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Coming up in February

30/1/2015

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Moorland poetry, celebrating wetlands and a new festival

Ellie Harrison and Simon Armitage
On Sunday, poet Simon Armitage will be on BBC1's Countryfile, talking about the Stanza Stones, which the Ilkley Literature Festival commissioned as part of the London 2012 celebrations and which form a 47 mile trail from Armitage’s home town, Marsden, to Ilkley – home of the Festival.

Unlike the vast, rugged landscapes of upland Britain, which have inspired artists for centuries, wetlands may seem to have gone relatively unnoticed by poets, painters and composers.  Certainly, they have fallen victim to neglect and destruction since Roman times.  World Wetlands Day is held every year to raise awareness of their importance for wildlife, well-being and human survival. NATURAL LIGHT will mark World Wetlands Day on 2 February with musings and music.

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The last week of the month sees the launch of a new festival celebrating our cultural links with nature.  In the programme are a number of high-profile artists and authors including writers Patrick Barkham and Mark Cocker, illustrator Sheila Tilmouth and audio-visual artist Kathy Hinde, whose work with the RSPB we featured here in September.  Patrick Barkham will team up with the National Trust's Matthew Oates to present the Festival Lecture exploring Spirit of Place.  NATURAL LIGHT editor Laurence Rose of the RSPB presents a lunchtime concert of nature-inspired music while RSPB colleague Matt Howard is among the poets presenting readings.  The Hawk and Owl Trust, Norfolk Castle Museum and Art Gallery and  Norfolk Wildlife Trust are contributing talks on subjects as diverse as birds of prey, landscape and nature painting and the future of nature itself.  Click on the Festival logo for more details.

Check our What's On page for more inspiring nature-themed events, or get in touch to add your event to the calendar.

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Big Garden Wordwatch

24/1/2015

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sparrowhawkSparrowhawk from the window by Laurence Rose
My writing room looks out on a garden, and then across fields, to a rising Yorkshire hillside streaked with the remnants of a snowscape that has all but vanished overnight.  I am vaguely getting my eye in for the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch tomorrow, which has just been plugged by Radio 3.  At least 600,000 families are expected to join in, if recent years are anything to go by.

This annual celebration of the commonplace is one time when we reconnect with wildlife en masse. It is a positive that we can take out of the background trend of declining contact with nature; a note of hope that marks the end of a fortnight in which many of us have been reflecting on that sad and dangerous trend.

Positive News, the world’s first positive newspaper, can be relied upon to find inspiration in the loss of nature words from children’s vocabularies. Lucy Purdy, a London-based freelance journalist specialising in environmental and ethical issues, writes that “despite this, a new breed of writers and publications are using language, and new perspectives, to reinvigorate our relationship with the natural world.”

nature words in new internationalist
Lucy has written twice this week in response to our #naturewords campaign.  In New Internationalist Magazine, she surveys the current crop of nature-word champions like Dominick Tyler and Robert Macfarlane.  She concludes “At a time when systems and values crumble before us, using language to help craft a new story could be crucial. Words which stimulate and enrich. Our humiliated, hopeful humanness laid bare to the page.”

Dominick Tyler has himself been blogging about the Oxford Junior Dictionary.  Tyler’s  Landreader Project has been collecting words for landscape features, like jackstraw, zawn, clitter and logan, swash, cowbelly, hum and corrie, spinney, karst and tor.  Lucy Purdy describes it as a stirring synthesis of people and place. Already, more than 2,000 terms and words have been gathered, and in March Tyler will publish a book based on the project, titled Uncommon Ground.

In his latest blog, Tyler reflects on the list of words omitted from the OJD, which he considers as “a kind of prose-poetry supplement to be administered like a multivitamin as a defense against lexical malnutrition. Perhaps we can intone it to our children and, even better, seek out each of those things it names and show them.” 

Nature isn't an optional extra
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Melissa Harrison writing in today’s Times explains why she put her name to a letter signed by 28 leading authors and thinkers: “to delist these words is to make the very things they represent begin to disappear because the process of putting words to things is how we begin a relationship with them.”

