Artist journal May 29th

To everything there is a season (turn, turn, turn)

Just after last newsletter went out, I realised that I hadn’t heard a cuckoo this year. In the electric 24/7 world of humanity, your don’t miss things any more. There’s always apples in the supermarket, you can always catch up your TV show on iPlayer; but in nature, if you miss something, that’s it, gone for the year. I didn’t fancy a cuckooless year, so I hurried down to the river. I wasn’t long into my walk before I was greeted with the familiar sound of just one, very insistent cuckoo. I was delighted, though I’m not sure the lonely male was. Perhaps he’ll still find his partner, and terrorise the small birds in the neighbourhood.

I really wanted to get my swifts print into the shop for when the swifts returned in about mid May, but I still messed it up; I got the the paper in on time, and the printing almost on time, and then..didn’t get it listed on time. I have listed them now, two weeks or so late. You can see it here

To be fair, I have personally only just sighted a swift, circling around Finstock, a couple of weeks after they arrived in the country, so I could make that argument . I have to travel to find swifts, because I live in swallow territory now, who I also love an am listening chattering on the telephones outside my window right now.

Unusually for me, I’ve left the lines from left over lino on the black block in, to give the impression of vapour trails of birds. I also wanted to give the impression the lead bird flying out the frame.

I think of swallows as country birds, flying over green fields, but I associate swifts with urban sprawl, screaming up and down the the hot summer streets of Southampton, where I used to live. There were many there, and I failed to realised how endangered they were, and how precious, how transitory, much like summer itself.  I made this print to remind me of those things. Hot skies, golden sun, wheeling birds to stare at as you laze in a hammock. Good times. Hopefully people will learn to make their electric 24/7 world more hospitable to our summer migrants and install  swift bricks and boxes, so that their numbers increase again. You can find where the swifts are hanging out near you at swiftmapper.com.

The swallows live in the stables opposite, and have been increasing year on year, having managed three broods last year. The stable was also occupied by a little rescue pony called Timmy. A good reason for my delay in listing the print was we sadly had to say goodbye to Timmy this week. He was not my horse, but he was my neighbour, and a fixture in these parts, so we were sad, and will miss him (Trooper, the large horse in the picture, has some temporary new friends to keep him company now)

Rest well, Timmy..