Simon Barnes Author and Journalist

Sports and Wild Blog

Simon Barnes
  • Home
  • Biog
  • Blog
  • Books
  • Pictures
  • Contact
  • Twitter

The Art of Calligraphy

2 September 2014 by Simon Barnes Leave a Comment

I’m writing this on a train between Norwich and London, heading for a do at the Royal Society called Controversial Conservation; it’s hosted by the World Land Trust and it promises to be something of a fruity evening. It’s mostly about the illegal killing of birds, and the shooters have promised to come and say their bit. Perhaps no one told them that Chris Packham’s coming.
I take no delight in controversy myself, and I’m always sad when wildlife conservations gets controversial. Yes, it looks as if hen harriers will be raising their fierce and much persecuted heads once again.
But right now my mind keeps slipping back to a day last week when, as guest of the Wildlife Trusts, I got on a boat in Newquay, Cornwall on a boisterous and lumpy sea. I love the way that even when you’re as little as a mile offshore, you’re in a new world of birds.
And we caught up with a flypast of Manx shearwaters: several hundreds, taking 20 minutes to pass: impossibly slim wings scything the sea, showing first the dark topside and then the pale underside in in a sleek, elegant rhythm. I was reminded of street entertainers I saw in Beijing: men who would cover the pavements with exquisite calligraphy – but their ink was water and so it vanished, evaporating as the brush moved on.
These artists would twist the brush in their hands so that made a line that was thick then thin then thick again: just like this passage of swiftly vanishing birds as they wrote their controversial message about their right to life in exquisite marine calligraphy. This was an area that should have been made a Marine Conservation Zone, but the government – as governments do – failed to go through with it. Let’s hope that it will make the cut when the next bunch of MCZs are designated. Oh God, another controversy. Can’t avoid ’em, alas.

 

Share this:

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Posted in Wildblog

Please leave a comment Cancel reply

Receive Blog Updates By Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to my blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 6,287 other subscribers.

Recent Comments

  • Michael John Clark on Midsummer – it must be time for a swift drink
  • Sue on On the whole, stoats are better than work
  • Michael John Clark on On the whole, stoats are better than work
  • Elaine Slee on On the whole, stoats are better than work
  • Keith Owens on Midsummer – it must be time for a swift drink

Categories

  • Myblog (7)
  • Sportsblog (7)
  • Wildblog (217)

Archives

  • June 2022
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • February 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014

© Simon Barnes · info@simonbarnesauthor.co.uk
Home page photograph © David Bebber · Bird drawings © foxillustration.com
Created by Purple Hippo