In Italy, English teacher and mother of twin girls Nadia Stevenson read about #naturewords with alarm, and wrote to author Rob Macfarlane, one of the twenty-eight who wrote to the Oxford University Press last week.  “I've been pondering all day as to what can be done. Although I'm just one small voice in the huge scheme of things, I have an immense love and esteem for the natural world of which we are part, as well as great hope for my daughters' futures.”

So two days ago Nadia set up a Facebook page Save Nature Words from Extinction.  On the page she writes:  “While we may choose to what extent technology is or isn't part of our lives, we cannot escape the fact that we ARE part of the natural world, it isn't an optional extra.” 

I'm hoping to see a starling
Picture
Glancing out of the window, I have to peer round the ivy I keep forgetting to trim, to get a full view of the garden.  There’s the gorse and the hazel and holly bushes I planted fifteen years ago, and the willows and ash trees that planted themselves a hundred years before.  A magpie flies past and I can hear a wren singing despite the double glazing.  I hope tomorrow there will be a starling for my Birdwatch hour.  They’ve dwindled here, as they have everywhere, and are mainly a summer visitor to this hamlet.  And I see how easy it is to write a paragraph about an everyday view in which all the nature words are on the cull list.
#naturewords
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Reaction to #naturewords

16/1/2015

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Oxford University Press replies

On Monday top authors, poets and naturalists were among 28 prominent people who wrote to Oxford University Press calling for some of the fifty nature words lost from their Junior Dictionary to be reinstated. The issue first arose in 2007, was not corrected with the 2012 edition, and is now a growing concern as we look for cultural leaders to help resolve a seemingly unstoppable problem - the rapid decline in children's formative experiences of nature.  The letter sets out the problem here, and now we have a response from the OUP.
OUP Statement
PictureWest Oxford School: year 3 prehistoric art
Press and social media coverage since Monday shows that concern about children's disconnectedness from nature is widespread.  The Oxford Times spoke to the Headteacher of West Oxford Primary School Clare Balden, who backed our letter and said the 238-pupil school had a particular focus on outdoor learning.  She said: “These are children of the 21st century so they need to know hi-tech stuff, but there does need to be a balance between screen time and time outdoors. “Technical language is part of children’s everyday speech, but they might not necessarily come across words like chestnut and conker, so they should stay in the dictionary.”



Pupils at the school agreed that nature words should not be scrapped.  Frith Dixon, seven, said: “I love playing outdoors so I think the nature words should stay.”  Rosie Gee, also seven, added: “I live on a farm and I love learning about nature.”

a vital means of connection and understanding - Sir Andrew Motion
simon barnesSimon Barnes by Dave Bebber
Norwich-based Eastern Daily Press spoke to two well-known Norfolk writers: Simon Barnes and Mark Cocker.  Mark sees his wildlife-rich county as the natural place for the campaign to have taken hold.  Simon  told the paper: “children need access to nature as never before in history. An Oxford Dictionary aimed at seven-year-olds should go out of its way to help them.”

Sir Andrew Motion, the former poet laureate, told the Guardian that “by discarding so many country and landscape-words from their Junior Dictionary, OUP deny children a store of words that is marvellous for its own sake, but also a vital means of connection and understanding.

“Their defence – that lots of children have no experience of the countryside – is ridiculous. Dictionaries exist to extend our knowledge, as much (or more) as they do to confirm what we already know or half-know.”

Elsewhere in the Guardian, Patrick Barkham writes “It would be hard to find a more striking example of our alienation from the natural world, and how we are denying children a relationship with wild things.

“Oxford University Press may have joined mainstream educators and the other purveyors of neoliberal capitalism in assuming that nature must be abandoned to the nagging demands of technology but how can we make space for nature in children’s lives?”  He then goes on to offer Five Simple Ways to Help your Child get Into the Wild.


Shooting the messenger?

In Margaret Atwood's home country Canada, coverage included articles in Huffington Post Canada and the CBCNews website.  

