Rain. Rain. And more rain. That much was true. Fingers of moisture, clawing their insidious way
through the crevices of the turrets. Tear-drops splashing from leaf to leaf, leaden enough
to reach the floor from even the top of the sequoias. Spider-webs, turned into be-jewelled filigree, woven
amongst the hedges.
Rain. Water. Dank. Damp.
Everywhere, in everything.
Day after day, after day.
One week into the next.
This is the opening paragraph of my story
‘Meeting Mr. Dickens’, which is reproduced in full in an earlier post. Change a few words – turrets to
chimneys, sequoias to sycamores – and it could be a description of the last few
months at our home in Pembrokeshire.
Not just our home, of course.
It has been the same for the whole of the county. Eglwyswrw to the east narrowly missed
claiming the record for rain on the longest number of consecutive days. The south has had flooding, and winter
storms have battered the west.
Not the best time to make a New Year’s
resolution to start keeping an occasional nature diary. My first thought was ‘to write my square
mile’ – a favourite writing-course subject. But I wasn’t doing a writing-course, so I could change the
rules if I wanted, couldn’t I?
I could make it three miles, to take in Abercastle, our closest coastal
point. Or I could ‘write my OS
map’ – one side of it, at least.
In every other place we have lived, our village has been on the edge of the
map, meaning we have always had to buy two. Here, it’s different.
We live near Mathry. We’re
virtually in the centre of OS Explorer North Pembrokeshire, West Sheet. True, a lot of the map above us is
sea. But, still, it’s a great area
to live in. It takes in St David’s
and the surrounding peninsula to the west, a chunk of St Brides Bay below us; and
that rugged northern coastline with its numerous small coves - my favourite
part of all. Well, sometimes… So that’s what I’ve decided to focus on. But, then again, if I want to include
some of my ‘other’ favourites that are off the page, well, perhaps I will.
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| Abercastle (photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
Closer in, our house is at the edge of a
small wood, with fields behind. And a short walk up the road takes me to a view
of the Preselis, our mini-mountains.
Like the wider context, I consider this to be an ideal location – we’re
not just restricted to the coast, breath-taking as that is. Our landscape includes so much
variety. Just like the county
itself.
January isn’t the best month to start noting natural
observations, even in ‘normal’ winters.
It’s a month of hibernation, with everything dormant, the ground
ungiving, the cold stalling life.
Or that’s how it should be. But this year, except for one or two
haphazard days, all we have had is that rain. And wind. And a
strangely mild temperature.
Nothing is as it should be.
The roses haven’t stopped blooming. My neighbour’s daffodils have been and gone. The grass is still growing. And because
of the rain, it’s been hard to get out – and to see what’s around you when you
do.
But we’re lucky. The wood gives us wildlife on our doorstep. Because of the food we provide, birds
are a constant. Almost every day,
they tumble about the feeding-stations, in confusing profusion – like a scene
from a Walt Disney fairy-tale movie.
When David Attenborough made his series ‘Life of Birds’, he remarked
that birds provided man’s closest encounter with wildlife. This is certainly true for us. Pembrokeshire is, of course, a great
place for all kinds of bird-watching.
It has some spectacular sea-birds, easily visible from land, like the
puffins on Skomer, or the guillemots on Stack Rocks. Then there are the estuary and river species – the herons,
geese and ducks, interspersed with rare visitors, such as the spoonbill at
Newport a few years ago. Or the
glossy ibis at Marloes mere. Here,
we’ve got the more usual garden varieties, but they are still a joy to see.
5th January. Too many chaffinches to count. Great
tits, blue tits, coal tits. Rooks,
jackdaws, robins, sparrows, wrens, woodpeckers, goldfinches. The goldfinches with their fragile
luminosity are a particular joy to see in these dull, depressing days. They are a bird that features
repeatedly in religious art, representing, amongst other things, the soul,
redemption, protection. More
recently, Donna Tartt, in her novel ‘The Goldfinch’, used Carel Fabritius’s painting
of the bird as her representation for beauty, and the main character’s
connection with his dead mother. Another
‘pure’ motif, perfectly encapsulated in that tiny, perfectly formed, gold and
red plumage.
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| Goldfinch (photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
Yet when you observe the behaviour of these
finches, they are far removed from that noble image. On the feeders, they hold their own amongst the bigger
birds, squabbling amongst themselves, and fighting for their place, quite
viciously, sometimes. They are tenacious,
greedy birds, seldom choosing to wait in line, for their turn, always going for
the ‘best’ food, seldom put off by the wind and rain. But then, ‘feeding and breeding’ is what it’s all about for
most creatures. Survival is the
key word. And the goldfinches are
determined to succeed – their numbers have increased considerably in recent
years.
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| Nuthatch (photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
We also have a few less common additions to the regulars. A pair of nuthatches has joined us this
year – another striking bird, that darts in and darts out, to hide his food in
the top of the sycamore, and a multitude of other places. It has been great to see the
greenfinches back – four, at least – after an absence of a couple of seasons. The
opposite of their ‘gold’ cousins, they have struggled lately, on account of the
trichomonosis virus. And yesterday I was watching a thrush. Sad, really, to regard what was such a
common British bird as a rare sighting.
