I remember asking Celia Holmes how it is that her husband Geoff can conjure a hen harrier into being when everyone else has binoculars trained on the landscape but it's always Geoff who finds. He's reading the landscape, she explained. How the farmers are managing habitat and how that will work for the harrier. And he is utterly focused, immersed. We tend to have half an eye on Geoff because any moment now he'll be onto it.
Thanks to Ken, Judy and Alastair for running an excellent Bristol Ornithological Club trip to Lancashire and the Solway Coast.
I look forward to seeing Chris Teague’s images from the trip which you may see on his web diary
www.chriswebdiary.co.uk
Radio 4. 15 November 2016.
The Life Scientific. Lynne Boddy on Fungi
* Natural Histories . Fly Agaric with Brett Westwood (For the psychoactive effects of fly agaric you must first drink urine. Brett Westwood explains the alchemy.)
Two poems resonating around the origins of Father Christmas and fly agaric.
The Night Before Christmas ( the visit of Saint Nicholas) Professor Clement Clarke Moore 1823)
Trance Paul Muldoon