Alistair Fraser from Kootenay Lake, Canada, writes a nature blog Exploring Kootenay Lake.  In a thoughtful piece he writes “It seems to me that the Oxford Junior Dictionary is being blamed for recognizing a deeper problem: the decline in the relevance of the natural world to today’s children. Is this a problem of Oxford’s making? Hardly. Does Oxford make a convenient scapegoat? It would seem so.”

Fraser’s blog is beautifully illustrated with his own pictures of some of the wildlife removed from the dictionary, including otters, a (great blue) heron, a (belted) kingfisher and a beaver.  He concludes: “The solution (if indeed there is one) does not lie with shooting the messenger (Oxford University Press); it involves dealing with the problem: the increasing irrelevance of the natural world for urbanites and their children.”

Alistair Fraser emailed me to alert me to his blog and I have replied:  “To some extent I accept the charge of shooting the messenger and completely agree that the problem lies more deeply in society.

“However, making any kind of inroad into such a seemingly unstoppable process requires strong signals from those who have a leading role in cultural life.  The Oxford Dictionary brand occupies such a position throughout the English speaking world.  The OUP's edits, as you say in your blog, have all the appearance of being systematically anti-nature and pro-technology.  Whilst I am sure there was no overt agenda in this, it makes them part of the problem.  Correcting their error would be an even stronger signal in favour of natural childhood, and this is what we are calling on them to do.”
And finally, BBC Newsbeat asks "Are celebrities really more important than conkers?"  Given that 28 celebrities have just supported NATURAL LIGHT's campaign to save the conker, I'll take the fifth on that one.
#naturewords
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Literary stars support #naturewords campaign

12/1/2015

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Top writers call for changes to Oxford Junior Dictionary

Andrew Motion
Sir Andrew Motion photo: Johnny Ring
Internationally-acclaimed author Margaret Atwood, former Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion and former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo are among 28 major literary and media figures who have today written to the Oxford University Press.  

Over fifty nature words, along with many more associated with the countryside, landscape and farming have been cut from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.  This is to make room for new words associated with the indoor lives of modern childhood, such as blog and MP3 Player.  

Before Christmas, we ran a series of articles calling on the Oxford University Press to restore some of the lost words, many of which are redolent with cultural significance. Now some of the country's leading nature writers, poets, children's authors and illustrators are calling for a re-think. 

Click the button to read their letter in full.
Letter to OUP
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Sara Maitland had already highlighted the OJD cuts in Gossip from the Forest: a search for the hidden roots of our fairy tales.  She feels a double blow as words like elf and goblin have been cut as well. "Despite the Tolkien films," she says. "not only nature study, but nature magic, is going, too."

Sara points out that she didn't break the story. "I read about it in a wonderful essay by Robert Macfarlane in a book called Towards Reenchantment."

Despite the popularity of Sara and Rob's books, and the attention drawn to the OUP's decision, another edition was published in 2012 with none of the lost words replaced.  In statements made at the time, and again last month in response to our campaign, the OUP cites the need for lexicographical rigour.

NATURAL LIGHT editor Laurence Rose says "I would certainly expect such rigour in the Oxford English Dictionary, but when you have to choose only a few thousand words to represent the English language for seven year-olds, you are making a social judgement, whether you mean to or not.  And here we have a classic case of the law of unintended consequences."  

gone

acorn adder ash beech blackberry bluebell bramble brook buttercup catkin clover conker cowslip cygnet dandelion fern fungus gorse hazel hazelnut heather heron holly horse chestnut 
ivy kingfisher lark magpie minnow newt otter pansy pasture poppy porpoise primrose raven starling stoat stork sycamore thrush weasel violet willow
wren

Read the full list of ins and outs
without language we will eventually lose the land itself
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Robert Macfarlane's forthcoming book Landmarks develops the theme.  Robert says "it was one of two chief motives for the book's existence - the other being the 'peat glossary' I was handed on the Isle of Lewis...a beautifully precise and evocative word-list of more than 120 Gaelic terms for aspects of the moor."  