Some we don’t always see. Their calls reach up to us from the
wood, but they stay hidden. The
cough of the pheasant. The screech
of the shy jay – ‘yscrech y coed’ in Welsh. The ke-wick of the tawny owl, moving through the trees.
10th January. Woken in the early hours by the
owl. Not the gentle twitwitwhoo,
so often associated with them.
‘Gwdihw’ – the Welsh word came to me, remembered from reading to the
boys. Such a lovely word. Of course, there are a lot of myths
associated with the owl in Wales, as in many other countries. The best known is from the Mabinogion –
Blodeuwedd (flower-face) being turned into an owl, never to show her face in
daylight, and to be mobbed by all the other birds. We haven’t seen the owl recently, but I have seen it in the
past – being harassed by blackbirds, as it happened. I probably shouldn’t be glad that I saw it, on account
of all the ill-omens attached to it.
But I always feel privileged by any contact with nature, and though I
love the folk-lore that comes from the countryside, I tend to dismiss those tales
that speak of dark foreboding. Right now, I’m particularly hoping the rhyme
about early bird-song isn’t true.
‘Os can yr adar cyn Chwefror, hwy griant cyn Mai.’
‘If birds sing before February, they will
cry before May.’
In other words, it’s a sign of hard
weather to come. Particularly if
the bird is a blackbird or a thrush… which I was lucky enough to hear singing
yesterday…
20th January. A wonderful starry sky when I got
up. We are lucky enough to be without
street lights, here, which can allow us to have some really good views of the
stars and the planets.
The rooks were ten minutes ahead of
schedule today – another sign of a clear early morning. They’ve been on the move at a quarter
to eight for the past few weeks – rising from the wood, circling, then heading
west, on the look out for food.
This was a proper winter’s day. A bright blue, cloudless sky. Frost, even
on the lower garden. Definitely a day for a walk up the road. Ice in the puddles – I couldn’t help
staring at it, it seemed so long since I had seen any. The frost on the banks
looked strange. I realised it was
because the grass was long – it has kept growing. The white streaks seemed to have been brushed on to each
blade, rather than covering the whole.
As if a giant’s hairdresser had sprayed it delicately with some ‘Silver
Moon’ hair-colour. The fine day
brought the tractors out in force.
A reminder that Pembrokeshire is still very much a farming county, no
matter how much tourism seems to take it over, during the season. Even more surprising, perhaps, is how
the landscape has been formed by industry – and not just the modern gas and oil
of the Haven Waterway to the south…
21st January, 2016. I’m standing by the Blue Lagoon, at
Abereiddi. But I’m not looking at
the deep, silent pool, as everyone else is doing. Instead, I’m staring the other way, at the rock-wall facing
the sea, facing the weather. The
winter storms have stolen away a layer of scree. What I see is a muddle of
shapes and colours, like a crazy patchwork quilt. Jagged greens, greys, copper. Streaks of white, stitched through them. It’s beautiful.
I’ve been here many times before, but
I’ve never seen this. I’ve seen
plenty of other changes, worked by both man and weather. Years ago, when we first visited, there
was no safe, sturdy bridge to walk on.
We had to edge across, our backs to the cliff. And we were almost always alone, when we reached the lagoon,
except for the seals, and, if the timing was right, their pups, latched onto
the steep sides like fluffy barnacles.
Now the pool has become a favourite
destination for adventure tourists.
The shrieks of coasteering children echo off the high walls. Strange bubbles break the surface,
making you wonder what fearful monster lurks beneath. But it’s just a diver, exploring this twenty-five metre
deep, near-perfect circle of water.
All so different from the quiet, secret
place of my childhood, that scene of natural wonder. Except it wasn’t natural at all. The lagoon is a relic of
the slate industry, which thrived in Pembrokeshire in the late eighteenth
century. It was formed when the channel connecting the quarry to the sea was
blasted, allowing the sea to flood in.
My coloured wall is part of that quarry. You have to go a lot further back for
this small bay to be no more than a site of farming and fishing. And even further for it to be a remote
cove, with nothing but the sea-birds and the seals circling around.
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| Abereiddi (photo courtesy of dp-multimedia ©) |
23rd January. Another beach walk, snatched in another
few dry hours. South, this time,
to Newgale.
Somewhere else I’ve been many times,
walking along its beach. But, just
as at Abereiddi, there’s something new to see. There always is.
Changes with the time of year, the time of day, the tide. The weather, again. The storms of 2014 revealed the remains
of an ancient forest, ten thousand years old. Hunter-gatherers would have foraged for roots and berries
where we now walked along the sand.
The trees have appeared again, this year, but that’s not what’s caught
my eye. Ahead of us, there’s a
patch of pale, dry sand that the wind is catching. I don’t why it should be just in one place, but it is. We
walk into it, and the golden grains are blowing like waves just above the
surface, rippling ahead. They are
flickering wraiths, dancing round our ankles, trying to trip us up, but leading
us on. And then it ends.
This is what I love – the infinite wonder
of this place, the surprises it throws up, casually, almost. As if it is saying ‘Look! And look
again!’ Perhaps everyone feels the
same about their own particular landscape. But I like to think it’s something special about
Pembrokeshire, where I live. Here.
