I wonder how we ever got the idea of the countryside as a place of peace. As a place where we leave the stresses and dangers of life behind and find a world of gentleness and calm. The song of the warblers, the jinking swallows overhead, the butterflies: Maytime and the livin’ is easy…
Try telling that the small arthropods that share the air with the swallows. Every jink from a swallow is death: death to some midge, micromoth or floating spiderling. A swallow can’t live and breed without hundreds of little deaths every day.
And the willow warbler that soothes your soul as he sings from clump of alders: he’s not feeling gentle or calm. This is the great crisis of his life. He is singing to establish a territory, find a mate, see off other males and get on with the essential task of making more willow warblers. This sweet scrap of song is a clarion call to battle, a fearsome threat and a shockingly lecherous come-on. It celebrates the great hope of all life: to become an ancestor.
It is nothing less than the song of life, and this tiny bird has flown all the way from sub-Saharan Africa to sing it, risking death every flap of the way. This is the culmination: now or never. Get it right and his life is forever meaningful: get it wrong and he has lived in vain.
And there in a flat-out charge along the hedgeline comes a male orange-tip butterfly, pelting along in a mad search for drink and sex. He got through the boring eating stage of his life as a caterpillar, now he needs nectar to fuel the unimaginably tiny window in which he can find a female and mate.
A female, less active, less gaudy, can be hard to find and is likely to attract some serious competition. Everything in his life depends on these few little days. Sun brings the best chance of success: prolonged rain might be disaster. So might a thousand other things: things like brutal mowing, lavish weedkilling, or the latest construction project.
We’ve lost touch with the idea of the British countryside as a dangerous place: and so we fail to understand the real meaning of what’s going on. Perhaps it all dates back to the destruction of our large predators. If we had bears, wolves and lynxes back in the woods we’d have a better understanding of life.
You can still find peace in more dangerous wild places: in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, for example. Here you can always feel a hint of Eden in the morning – knowing all the while that such peace is an edgy and difficult thing. It’s infinitely more precious for precisely that reason.
So let’s try this as a mental exercise: next time we savour the perfect loveliness of a May morning, let’s try and imagine that there’s a pack of wolves in the next valley and a bear in the neighbouring wood. Then we would feel a bit less like a member of the audience, and a bit more like a participant.
And understand the joys of it all a little bit better.
- I should add some apologies. Sorry I have been silent here for a few weeks: work and life and stuff has been rather hectic. I’ll try not to let that happen again.
george louis says
15 May 2015 at 9:17 amThanks Simon it’s great to read your blog and I’d love to hear wolves and know Bears were eating berries nearby ….
Sue Nottingham says
15 May 2015 at 9:29 amYour blog is always worth waiting for, Simon. Thought provoking and always elegant writing. I’m on a train speeding to London and will think of wolves and bears prowling those woods in Surrey as I pass through!
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:26 pmI’m quite keen on bringing back lynxes as well.
Susa says
23 May 2015 at 2:20 pmWell, please keep them away from Westleton Common, at least for the next three weeks whilst we take a holiday! 😉
Simon Barnes says
1 June 2015 at 9:51 pmI believe they have adders out there, but don’t worry, they’re very discreet and they’ll do their best to keep out of your way.
James Bown says
15 May 2015 at 10:53 amIt was worth the wait Simon. A beautiful piece of writing that fired the imagination and made nature appear as nature needs to appear, it is so often misunderstood,’disneyfied’,often and seldom,understood.
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:27 pmThanks for a lovely message.
Nick McD says
15 May 2015 at 12:29 pmLovely post Simon. May is indeed a special time. Off to Scotland in a week to watch ospreys. That’s exciting enough, but it would be even more exciting if there were wolves in the valleys! Just finished ‘The Meaning of Sport’. Great book.
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:27 pmGlad you liked the book. I hope Scotland is a blast. Last time I was there I got lucky with both species of eagle.
Susa says
23 May 2015 at 2:30 pmNick, If you are going to see the Ospreys at Dunkeld, you will pleased to know the first chick hatched yesterday. Sadly, after 25 years “Lady” has not returned.
Steve Procter says
15 May 2015 at 12:48 pmLovely piece and good to have you back – just like the swallows eh?
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:28 pmThanks Steve.
Bernard Kirkham says
15 May 2015 at 2:34 pmThanks Simon, reading your thoughts is like a May morning full of hope, truth and wisdom. As someone once said You’ve made my day.
thanks and more please!
Bernard kirkham
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:28 pmLovely message, thanks for it.
Susa says
15 May 2015 at 2:58 pmFunnily enough thought exactly the same thing this morning when I walked the dogs, and watched the Red Kite circling overhead looking for breakfast, and the skylark speedily ascend to the heavens in a desperate attempt to distract him from her nest.
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:29 pmNature is always ready to reward those of us who keep our eyes open.
Mark says
15 May 2015 at 4:58 pmThat’s the stress for me … nature in action! Isn’t it hard to believe that most people see every death …. not to mention every extinction … as some kind of failure, the “cruelty” of nature? How do they think everything got so unbelievably wonderful in the first place?
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:29 pmSpot on. The meaning of life is life.
wes pickering says
15 May 2015 at 6:13 pmThanks for that explanation Simon, i am enjoying my first May in the UK, and you have added to my understanding of my observations. Everything grows fast,
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:30 pmAnd what a great May it’s continuing to be. Hope you’re still enjoying it.
Andrea says
15 May 2015 at 7:02 pmI was worried about your silence and I was missing your posts. Hope everything is fine…
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:30 pmThanks for you concern, but i’m in good heart here and this wonderful May is keeping me that way.
Pat Leighton says
15 May 2015 at 10:03 pmI was beginning to wonder what you were up to… Always enjoy your blog. Thanks very much for reminding me how savage the natural world really is.
Simon Barnes says
23 May 2015 at 1:31 pmI’ve made thousands of May resolutions to put up more stuff in this space. Thanks for your kind words.
Michael John Clark says
8 June 2015 at 12:53 pmSo true and so thought provoking. My youngest son has gone to live in Canada where that is the case so I guess he has a clearer perspective than I do. Keep writing, you always bring a smile to my lips
Simon Barnes says
18 June 2015 at 9:34 pmA friend of mine who spent some years in Canada once looked up from his typewriter – it was a while back – to see a bear in his garden. That’s what I call a garden tick.
Michael John Clark says
24 June 2015 at 2:24 pmToo right. Thank you.