Landmarks, published on March 6th, is a celebration of the language of landscape. “It opens with my dismay at the OJD deletions which I see as a symptom of the natural and the outdoor being displaced by the virtual and the indoor” he says.  “I’m worried that the basic literacy of nature is falling away. A should be for Acorn, not Attachment.”

Award-winning author and ecologist Mark Cocker agrees, and sees a threat to nature as well. "Without language we will eventually lose the land itself" he fears.

War Horse author and former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo said “my wife Clare and I started the charity Farms For City Children, and so we have witnessed at first hand the benefits for children of a sense of belonging and connection with the countryside and the natural world.”

The letter's authors point out that compared with a generation ago, when 40% of children regularly played in natural areas, now only 10% do so, while another 40% never play anywhere outdoors.  They highlight the link with obesity, anti-social behaviour and friendlessness.


But they conclude that the Oxford University Press is well placed to provide cultural leadership and play its part in changing this situation. They argue that a deliberate and publicised decision to restore some of the most important nature words would be “a tremendous cultural signal and message of support for natural childhood.”
#naturewords
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Re:Tweet of the Day - blue rock thrush

7/1/2015

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Picture
photo: Laurence Rose
On this morning's Tweet of the Day, Liz Bonin presented the blue rock thrush.  Click the button below to hear the original Radio 4 broadcast.

Listen again
For our Re:Tweet we turn to an old friend:  Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992).  Messiaen was famous for his style oiseaux using carefully notated birdsong as source material for a huge variety of pieces. In his Catalogue d'Oiseaux he created thirteen exquisite piano pieces, each featuring a different species, along with a supporting cast of many more.
The Blue Rock Thrush of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux inhabits crevices of the cliffs overhanging the Mediterranean near Banyuls in the Roussillon. Messiaen paints a vivid picture of waves crashing below and swifts screaming above before the blue rock thrush is heard.  Its song is vaguely pentatonic but with a riot of ornamentation and flourish, leading pianist and Messiaen scholar Peter Hill to describe it as “a Balinese gamelan gone mad.” Later, a fast and brilliant section introduces the song of the Thekla lark.  Serene, beautiful chords link the main "bird" sections.  Despite the uncompromising complexity and dissonance in much of his music, these moments of calm are nonetheless classic Messiaen.

Messiaen’s introduction speaks of the bird’s song blending with the sound of the waves.  The pedal marking creates some extraordinary resonances with the accompanying bass chords. Throughout the piece these bass sonorities represent the echo given off by rock faces overlooking the blue sea.   

The blue rock thrush is a bird that can appear anything from powder blue to black depending on the light, and Messiaen undoubtedly saw in this the many moods of the sea, including terrifying waves and rough cliffs. The many depictions of birdsong are often quite sharply set against four “mood” sections which are announced in the score in characteristically vivid ways: ‘the resonance of rock faces', 'luminous, iridescent, blue halo' and so on. These exquisitely harmonious episodes, according to the composer, complement the satin texture and purple-blue, slate and blue-black shades of the blue rock thrush's plumage.  In this most joyous and visual of the Catalogue pieces, Messiaen connects birdsong, landscape and his own sensory perception in a complex but eminently shareable real-world experience.
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Re:Tweet of the Day - snipe

5/1/2015

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The twelfth re:tweet of Christmas

Picture
rspb-images.com
Twelve snipe a-drumming brings to an end Radio 4's seasonal list of birds that could form an alternative haul of gifts over the twelve days of Christmas.

