mist form as evening falls
34. Watch migrating geese
35. Celebrate each season 
36. Watch a spider make a web

    

    Spider's web, photo by Richard Osbourne

37. Listen to the wind in reeds – whispering reeds
38. Find a natural seat in a tree and sit there for one hour
39. Reveal a conker, hold and polish it
40. Collect sweet chestnuts and roast them
41. Hear an owl and answer it
42. Swim in the sea in winter (well maybe a paddle instead)
43. Follow an animal track
44. Find a sun-warmed rock and lie against it
45. Walk in a woodland in rain and listen to raindrops falling on the leaf canopy
46. Listen to a mountain stream
47. Find a touchstone – small natural object that will always connect me to a special time and place
48. Drink dew from a leaf
49. Spend a day walking on one of Norfolk’s long distance trails from sunrise to sunset
50. Spend more time outside watching wildlife!

Of course to be more mindful and aware of nature you don’t need to have a list of challenges – the real challenge is to be more aware of nature all around us on a daily basis. And more aware of how we can live in ways which respect the needs of the natural world as well as our own. Now that is a challenge worth taken on. A proper resolution is for life and not just for the year!