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A day with two miracles

3 June 2017 by Simon Barnes 8 Comments

Two miracles took place today. The first was that I correctly identified a plant. The second was the plant itself. Perhaps I should have put that the other way round.

We’re all back from Alderney after an unforgettable week, and while we were away there’s been a serious attack of growth. In the fields the sugar beets that were little green shoots are now serious six-inch plants. The grass has leap skywards on our wild lawn and the vegetation on the marsh is so high we feel like small four-legged mammals as we pass through.

And a southern marsh orchid has leapt into existence from nothing and nowhere. We’ve had them on the marsh before, reasonably often, but here was one in the garden, just in front of the house on the fringe of the pond we had dug five years ago when we moved in.

A little purple spire, ascending to a modest heaven, deep and rich in colour, luxurious and modest at the same time, with all the understated charisma of British orchids. I’m no great shakes when it comes to botanical knowledge but I suspect thing plant sprang from hope. It was fertilised by the delight we all take in the little patch of land it is our privilege to guard.

It also sprang from the brilliance of my wife, Cindy, who invented a way of channelling the rainwater that falls on our roof so that it trickles and sometimes cascades into the pond, so that for the first time in years, some of the soil in front of the house is more or less permanently damp. It’s almost as if the flood-plain had been reunited with its river.

And remembering its past, the orchid has stretched its way up from the ground and it now stands there unassumingly among the

flags and the other — someone else can name them – water-adoring plants. Azure damselflies and a dragonfly, a four-spotted chaser, fizzed all around them. You can take pride in a lovely thing that you plant: but here was a lovely thing we didn’t plant. And that made it still lovelier.

Here’s Eddie’s blog:

30 days wild 3

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Posted in Wildblog

Comments

  1. Mrs.Jenny Bunn says

    4 June 2017 at 8:00 am

    Well done, Eddie, I loved your drawings and comments. We stayed on Alderney, but didn’t see many of your sightings. Please keep your blog going.
    With very best wishes,
    Jenny Bunn

    Reply
    • cindy2194 says

      6 June 2017 at 8:53 pm

      I’m sorry you didn’t see so much. Maybe you should go again!
      love Eddie

      Reply
  2. jaybeemc says

    4 June 2017 at 9:17 am

    Eddie – your notes about Alderney are brill ! As an old news reporter, I admire your descriptions and your choice of words. Our family live near the Bass Rock, East Lothian, another grteat place to see wild birds and our favourite, the puffins, although they only arrive once a season.
    I’m still hoping to see a dragonfly one day…
    Brian

    Reply
    • cindy2194 says

      6 June 2017 at 8:56 pm

      Can you make some kind of pond in your garden? You would see dragonfly then.
      love Eddie

      Reply
  3. Bob Reeves says

    4 June 2017 at 11:42 am

    Well done Eddie. You are getting as good at writing about wildlife as your father, and you also include lovely drawings and photographs. He will be getting jealous!!
    Eddie- I would like your advice. Almost two weeks ago, a racing pigeon arrived in our garden in Bristol. It had a wing dragging and seemed worse for wear. After a couple of days it was still there, looking a bit happier. I fed it a little in order to capture it in a cat carrier, then noting the identification on the rings on its’ legs. I contacted the Royal Racing Pigeon Association and they gave me the details of the owner, who I rang. The bird had been on its’ way from Exeter to home in Birmingham. He asked if I would take it a few miles away and release it. This I did, and it did a couple of joyous laps of honour above me. It then headed south, in the opposite direction to Birmingham. When I arrived home, it was there before me in the garden.
    A further effort to send it on its’ way also failed.
    It still hangs around, and comes close when I am in the garden.
    This bird obviously prefers life in Bristol’s Avon Gorge to Birmingham. What should I do, Eddie?

    Reply
    • cindy2194 says

      4 June 2017 at 2:49 pm

      Hello Bob,
      I think you should keep him and look after him (after you call the owner and tell him!)
      Thank you very much for all the nice things you said
      love Eddie

      Reply
  4. Anthony Bird says

    6 June 2017 at 5:29 pm

    Well done to all the Barnes’,lots of good stuff about the good things in life, Eddie I agree with Bob, your Dad will be getting envious, your writing is so good, please keep it coming. My bit of nature today was a grey squirrel seen on my walk to the hairdresser and the paper shop.

    Reply
  5. Michael John Clark says

    8 June 2017 at 10:07 am

    Thank you once more for your wonderful prose and thank you Eddie, really enjoy your blog. I can see nature through your eyes, clear and unblemished. Oh yes, and thank you ‘Mum’

    Reply

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