It all started conventionally enough, with a partridge in a pear tree and two turtle doves.  French hens, being domestic fowl, were replaced in the BBC list by moorhens.  The full list, based on past Tweets of the Day, includes a few surprises.  Click the button for the full run-down:

12 Tweets


At the beginning of the Christmas series I said I'd write something about the snipe, that replaces the twelve drummers drumming in the BBC list.  
"Drumming" is the peculiar sound that snipe make when they display in diving flights across their marshland territories.  Hearing my first drumming snipe, when I was about thirteen, is one of the clearest of the many abiding memories of my early days as a birdwatcher.  So much so, that when I was asked to speak at Earth Music, a series of concerts broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 in 2011, I chose to read from a collection of essays, one of which featured this formative experience.  Below is an extract, but first, hear for yourself what this drumming sounds like.
Ouse Washes
Chris Gomersall www.rspb-images.com



If I had to choose one childhood experience of nature that was to set the tone for the decades to come it would be this one. It was the start of a new relationship with Fenland, an area I already knew well as the place where my father grew up, and where we would visit a couple of times a year. Click the button for the full essay, called Sky, which is about my various visits to the Ouse Washes over the years.  Below that are some extracts, beginning with a 100 year-old diary entry from an earlier visitor to that very place.



Sky (complete)


Sky (extracts)

“The air was very pure and the sky was a faded blue with shining white clouds arranged like flights of angels. Towards evening, when the sun began to set the clear turquoise of the sky was beyond all imagined beauty.”  Diary of Dr. Katherine Heanley, Sept. 27th 1914, Manea

In my father’s land the only landmark is the sky.  If there were but one sign to pilot by, it would be a small shape, a ship-shaped silhouette, cut from an edge of sky where it meets the horizon.  This Ship of the Fens, or The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely, has been the south pole of a hemisphere of cloud, water and soot-black soil these past fifty generations.

Here it is the sky that governs the mood of the ground beneath, and calibrates your sense of scale.  You might stand under a bright cumulus-laden sky, and it feels as though you are watching yourself from a great distance, standing at the horizon, The Ship of the Fens at your shoulder.  Under a slate sky, in a spotlight, ringed by the flat horizon, you are at the anonymous centre of all things.

Into this sky I watched a strange bird rise, only to plummet back into the field with a sound like a balsa-wood plane. 

Out of this sky, into this same field, a German plane fell one day.  It was May 1941.  My father heard about it as he was riding home from school, and by the time he’d pedalled to Welney anything removable had been taken by the local boys.  Almost thirty years later, all traces were long gone; but across a dull, smeared sky this strange balsa-bird arc’d over us both.  We had gone into the field to find lapwing nests; not, as my father would have done at my age, to harvest eggs, but just to look.

Neither my father nor I knew straight away what this bird was.  I had never seen such a disproportionate beak before, and the sound it made was the strangest I had encountered in all nature.  The Observer’s Book suggested woodcock, or maybe snipe, but S. Vere Benson’s descriptions of the calls seemed to rule them both out.  In the evening, in my room at The Crown at Outwell, I leafed diligently through the little book.  The various sandpipers and shanks didn’t look quite right, and no sound ascribed to them came close to that flat airborne bleat. I checked the snipe again, more thoroughly. This bleating, it turned out, was no cry from within, but a play of wind on tail-feather, a reed-instrument that rose from the reeds to deliver its vibrations across far meadows and wide open sky.


                                                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a winter visit, the quiet would drop like a mallard as the sky itself fell drear, the better to reveal lonely lights in distant houses I barely noticed before.  Wigeon, siffling and back-biting only minutes earlier would repose themselves; flights of lapwing chose their spot and settled.  In the osiers below the bank blackbirds clucked and then didn’t.  For a while, a brief fermata, nothing stirred.  Then the nocturne, a delicate chorus of small sounds would start to sound from across vast acres.  First might be a gentle, nasal skirl from the midst of a small flock of lapwing.  From afar, a drake wigeon might siffle or his mate yap. A distant dog, or door-jamb, or other commonplace unnoticed in the light of day, would lend its voice and shorten the span of any silence.

In spring, walking back to Manea under a brighter darkness I would hear none of the wigeon of winter; the lapwings’ squealings would as often as not come from above, in a night-flight illuminated by faint pearl-shimmer on damp grass.  And higher still, and farther off, a dive-bombing snipe on a night raid would leave its tail-flaps open, and bleat like a child playing front-gunner, to land unseen while its feather-cry hangs in the clean air.  

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